Are Social Media websites really helpful in classroom instruction?

This question is brought up frequently in various content areas.  While some people think it is a big distraction to students and has no positive benefits at all, others think its usage is beneficial and is a great way to incorporate something they enjoy into the curriculum. I personally feel that in my subject area of foreign language that it has its positive and negative attributes. It is positive in the sense that students are able to speak with people from countries with the target language in an easy and fun way. However, once students go of course and start talking to their friends, family etc. it gets to be very distracting. Because of this, it is important that teachers allot specific time periods for students to use sites such as facebook, myspace, etc.  and make sure they are doing what they are supposed to  in order to get the most out of this interesting learning experience.

Use of digital cameras in the classroom.

Within the classroom of various content areas, the typical technologies that teachers use are smart boards, power point presentations, etc. But what about technologies  that are not as widely used? What type of role do they play in the classroom and how can students benefit from them? One item that I feel would embrace these concepts is the use of a digital camera in the classroom.  For example, in my subject areas of Italian and Spanish, digital cameras would be able to be used in many ways. I would have my students take pictures of Italian cultural items such as food, fashion, etc. and then do a project explaining their important role within Italian culture.  This would be a fun assignment because its not only embracing language and cultural skills but also creativity and artistic skills as well.

Use of Commercials in Classroom instruction

Over this past week,  I have gained a very interesting insight into the use of commercials in classroom instruction. For my commercial Italian class, we were asked to search for an Italian commercial and explain its importance in publicity and how it depicts Italian culture.  I found that this was a great approach that is able to be used not only in foreign language instruction but in every content area. For example, to do this activity,  I chose a barilla pasta commercial in Italian which depicted a mother and daughter shopping for the pasta and then shows them eating all together as a family. Through this,  it depicts the importance of family and food in the Italian culture using a very entertaining approach to sell the product. All in all, using approaches like this are very good ways to teach cultural, linguistic and publicity aspects to students in FL classes as well as other content areas.

Interactivity 4: The Pedagogical uses of technology

Google spreadsheet URL: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AnKm6bRU2Ko0dHlzV2xjMHVndHdISmZxNFlxWVZNbVE#gid=0

I chose this particular lesson plan because in my opinion, it depicts a very organized lesson with just the right mix of technological and standard classroom approaches. The teacher does a good job of covering all the bases, including every aspect involved in teaching the lesson, even mentioning accommodations that may be necessary.

In my opinion, there were no gaps between the curriculum goals, teaching strategies and technologies used.  Because this is lesson plan being used for a Spanish 1 class and the topic is important, it would make sense that not too many technologies will be used in order to not overwhelm the students. As a result, all the information in this lesson plan is in a cohesive order and does not need to have anything added to it.  

The various technologies used in this lesson were essential to achieving the curriculum goals. The curriculum goals for this lesson were as follows : “The students will be introduced to basic Spanish words and sounds that will help them grammatically for further knowledge of the Spanish language in writing and speaking.”   Because the main goal of this lesson as stated here is to have the students feel comfortable with words and sounds, the technologies utilized in this lesson were very good choices for a number of reasons. One reason would be that the teacher recognized that although the main goal was hearing the words, seeing them is just as important. Some students need to both visualize and hear the word at the same time to memorize its meaning/pronunciation. Therefore the use of the overhead projector while she pronounces the words was a very good idea and really helped to carry out the curriculum goal. Next , the use of the audio tapes was another crucial component in this lesson, more so than the overhead projector in my opinion. Because students catch on to different sounds more so than others, hearing the words pronounced by the teacher as well as the various people in the audio tapes will help them to memorize them in a more concise manner.

Interactivity 3 :Generating a State of the Art Inventory

In my opinion, the group process required by this interactivity was authentic collaborative. It brought together a group of people who will all one day be teaching the same content and forced us all to go above and beyond the “ technological norms”, thinking of many creative ways to present information to students. This is important because even though it was difficult to really think hard about what technologies can be used aside from the usual ones ( powerpoint, ipod, ipad, etc.) , this information will always be able to be utilized in the future. When we actually have to teach, we can now focus in on the  “not so frequently used” technologies instead of the ones that are always used in order to create the best learning environment possible. 

