I came across with the following websites:
- http://www.phoenix.edu/forward/perspectives/2014/02/how-teachers-can-use-social-media-in-the-classroom.html
- http://www.edutopia.org/blog/guidebook-social-media-in-classroom-vicki-davis
Both of them provide tips as regards how to use social media in the classroom. I'm posting them as sometimes it can be quite difficult or we may feel lost when planning how to work with this new technology. Kathy Cook (Director of Educational Technology for the Universtity of Phoenix) states that students are using these technologies in their personal lives, so it makes sense to leverage them for teaching and learning. We are constantly talking about connecting student's outside world with what happens inside the classroom, why don't we start with social media that really catches students' attention?
While I was doing my practices, I worked with a very well-known webpage, couchsurfing (https://www.couchsurfing.org/). At the end of the project they had to create their own profile in the webpage; during the process they were so engaged that they really put a lot of effort so as to learn the many grammatical contents that I presented to them, but because they indeed were expecting to complete the final task. Moreover, some of them said that it was the first time they worked with something so original.
Working with social media inside the classroon it's not so easy as we have to plan the lessons very carefully, it's time consuming, and we need certain items like computers, beamer (if you want to show them something from your own computer), internet connection, etc. However, it's not impossible and it is really worth it. We should try to include students' interests in our lesson plans so as to motivate them and at the same time in order to show that English lessons go beyond the student's book.
In the above webpages you can find very interesting suggestions...hope you find them useful! I worked, as I said before, with couchsurfing...what would you work with?
While I was doing my practices, I worked with a very well-known webpage, couchsurfing (https://www.couchsurfing.org/). At the end of the project they had to create their own profile in the webpage; during the process they were so engaged that they really put a lot of effort so as to learn the many grammatical contents that I presented to them, but because they indeed were expecting to complete the final task. Moreover, some of them said that it was the first time they worked with something so original.
Working with social media inside the classroon it's not so easy as we have to plan the lessons very carefully, it's time consuming, and we need certain items like computers, beamer (if you want to show them something from your own computer), internet connection, etc. However, it's not impossible and it is really worth it. We should try to include students' interests in our lesson plans so as to motivate them and at the same time in order to show that English lessons go beyond the student's book.
In the above webpages you can find very interesting suggestions...hope you find them useful! I worked, as I said before, with couchsurfing...what would you work with?
Hi Agus. As you know, I am trying to use social media in my practices (Facebook) and, as you say, it is not an easy task... I think that social media is a great opportunity to engage our students in the class. Although it is hard, we should not give up and try to make the most of it so that our lessons are really engaging and motivating for students.
ResponderEliminarYou're right, Cande. I think that if we really try to connect students' interests with our lessons, we will be "successful" when teaching. Sometimes we feel so comfortable using the students book that we forgot the so many different tools we have around us. And, of course, if we change our structure, students will be much more engaged with the lesson, they really appreciate when the teacher presents them something different.
ResponderEliminar