Università degli studi di Padova

Sarah Guth, English Language Teacher

Lisa Griggio, Language Assistant

Using Social Software for Language LearningUsing Social Software for Language Learning

Agenda14:00-14:15 Introductions

14:15-15:15 Presentation of social software and tools

15:15-16:15 Group work

16:15-16:45 Coming back together

16:45-17:00 Closing remarks

Who you are Where you are from Why you are here

Developments in CALL 1990s and the Internet sociocognitive perspective learner centered authentic communication

Network Based Language Teaching

“move from learners interaction with computers to interaction with other humans via the computer”

(Kern & Warschauer, 2000)

e.g. organized telecollaboration using email, forums and videoconferencing systems between language students in different countries

The changing nature of knowledge

Web 2.0 users produce and share

content the ‘wisdom of the crowds’

(Surowiecki, 2005) websites where knowledge

and content are created and shared

Social SoftwareA generic term used to define different types of software that enable people to collaborate and create and join online communities. The tools can promote different types of communication:

many-to-one

one-to-many

many-to-many

share & create contentcollaboratively create content

manage content

asynchronoussynchronous

Social software vs. other CMC tools Enable communication between

many people beyond planned classroom activities

Provide new ways to share and create content online

Enable integration of many different types of media (audio, video, images)

Help manage the information overload – building knowledge that fits specific needs

They are almost always free and often use remote servers

Benefits access and produce real language

real audience: increased responsibility

new tools: increased autonomy, competence and confidence

proactive learning

improved information literacy

improved reflective and critical thinking skills

improved participation literacy

potential for informal learning

Challenges technical challenges: broadband, computer access, etc.

tools don’t necessarily appeal to all students

time consuming for students and teachers

learning how to effectively collaborate

not all tools are stable

assessment: process or product? individual or group?

teacher needs basic skills in e-tutoring

empowering students means teacher giving up control

Tools we’re going to look at

Action Creating &

sharing content Collaboratively

creating content Managing

content

Communication one-to-many many-to-many many-to-one

Examples

create

share

interact

find/create

read

edit

del.icio.us

36,478

Google

451,000,000

search

save

(share)

Most popular Web 2.0 tool with over70 million blogsand about120,000 new blogs being created worldwide each day

Why blogs?

Blogs and languages

English the most even in postings around-the-clock

Blogs gaining popularity in many other languages

Educational uses of blogs in SLA

Activity Example

Sts access blogs of interest to them, read and comment

Teacher creates a course blog that serves as a virtual meeting place for assigning and completing tasks

Sts create their own personal blogs

Educational uses of image blogs

Activity Example

Teacher produces contents for sts to interact with

discussion groups in

Sts create contents to share and provide peer feedback on

posting one’s own photos

Sts access shared contents to enrich their blogs

choosing photos from

covered by Creative Commons

Educational uses of audio & video blogsActivity Example

Teacher or sts find podcasts; sts listen

Podcatchers

Teacher and sts produce podcasts content-based language learning:

Teacher or sts find interesting videos and discuss them in groups

some technical notes…

equipment you might need to get started:- microphone- headphones- digital camera for images and video

free software:- audacity (+ lame encoder) for audio- camstudio for screen recording- Skype + free recording software Pamela for recording

conversations

Educational uses of collaborative online editing toolsActivity Example

Through collective authoring sts create a never-ending shared repository of knowledge in a wiki

Sts contribute to an existing wiki edutechwiki

Sts develop a text-based project

Document exchange for peer review

Sts develop a presentation and offer it to peers at a distance using Skype for audio

Sts develop a concept map

Educational uses of tools for managing/filtering information on the Web

Activity Example

sts use social bookmarking to create a distributed research network

Del.icio.us

in bloggingenglish

sts provide peer feedback on each other’s blogs using social annotation

diigo

sts keep an eye on each other’s blogs and relevant sites by using feed aggregators

playlists in

What do students think?

Which of the following tools do you think were the most useful and you will continue to use after graduation?

“The exciting promise of the Web [2.0] is that it offers an environment in which a creative teacher can set up authentic

learning tasks in which both processes and goals are stimulating and engaging, and which take individual student

differences into account.”Ushi Felix, 2002

Now let’s see how creative you can be!

Quick definition: blog A weblog, or blog, is a type of website where entries, often including

links to new and useful resources, are displayed in a reverse chronological order. Often thought of as online journals, blogs can actually be quite interactive as entries are open to comments by anyone surfing the Internet.

“…writing a weblog appears in the first instance to be a form of publishing, but as time goes by, blogging resembles more and more a conversation.” (Downes, 2004:24)

Other types of blog image blogs (i.e.FLICKR) audio blogs (podcasting i.e.ODEO.COM - PODOMATIC) video blogs (vlog i.e.OPENVLOG)

Often the media can be integrated

into a text-based blog!

Often the media can be integrated

into a text-based blog!

Quick definitions - wikiA wiki (“quick” in Hawaiian) is “a freely expandable collection of interlinked web pages, a hypertext system for storing and modifying information – a database, where each page is easily edited by any user with a forms-capable Web browser client” (Leuf & Cunningham, 2001:14)

Anyone can change anything Wiki pages are easy to create and edit Content is ego-less, time-less, never finished (Lamb, 2004: 38)

Always online accessible via a web browser

A wiki is an effective tool for collaborative authoring and collective learning

Quick definitions

Rather than having to regularly check websites for updated info,through the use of feeds (RSS, XML, ATOM), updated information issent to a feed aggregator so you access one source for all updates.

Social Annotation is software that allows users to “leave” comments on webpages they visit, so that others visiting the page,  and using the same software, can see their comments.

Social bookmarking allows users to store, classify, share and search their Internet bookmarks. These websites allow users to classify and search using tags chosen by users.