Yevgen Yasynskyy
E-Portfolio
for MDDE 610
Readings & useful links
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Social Networking. (E-Learning: STRIDE Handbook 8 : Anderson T. Mishra S.)
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Study on Effective Use of Social Software (Open University UK)
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Facebook(Facebook);
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Landing (Athabasca University Landing);
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Twitter (Twitter);
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Learnist (Learnist)
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Delicious (Delicious)
How would I use what I learned
Many people are using social software: Facebook, Twitter, PIntrest, Instagram; and I am one of them. I use Facebook everyday to share my thoughts, follow on the topics I am interested in and keep in touch with my family and freinds all over the world.
Although social software is very popular for personal use it has its use in education, allowing people to collaborate, share resourses and learn. Athabasca University using Landing as social platform, and I will explore its potential for use in education. I think Landing has potential for use in education and course design, but must be use with care due to increased workload and high learnign curve on learners and teachers.
I also discovered new social software website Learnist that is open for people all around the world to share their interests in learning. Learnist could be an excelent resource for people who wants to connect with other people of similar interest all around the world.
I can see different use for those two, mentioned above websites, as their purposeis very different. Landing could connect learners with your classmates, teachers or alumni; where Learnist could connect learners all around the world.
Social Software
As we know there are too types of learning: formal and informal. Most of the informal learning is social, but todays trends in education and technology pushing to a growth in social learning, even in formal education. Learning within the family, friends, colleagues setting, socialisation, is a large part of most our learning experiences. We also learn about our culture through social groups and through work, by experience and social interaction. That is where social software comes to play: bringing our social learning and introducing it through technology.
In 2009 Open University of UK published a report on study of effective use of social software in further and higher education, that addresses benefits and issues of use of social software in education.
Blogs, wikis, social networking websites, such as Facebook and Learnist, and social bookmarking sites, such as Delicious, are examples of some of the tools that are being used to share and collaborate in educational, social, and business contexts.
Social software identified with sharing of resources, collaborative learning, problem-based and inquiry-based learning, reflective learning, and peer-to-peer learning. Students gain transferable skills of team working, online collaboration, negotiation, and communication, individual and group reflection, and managing digital identities. Although these tools enhance a student’s sense of community, sharing and collaboration brings in additional responsibility and workload, which some students find inflexible and rather ‘forced’. It also brings great concerns about privacy and the public nature of the tools for their academic activities.
Teachers’ role is also changing from being a provider of information to a facilitator or moderator, which raises training needs, workload issues, and adjusting to a new way of teaching. Educational institutions face a questions of adopting tools in the pubic domain over which they have no control.
Athabasca University (AU) research project Landing using version of Elgg as social networking tool within institution. AU customized it for use of staff and students in the institution and also allows to invite external users. Below is example of the Landing profile :
Landing has many features: blogs, wire posts, calendar, polles, wikis etc. See an example of features in Landing social software on the right.
Users can create theirs social network by following people based on theirs educational or personal interests. That will allow user to receive updates, similar to the social networking site Twitter.
Also Landing supports groups (on the left). Users can join or create groups which can be used for group projects, collaborative and peer-to-peer learning. Use of Landing in educational settings can be beneficial but I believe it can not be forced on students or staff, as it is adding additional level of complexity to the courses they learn or teach.