Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2007. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Today it is just as important to understand the content on social media platforms as the technology that are being used. With the help of technology the content does not need to be just words but can also be anything from videos to simple symbols. Taboo subjects like dick-pics are often swept under the rug as being too offensive to talk about. But if technology is to keep up with the content even the sensitive subjects need to be understood. Since anyone can send anything to anyone it is important to show how different people react. If the sender of a dick-pic thinks it is amusing, it is important to tell how the receiver may react. It can be a self-representation to send a dick-pic, just to show a new or a hidden side of oneself. It can also be a way to exercise power over another person as well as harassing the receiver with a sexual picture. But a dick-pic could also be just a joke sent to someone and a way of communicating with friends. This is a quantitative research with 120 participants answering a questionnaire which focused on sending and receiving dick-pics and the reason and reaction of sending dick-pics online. The study showed three main reasons for sending dick-pics and the reasons were categorised as following: language online, self-representation and power structures.

The Internet with its World Wide Web feature opened up a whole new frontier for language-culture learning that foreign language textbook authors have integrated into their programs. Designing tasks that progress beyond promoting learners' passive consumerism and reiteration of facts remains a goal and a challenge. Thus, three research questions characterized this study that sought to examine the on-line tasks associated with six current Spanish textbook programs. The design focused on an analysis of these tasks in light of prevailing culture learning concepts and other pedagogical paradigms posited by reputable foreign language educators to determine if they filled the gap left by textbooks in facilitating second culture acquisition. The first question asked for evidence that learners were encouraged to recognize their own cultural conditioning. Evidence was present only to a miniscule degree. The second question sought to determine the extent of opportunities provided to learn about the target culture - Hispanic - as they mirrored the objectives of the perspectives on culture learning. Low-level thinking skills and a predominance of tasks concerning products, in contrast to those concerning behavioral practices or perspectives, characterized the extent of target-culture learning. The third question sought to discover if learners were engaged in process-based tasks, whether they were prompted to identify authentic problems, suggest solutions, and apply new vii knowledge. Evidence for these situations was minimal. Additional findings revealed factual information questions to be a majority with a few tasks inviting learners to respond to hypothetical and creative situations. Results indicate that in this early stage, the World Wide Web remains an authentic venue for culture learning; however, future directions ought to include expanding the scope of adjunct tasks as they complement the multiple presentations of culture in the companion textbook chapters.

The aim of this master thesis entitled Social Media and teaching and learning French as a foreign language is to find the elements which connect teaching and learning French as a foreign language and social media. The theoretical part is based on the definitions of foreign language didactics and teaching French as a foreign language. It describes in detail the current approaches in teaching foreign languages and competencies suggested by the Common European Framework of Reference for languages and Framework Education Programme of the Czech Republic. Then, social media are introduced theoretically. The theoretical introduction is followed by the presentation of concrete social networks and the statistics of their use. The next chapter is dedicated to communication which unifies these so far separated fields of the diploma thesis. Finally, the thesis summarizes the potential and the dangers of social media for teaching and learning French. The practical part focuses on the analysis of selected French coursebooks and enumerates the examples of online communication and social media in these teaching resources. Then, a list of educational profiles on social media is presented. This is accompanied by profiles that are not educational at first, but their content can be used for teaching and learning...

No description available.

The diploma thesis is focused on the search for opportunities for distance learning of the Czech language at primary schools. The aim of the work is to deal in detail and find out how distance learning of the Czech language takes place at primary schools and what is the level of adoption of teaching among pupils who are learning a distance form of study. The work is divided into a theoretical part and a practical part. The theoretical part deals with a general treatise of primary education and education. It also briefly characterizes the Framework Education Programme for Elementary Education. Then it analyzes distance education in detail, briefly defines communication tools and in the end summarizes the subject Czech language and its teaching. The practical part contains two research surveys, which are structured in detail. Both qualitative and quantitative methods were used. In the first research survey, it finds out the effectiveness of Czech language distance education at selected primary schools in specific grades of primary school. It also characterizes the work of a teacher in online Czech language lessons. The second research survey examines in the form of a questionnaire how distance learning of the Czech language is carried out at primary schools. The questionnaire survey is filled out by...