MY COMMENTS OF MR. RUDI'S LAST POST. (Online Social Media Applications for Language Teaching & Learning)

Facebook, Instagram and blog all come to my mind when someone says “social networking.” For many teens of this day, visiting these sites are a part of their daily routine. Sure, it’s a good way to keep in contact with friends and peers. In my opinion, social networking sites are beneficial if used in certain ways, but can also be detrimental if used in the wrong way.

Examples of the benefits are social media make it possible to interact with the people next door, or across the world, with one click. Beside its popularity among students for personal use, the Social media has its role in education. More than 100 social media are being used for language learning and educational purposes. I think that Social Network allows teachers and students to connect, collaborate, and share content, all in a new environment. It also allows students to overcome their shyness in asking questions outside the classroom, and they feel unrestrained by boundaries between lecturers and themselves, creating a good rapport in some ways.

The online activities between teachers and students can cause negative impacts to teachers themselves such as false teacher-student relationships. The different forms of language used to communicate in Social Networking  sites among students, their peers and lecturers need to be carefully monitored; otherwise, some misunderstandings will occur and interfere with the learning-teaching process.

Social Media for Language Teaching and Learning

Social Media, the so-called Social Network as referred to in the relationship among users, are rapidly growing types of digital media. They emerge in various forms to bring people together as communities: Blogs (e.g., WordPress), Social Networks (e.g., Facebook), Microblogs (e.g. Twitter), Wikis (e.g. Wikipedia), Video Podcasts, Discussion Forums, and RSS Feeds as examples.

There are three types of learning environments apart from formal education due to the new communication technologies: Distance Learning, Online Learning and ELearning. Distance learning creators are trying to design the existing course to overcome the matter of “distance”, i.e. time and place. There were inconsistencies of the terms, Online Learning (so called Blended Learning), and E-learning. The difference between them is that online learning seems to get connected to the learners through the social media on the Internet, while E-learning (or e-learning) covers both electronic media used on the campus and off the campus. The content of these educational tools are purposefully crafted as instructional media, and in most cases, evaluation is needed to fulfill the course assignment.

Social Media create a new community where teachers and students do not have to communicate by means of the traditional face-to-face classroom environment. The brand-new changing way of teaching-learning environment definitely brings about impacts. The impacts of Social Media for teaching and learning are reflected by the teaching-learning styles, teacher-student roles, and affective-attitudinal effects.

There are many online applications for teachers settled in the websites that can be used for our language teaching and learning process in the classroom. Animoto, Edublogs and Edmodo are the examples of online applications. They provide functions in different ways. Students can easily create and share their own beautiful videos with Animoto. The app allows students to select a theme, music, images or videos, add captions and/or two lines of text, and within minutes a slick video is created. Edublogs is a WordPress blogging platform designed with teachers in mind. The students can share everything in their blogs about education.

Edmodo is regarded as a social networking site for teachers and students. It provides a free and secure social learning space for a class to connect and collaborate. Teachers and students can post messages, discuss topics, assign and grade class work, and share digital content such as links, pictures, videos, documents and presentations.

In short, the growing interest in social media has led educators to examine its use for academic practice. With respect to the traditional classroom environment, faculty and instructional designers have successfully utilized social media technologies for various types of academic activities that include collaborative learning, inquiry-based learning and reflective learning. Social media in distance learning environments allowed for increased collaboration, communication, and interaction through blogging, document sharing, networking, tweeting, and social bookmarking. 

THE BASICS OF BLENDED LEARNING

New advances in the internet based technology have brought challenges and opportunities as well to education and training, in particular through online instruction.

The learning environments where instructional materials are transferred electronically or through the Internet or through course software with the help of computer technologies in teaching and learning environments and where the teacher and the learner are in different physical environments are known as e-learning. E-learning is also defined both as a kind of learning which occurs through the Internet, a network or only a computer and as audible, visual and interactive synchronous or asynchronous educational activities.

The most significant characteristics of e-learning are that the teacher and the learner are in different physical environments and that the communication throughout the teaching/learning process is carried out via e-mail, forums, etc. through the Internet.

E-learning is a common method since it is able to present the content of the course in a longer period of time compared to classroom environment and other methods; it allows education for seven days and twenty four hours; it reaches more number of learners; and it ensures a learning environment which is independent of time and place particularly for adult learners. However, elearning environments pose such disadvantages as hindrance of the socialization process of individuals, lack of sufficient recognition between the teacher and the learner and limitations concerning the communication among learners. These disadvantages have evoked a search for new environments which combine the advantages of elearning and traditional learning environments. This new environment is known as  “blended learning”.

