Using Multiply as a class management and communication system for EFL classes

Tama University trine_mork@tama.ac.jp is paper outlines the unoffi cial use of a social networking and blogging site called Multiply by several EFL teachers and their students in Tama University’s English Shower program in Tama City, Tokyo. Five teachers used the system as a communication hub for their classes, requiring students to access it regularly to submit homework, receive corrected work, check their class schedules, and other tasks depending on the class and the teacher. At the end of the term, students were surveyed using an online form to assess the perceived usefulness of having used the system. ough survey results confi rmed some issues for teachers that came to light half-way through the term, the responses of those having used the system were also positive.


Introduction: Web 2.0
Free, web-based resources are becoming increasingly common for educational purposes, and particularly teachers who do not have the chance to interact with students on a daily basis can benefi t greatly from them. In a non-digital learning environment, university students often have to wait a full week before receiving feedback on homework submitted after the previous class. Communication is often limited to a preset, coexisting time and place, and students (and teachers) may have diffi cultly keeping track of what was done when, and when work is due.
e Internet has openly been embraced by the world of education since its inception, making the lives of teachers and students much easier. e Internet has helped extend communication beyond the EFL EFL classroom, as well as supply access to a wealth of resources. Teachers have created websites where they post learning content, links, schedules, deadlines, events, contact information etc., and students have done the same.
Enter Web . technology. Now that websites, Internet browsers, bookmarks, search engines, online databases, directories, address books, and other digital reference materials have become mainstay alternatives to print media (indeed having sometimes replaced it), there has been a sudden surge into interconnectivity. Web-based applications like Mixi, Blogger, Wikipedia, YouTube, Photobucket, etc., all of which are process rather than product-focused, are now becoming quite ubiquitous.
Alm provides a clear overview into to some of the changes we have seen with Web . through this table ( , p. ). ough there is a great deal of hype about Web . , the technology is actually nothing new; it is simply that it is now being used in diff erent ways. e structures one can fi nd online now are what is new, and they off er environments that are highly conducive to enhancing the effi cacy of language teaching and learning.
is paper takes a look at how one of these Web . structures, a social networking/ blogging site called Multiply (http://multiply.com), has been used as a tool for computermediated communication (CMC CMC) for several classes of low-level, compulsory EFL EFL classes for non-English majors at Tama University. In addition to having dialogues with teachers on their experiences, or soliciting feedback from them online, a user-friendly, web-based, form-creating application called Wufoo (http://www.wufoo.com) was used at the end of the term to determine students' impressions of Multiply. e paper fi rst outlines the benefi ts and limitations of adopting this web-based application for EFL EFL courses, as observed by the author. Following that is an overview of collected data from students (and teachers) regarding its perceived usefulness. Finally, a few application ideas are off ered that are not taken advantage of in Tama University classes.

Benefi ts
Multiply is a social networking site that off ers an impressive array of communicative tools, and emphasizes the ability to share media. e site was launched in and has close to , , registered users. It is simple in its design and is relatively user-friendly. Users choose an ID ID which doubles as their site name (http://myuniquename.multiply.com), and get several built-in modules (sections) to do each of the following: create a welcome section; create blog entries (in which users could upload various types of fi les for download); showcase recipes; rate items such books movies, restaurants, and products; post music (uploaded or linked); post video (uploaded or linked); create a calendar (schedule); paste photos; write notes; create a list of links; and receive general comments on a guestbook.
Users can also give and receive private messages with other Multiply users worldwide, participate in Multiply groups, and give and receive comments to postings of pretty much any kind on their own sites and the sites of others. In addition, users can customize their sites to a seemingly infi nite degree, either by selecting from the variety of pre-set themes offered with Multiply, by searching groups like Customized emes (http://cusomizedthemes. multiply.com) for thousands of unique, user-made themes, or by making use of any CSS CSS coding skills they may have. e author initiated use of this web-based tool for use in her own classes in the English Shower program at Tama University based on positive feedback from a colleague at another institution. Several teachers at Tama University then followed suit, adopting the platform for their own classes after being persuaded by the author. No analytical comparisons with other systems were made prior to adoption of Multiply, as the decisions were personal and unoffi cial. Also, time constraints prevented a more thorough consideration of alternatives. Finally, most teachers using the system, including the author, had no prior experience using online management systems for their classes, and therefore neither knew of many other alternatives, nor of what kinds of problems to expect. As a result, although many of the benefi ts of using Multiply were obvious to teachers before implementing the system, the drawbacks were not anticipated and were only really discovered once in use. e following comprise the main reasons Multiply was adopted for non-offi cial use by fi ve teachers in the English Shower program at Tama University:

