Korean Job Discussion Forums

[xCustomx]

Last year in my summer camp I showed students how to set up a Myspace account, since nearly all of them already have Cyworld pages. I realized later that Myspace probably wasn't appropriate since there are a lot of provocative photos and videos. However, there are still some students from that class that still use their Myspace pages and send me messages to my dummy account. They've told me that they are happy to be able to chat or leave messages with other English speaking teenagers around the world, as well as use the music and video sections.

However, would Facebook be a decent alternative? I hardly ever use it, and I'm not familiar with all the features that they offer.

[DrOctagon]

Facebook is great because it has an easy-to-use chat program. With Myspace, you have to download their chat program. Most pages on Myspace are very image heavy, and they can crash web-browsers. Myspace also has way too many advertisements. To me, Facebook is easier to use, easier on the eyes, and more adult-friendly. Just stay away from all the stupid applications people try get you to download. You can easily block requests to download apps though. Or just ignore them all like I do.

[merkurix]

use www.ning.com

[ds_fan]

why the hell would u want kids you teach looking at your facebook page, knowing everything about you and where you will be and when etc

[thatwhitegirl]

The OP or whoever wanted to do this camp could just set up a dummy page. Obviously you wouldn't want your students to have access to your actual page.
I can see how this would be good for the kids. They'll get a chance to make friends and chat with kids in other countries. Practice their English skills, etc.

[xCustomx]

[wylies99]

Be careful and make sure they get those accounts that protect minors from the Chris Paul Neil's of the world.

[jadarite]

We are already on the internet, why do we need a "social network"? Everyone who we wanted to network with would have to sign up with the same site. Doesn't make sense to me.

[jiyull]

facebook is really good

you can just open up another account as "Teacher NAME*

[merkurix]

[Kikomom]

My initial impression was that MySpace was for high school, Facebook was used more by college students, adults blog.

Setting up a dummy account to get the kids networking sounds ok, but Facebook 'suggests' strangers to add as friends. Ning.com looks like a better choice for a closed network.

[Boodleheimer]

not a great idea.

would the parents be cool with the possibility of random people 'friending' their kids? with the possibility of that much personal info going into the English-speaking world (which, let's face it, isn't as 'innocent' as Korea)

[Hank the Iconoclast]

I tried it during one of my extra classes and it was an epic fail. Luckily, I had a backup plan.

[Kikomom]

Do the students all have pc's in class? Or do they bring laptops?

[ddeubel]

I'd recommend Ning, mostly because YOU the administrator have lots of control and security. Further, you can change the language of anything on the network -- so for important things, just use the language editor and enter the hanguel so the students know what to do -- but leave a lot of English so they are learning when doing.

Another option is to just create a Classroom on EFL Classroom 2.0. Create one account and everyone uses that same ID/PW (allows multiple , same time log in). You have one home page and one "Classroom" for discussion/creation. Plus, all the learning materials/acitivities at your fingertips on EFL classroom 2.0

There are a number of classroom pages on EFL classroom 2.0 where students access the network. I've even created some activities/projects for them!

DD
http://eflclassroom.ning.com