Магистрант Жұмабаева А.Р., к.п.н. Тургинбаева
Л.В.
Региональный социально-инновационный университет,
Казахстан
Южно-Казахстанский государственный педагогический
институт, Казахстан
USE OF SOCIAL NETWORKING SERVICE AS A AN EDUCATIONAL TOOL
The growth
of the Internet has led to new technologies. Many are being used today to
create valuable learning environments in education.
Web-based learning, the use of Web-based resources for learning, is
becoming more common in educational institutions. However, many Web-based
courses do little more than reaffirm traditional teaching approaches of
presentation and assessment, resulting in closed learning environments. Current
trends in education stress the need for learning that encourages critical thinking
and problem solving, collaboration and communication, global awareness and
information literacy.
There are a growing number of educators starting to design and deliver
online courses built around Web 2.0 technologies. This may be a result of
simply wanting to experiment with Web 2.0 tools that they or their students are
using outside the classroom. More importantly, it may also be a result of
recognizing that learning using Web 2.0 tools encourages critical thinking and
problem solving, collaboration and communication, global awareness and information
literacy, the so-called “21-st century skills” [1].
Research
shows that the Internet’s World Wide Web is especially popular with young
people. As a result, colleges and universities are recognizing the learning
gains that can be made with Web-based instructional technology. For example,
many educational institutions of higher education in Kazakhstan, including the South
Kazakhstan State Pedagogical Institute, offer their professors training in
instructional technology. Teachers can learn how to use the latest Web tools to
improve their classes [2].
The
education profession has entered the Web 2.0 period. Web 2.0 is a marketing
term that defines a renewal of the Web since the start of the twenty-first
century. Any kind of Web-driven tool that is interesting, useful, easy to learn
and free is Web 2.0.
One such
tool is a social networking service.
This is a Web site that helps people find others like themselves, create
personal identities, exchange resources and work together. Facebook is a social
networking Web site popular in Kazakhstan and around the world.
Social
networking sites also provide teachers a way to reach their students outside of
the classroom. Students use Facebook as often as they check their university
e-mail [2].
Social
bookmarking is another Web 2.0 technology that has many educational uses.
Professors can use the tool when doing personal research. It can also add to
classroom learning. When you save the address of a Web site that you want to
visit again on your computer, you are bookmarking it. Social bookmarking sites
let people store collections of bookmarks. These can be shared with other
people or made private.
When you
bookmark a Web site, you also tag the site with descriptive words. For example,
you might tag the voaspecialenglish.com Web site with the words: English,
teaching, learning, news and information. Tags help users organize their
bookmarks. Users can also see how many other people have used a tag. And they
can search for all resources that have been given that tag.
Social
bookmarking is especially useful when creating a collection of resources to be
shared with others. A biology teacher, for example, might ask her students to
bookmark Web sites about flowers and plants. The students work collectively to
create the list. When it is finished, the students have a group of resources
that will help them finish their project.
Wikis have
also become a popular Web 2.0 technology in education. A wiki is a Web site
where anyone can create, edit or change information collected on the site.
Audio, video and pictures can be added to a wiki as well.
The most
popular wiki on the Internet is Wikipedia.. More than two million articles are
in English. Each article offers links to other Wikipedia articles or to other
Web resources.
Wikipedia is
the eighth most visited Web site in the United States. College students use it
as a main research tool. However many schools look at the tool with a critical
eye. [3].
Perhaps the
best known form of Web 2.0 activity is the Web log, or blog for short. There
are reportedly more than one hundred million blogs around the world. A blog is
an online collection of personal comments and links to other Web sites. Anyone
can create a blog using sites like blogger.com or wordpress.com. Bloggers often
work together in small communities. They read each other’s posts, link to them
or report what other bloggers say. There are personal blogs, political blogs
and entertainment blogs, just to name a few. In higher education, professors
use blogs to communicate their opinions or to create a discussion with other
educators [3]. Students are also using blogs for personal expression or as part
of their classes.
There are
many other ways that information technology can be used in education. We have
only reported about a few of them. For example, there are virtual worlds and
gaming, Web-based self-publishing and photo-sharing. When it comes to
information technology in higher education, Kazakhstan university professors
say the sky is the limit.
Литература:
1. Dudeney G., How to Teach English with Technology / Gavin Dudeney, NickyHockly. – Pearson Longman, 2008. – 192 p. Fominykh N. Using ICT in Teaching and Studying English / N. Fominykh //[Электронний ресурс]. – Режим доступа – 25.01.2017: http://shvidko172.narod2.ru/
2. Dudeney G., Hockly N. How
to teach English with technology. N.Y.: Pearson Longman, 2007.
3. Richardson W., Weblogs in
the English classroom: More than just chat. English Journal, №3, 2003. vol. 7.
- p.57-64.