Blended learning environment integrates the advantages of e-learning method with some advantageous aspects of traditional method, such as face-to-face interaction. Blended learning brings traditional physical classes with elements of virtual education together.

The integration of e-learning environment and traditional learning environment may combine ideally the useful aspects of both methods. E-learning environments ensure the flexibility and efficacy which cannot be found in a classroom environment whereas face-to-face learning environment provides the social interaction which is required for learning. While definitions vary from one institution to another, blended learning is defined in this article essentially as a combination of face-to-face and web based environment.

However, it is important to construct equilibrium between e-learning and face to face environments, in view of the advantages of both methods, during the process of designing a blended learning environment.

Global Education Network

Today, the exponential growth of technology usage in education, via such applications of distance education, Internet access, simulations, and educational games, has raised substantially the focus and importance of educational technology research. The role of technology in teaching and learning is rapidly becoming one of the most important and widely discussed issues in contemporary education policy. Most experts in the field of education agreed that, when properly used, information and communication technology hold great promise to improve teaching and learning in addition to shaping workforce opportunities.

Rapid technological improvements, heightened interest and increased affordability have created a bridge to for information access and worldwide transparent communication among the people of the world (World Bank, 1998/99).

Most observers acknowledge that there are barriers associated with technology acquisition and use, no matter what the intended purpose.

The Milken Foundation identifies five criteria that characterize a scenario for technology acquisition, informed use, productive output, and contributions to development. Those considering acquiring new or additional technology should consider these questions as a framework.

• First, what is it that technology will do for students and educators that is compelling enough to make all the effort worthwhile? (The Incentives)
• Second, what is it that communities need in order to make informed decisions and wise use of technology and telecommunications for improvements in learning? (Capacity building)
• Third, what is getting in the way of educators and students effectively using technology and how can we fix the system to get rid of these barriers? (System Changing)
• Fourth, what is it that we need in order to ensure that all students have the opportunity to learn in a technology-enriched learning environment? (Mandates)
• Fifth, how will we know it when we see it? What does success look like in terms of student performance? What indicators will we be using? How will the data be collected? What evidence will be analyzed and evaluated against which benchmarks? (Benchmarking) (Milken Foundation, 1998.)

By way of technology, it is also an opportunity to engage young children in an ongoing exploration of the world.They have the  ability to expose children to concepts of diversity, multiculturalism, and multilingualism at an early age. In this level, the children can choose to continue their high school careers "cybernetically" by accessing various distance education courses. It can be done by sending text, voice, and images are transferred with a click on a cellular phone or a computer.

By the needs of students in this global era are complicated and challenging, they can improve their language skills through student-to-student conversations regardless of where they live. Communication through speaking is a very important element. A global contact network built from having personal conversations with other students around the world will provide lasting benefits throughout the student’s career. They communicate with people in remote parts of the world and read documents without physically holding them. Social interaction helps build connections for a better world.

Absolutely, for those who is using the technology in good ways, they will get high praise using this online access tools provide from internet. Networking is not only for local area but also from many sources moreover around the world. My lecturer ever said that “Please, make a friend with other people from overseas, you’ll find out what will you get later. It is the magic of making good-networking with them.” Even though the friends of yours are far away over there, with technology all are settled well. By clicking some sites in internet, you are connecting with them. What a nice life! 

Besides the advantages, the technology brings us some unhappy feeling. Such as the fear about nothing. While it is bad news from abroad, the local citizen in other country will feel the weird atmosphere.  Further, the information can cause problem and make noisy for some countries. The worst thing is causing air pollution, it makes our earth change the climate apparently. 
 

Facing the reality that technology brings us to the darkness,  we must be aware. Thee important behavior is to strengthen the relationship of each country around the world. It keeps the world in peace. The way can be by youth. Young generation (I mean students)  are acquiring other languages and learning about other cultures and customs. My friends and I from English Education have already done the performance about knowing and learning the diversity, multiculturalism, and multilingualism from overseas. We learned CCU  (one of courses, the abbreviation for Cross-Cultural Understanding). Our ability to educate and prepare the world’s future leaders in politics, business, and education along with our determination to set positive examples for the value of democracy, civility, and human rights can shape the future of the world.  That’s why, we need it in order to support the information globalize in modern technology era.