23 Things @ UL Lunchtime Talk on using social networking in the language classroom by Zoe Lawlor Language Centre Teacher,
Dept of Languages & Culture Studies
University of Limerick
www.pbwiki.com, a free site which is private & can only be viewed or used by people you invite. Easy to set up & use but the format & layout are a little old fashioned. It was the first social networking site we used in the Language Centre but had a limited shelf life.
We used kickapps next: www.kickapps.com. Again when we started with this it was free to set up & as with the wiki page is private & can only be viewed or used by people you invite. The site became subscriber a few months after we had set up & also has some unsuitable ads on it so was not appropriate for us to use anymore.
www.ning.com: Again it is extremely easy to set up, manage & use a social networking site on ning. It can also be private & is just for those the administrator invites as members. It has video, audio & photo capacity. Students, teachers & colleagues can set up blogs & discussions, message each other or use the chat facility. We use it to put up articles for discussion & comment, podcasts for the same. We also use the discussion format & chat room. The site can be used in class or to set homework. Students can aldo add articles, videos, podcasts etc. It’s very interactive & is proving successful in the Language Centre.