Using Social Technologies to Integrate Language and Cultural Studies
Sharon Scinicariello
Bonnie Youngs

Social technologies like blogs, wikis, podcasts, and Skype are new forms of one-to-one and one-to-many communication.  Social networking sites, e.g., Facebook, Flickr, YouTube, spring up every day.  Participants in this workshop will explore how these technologies and sites can effectively be used to integrate language learning and cultural studies at all levels of proficiency.  During the first part of the workshop, participants will review a variety of social technologies and discuss their advantages and disadvantages for classroom use.  Part two of the workshop focuses on the use of collaborative writing platforms, e.g., blogs and wikis, to integrate not only language and culture but also text and other media. 

Workshop participants will gain a sense of the pedagogical applications of a wide range of inter-related social technologies and engage in hands-on experience with collaborative writing platforms.  Because the workshop facilitators will create a collaborative space as a "virtual handout", participants will also begin to participate in a social network that will provide resources for using these technologies effectively as well as the opportunity to continue the collaboration begun during the workshop.