Media education for journalists: the YouTube platform perspective
Fields of study such as Journalism and Social Communication or Media Production require the use of specific learning methods in the spirit of progressive media convergence. Teaching focused on the practical aspects of using multimedia materials, e-learning platforms, social networking sites, web applications is becoming a very important aspect of academic education within the aforementioned fields of study. Using such tools enables students to gain employment in accordance with their specialization or field of study. One of the platforms that can be used for media education is the YouTube portal that uses multimedia content in the spirit of Web 2.0.

Web 2.0 provides resources and tools that make the learning process social and collaborative as they connect students with each other and help to move from the instructor-centred methods of teaching to more contextual learning and problem-solving techniques (J.West and M.West, 2009). The aim of the paper is to introduce findings on the project of implementing Web 2.0 resources for collaborative work in the National Research University Higher School of Economics. The main objectives of the project were to 1) single out Internet resources aimed at collaboration to suit the purposes of educational programme; 2) determine how much collaborative learning background students have and their attitudes to online and face-to-face collaboration; 3) analyse the students’ involvement in collaborative learning activities; 4) research the influence of web-related technologies on willingness to collaborate. The main methods used in the research were questionnaire, interview and observation as well as analyses of students’ work. The results revealed a positive attitude to Web 2.0 among the majority of the students. The offered Internet resources (Tricider.com, MeetingWords.com, TodaysMeet.com) improved communication and collaboration outside of the classroom, which is vital as increasingly less time is being allocated for studying a  foreign language. Besides, Web 2.0 resources make it easier for teachers to evaluate each student’s contribution to task achievement and ensure fair assessment of each student’s work.

E-learning 2.0 to learn and teach Italian as a second language: social network, Facebook and language activities

Nowadays it would not be possible to plan an Italian language and culture class without considering the opportunity to use ICT. After the evolution from web to web 2.0 and from e-learning to e-learning 2.0, teachers approached a new concept of learning and teaching online. Web 2.0 tools, the social networks in particular, are considered a valuable resource for communicating, interacting and sharing linguistic and cultural contents, in formal and informal learning. Facebook, the most famous social network, becomes a virtual learning environment for students of Italian as a Second Language where posts, images, links and videos can be shared and used as L2 input. The Facebook page Lingua Italiana Per Stranieri (progetto LIPS), that we described it in this article, represents an example of a didactic use of this famous social network.