Group items tagged

So even the people who hate something (the web? Social media? networking? computers?) are now starting to join FaceBook. We need a timescale on this as well for a start.

"Evidence shows that engaged students perform better academically than disinterested students. Measurement of engagement with education is difficult and imprecise, especially in large student cohorts. Traditional measurements such as summary statistics derived from assessment are crude secondary measures of engagement at best and do not provide much support for educators to work with students and curate engagement during teaching periods. We have used academic-related student contributions to a public social network as a proxy for engagement. Statistical summaries and novel data visualisation tools provide subtle and powerful insights into online student peer networks. Analysis of data collected shows that network visualisation can be an important curation tool for educators interested in cultivating student engagement."

Keynote presentation delivered to Instituto Cervantes, Providence, Rhode Island.Social network technologies are reforming the way we communicate with each other inside and outside our learning environments. In this presentation, Stephen Downes offers an inside look at these technologies, how they work, what they can do, and where they will likely lead the future of learning online. Downes will first outline some well-known technologies such as YouTube, Facebook and Twitter, describing how they are used and outlining how they manage online communication in general. [Slides] [Audio]

Why educators should know about social networking tools.

"...research is a social process, and that building a network of peers is nothing new, but significantly increased by the use of social media."

How deep or broad are different social networks. Thinking about community vs network. Don't entirely agree that community not possible on Twitter but get her point.

Article on Web2.0 and social networking use by MFL teachers. "Most language teachers shun social networking sites and other Web 2.0 technologies. Some even see the phenomenon as a threat, according to new research. However, a growing grassroots network is taking advantage, says Yojana Sharma"

"ThinkUp captures your posts, replies, retweets, friends, followers, and links on social networks like Twitter and Facebook. We'll be adding more networks in the future. ThinkUp stores your social data in a database you control, and makes it easy to search, sort, filter, export, and visualize in useful ways"

Good examples of social media engagement. Not using social channels as a news feed but engaging with students.

Links to various articles:   "The German tradition of social pedagogy has become associated with social work. This tends to obscure its educational credentials as 'education for sociality', particularly to English-language readers. Here we explore its history and current status."

In this article I want to reflect on the rhetoric of 'Web 2.0' and its potential versus actual impact. I want to suggest that we need to do more than look at how social networking technologies are being used generally as an indicator of their potential impact on education, arguing instead that we need to rethink what are the fundamental characteristics of learning and then see how social networking can be harnessed to maximise these characteristics to best effect. I will further argue that the current complexity of the digital environment requires us to develop 'schema' or approaches to thinking about how we can best harness the benefits these new technologies confer.

Good presentation from Terry Anderson comparing / contrasting LMS, eportfolio & social networks.

"A new UK-focussed report published by Childnet International aims to support teachers and lecturers who wish to explore the use of social networking services by young people. In this guest post, Josie Fraser, the report's author, explains more."

The goal of this study is to produce a report with 8-12 case studies which have used social software to support and engage learners, or have embedded the social software within the pedagogy of a course or a programme.

Online conference for the course Internet Communities and Social Networks.  Designed by students on course but open to all. This was part of their assessment.

During the past decade, rapid developments in information and communications technology have transformed key social, commercial, and political realities. Within that same time period, working at something less than Internet speed, much of the academic and policy debate arising from these new and emerging technologies has been fragmented. There have been few examples of interdisciplinary dialogue about the importance and impact of anonymity and privacy in a networked society. Lessons from the Identity Trail: Anonymity, Privacy and Identity in a Networked Society fills that gap, and examines key questions about anonymity, privacy, and identity in an environment that increasingly automates the collection of personal information and relies upon surveillance to promote private and public sector goals.

"Last month I shared 40+ networks that you could consider depending on your niche or interests. As part of my commitment to this community, I shared that I will  expand on this list throughout 2012. So here is the first addition to that build!  The topic- Curation!"

Useful post about using in-company social networking to build connections and reduce silos.