Social Networks

The first word that comes to most people's minds when they think of social networks is Facebook. Facebook is a social networking service that allows its users to create their own personal profiles and add other users as friends in order to exchange messages. Users may also share photos and videos, play online games, sell/buy items from other users, and provide information of where they are and what they are doing at a moment in time. There are over 750 million active users on Facebook and it was the top visited site of 2010, passing the search engine giant, Google.



So the question arises, can Facebook or any other social networking service be a useful technological tool to teach Academic English for our ELLs?



Yes, it can be if you are knowledgeable about the features and privacy settings available to you and your students. Social networks are a great way to engage students in their academic writing as well as a tool to carry out total participation techniques. For example, the instructor can ask a question about a certain topic and students can respond to the question (like a quick write) as well as to each other. The teacher can provide sentence starters as well as specific academic vocabulary for students to use when writing their responses. Instead of posting a question, the instructor can also post a photo or a video for students to write a response or reaction to.



The next question that an educator should ask him/herself is which social network is right for their classroom's needs. Facebook may be the largest social network with a large array of useful features, but it may not be appropriate for your students. Here are its pros and cons:



Pros

- Many older students as well as teachers may already know how to use Facebook

- There are privacy options that can be set up to control who can access your information

- Ability to set up groups for each of your classes

- Has numerous communication features, such as messages, forums, and chat



Cons

-Access to Facebook is blocked in certain school districts

-Parents may not approve of their children using Facebook

-Users must be over the age of 13 to register for a Facebook account



Looking at the cons, Facebook is not even a choice for an educator who works with grade school students or who works in a district that blocks access to Facebook. Good thing that there is an alternative social network geared for the classroom.



One social networking service that I have used in my own classroom to engage students in academic discussion is Edmodo. Edmodo "provides classrooms a safe and easy way to connect and collaborate, offering a real-time platform to exchange ideas, share content, and access homework, grades and school notices (source)." Basically, Edmodo has many of the amazing features that Facebook has, but with stronger privacy options and an academic focus. For example, students are not able to privately message each other like in Facebook, thus limiting the chances of off-task use. In addition, students are able to turn in assignments to the teacher through Edmodo, have it graded online, and their grade available to view through the website.



One of the ways I used Edmodo was to have students practice using new academic vocabulary. Here is a screenshot of one posting I had my fourth grade students respond to via Edmodo:



We were reviewing the words "determined," "disappointed," and "reward." Notice that students were only required to post only once, however several of the students decided to write multiple sentences using the vocabulary words. My students were always excited to use Edmodo because they liked how it was "just like Facebook" and that they were able to post their ideas for the whole class to view and discuss. It's a great way to encourage hesitent writers to write!