Why? Not to assume that everybody knows how tomanage abd knows how o get around. To solve any problems on the spot. So, what do we do? We spend one sessions, usually the 1st one, in the compute lab and I ask students to introduce themselves using some basic features of the site: uploading a picture, writing a comment about themselves, join their group according to their level. This way students get acquitend and lean how to deal with a tool that we’ll be using during the whole semester. I think that if we are planning to use a social network or any other tool like Moodle, blogs or wikis it is worth it to “waste” some time explaining how they work to garantee students participation and involvement.
These activities usually combine text, media and audio. They require from the students to be actively involved and to create something. The interaction is usually between students and with the computer and creativity and language production plays a big role. One example of these kind of activities which I I have lately been working with is Bombay TV. What is Bombay TV?Is a wb based tool (so no need to download) where we have access to short fragments of bollywood movies.
Oh my God! You must be kidding! What a pity! I’m so sorry! It won’t happen again! You won’t believe it! Are you serious?