MY ELECTRONIC LITERACY (FIRST DRAFT)

Electronic Literacy

INTRODUCTION
My point of view of electronic literacy.

BODY PARAGRAPHS:
1. Paragraph:

A) Use of internet (e-mails, search engines, chat rooms, discussion boards)
B) Purposes
C) Advantages and disadvantages

2. Paragraph:

A) Usefulness in education
B) How electronic tools can work for improving our L1 and L2

3. Paragraph:

A) Usefulness of word processors (e-mails, blogs, portfolios)

CONCLUSION
My expectations and plans regarding electronics tools

Essay

Electronic literacy

Have you ever thought what electronic literacy is? Probably you have used the computer to write an e-mail, to read an article, to watch a video, but you didn‘t know that it is electronic literacy. Electronic literacy is the ability that you have to use non-printed information from a web site in order to read it; also it is useful to write a text by using the language in a formal and informal way. All of that in order to interact with other communities, to learn new ways of speech from all over the world. So, electronic literacy has many functions and uses for us.

The internet has many applications in our daily life. Like for example, we have access to the e-mail for personal stuffs and for job situations. This is very useful and the most common uses of that. Another application of it is that we use some search engines for look for information about scholar purposes also for getting information of some products or just for knowing more about the world. The most common search engines are google, bing, yahoo, etc. Now, these applications have some advantages and disadvantages. The advantages of these applications of the internet are that it is mainly a tool for us because with it we can save time in some researches, to save time for communicating job stuffs and for knowing more about other ways of thinking. The disadvantages of that are that we almost never use it in the appropriate way. We spend time just chatting with any specific reason also we just use the internet to share personal information in certain web pages like hi5, facebook, etc. Those things about the internet are the most known by people, but it also has other applications.

The use of internet in education has an important role nowadays. The internet is the most important tool to the process of teaching. Because with it students can use electronic media for academic writing, researching and for learning new things from other cultures. But the main use of internet nowadays in education is for learning new languages specially English. By using internet we can access too many web sites where you can practice it and have brief explanations of the target language. So, in that way you are improving your L2 because you can practice your reading, listening, writing skills even you can practice your speaking skill by using the Skype web site where you are in touch with native speakers also with students of the target language. But also you can increase your knowledge of your L1 too. Since you are learning a new language you can learn more about your own language. It is in order to have a better comprehension of the L2 that you are learning. We can use of course other stuffs to improve our native language and non-native language.

What can we use in order to improve our own language and the new language?Most of us are familiar with the use of e-mails, chat rooms, blogs, etc. But we don`t know that it can be useful for our improvement in learning languages. Like for example, we can use the e-mail to send homework or to send a letter to our friends, but we need to have some netiquette to give a good impression of ourselves. It is important with the intention of practice our writing skill where it is inside the grammar, spelling, so in that way we can realize that if we really are learning to use the language that we are learning in real contexts. Also we can have communication with other peers by blogging. We can help each other in order to increase our ability with the language. Finally, we can have access to real language in chat rooms. On that chats we can communicate with people from all over the world in order to learn their culture and their speech communication.

To finish, electronic literacy involves many things that are useful for us. But the most outstanding would be for education because it is an instrument for us as teachers and as students for having well development of knowledge in general, but more specific in learning languages. I think that I will use for improving and learning the English language blogs, wikis, virtual libraries and the most common for research that is search engines that are very practical to look for information that we usually need.