Colleagues,
As you may know, I have helped a group of adult basic skills (including ESOL/ESL) teachers and professional developers to form an online group to explore using free Facebook private groups as a supplemental online learning platform with face-to-face classes of adult learners. The group, incidentally, decided that it made sense to use a private Facebook group to explore this. It's an active group with lots of newbies (like me) and lots of experts who have been using FB with their students for some time. Recently we have been looking at videos of classroom FB pages and teachers talking about their classroom FB pages. ESL professor Susan Gaer, at Santa Anna College, and I made one on Saturday exploring one of her ESL class Facebook pages. (Thanks to OTAN for the webinar technology to make this.) Although only participants in the Adult Educators Facebook for Education group can see this video, links to some of the videos recommended to the group by OTAN's Branka Marceta are also public, and you can view them now if you wish.
There are four professional development videos made by OTAN that focus on using social media for adult basic skills education (ESL in particular). Two of the short videos give a great introduction to how some adult educators in California are using Facebook with their ESL classes.
http://www.otan.us/video/techintegration/social-media/flash/120319FacebookESL.html
http://www.otan.us/video/techintegration/social-media/flash/120319FacebookCTE.html
I especially liked learning from these videos that teachers use FB with their students to: build community, increase learning persistence, as a way to support -- and track outcomes of -- students after they have left their ESL classes, for peer support and communication, as a place students can share their successes, and -- I am especially intrigued by this -- advising students on career pathways.
The context for this FB group for adult educators, you may recall, is to use the online tools that students may already be familiar with (e.g. Facebook) to enhance their education experience, in this case their English language learning.
The Adult Educators using Facebook for Education (AEFE) group is a private ("closed") group, but adult basic skills teachers (including ESOL/ESL teachers and teacher educators) are welcome to join us. If you would like an invitation, email me. It's not a lurkers' group, however. You will be expected to learn how to set up a FB private group page and to try it out with at least one group of learners (for professional developers, teachers as learners).
David J. Rosen
Moderator, Technology and Learning
djrosen123@gmail.com