LEARNING ENGLISH TROUGH SOCIAL NETWORKS

A social network is a social structure made up of a set of social actors (such as individuals or organizations), sets of dyadic ties, and other social interactions between actors. The social network perspective provides a set of methods for analyzing the structure of whole social entities as well as a variety of theories explaining the patterns observed in these structures. The study of these structures uses social network analysis to identify local and global patterns, locate influential entities, and examine network dynamics.

Group webpages, blog, wikis, and Twitter allow learners and educators to post thoughts, ideas, and comments on a website in an interactive learning environment. Social networking sites are virtual communities for people interested in a particular subject to communicate by voice, chat, instant message, video conference, or blogs. 

Computer networks combined with social networking software produces a new medium for social interaction. A relationship over a computerized social networking service can be characterized by context, direction, and strength. The content of a relation refers to the resource that is exchanged. In a computer mediated communication context, social pairs exchange different kinds of information, including sending a data file or a computer program as well as providing emotional support or arranging a meeting. With the rise of electronic commerce, information exchanged may also correspond to exchanges of money, goods or services in the "real" world. Social network analysis methods have become essential to examining these types of computer mediated communication.

In practice, as technology has advanced, the particular "narrowly defined" terminological aspect that was initially emphasized by name has blended into the general field of educational technology.^[11] Initially, "virtual learning" as narrowly defined in a semantic sense implied entering an environmental simulation within a virtual world.

 A "virtual education course" refers to any instructional course in which all, or at least a significant portion, is delivered by internet. "Virtual" is used in that broader way to describe a course that is not taught in a classroom face-to-face but through a substitute mode that can conceptually be associated "virtually" with classroom teaching, which means that people do not have to go to the physical classroom to learn.

Accordingly, virtual education refers to a form of distance learning in which course content is delivered by various methods such as course management multimedia, multimedia resources, and videoconferencing

References :

"Nurse education in second life at Glasgow Caledonian University demo". YouTube. Retrieved 2013-10-22.

Wasserman, Stanley; Faust, Katherine (1994). "Social Network Analysis in the Social and Behavioral Sciences". Social Network Analysis: Methods and Applications. Cambridge University Press. pp. 1–27. ISBN 9780521387071.