Different Faces on Xiaonei

On Xiaonei, not only individuals have accounts there, but some organizations, such as the Green and Peace Organization, have accounts and their facebook page. Also, some newspapers and magazines opened pages on Xiaonei one after another to express news on their pages. Besides, some famous and successful people in China including educationalist and entrepreneur have facebook page on Xiaonei too. Even Confucius has an account, and all the information in his portfolio is true information about Confucius. On his page there are many articles about Confucius thoughts, and some times he “writes” something in his status to encourage students to study harder in a humorous way. What merits our attention is that many Chinese traditional festivals have accounts in Xiaonei to introduce Chinese traditional culture for the young generations. And I see some of my friends add friends with these festivals. It is prevalent in resent years in China that more and more Chinese young generations are willing to celebrate western festivals like Christmas day, valentine’s day, Halloween and so on, but they know less or even little about many Chinese traditional days. However, Xiaonei provides a platform to spread Chinese culture to young generations in a very popular and funny way that youngsters are fond of.

Xiaonei network is growing and enriching fast recently that I often find something new there which impressed me a lot. I see it has great potential benefit for education.

Learning on Xiaonei—the Chinese “Face Book”

On Xiaonei, there are a lot of different groups which include classmates groups, fans groups and clubs that for the people have the same interests, etc. Taking my own experience as an example, I joined in an English study club on Xiaonei, and there are many English videos, songs and articles updated everyday. And I saw many English movies that recommended by other club members. Sometimes we post and share our interpretations of the lines in the movie, and we learned a lot from each other and also felt fun from this way of study.

Every time when I check my Xiaonei, the things I enjoy most is the sharing of my friends. The sharing includes diary, pictures, video, links, games, etc. Then I can not only have fun with these sharing, but know what my friends are concerning with as well. The idea of the topic “Power Point presentation in elementary teaching” for my IDE courses is got from Xiaonei, because I often see many of my friends who are now working in elementary school in Beijing sharing the videos of how to make good Power Point courseware. And some of them are looking for beautiful Power Point (PPT) background. Then I know that PPT skill is what they are interested in and how to enhance their skill of PPT is a common problem in their elementary instruction. After I decided my project topic, I then ask questions and chat with my friends work in elementary school in Beijing through Xiaonei, in order to get more information about the learners and learning environment, etc.

PS, if you are interested in Xiaonei or in learning Chinese, you can open an account on Xiaonei and see how it is similllar and different compared to your Facebook. The URL: http://www.xiaonei.com/

Introduction: Chinese Face Book -- A Huge Chinese Student Community on the Internet

There is a very popular website used by Chinese people that has very similar frame and format with Face Book. Then I call it Chinese Face Book. However, it is an individual web system which is a little different and separated from the Face Book. The name of this Chinese Face Book is “Xiao nei network” that means “On Campus network”, and it changed into “ren ren network” in August 2009 that means “Everyone network”. This website was first accessed by three universities in China 2005 that are Tsinghua University, Peking University and Renmin University. With the development of this website and fast growing popularity of the users, now, Xiaonei/renren website accesses to 32000 universities in China, 1500 universities in other countries, 56000 middle schools in China and 85000 companies all over the world. It means that you can find out any person who is/was in these schools and companies on this website if he/she is a user of it.

Because of the internet control from the Chinese government, we cannot access to many international websites including Face book, Youtube and so on in China. That’s why although I have had my Xiaonei over 3 years, I knew little about Face book until I came to America. Besides this accessibility problem, there is another reason why we have our own unique “Face book”: the language problem. Although students in my generation started to learn English from more than 10 years ago, English is still a problem for most of the Chinese, because we have little chance to use English in our daily life. Nearly all the channels on TV and radio are in Chinese; the books and newspapers are in Chinese; also, people search for information from Chinese websites.

When I first saw Ryan’s Face book, I felt it’s very interesting that the Face book and Xiaonei are like twins. I can’t help comparing these two networks, and I think my further search and understanding on the educational implication of Xiaonei the same goes for Face book.
The above picture is my Xiaonei. You can see that it’s nearly the same with your Face book. Through Xiaonei network I found many of my classmates in my elementary school and high schools that were out of touch for many years. And now we’ve joined in the same class and group again on Xiaonei. We friends on Xiaonei can see each others’ status, diaries, sharing, photos, etc. Even people who don’t know each other but have the same hobby or interests can join together as a group/club on Xiaonei to share and create what they are interested in.

Next time I will introduce more about what we Chinese students usually do on our Xiaonei, and how it is influence study and education.

Fresh Topic--- Chinese Face Book

Hey, when I was thinking of what to search and write about the new educational technology I chose last week, I suffered a really hard time and my thought stuck in my mind, because I’m really not familiar with that technology. Although it’s a good opportunity for me to get to know more new tools and resources, I believe searching and thinking deeper on the tools and technology that I am familiar with is a better choice. Thus, compared to knowing many instructional technologies superficially, taking full advantages of one specific technology and mastering it will help me better to facilitate my study and future instruction.

Then, I started to think about the tool that I’m very familiar with and have interests in it. Finally, I find the Chinese Face Book to be my new topic, and I really have to thank to Ryan that he showed much interests in my Chinese Face Book and gave me many precious suggestions.

So, in the following posts I will give details why there is a unique Chinese Face Book, what it look like, how it’s functioning in Chinese youngsters’ life, and it’s implications in education.

Open Educational Resources and Tools: ATutor

Hi, I’m sorry for a week’s procrastination on my blog. . This three month life in Syracuse is really special and totally changed my life. Three month ago I lived a very simple life, and I was as simple as a kid. Then so much strong feelings concentrate in this period of time that makes me rapidly grow up. Although I truly wish to be a kid as long as possible, life pushes me to move on. And I’m trying my best to be mature and keep balance of my emotion, study and life. So I need to focus on my study which is the priority in my life now.

I was searching the internet for a long time about the educational technology, and found out that there are so many new technologies very interesting and useful but I’ve never heard of before. I think it’s an excellent way to learn new technologies through searching the information and introducing it. Then at last I decided to introduce the “Open Educational Resources and Tools: ATutor” which attracts my attention.

This time I want to give a brief introduction of ATutor. ATutor is an Open Source Web-based Learning Content Management System (LCMS).ATutor is used in various contexts, including online course management, continuing professional development for teachers, career development, and academic research. (Wikipedia) ATutor is used internationally and has been translated into over fifteen languages with support for over forty additional language modules currently under development. ATutor is a kind of open educational tools that is open to the audience for free.
You can down load the latest ATutor software from here: http://www.atutor.ca/atutor/download.php
And here is a video that you can follow and learn how to use ATutor for setting up a course: