Volume 2, Issue 2 August 2019, pp. 47–60 
Regular Articles
Educational social media tools: Promoting student investment and language identity in the midst of digital surveillance
Melissa Barnes 
1
1 Monash University, AUSTRALIA 
DOI: https://doi.org/10.29140/ajal.v2n2.159
Abstract
There is increasing interest in how educational technologies can be used to promote and create meaningful learning opportunities, and more specifically, how social media tools can be harnessed to encourage language learning through online interactions. Educational social media tools, however, thrust student learning from a private space to a public one and raise ethical concerns regarding digital surveillance. Drawing from Norton's (2013) conceptualisation of language investment and identity and Bourdieu's thinking tools of habitus and field, this paper explores the attitudes and experiences of 30 Japanese exchange students, studying at a high school in Australia, as they engage with the educational social media platform, Edmodo. This action research study aimed to encourage language investment by providing an online space for students to develop their English language identities in and amongt their Japanese peers. However, this study found that many of the participating students resisted and/or disliked using Edmodo due to feeling restricted by the platform, highlighting the need for students to have a sense of autonomy in the midst of teacher control and surveillance. Additionally, this study reveals that the students who engaged regularly, and without the prompting of the teacher, were students who were academically stronger, suggesting that students' self-efficacy is closely linked to language investment and the willingness to develop their language identity.
Copyright
© Melissa Barnes
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
Suggested citation
Barnes, M. (2019). Educational social media tools: Promoting student investment and language identity in the midst of digital surveillance. Australian Journal of Applied Linguistics, 2(2), 47–60. https://doi.org/10.29140/ajal.v2n2.159
Related Articles:
Beginning again
Glenn Stockwell
Australian Journal of Applied Linguistics Published: 1 April, 2018, Volume 1(1), 1–2. 
Insights from replication on the factors affecting task engagement in mobile-based learning activities
Glenn Stockwell
Technology in Language Teaching and Learning Published: 28 June, 2019, Volume 1(1), 33–51.
Syntactical and lexical development in NNS-NNS Asynchronous CMC
Glenn Stockwell
The JALT CALL Journal Published: 31 December, 2005, Volume 1(3), 33–49.
Investigating an intelligent system for vocabulary learning through reading
Glenn Stockwell
The JALT CALL Journal Published: 31 December, 2013, Volume 9(3), 259–274.
Review of Developing writing skills for IELTS: A research-based approach
Hassan Mohebbi
Australian Journal of Applied Linguistics Published: 28 April, 2021, Volume 4(1), 34–36.
Making global knowledge accessible to EFL speakers of an undergraduate leadership program through a flipped and ubiquitous learning environment
Nobue Tanaka-Ellis, Sachiyo Sekiguchi
Technology in Language Teaching and Learning Published: 28 June, 2019, Volume 1(1), 3–20.
Encouraging autonomy through the use of a social networking system
Adrian Leis
The JALT CALL Journal Published: 30 April, 2014, Volume 10(1), 69–80.
Exploring EFL teachers’ professional identity development in a CALL teacher preparation program
Hussein Meihami, Rajab Esfandiari
The JALT CALL Journal Published: 25 August, 2021, Volume 17(2), 135–157.
(Re)imagining a course in language and intercultural communication for the 21st century
Adriana Raquel Díaz, Paul J. Moore
Intercultural Communication Education Published: 29 December, 2018, Volume 1(3), 83–99.
Reframing and hospicing mobility in higher education: Challenges and possibilities
Adriana Raquel Díaz, Marisa Cordella, Samantha Dispray, Barbara E. Hanna, Anna Mikhaylova
Intercultural Communication Education Published: 19 April, 2021, Volume 4(1), 106–121.