1) Multiply groups
Multiply allows users the ability to become members of common interest groups, or to create and administer their own groups. At Tama University, in addition to creating their own site and having their students create their own sites, most teachers using Multiply also created group sites for each of the classes they taught. Students with Multiply accounts were then invited to become members of their respective class sites and were given access to certain materials as well as the ability contribute to certain parts of that site. Once members, students could easily access their classmates' Multiply sites via a list on the group (class) site, viewable to all group members. e class's group site therefore acted as a classroom hub, which teachers set up as they saw fi t. e author used her class site for the following: a) uploading assignment fi les for student download; b) posting the class schedule (calendar) including class objectives and activities, due dates, and dates that work is assigned; c) posting handouts (and homework) in the form of blog entries; d) posting links to outside resources, including video and audio; e) receiving work from students in one or two sections (modules); f) uploading audio and video recordings of student work, as well as model video presentations from students of the same course in previous years.

2) Privacy settings
e ability to set diff erent levels of access is touted by Multiply as one of its key features. Teachers, as administrators of group (class) sites as well as of their own sites, can set privacy levels on a per post basis, enabling a teacher to essentially run a private blog for class participants right on top of, or embedded within, a public blog. Both types of posts are treated the same by Multiply in terms of alerts to the poster and the poster's contacts, but the privacy settings limit the content to only those to whom the user wants to give access. What this means is that teachers can make some links and some blog posts public to anyone with an Internet connection, but limit access to who can view student work or any posts of a more private nature. is also proves useful in cases where students have purchased copyrighted CD CDs and do not have the equipment to access the data (as was the case with some Tama University students). Teachers could upload CD CD audio fi les, and through proper control of privacy settings, make this data accessible only to class site members.

3) Bilingual administrative settings
Multiply menus can be switched to Japanese for students if necessary. e whole sign-up/ registration process could also be done in Japanese. Full use of Multiply in Japanese only is indeed possible. However, the most helpful source of Multiply knowhow on the Internet is to be found in the user forums, which are conducted pretty much exclusively in English, though a certain percentage are not native speakers.

4) Management of student work
e combination of private and group Multiply accounts provides an easy medium for teachers to read (and correct) students' written work and to interact with students outside class time. e benefi ts of submitting assignments on Multiply are as follows: a) Teachers who meet with students just once a week can collect and return homework in real time; students do not have to wait until the next class to submit late work, and teachers can return homework as soon as it is corrected. b) Although not required in any classes for the term in which Multiply was used at Tama University, students can upload their own audio and visual recordings onto the group site for teacher revision, class viewing, or to share with the world. c) Students can get exposure to working through a digital platform if they have not already been introduced to one.
Some teachers had students submit work on students' own sites, but using the group site for collecting student submissions has many additional benefi ts: a) Using the class site as a central hub means that teachers only have to check one site for homework. b) As the date and time are recorded automatically, it is easy for teachers to keep track of whose homework is late and to what degree it is late. If students submit written work on their own site, they have the capability of altering these dates and times. c) If students submit their work on a group site, other students can more easily access it, and give feedback right below the submission in the comments section (which is also where teachers can leave feedback or make corrections). It could be argued that students, knowing that peers are able to see their submissions, are more motivated to create quality work. d) It is very obvious to the teacher if students copy from the work of their classmates.

