We are aware that our high school students are
busy and stressed nowadays even more than just a year ago and this burden of new
information and assignments in quite different school subjects from Math
through History to Language Arts including Russian and English is growing from
year to year enormously.
But
kids cannot imagine their life without socializing and they use social networks
to keep in touch and exchange ideas. They use vkontakte.ru or facebook.com many
times a day - so these networks can be also successfully used for educational
purposes as well - it can be seen as a kind of new game. We have been using vkontakte.ru in English since November 2010 and all my students who
are in our ePals in Focus closed academic group agree - it’s useful and fun.
The
features provided on vkontacte.ru such as the Albums offer ways to assign both
individual and group assignments such as Zlatoust
Landmarks or Russian Holidays posters;
the Discussion Board can be used to upload essays, e.g. TV vs. no TV or How to
spend $1,500 of prize money? Students even learn from each other comparing
own ideas.
Other
features such as Videos, Links, the Wall, etc. can be successfully used to
exchange ideas, update the students on new challenges and help them further to
easier and more efficient ways to knowledge and personal experience.
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