Learning Technologies - Recently Updated Pages

Social Software in Action

AnneBB — Wed, 13 Dec 2006 20:59:12 CST

This page is about some examples of practice - social software in action.
If you have any presentations, papers or sites you can share - please contribute so that others can share in your experiences and practices.
ABB ;-)

Learning at the BBC: Podcasting, wikis, and blogs.
Watch this recording from Nigel Paine of the BBC describe their implementations and strategies for learning with social software - it's about 11 minutes.

The Knowledge Tree
Online journal from the Flexible Learning Framework - it uses a collaborative weblog format that allows readers to comment and also podcasts from authors.

Headshift
A UK-based company that are developing great things with social software applications - and really making a difference. There's some good articles and resources on this site too - look for articles by Lee Bryant.

Home

AnneBB — Thu, 30 Nov 2006 01:04:53 CST

Welcome to Learning Technologies 2006 !

This site was a companion to the Social Software pre-conference workshops at the Learning Technologies 2006 conference in Mooloolaba, Queensland 8 - 10 November, 2006. It has now extended beyond those boundaries and is being used as an additional collaborative resource for other presentations.

There are already a number of educators as registered contributors to this wiki - if you'd like to participate, make comments, add resources, share experiences or knowledge send me an email ! Anne.Bartlett-Bragg@uts.edu.au

I hope you find this a valuable resource!
ABB ;-)

How to navigate this site:
In the left-hand navigation box, you'll be able to view 5 existing pages. They do not all display as they are based on a hierarchical sequence, you need to click on the name of the previous page to expand the list (or use the linked names listed here...) Below is list of the current pages:
Home: That's where you are now
Social Software Overview: Some introductory notes, definitions and explanations
Developing the Learning Landscape: Some specifics with examples and links to suggested sites and resources.
Resources: A list of further references
Social Software in Action: Examples from practice.

Social Software Overview

AnneBB — Thu, 09 Nov 2006 22:58:15 CST

Overview of Workshop1 :

Social software can generate powerful learning networks - from simple individual actions that help create an 'architecture of participation', to links that connect people for a common purpose. Weblogs, wikis, social bookmarking and tagging (so-called Web 2.0 tools) have all emerged as powerful collaborative tools, but their greatest transformational potential exists within companies and organisations that embed them into their learning strategies. This workshop will review ideas and innovative tools and apply them to solving the real world needs of learning environments in organisations.

Agenda:

What is Social Software?

Underpinning concepts in a learning context - social learning theories

Your context - why are you interested in social software.... how can you apply it in your practice?

Models of teaching: Baumgarten's 3 modes - relate to your context

Examples: the software in practice
- RSS
- Aggregators
- Blogs
- Wikis
- Social bookmarking / tagging eg. Delicious
- Flickr
- Podcasts
- Vodcasts - YouTube
- MySpace
- Second Life

Resources

Review your context now - based on your initial thoughts... how can you apply social software into your practice immediately...

What is Social Software?

Social software refers to the range of applications that augments group interactions and shared spaces for collaboration, social connections, and aggregates information exchanges in a web-based environment.

Social software can also be considered as the major component of the current Web 2.0 definitions and at the focal point of e-Learning 2.0, a term attributed to Stephen Downes in 2005 where he characterises the use of social software applications as “…placing of the control of learning itself into the hands of the learner…”(Downes, 2005, para. 12).

from LT2005: read "Social Software: The Age of Connection and the Connected Learner"

Underpinning Assumptions

communication
social sharing
networking
trusted resources / recommendations
collaboration
self-publishing / creation
subscribing

Social Learning Theories

Social learning theories recognise that learning occurs in a social context through interactions with others and subsequent learning is influenced by observing and modeling the patterns of behaviour (Bandura, 1978).

Publishing and participating online with social software creates a complex sphere of communication. The social structure of the environment comprising of an infinite variety of people, both readers and writers, supporting the structure of network evolution that develops through an ecology of links and connections. The social networking and the collaborative spaces that are created by the personalising of content and sharing of information has been identified as the basis for the human or social dimension for the popularity of the phenomenon currently being observed.