Limitations:
Many limitations related to Multiply only became evident after the system was implemented.

1) PC & online access
All Tama University students are supposed to be equipped with a laptop PC PC, and there is wireless Internet access on campus. However, for one reason or another, a few students in one class did not own a laptop computer, which meant students had to share when Multiply access was required in class. When two or more classes were simultaneously accessing Multiply, access was often severely hampered. One of the goals of implementing a web-based system was to develop accountability in students; no longer could students say, "I didn't know this was for homework," "I was absent," or "I lost the handout," as everything was now accessible online. However, now a new set of excuses emerged: "I don't have a computer," or " e Internet was down." 2) Student unfamiliarity with web-based platforms a. Sign-up procedure. For those students who had never joined any sort of online community, comprehension of basic tasks was sometimes limited. Email confi rmation is a standard requirement when signing up for web-based applications of any kind. ree students in one of the author's classes could not understand notes left by Multiply administration in their Multiply account asking them to check their regular email inbox for a message to confi rm their email addresses. When that email message was fi nally located (with teacher assistance) in each student's email inbox, students were still confused as to how to proceed when it was simply a matter of clicking the URL URL provided. Language was not the issue here, as in all three cases the email message was in Japanese.
b. Managing email. Once students had signed up for Multiply, they were asked by teachers to go to their Multiply account settings to confi gure their settings for email alerts. is was necessary to control the amount of email Multiply users receive regarding activity related to their websites. Multiply users are able to check boxes corresponding to the activities for they would like to receive alerts: Replies Clearly, with all alert boxes checked, the registered email accounts of users who have membership in several groups and/or who are very active with Multiply could become inundated with mail messages. Many students who had not turned off all but basic alerts as instructed when they signed up were subsequently confused and overwhelmed with irrelevant email, often in English at that. Again, language ability could not be fully to blame as instructions for this process were available in Japanese. c. Homework submission procedure. Depending on the teacher and the class site setup, students were requested to submit homework on the class site by clicking the "add note" button in the "notes" module, the "add review" button in the "reviews" module, etc. However, at the beginning of the term, several students from three classes submitted homework in the "comments" section underneath a previously submitted assignment from another student. Obviously, "comments" are for feedback, but the mistake could just as easily have been contributed to unfamiliarity with social networking or blogging systems as to unfamiliarity with language. is was problematic from a class management perspective as well, because unless teachers had the corresponding email alert on their class site set to "on," they would not be alerted by email that the student in question had completed the homework.

d. Accepting group invitations.
Once signed up and email-confi rmed, students were invited to join the class site. How this was done depended on the class and the teacher -some students were asked to email, or write down on paper and submit, or tell their Multiply ID ID directly to the teacher, while others were instructed to leave a note on the teacher's personal Multiply site guestbook. A few students did not catch this part, but many more misunderstood the requirement of confi rming their invitation in their personal Multiply inbox once invited. If teachers had high privacy settings on their group (class) site, students who did not become members by accepting the invitation to join the group were not able to access the whole site. Nor did they show up on the member list to make themselves accessible to other group members.

3) Teacher unfamiliarity with web-based platforms
Teachers using Multiply for the fi rst time experienced some problems at fi rst, mostly in the teaching of how to use it. A couple forgot to remind students of the email confi rmation process and email alerts settings, which exacerbated students' problems. Initially many teachers posted one entry for each lesson in the calendar module (used as the class schedule), but this proved troublesome as both teachers and students could not easily make reference to events in the past or future. Revision-making was also painstakingly slow. As a result, most teachers using the calendar function altered it slightly from its originally intended use, creating only one entry for the whole term that was constantly edited.

4) No static pages
A static page is one that is seen on traditions websites -it does not have dated entries, like a blog. Multiply users cannot create static pages, although the welcome module could be defi ned as a static section of a page as it can be easily changed and does not contain dated entries. Unlike blogging sites such as Wordpress, users cannot create the additional pages (often with tabs in a menu bar) that would allow users to expand their sites into a fully functioning WCMS WCMS (web content management system). If students wish to showcase an essay, or teachers want to post lengthy, easy-to-access, permanent pages about plagiarism or class rules, they are limited to how they present this information in Multiply. Such content would likely be inserted as blog entries, which can easily get lost as a site thickens with data.

