Group items tagged

An organization (Gates funded?) that is devoted to educational k-12 reform. They are using social networking to "rate" and raise issues around ed reform, specifically about teacher hiring/firing. Interesting use of social networking for grass roots ed reform.

Goog*lio noun (1) a hybrid next generation e-portfolio that utilizes emerging open, social, web2.0, and Google applications such as blogs, wikis, social networks and software to create a student created and controlled personal learning environment and lifelong content management system that can be shared and viewed from different perspectives, within various contexts, and for multiple purposes. noun (2) a free and easy to use portfolio web site for individuals to design as a space, story, and system that functions as a workspace and showcase for learners to collect, select, reflect, publish, link, archive, and demonstrate knowledge, skills, reflections, through multimedia artifacts. verb (3) "googlio it" to publish and connect a digital artifact to your webfolio. origin: rooted in the word folio (as in Da Vinci) + Google (as in all the free Google Apps & Tools) and evolved from portfolio -->

June 28 blog by Beth on social media measures. I like the emphasis on relationship building with the organization because a social learning communityis all about building respectful, caring, responsive partnerships on practice shared with others.

Though their primary audience is K-12, EduDemic offers social media/web 2.0 tools that are of use to students and teachers -- many applicable to the education world beyond K-12 as well.

By Leon Benjamin on KnowledgeBoard, July 1 2009. Recommendations about using social media within a company (or organization) and not just to network with the outside world.

Produced by commoncraft, Aug 6 2007. This video describes social bookmarking in a fun and decidedly low-tech fashion. Runtime is just over 3 minutes. Please note that this video is for sale, though it is possible to watch an evaluation copy, for free, from this URL.

Excellent video on how businesses need to redesign their systems to support listening, learning, sharing--more people you know, the more things you can do--"next practices" drawn from Jarche's blog

Very interesting yet short video on social learning as it relates to business but at first glance, they seem to apply to nonprofits/educational groups, too.

"Telligent helps companies worldwide to implement social communities for their employees, customers and partners. Our powerful community development platform allows our customers and partners to customize their community experiences and build award-winning applications atop the platform."

By Oliver Dreon, PhD in Online Education section of Faculty Focus website, May 13 2013. Citing research titled Critical inquiry in a text-based environment...from The Internet and Higher Education (2000), the author have 5 steps to improve the community aspect of online classes, including introductions and a "common area" for students to meet for discussions that are off-topic.

Confirming much of what we've learned with our communities.

Posted by Melissa Terras in her eponymous blog, April 3 2012. Terras, a scholar in the Digital Humanities in the UK first uploaded her published papers to her school's digital repository and then blogged and tweeted about the papers. She has seen great growth in the download rate for these papers, though not across the board. To wit, she's increased her prominence (and that of her papers), but some of her papers are of greater interest than others. In future, she hopes to track her citation index over time, though it's too soon to measure at present.

This nicely summarizes Terras's lessons learned: "If (social media interaction is often) then (Open access + social media = increased downloads)."

Edudemic, an online journal that asks "What is the best way to improve education using social media?" is launching an iPad edition. Details available on this page.

We have developed powerful software and services, based on principles of organizational / social network analysis (ONA / SNA), to uncover relationship dynamics and reveal the self-organizing nature of groups.

By M. Ginsburg and S. Weisband, Proceedings of the 37th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences - 2004. Written in 2004, this article is somewhat dated (e.g. before the notion of the "social network" really took hold). That said, the article looks at a subscription-based virtual community, the Internet Chess Club, and finds that the real key to success is a carefully structured 3-tier approach to volunteering. Some volunteers help/coach new users; others are available to handle administrative tasks and volunteer managers run on-demand tournaments. Volunteers gain status and recognition, as well as the benefit of a private sub-community in which they can communicate with each other. NOTE: As of Jan 2012, the club is still in existence.

Librarian notes: While much here does not apply to the current manifestation of our e-communities, the structure and function of the various volunteer roles is very interesting, as is the "communication segmentation strategies" to filter out information overload. An impressive database of the community's work (in this case chess matches) is discussed as well.

A Social and Professional Networking Site for Teachers and Educators

"ThinkUp is a free, open source web application that captures all your activity on social networks like Twitter, Facebook and Google+"

By Colin Harrison in Education and the Knowledge Society: Information Technology Supporting Human Development by Tom J. van Weert, October 2004 (Springer, via Google Books).  Harrison's article is pp 244-246. He looks at how an online barter system (like his proposed Cybertroc) might facilitate ride-shares. One interesting idea is how this barter might help to build social capital in the area in which it is implemented and provides an interesting service to some who might otherwise be uninterested in "Information Society." Frustratingly, no details on the implementation of such an idea, other than to refer readers to a ride-share enacted during a 2003 French transportation strike. 

"What is LIVING LAB? LIVING LAB is a research and development infrastructure to research human interaction with, and stimulate the adoption of, sustainable, smart and healthy innovations around the home. Occupant interaction with the home can be studied in an adaptable and controllable home environment. This way the technical development, the implementation and the social uptake of sustainable innovations can be accelerated. LIVING LAB brings together Europe's top research institutes and companies and aims to stimulate cooperative projects in the fields of user centred research and product development."

Published by staff from Forum One, "The Online Community Report features best practices, strategies, research, and events for Online Community and Social Media professionals," per About the OC Report. Editors include Jim Cashel, Heather Virga, and other Forum One staff.