Mod 5 - Blog Comment

On the blog site “Don Quijote” (http://blog.donquijote.org/blogs/spanish/ ) I choose to comment on the blog entitled “Felipe's study abroad experience: 8 weeks of learning Spanish”. It is a short entry, and intended for to pique student interest in traveling to Spain as part of a travel group sponsored by this company. The commercial nature of the entry does not bother me, however. I myself have studied in Salamanca and found the ring of truth in this testimonial. While I intend to rarely use non-source language materials in my classroom I feel that providing students with real life examples of language use and introducing them to the opportunity to study abroad is a great way to motivate them. I think that such as site as this would be a great resource, especially for seniors who are preparing for college and may want to consider studying abroad.

Twitter Versus Spoink

I prefer Spoink to Twitter hands down. Spoink is infinitely more intuitive and easier to use. There is, in my opinion, no reason to even use Twitter, since both sites accomplish the same tasks, with Spoink being the easier of the two to use. For example you can send direct messages to follower / friends on both sites, however I could not figure out how to do so on Twitter. Spoink, on the other hand, is rather intuitive is this regard. You simply click on the link of the contact, then select “send direct message” and proceed from there. The same is true with regard to uploading videos and pictures. The creators of Spoink clearly recognize that this is a popular feature of such services and include a tool for doing so directly underneath the text entry box. I could not figure out how to do this on Twitter. I did a help search for “uploading pictures”, but was not presented with any helpful information. Another intuitive feature of Spoink is the posting of the organization’s contact information in the upper right-hand corner of the screen where it is easy to find. Twitter has a “contact” link, but this only leads you to a “snail-mail” address. I have very little tolerance for any organization which requires an extensive search for an e-mail address or phone number.

The only advantage that I found in Twitter is the bar on the top of the main page providing links to the top discussion issues of the day.

Mod 5

Here is the link: http://chronicle.com/wiredcampus/article/2825/more-on-academic-twittering-breaking-down-the-classroom-walls

I found this article by searching “using micro-blogging in the classroom” Yahoo. The article is fairly short, but it attaches to a video post by a college professor who shares some of the advantages of using Twitter in the classroom. The interviewee, one Mr. Parry, a professor of Media and Communications from UT Dallas, points to the breaking down of classroom walls as one of the chief advantages of this tool. I see particular advantages for this in the language learning classroom. I feel very strongly about the need to engage the students’ interests in order to achieve effective activation in the classroom. By communicating with our students outside the walls of the school we can increase our knowledge of their likes and dislikes and hopefully tailor our lessons appropriately.

Mr. Parry also mentions the brevity of the communications in micro-blogging versus those of a traditional blog. Again returning to the issue of our students’ interests, I feel that this offers another advantage. Students today, especially teens, are more accustomed to a world of abbreviated messages. Many are turned off by wordiness. The text message like nature of the micro-blogging system may seem more familiar and therefore more comfortable to the modern student, at both the high school and college level.

I can definitely see myself using micro-blogging as a means to discuss issues with lessons and homework, as well as practice writing the target language outside of the classroom.