Baumgarten's (2004) Modes of Teaching - Pedagogical Implications

Mode 1: Transfer (Direct Teaching)	Mode 2: Tutor (Facilitated learning)	Mode 3: Coach (Informal Guide)
Programmed instruction	Problem solving	Complex simulations
To teach, to explain	To observe, to help, to demonstrate	To co-operate, to support
To know, to remember	Selection of methods and its use	Realisation of adequate action strategies
Transfer of knowledge	To do, to practise	To cope, to master
	Presentation of pre-determined problems	Action in real situations (complex and social)

Social Software examples:

RSS – syndication & aggregation - Really Simple Syndication – a method of XML-based programming that allows content to be imported into other web pages.

RSS enables readers to subscribe to information (webfeeds) from sites of their choice, monitor updates, and view them in a single page from a web-based service called an aggregator, eg. Bloglines - a free subscriber service.

The power of the aggregator for learners comes from the ability to control and manage the flow of information in a centralised manner.

Collaborative spaces: web-based collaborative publishing spaces such as weblogs, or blogs, have been the core of the increasing popularity of social software and have developed into powerful personal spaces that allow the author to self-publish and organise their information or knowledge.

In addition, the interaction with their readers through comments or linking functions, and the ability to subscribe to updates through syndication tools has been seen the weblog technologies as the foundation to further developments in education.

Other web-based shared spaces like wikis include the functionality to communicate, co-edit documents and web pages, share calendars, view multimedia presentations and build collaborative projects.

The popularity of these applications has been attributed to the ease of use and flexibility which only requires the user to have internet access and no HTML programming skills. Popular examples of free wikis used in educational settings are Wikispaces or PBWiki.

Social bookmarking or tagging with folksonomies - social bookmarking is a web-based application that is similar to a Favourites list in a browser, except that it allows the user to bookmark, manage, publicly publish, comment upon, and create their own tags for each URL they want to share.

The objective is to publish your resources for other people with similar interests. The key to the shared resource is the development of a social tagging system – called folksonomies – derived from the term taxonomy, a hierarchical list or categorisation - the folksonomy focuses on a group of people co-operatively organising information into agreed categories.

In addition, these tags have RSS feeds which can be collected into the learners’ aggregator, becoming a powerful research and resource gathering tool. A prevalent example is Delicious.

Social sharing services – similar to social bookmarking, these are applications that share other services – for example, Flickr is a web-based photo sharing service that uses the folksonomy tagging process to collect and share photos publicly or privately across the web. In the educational context, photos can be gathered for projects and the agreed tagging systems allow collective sharing.
eg. Go to the Flickr site and in the top right hand corner, type "LT2006" into the Search everyone's photos box and hit search. The results will gather all the photos from any Flickr user who has tagged their photos with LT2006.

Podcasts – digital audio files that are downloaded from the internet onto learners’ personal audio playing devices such as iPods, where the content can be listened to at the learners’ convenience.

Podcasting is emerging as one of the most popular current innovations in social software with major research projects investigating the beneficial effects on learning (Impala),and edition 10 of the Knowledge Tree – the Australian e-Journal of flexible learning in vocational education – dedicated entirely to podcasting.

Vodcasts - Here's 2 short videos - or vodcasts - 9minutes each - from Alex Halavais on blogging in education. Not only is the content engaging but they also demonstrate how you can use a site like YouTube and a short message to enrich the learning experience!

Part 1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2LA-OzkEKe4

Part 2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=41l9D0i9ZVo

Developing the Learning Landscape

AnneBB — Tue, 07 Nov 2006 02:41:57 CST

Overview of Workshop 2:

Following on from Workshop 1, participants will create a learning landscape with social software that fosters collaborative learning in corporate or education environments. Participants will learn how to set-up a blog (or work with an existing one), create a wiki environment, manage content aggregation through RSS feeds, develop networked research tools like Del.icio.us, and create a shared photo space with Flickr.

Participants will need access to a valid email account (through web-based mail). There are no pre-requisite levels of digital literacy required for this workshop - however attendance at workshop 1 will provide the foundation knowledge to inform the structure of your learning landscape.

