Purple Rain

Yasmeen Williams
Mr. Phillips
English IV
26 August 2013
Social Media
Social media has different effects on people. Some are positive, some are negative. Teens that spend too much time on social networks like Facebook are more likely to show narcissistic tendencies and display signs of other behavioral problems, according to new psychological research. “While nobody can deny that Facebook has altered the landscape of social interaction, particularly among young people, we are just now starting to see solid psychological research demonstrating both the positives and the negatives, “Telegraph quoted Larry D. Rosen, professor of psychology at California State University, as saying. Negative effects of teenagers overusing social media include making them more prone to vain, aggressive and anti-social behavior. Scientists have found pre-teens and teens that overuse social sites and technology on a daily basis are also more likely to be prone to bouts of anxiety, depression and other psychological disorders. They also found that excessive use of sites like Facebook can also lead to poorer academic performance. Teenagers, who checked social networks at least once during a 15 minute study period, achieved lower grades. Cyber bullying: This is one of the most common online problems kids face. It involves using technology to spread untrue or embarrassing information about another person. Sexting: This refers to getting, sending or passing on sexual messages or photographs by cell phone or computer. About one in five teens say that they have shared naked or partly naked pictures or videos of themselves. Many times there are no negative consequences when sexting happens within a couple or within a small group of friends. Positive effects are Creative expression through writing blogs, sharing or creating music and videos. Community connection, raising money or sharing information about charities. Global awareness, connecting with people from diverse background. Also Health

Cited: Asian News International. (Aug. 9, 2011): News: Too much Facebook use can make kids narcissistic Harvard Reviews of Health News. (Mar. 29, 2011): Some Benefits, Some Dangers with Kids and Social Media J Med Internet Res. 2009 Oct-Dec; 11(4): Social Media Use in the United States: Implications for Health Communication Annotated bibliographies Adopting a situated learning perspective, I have come to believe that the true power of Twitter and other social networking tools lies in their potential to extend learning beyond the boundaries of the classroom community. Based on the idea, learning takes place as “newcomers” become more proficient practitioners of a discipline through participating in Communities of Practice. Learning is a social process facilitated by interaction with others who are mutually engaged in the socially and culturally defined practices of the community. Social networking technologies can allow second language learners to negotiate meaning and shape their identity as English speakers as they connect with and participate in the real world communities that are important to their lives. In reviewing the articles that have become this bibliography, I have been seeking the intersections between the affordances of Twitter and similar popular social networking technologies, situated learning theory in terms technology assisted learning through engagement in online communities. The bibliography may have significance not only for second language teachers, but also for those interested in the educational value and potential use of social networking technologies for online learning, mobile learning, student recruitment, and engagement of students in learning. The researches show that social media has positive and negative effects on young teens now and days. I will use this on my own, because I am one of the young teens this could have an effect on. In July 2009, this was the only research based journal article identified in which the use of Twitter as a language learning tool was investigated. In this case, the students were studying Italian at a university in the U.S.A., and the use of Twitter was a required, graded component of their coursework. The author identified with interaction theories in second language acquisition and an information processing view, relating the reading of tweets to inputs which are “integrated into the learner’s linguistic system” (p. 76) and then output as posted or reply tweets. Consequently, the research is obviously not presented in terms of situated learning and language learner participation in a Community of Practice. However, the author does draw conclusions about how the use of Twitter led to the development of community among the students and the other participants involved in the study and how she believed that classroom dynamics were affected positively by Twitter use. The research questions were related to 1) students’ use of Twitter in terms of frequency of posts or tweets and the content of their tweets and 2) whether or not students considered Twitter to be a useful tool for learning Italian. The posting was relatively unstructured, but the teacher did provide some prompts and also responded to student tweets with corrective feedback. The majority of learners reported positive feelings about using Twitter; however, less than half of the 22 participants tweeted the minimum number of times required by the instructor (a total of three times per week) and most of the learners posted status tweets rather than replies to other participants. Participants were most positive about the effect of using Twitter on their confidence as language users and on the development of their writing skills, yet they did not feel that reading tweets helped their reading skills. There was no attempt to analyze language acquisition. The author claimed that there was evidence in many tweets that participants’ interest in Italian culture had increased as a result of using Twitter. The author also noted the participants’ unexpected adoption of Twitter as a community information bulletin board. Although a small number of native Italian speakers on Twitter were followed by the participants, they were selected by the instructor, and were all technology specialists. There were not many direct exchanges with the Italian speakers; however, 58% of the participants reported that they learned a lot about Italian culture from reading their tweets. There was a more authentic opportunity for interaction noted by the author as a “great learning opportunity” (p. 80) when an Italian native speaker sought the student’s advice on planning a trip to New York, near where their school was located. The author capitalized on this opportunity by including this person in the restricted community and asking students to reply to his posts. This last unplanned use of Twitter in fact created an ideal situation for the negotiation of meaning afforded by different languages and interaction and purposeful conversation based on solving a problem. Hearing lies the true potential for Twitter as a language learning tool. Twitter as a tool to facilitate informal communication between students and faculty in the online college-level Instructional design course they taught. The purpose was to enhance social presence of class members and faculty and thereby foster the development of community, learner engagement, and satisfaction with the course. Social presence was defined in terms of Garrison, Anderson, & Archer’s Community of Inquiry framework (2000) as “the ability of participants in a Community of Inquiry to project their personal characteristics in the community, thereby presenting themselves to other participants as “real people” (Garrison, Anderson & Archer, 2000, as cited by Dunlap & Lowenthal, p. 2). Twitter’s value was seen primarily in its affordance for immediate connectivity and just-in-time learning, a capacity that is not matched in LMS systems that require log-in. Research findings on the effects of social presence on learning are briefly discussed. The authors reference other examples of academic uses of Twitter and provide several sample student tweets to illustrate the types of communication that occurred in their course. Instructional benefits beyond the enhancement of social presence are summarized and include handling student problems quickly and efficiently, teaching students to write concisely and for an audience, connecting with an online professional community of practice in the subject area, supporting independent learning, and extending relationships beyond the timeframe of the course. Relevance to the potential value of Twitter for language learning is found in the authors’ aims for the pilot and future projects; namely, encouraging students to be more aware (and perceptive) in the new culture, engaging students in dialogue in order to make sense (or meaning) out of the foreign culture, and providing a means to extend learning across timeframes to allow for reflection .