5) No search function
Multiply does not have a search section that allows users to search a blog for information. Nor does it have a categorization system that would allow teachers to group their information according to topic. is might have been helpful when students where looking for something specifi c on a class site that was packed with information, and spent a seemingly great deal of time searching for it in class. Multiply does, however, allow users to display tag clouds in the welcome module (tags are words or short phrase descriptors for every blog entry users make on their sites, allowing viewers to see and click on the tag to access any entries "tagged" with the same key words/phrases). However, tagging tends to be used for micro concepts as opposed to major themes, so it is therefore more useful in helping users locate details on a topic. Furthermore, at Tama University, many users were not very computer literate and therefore not likely aware of what tags are and how they are helpful. Subsequently, they would not have bothered to tag entries on their own blogs and displayed them in a tag cloud. Students in this study were not required to build up their own Multiply sites, although some did. As such, students had very few, if any, of their own entries to tag.

6) No Java applications
To diff erentiate itself from other platforms, Multiply is adverse to the use of third party software for mini applications. While this arguably keeps the system simpler than other comparable platforms, it was frustrating for the teacher who wanted to showcase widgets (mini applications) or embed forms of media from sources other than Multiply partners such as YouTube.

Student feedback
Although fi ve classes of up to students each made use of Multiply in the term, completing the survey was not compulsory. Teachers encouraged students to complete them in free time if class time was not available, but in the end only students completed the survey. After requesting basic class information, subsequent questions in the online survey aimed to determine students' perceptions of the merits and demerits of using Multiply for their English classes. e survey was bilingual, and although students were encouraged to answer in English, Japanese responses were permitted. See Appendix A for the complete survey in English.
Survey results automatically generated from Wufoo indicate that of the surveyed visited the Multiply system two or three times a week, visited once a week or less, and the remaining few used the site more regularly. Checking the site two or three times each week was the expected minimum that students would access the site. e fact that so many checked once or less a week may explain why some students had diffi culty with the system; they were not getting enough exposure.
In terms of ease of use, % percent claimed it was diffi cult at fi rst, but they got the hang of it. e remainder or respondents were divided fairly equally between "It was diffi cult. I still don't understand" and "it was easy." As expected, the top three most useful aspects (modules or sections) of Multiply were, in order, the blog section (where teachers inserted class information and handouts) the input section (whatever it was titled -where students submitted assignments) and the calendar section (where teachers had the class schedule and deadlines posted). e results showed that % thought that Multiply was eff ective overall, % said it was not, and the remaining % were uncertain. e table below shows the number and percentage of students who thought the benefi ts listed on the survey applied to their own situation. Only three students among the surveyed checked that they really enjoyed using Multiply, but two more said that they would continue to use Multiply after the course fi nished. Students responded that they would not continue to use Multiply, and the remaining indicated that they were not sure. Appendix B shows students' comments in original form. Some negative feedback, such as connection speed, typing ability, language, and general computing skills, did not directly relate to Multiply. One student was worried about visibility of his/her recorded speech, and another seemed unaware of option of submitting homework on paper, which was likely due to a miscommunication with the teacher. One unanticipated concern for students was Internet access off campus. ere is campus-wide Internet access at Tama University, so it could be surmised that students without home Internet access did not want to spend more time on campus than necessary. A legitimate concern for student users of Multiply was "page length." If users want to search blog content from the front page of a Multiply website, they have to click the "view all" button, which takes the user to complete, full-text, reverse chronological order blog entries. With so many blog entries to search through in some cases, it obviously would take students a great deal of time to fi nd what they were looking for. As stated earlier, one of Multiply's main drawbacks is the lack of search and categorizing capabilities.
Students did confi rm some of the benefi ts, the most obvious being that it is convenient to be able to access information regardless of space and time. ey also confi rmed that having an online schedule is useful, and that access to students' work is benefi cial.