Agenda:

Create, publish, distribute
Blogs - Edublogs
Wikis - Wikispaces / PBWiki / Wetpaint
Social Bookmarking - Delicious
Social Sharing - Flickr

Subscribe, read, re-create
RSS Aggregators - Bloglines
Pageflakes

Collaborate
Gliffy
Gabbly

Create, publish, distribute

Blogs - some technical features:

a type of website with entries displayed in reverse chronological order (most recent first)
Archives of previous posts stored (often by month, year)
Categories: - assigned to posts, allows effective content management for author and reader. A form of personalised micro-content management
Permalink: Each post in a weblog is assigned a unique URL that facilitates the viewing and/or retrieval of an individual post
Comments: Allows readers to provide feedback - weblog author can moderate these
Link Lists: Displayed in the side bars - can be used as useful URLs, lists of other weblogs the author reads - could be viewed as a source of personal recommendations
Trackbacks and Pings: The trackback feature was designed to provide a method of notification between weblog authors. It is used to notify another weblog author that you have written about a particular post on their weblog - it is a method of person A saying to person B, “This is something you may be interested in.” To do that, person A sends a TrackBack ping to person B. This notification is called a ping – the alert is often received in email format or through the weblog software. This feature is the underpinning process of developing and maintaining dialogue across distributed conversations within a network.
RSS & Syndication: Most weblogs have the ability to publish content in a XML format known as RSS
Personalisation of layout: weblogs hosted by a web-based service usually offer a number of template or page designs, called blogskins. These can be easily changed and modified without the need for sophisticated programming and web layout skills. The individualisation of the look and feel permits the weblogger to express their personality and portray an indication of the site purpose to their readers

Create your own blog - or work on an existing one:
Free, hosted weblogs for educators - based on WordPress technology
Edublogs

Wikis : some technical features

easily editable web pages - with levels of access
based on wiki-text. Each piece of software varies slightly - so spend a little time familiarising yourself.
History of edits - each page can display a history of edits
Tagging - most software now includes tagging features
Rich media - some products now support the inclusion of rich media (video, images etc)
Comments - most products includea comments or discussion area for each page
PDF pages - some products can save pages from the wiki into PDF files
File repository - some products have file storage areas for additional documents
RSS - some products have RSS capabilities to distribute information. Additionally, some products have capabilities to subscribe to information and display results on the wiki

Create your own wiki - or work on an existing one

Social Bookmarking: Del.icio.us
Using the web-based program Delicious - develop shared resources, search for others with similar interests - based on folksonomy tagging systems.
Capture a Delicious feed and publish it on your blog or wiki.

Social Sharing: Flickr
Using Flickr - a web-based photo-sharing site - publish photos publicly, to friends and family or keep them private. Search for photos on a specific topic - using tags share photos with others eg. LT2006!
Create slide shows and soooo much more.

Subscribe, read, re-create

Managing information is one of the biggest challenges we currently face - that's where RSS can help!
To subscribe to sites with RSS feeds, we need an aggregator - like Bloglines.
Once you have your account we can subscribe and manage our information - when we choose!

Now - you can also pull some of those feeds into another site - eg. you can add a Flickr badge to your blog, or your Delicious bookmarks....
Or - you can use a program like PageFlakes to gather everything into the same place.

Resources

AnneBB — Mon, 06 Nov 2006 04:22:27 CST

Further References:

Bandura, A. 1977, Social Learning Theory, Prentice Hall, USA.

Bartlett-Bragg, A. 2006, "Reflections on pedagogy: Reframing practice to foster informal learning with social software", Informal Learning and Digital Media conference, 21 - 23 September, University of Southern Denmark, Odense, Denmark.

Baumgartner, P., 2004,’The Zen Art of Teaching – Communication and Interactions in eEducation’, Internal Workshop ICL2004, Kassel University Press, Villach, Austria.

Blackall, L., 2005, ‘Digital literacy: how it affects teaching practices and networked learning futures – a proposal for action research’, The Knowledge Tree, Edition 7, October.

Cook, T., 2006, Social Media,

Downes, S., 2005, ‘E-learning 2.0’, eLearn Magazine, October

Educause Learning Intitiative: 7 Things You Should Know About... Series

Mejias, U., 2005, ‘A Nomad’s Guide to Learning and Social Software’, The Knowledge Tree, Edition 7, October