From the final inventory, I am able to notice that each member took on a very different approach which in turn guided them to choose certain technologies as opposed to others. For example, a lot of my technologies have to do with everyday life and aspects that if my students were to go to Italy, they would need to know such as slang used in texting which is also used  on public posters, etc. and ,everyday cultural aspects such as fashion etc.  while other groups members took different approaches however, basing their technologies more on visualization , or auditory skills just to name a few.

This technology inventory in my opinion won’t serve a purpose in READ 411 but will in CURR314. Because this course is based on assessment of students, these various technologies can be utilized in many ways to make sure students are learning correctly through the various uses of auditory, visual and kinesthetic aids.

" Second Life" program used in Foreign Language instruction

As I have come to be more familiar with the uses of technology in the classroom having read various articles and watched various videos, I have come to notice that although social networks are touched upon in the use of education, they are not really looked into in depth. In the instruction of foreign language, especially in the United States , it is crucial that students get enough practice speaking, due to the lack of various foreign languages being spoken in the target area for the most part. I feel that social networking sites are a great way to get students to become completely immersed in the language without being in the target country. One very good example of this is the use of the program called "Second Life" in which students can pick any country they chose and virtually be placed there, being able to walk around, sight see, buy different items, and speak to real life people. This completely immerses them into the language and culture of a country while being in the comfort of their own home. I feel that it is important to use more programs like this in the classroom because it is a great way for students to get more hads on experience without going through the expense of traveling to another country.

Interactivity 2- The History of Technology in Schools

     The technology that influenced education in my particular content area the most during this historical time period is the introduction of the foreign language lab in the 1960’s. With my content area being Italian, I can personally say that the foreign language lab has worked wonders in the instruction of foreign language both from a teacher’s point of view as well as a students and is widely used today in present educational instruction. In the foreign language lab, students are able to engage in a wide variety of exercises ranging from elementary levels to advanced levels that test their listening, comprehension, and writing skills. In my opinion, the language labs are very important assets to foreign language education because they allow students to immerse themselves in the language to the best of their ability without actually being in the country with the target language.
             Taking a look at Chap 2 in Rethinking Technology and Schools and the supplementary article called A Social History of Media and Technology in Schools, the technology that I think has had the greatest impact (both in a positive and negative way ) upon formalized schooling in my content area between the years 1820 and 1990 is the advancement of the computer, most specifically  in the area of social networking sites.  Within  the section “ The Casual Acceptance Perspective”  of chapter 2, it states “ Young people participate in online social networks ( such as MySpace, Facebook, Xanga, and Flickr) that allow them to create profiles messages and share multimedia content to a larger audience than is imaginable ( Domine 49).” These uses of social media  are presented in foreign language instruction in many different ways. Activities that involve interacting with people from different countries in order to practice speaking with native speakers and in order to learn potential international business tactics that can be utilized in many areas of study are examples of this and are crucial aspects to the learning experience.

            In the supplementary article that portrays the interview with Grace, she explains how she basically feels that social media causes more harm than good in the classroom when she states;  “Yet my district currently bans the use of cell phones in the middle and secondary classrooms and students are not allowed to access their MySpace or Facebook pages from school computers. After one teacher in my district was fired last year over a controversial photo and message on her MySpace page, our district prohibits teachers to maintain any social networking site. So there is this cloud of protectionism and censorship that continually hangs over our heads ( Domine 7)” From this statement, we are able to see how social media sites are automatically targeted to have an overall negative effect in classroom instruction. However, in a content area such as a foreign language where communication is everything and where these sites are widely used, they can be beneficial and have been successful in this through the advances in computers that have been made over the years.

                                  “Language Labs: Uniting the Languages of the world together.”