One of the reasons Web 2.0 has had such an effect on education is that it allows our students to write in a truly public voice. No subject is better suited to take advantage of this capability than journalism. Newsvine is a combination of a social networking a news site that offers them this opportunity. Articles are shown on the site from traditional sources such as the AP, but users can also submit their own articles to the site to be ranked and rated by other readers. Students may even earn a little money in the process.

Valleywag has a very nice map of social networking sites and their popularity by country.

I notice they don't have Mixi in Japan, which is odd, but they have the international examples I already knew about, along with a few others. If you're looking to extend your classroom and bring students in contact with people from a certain country, this is a great place to start. 

YouTube is releasing localized versions of its site. You can read more about it here on ZDNet.

Like Flickr, YouTube can be used by foreign language teachers as a great source for examples of authentic language around the world. However, like most massive international sites, the language tends to default to English. There is currently a search function by language if you know where to find it, but it's only about 50% accurate. The new localized versions should be much better about providing video and discussion in the target language. 

The University of Michigan has created a graduate program in social computing, solidifying the topic as a topic of interest to a critical mass of researchers. This article in the Wall Street Journal points to many indicators that social computing and social software is becoming popular. It's a recognition, I think, that social networking, blogging, and the Wikipedia are part of the permanent infrastructure of our lives.  

Joost has allowed its beta testers an unlimited number of invites. If you'd like one, send me an email mentioning this post to bryanttATdickinson.edu.

For those unfamiliar with Joost, it's basically an online TV service with some fairly big name channels, including Comedy Central, MTV, and the NHL. They are clearly trying to add a social element to TV viewing with Channel chatting and other features on the way. There are also some foreign language channels including ShortsTV, SiVoo and JumpTV in Spanish, French, Chinese and Arabic. You'll find them under Entertainment in the channel directory. This could be another way for us to connect our students with native speakers while giving them a context for discussion.