What I like about...

www.linkedin.com  Linked in is a social networking site that focuses on connecting professionals.  There is no specific type of employment that is targeted; it is for anyone who wants to be connected with what is going on in the world of professionals.  Signing up requires a name and an email address.  Once registered, additional information can be entered regarding location of employment, position, and personal statistics the user may want to provide. Not only does it connect professionals, but job searches and postings can be created.  There is also a wide array of articles ranging from business to education that provides valuable information from a host of different areas.  What does this have to do with college writers?  From an educator’s perspective, it is a great way to show students how important written and oral communication skills are to their future professions.  Students need to have justification for why they are taking a particular course; if they view an article or a job posting that specifically exhibits the need for “excellent” written communication skills as a must to acquire a position, it may help them to be motivated to complete their writing assignments successfully (Ginsberg & Wlodkowski, 2009).

www.facebook.com.  I just cannot resist it. Facebook is a social networking site that connects people for any reason. There are a lot of different ways in which Facebook is used – daily updates by users on whatever may be happening in their lives, angry rants about religion, politics, jobs, or children, or whatever funny cartoon or video they may have happened to view. For a writing instructor, it is a buffet of both excellent and poor grammatical constructions.  Naturally concealing the identities of the individuals who posted, it provides the ability to help students learn the appropriate way to use there/their/they’re, your/you’re and a myriad of other sound a-like combinations.  It can also be used as a forum for students to create a “poll question of the day.”  In this way, I can have students ask a question on their personal Facebook pages and write an analysis of their audience based on the answers they received.  This helps students understand why it is so important to take their audience into consideration for anything they may write.

 

Both LinkedIn and Facebook are of extraordinary value depending on the needs and use of the individual.  What makes them so great comes from the connections that are created between human beings all across the globe.  Even if the connection may not necessarily be the most favorable because of the artificial environment, the benefits are potentially unlimited and quite real.

 

Reference

Ginsberg, M. B., & Wlodkowski, R. J. (2009). Diversity & motivation:  Culturally responsive teaching in college (2^nd ed.). San Francisco, CA:  Jossey-Bass.