New Technologies, Social Networks and Digital Literacy in the Classroom

Before giving an absolutely affirmative or a radically negative response to the use of new technologies, social media and other challenges of the contemporary, fast and globalized life in your teaching and in your classroom, you must ask yourself if your workplace meets the proper technical criteria: do you have a good internet connection, do you have acess to an interactive smartboard and do you know how to use it. You also must know who your students are, how old they are, which social networks they use, how frequently and for what purposes. It is very likely that your students will know much more about the Internet, new devics, smartphones or social networking, and if you don't feel very confortable with all that, you can ask a colleague, a professional or even any of the young people coming into your classroom weekly.

I confess that I am not an expert in new technologies and that they are not the first option in my classroom. If one works at a university where in many classrooms people don't have even some basic conditions for good work, and still write with chalks and on old blackboards, where , if there are whiteboards, there usually are no or very few markers, where the internet connection is slow and unstable, or where, if one opens the window to changes the air, it will fall down, the use of new technologies or social media is difficult, yet not completely impossible. Therefore, I prefer to use social media and technologies outside the classroom, engaging my students to prepare the materials at home and come to the ckass to discuss, read, debate, analyze and work autonomously or in small groups. As we frequently don't have the necessary equipment to watch a movie, to search something online, or to organize a video conference with somebody from Portugal or Lusophone countries, my option is to use #Moodle, an excellent platform for e-learning, where I upload video clips, songs, web pages with grammar or cultural content, newspapers, TV or radio channels, materials from #Youtube, films, where I participate in forums etc, and I give some tasks to my students that we continue ellborating during our meeting in the class. Other useful tool that I deal with in my work at the university is #Trello, perfect for boards, exchanging ideas with colleagues from the department, regarding Open Days, exams, organization of activities, administrative issues, and it facilitates the life and the work of all, because, if we have different timetables and we cannot appear regularly in some in-person meatings, we can easily know and update the relevant information for better work of the department.

Regarding social networks, #Facebook is the first idea to recommend to teachers and students, as it is probable that a vast majority of university students has an account on this social network. However, I recommend a creation of a specific Facebook page for the subject you teach, because it sounds unprofessional and confuse to mix your work and personal life. Or at least dedicate one group to your subject For instance, although I myself am not on Facebook, I know that my students created a Facebook group dedicated to Portuguese, and, in coordination with me, they frequently updated the information regarding Portuguese language, lessons, homework, deadlines, tests etc. That group could also be different: dedicated to the language and culture itself, to some important Portuguese historical events, celebrities, food , festivities, whatever interests the students. These are some of the ideas. I encourage my students to follow some groups, companies, people from Portuguese speaking countries, to chat with native speakers from the lusophone world, of course being careful and using the networks correctly.

Although very ppular worldwide, #Twitter, in my opinion, would not be the best solution for Serbian students learning Portuguese, because, here this network is almost automatically associated with celebrities, journalists or politicians, and I confess that I am not sure of how many students of mine have a Twitter account and how frequently they use it. Nevertheless, there are sources to learn Portuguese on Twitter, such as @PortugueseProbs , @rioandlearn @brazilianlanguage.

If you look for on-line materials about Portuguese grammar, the most likely is that you will find a lot of Brazilian sources promoting this variant of the language. It is not incorrect or more or less valuable, it is not forbidden to use Brazilian Portuguese and I allow it in my classroom, but I suggest my students to be consistent and to use it from the beginning to the end and I point out the differences between the European and the Brazilian norms, If students prefer the European norm, I suggest them the materials that they can find at the Webpage of the Instituto Camões (www.instituto-camoes.pt), Ciberdúvidas da Língua Portuguesa (https://ciberduvidas.iscte-iul.pt/), and other Webpages that contain the extension pt.. "Pt" stands for "Portugal" and it is a guarantee that the variant in question will be the one spoken in Portugal.

There are also many applications for learning Portuguese if students install them in their smartphones. I do not recommend #Duolingo, and again, it is nothing against the Brazilian Portuguese, just that I think that the examples are a bit outdated and they do not sound very natural and usable in everyday situations.

And, to conclude, I will say just some words on digital literacy: To be digitally literate does not mean just to have a profile on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest or any other social network: it means to know how to use it correctly, what kind of content to share or not, with who and in which situations.

A student of mine wrote me apologizing because of not having attended my classes, due t some very difficult personal problems. In the meantime, she was putting on the Instagram her photos from Verona, venice, Nice, Lloret del Mar and who knows where else (and on one of them she was at a hotel, taking photos of her half-bare chest). As she had me in her Instagram network, I think that she should have been more honest, if she wanted to travel, she should have told me that instead of inventing a sad lifestory, more careful, not to share all kinds of personal content and not to send it to her teacher and of course, she should be more digitally literate, chosing to whom she should send what content. It is not about her motivations to do this, I do not even discuss the visual identity of a Serbian university student, which I might do in one of my next posts, it is about the correct use of digital technologies and social networks (inside and outside the classroom).

As one of the topics for discussion at the intermediate level of the Portuguese language are in fact new technologies, virtual friendships, social media etc, during the exam I asked my students to give me their opinion about this and I used the opportunity to update my own knowledge on social network , asking my students for tips and tricks. When the student-traveller from the previous paragraph was asked to give her perspective on the technological challenges that we are facing every day, I was not offended or worried about her pictures from half Europe, shared on her #Instagram profile. I was not angry and I did not ask her any cynical question like: "Crying in Venice was very romantic, wasn't it? Or "What about your sad life story in Lloret del Mar?". I was calm and I left these issues to her own conscience. She is an adult, that is true, she can do whatever she wants in her privacy, nevertheless, she must learn what is correct and what is not. When I started the conversation on social networks, she spoke in a very fluent Portuguese of how proud she was to use Facebook and Instagram and... Ooops! What did she say? Then, her voice trambled and she recognized the error, trying to explain, to justify herself, to... you know, students have a million excuses for every occasion. I did not believe her a word. She either shared these photos intentionally, trying to say that she was smarter than me and all of her Instagram friends, who had to work and study while she was having fun, or she was simply not digitally literate enough and she did not know how and what to share. I recommended her some #Youtube tutorials on how to use Instagram (some of them in Portuguese) and I told her the next time she travelled, and if she travelled to Lisbon, she could take some interesting pictures, write a caption in Portuguese, hastag the picture using Portuguese terms, or even bring her phone to the classroom and share with us her experience in Portugal or elsewhere, but she would be obliged to communicate only in Portuguese. ... She had a good final grade. It does not matter now. I hope that she is now more familiar with social networks, and that at least for one moment she was honest. And for this, no matter if we use the new technologies or the good old teaching methods like talking, writing and exposing our ideas in many other ways, the Professor's role is important. Teaching moral values and applying them in concrete situations, behaving accordingly and showing students the examples of what one believes in, shuold be a strong component of work with students. With or without technologies and social networks. Students should also build the relationship with their professors on trust and truthfulness and only then the class will have the quality that meets high stndards of academic, scientific and ethic criteria. Yes, use the benefits of what the contemporary world offers us, but never forget the relevance and the value of human factor in the classroom, in the process of teaching and learning. Long live all the teachers and students! And the new technologies as well...