Usare i Selfie a Scuola

The Selfie as a Pedagogical Tool in a College Classroom

Oxford Dictionary's Word of the Year for 2013 is selfie (Oxford University Press, 2013). At its essence, the selfie is simply a digital self-portrait shared on the internet. As with all tech trends, the selfie suffers from much hype and even more criticism. However, at our liberal arts college, several faculty members have explored using the selfie as an effective pedagogical tool in our classrooms (see 2014Drake, P.. “Is Your Use of Social Media FERPA Compliant?” Retrieved May 22, 2014, from http://www.educause.edu/ero/article/your-use-social-media-ferpa-compliant for an overview of how to maintain FERPA compliance). In our experiments with the medium, we have found that despite its reputation for being a narcissistic expression of the individual, our students are building community through the production and distribution of the digital self-portrait. They are also developing technological skills and expressing themselves in new languages—all thanks to the selfie. Our selfie pedagogical techniques fall into three categories: ice-breaker, translation, and experiential-learning selfie. These selfies facilitate classroom interaction, enable class bonding, and encourage interactivity between students both in and outside of classroom confines.

Embracing the Selfie Craze: Exploring the Possible Use of Instagram as a Language mLearning Tool

Although only introduced in late 2010, Instagram has quickly gained popularity and become one of the popular social media tools used around the world. This paper reports an action research attempt to integrate Instagram as an active learning tool in a language bridge program. Instagram was used as a production tool for a holiday project and two writing activities in two pre-intermediate/intermediate ESL classes. Results of the study suggest that although students weren’t enthusiastic with the initiative at first, they gradually welcomed the idea and were encouraged to be creative in completing their writing activities. A few teaching implications were concluded from this experiment for a better integration of Instagram as a learning tool in language classrooms.