voxswap.com - social networking and language learning?
Just thought I'd squeeze a post in before I head off to the Mournes (outlook is mixed: forecast of blizzards, ice and hot toddies).I joined voxswap.com a few weeks ago. It's the first British language learning community I've found. It's very new - having had its official launch on January 17 2008. It was founded by husband and wife team Sean and Nicole Hargrave.
The site's recently achieved a core community of 600 users. They're aiming at 1000 users before long. It's built on kwiqq.com.
voxswap.com - what does it aim to do?
To connect millions of people around the world who have an interest in learning or improving a language.
voxswap.com - what does it offer?
Voxswap feels very much in beta. There is a community, yes. And you can use an internal email, chat and a discussion board. Then there's the virtual keyboard, which enables people to add characters and accents that are foreign to their keyboards (and there was me just figuring out which magic key combo could give me an accent). But there's not much else.
voxswap.com - how do you learn?
There's no free content offered on voxswap yet, or any other kind of content. I'm actually not sure how they fund themselves, as there are no ads either.
voxswap.com - did I make friends?
I signed up for French and Irish. Needless to say I've not been overwhelmed with Irish learners looking to connect. But I've not actually made any other friends. LONELY.
voxswap.com - does it work?
I've spent a lot less time on voxswap.com than on any other language learning community. But that's because there's not the community, content or features to engage me.
Sean Hargrave has commented on socialmediaportal.com that he 'couldn’t find the site I was looking for, so I decided to build it.' I think Sean should take a good look at his non-UK competition. I've reviewed italki.com, palabea.net and livemocha.com in previous posts. I've also blogged about chinesepod.com, who have now branched into spanishpod.com. There's serious, more established competition from these and more.
Labels: kwiqq.com, language learning, language learning community, social networking, voxswap.com
posted by Michelle Gallen at
5:10 PM
3 Comments:
Hi Michelle:
Thanks for posting on my blog... I will be sure to keep an eye on yours as well. promise to respond to your comment asap... I have some theories...
(Barbara, aka Nuala)
Hi Michelle-
I saw your comment posted an LLU (language lab unleashed). There are social networking sites for learning language popping up everywhere. The foreign language department at my university uses those sites and other partnerships with universities abroad to pair up students in our classes with conversation exchange sessions once a week. Lots of theories on E-Tandem Learning to share. All positive outcomes that I have been able to observe. Beyond the benefits of confidence, motivation, attitude, purpose and being learner driven... all of which we know greatly contribute to language acquisition, we are gathering data on exactly how the negotiation of meaning effects language learners oral proficiency. Dublin's Trinity has been at the forefront of this methodology if you are looking for an interesting conversation when you accept your blog award. Colleen:)
Hi Colleen,
I think we're at the many flowers (and weeds) growing in a big field stage of language-learning and social networking...but we've nowhere near a shake-out stage.
There's loads out there to try and loads to experiment with...and it seems to me that the universities are using this technology much more freely and quickly than other technologies - which is great!
Will you be at the blogger awards? Give me a shout on michelle.gallen@gmail.com and hopefully we can get a chat!
Thanks,
Michelle
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