Teacher feedback
Feedback from teachers on the benefi ts and drawbacks of having used the systems was also collected, through informal face-to-face interactions during the term, or through the Internet at the end of the term (two teachers did not respond to this request). A sample of comments is recorded in Appendix C. Fostering of student accountability and convenience were the most commonly heard or cited benefi ts of using Multiply, and demerits included the lack of search function and technical setbacks.

Future applications
Obviously, feedback collected in this small study suggests that having taken advantage of the Multiply social networking and blogging platform was problematic, but also benefi cial for students as well as teachers. Despite the glitches, the overall experience was positive, and all teachers reported that they planned to continue using it. Many problems encountered by both teachers and students can be remedied through experience.
Some possibilities with potential that were not exploited on Multiply include the following (and these could apply to other web-based structures as well): . Student site development: Students could use their own sites more as a term project, uploading their own audio and visual recordings, etc. as well as journaling and showcasing written work in blogs. . Peer review: Whether on each others' sites or on the class site, students could do more written peer review in the form of comments submitted after others' posts, or replies to comments. With the continued development of social networking, more than ever students are able to communicate easily with each other in online environments. . Collaborative projects: For example, one student uploads a project draft, another student working on the same project downloads, edits, and uploads it again for other students to continue the process. . Penpaling: Whether with strangers in classes in the same school or from classes in other countries, Multiply could serve as a platform for letter-writing projects.
Of course, newer and better platforms continue to appear, and just as users become comfortable using one web-based structure, another one with diff erent and/or improved features comes along and tempts users to switch. For individual teachers, one positive result of having used Multiply as a class management system with little or no prior such experience is that they are now better able to evaluate and compare other and new systems in order to fi nd one that best meets their needs. e learning curve will also likely not be as steep with subsequent platforms. It is will this spirit of gained knowledge that the author will experiment next term with Edublogs, a Wordpress-based blogging platform that contains plenty of search options, is java-friendly, and is specifi cally targeted at teachers and learners. e detailed privacy settings and social networking aspect of Multiply are sadly going to be sacrifi ced in the hope of gains in versatility.
. . Please explain any drawbacks you found working with Multiply. Also, if there were any benefi ts not listed in the above section, please indicate so here.
. What suggestions would you make to enhance your Multiply experience?
. Will you continue using Multiply after the course is fi nished? a. Yes b. Not sure c. No • It would be better if the site had static pages so information like the schedule could be more clearly shown. • I needed more time to instruct students how to properly use the site; the learning curve was sometimes steep.

Merits:
• Teachers could access all students' work in one place.
• Reading assignments were inputted weekly so teachers could monitor and grade accurately. • Students couldn't lose drafts etc. that they needed to build on for subsequent assignments, so lessons were not interrupted for that reason; submitted assignments were safely stored online. • I didn't have to worry so much about physically fi ling my diff erent class assignments. It was great to have so much less paperwork. • All my materials were instantly available to me anytime. • Giving information visually through Multiply in addition to orally was eff ective. • Students became personally accountable for all their work; there were fewer excuses.
Even absent students could be made accountable for preparing for tests and doing assignments. • I stopped worrying about whether I had remembered to tell students something in class or not -as long as I had remember to write it online. And if not, I could just update the class site. • I saved a lot of paper. If students requested, I would give them hard copies, but it was so much less wasteful and time-effi cient to not have handouts several pages long for every student. • Students learned how to use a real Internet site and improved their computer skills in English. • I could easily provide further resources to students in the form of links to other sites. • It was useful that students could see the work of their classmates, but I should have taken more advantage of this.

Author biodata
Cathrine-Mette Mork arrived in Japan in to teach in the JET JET program, and has continued to teach mostly at the university level since. Her experience spans from young children at private English schools, to retirees in community-sponsored continuing education classes. Her interests include intercultural communication, CALL CALL, and learning strategies.