PLNs for me

I was unaware of the possibilities that some of these platforms could provide for language learning.
I think that it is easier for adult learners to be invited to use these. Young students will be in classrooms under the strictures of privacy and security that need to be in place in public schools.

These PLNs give the lifelong learner incredible resources to sate curiosity and to increase it! It is also an opportunity to investigate problems together with others who confront the same professional challenges. I do want to try using the hash tag searches as well as interacting with other instructors to “talk through” possible solutions and activities to address needs.  I am spurred on to try a couple of them. Diigo would help me organize the resources I already tend to download, keeping most of the known internet on my desktop particularly when focused on a curriculum project. It has the advantage of being searchable so that I could quickly skim off the most valuable sites for language education rather than initiating every topic search in Google myself. I also really appreciate that I would be able to form a group course module with prepared pages and comments. Diigo seems to also lend itself to group collaboration and projects stemming from focusing on the pre-highlighted information. Diigo will probably be my first new login.

I liked what I found concerning educational ideas for the use of Twitter in and outside the classroom. It should work well by using the now ubiquitous phones. It also gives voice to the shy student, to having the students try communication in their new language in small bits which replicates the bits of natural conversation. I think this would also gently help Arabic learners with the script and spelling. As Enza Conforti mentioned getting grammar and spelling corrections while tweeting in Italian, this would possibly be a means of fun practice and corrections done by peers. It is a much easier beginning than having to begin with a report in Arabic. I am curious what useful hashtags I could find that would be useful for creative relevant language lessons for Arabic instruction. When looking at twitter for education last night I was very impressed with how a teacher caught the Tahrir square scenario and was able to connect with a woman who then Skyped with his class about the events just before Mubarak stepped down. How memorable for those students and bringing a far-flung significant event into their laps!