Microblogging and Social Networking

Micro blogging is sharing frequent and brief information in web through specified platform. Generally micro blogging services allow its users to send and read other users’ updates through text-based posts. But now this has been changed and it can be any sort of input like text, video, audio etc… Text messages are uploaded to a microblogging service such as Twitter, Jaiku and others, then distributed to group members. All parties subscribed in the targeted group are instantly notified of the microblog, enabling groups to keep tabs on one another’s activities in real time.

Some advantages of microblogging are that the updates you make in micro blogging sites can be visible to community members to all users depending upon the platform that is used. Unlike messengers where people type messages to a person (or rarely a group), with micro blogging many more people can interact at the same time as they can all see their messages. Instead of spending hours together to narrate a blog post, micro blogging platform can be used effectively to share things people wish to. With twitter, for example, people can exchange information quickly about personal topics or any other topic they are interested in. By means of it, language learners can be encouraged to take part in discussions aboy language topics and carry out language tasks in which they have to write brief messages in a meaningful way. Language teachers can use them to share ideas and discuss topics with their students providing quick feedback to them.

One of the disadvantages of microblogging would be the limitation in characters and the fact that it is prone to getting off topic quite easily. In I my particular teaching context, I think I could use it especially with high school students. On a microblogging platform, the students could send and receive messages related to language topics and I could use it as an effective strategy for dealing with the isolation that can come from working in the classroom. For example, if I encounter technical difficulties during a lesson I can have a means of receiving assistance within minutes since with microblogging I have the opportunity to receive assistance from others during a teachable moment in which, for example, I don’t know the answer to a student’s inquiry.