Guidance Teachers Visit May 6 th 2009 Roger McDermott Colin Beagrie Daniel Doolan

2 Social Software in Education Plan Introduction Social Software What is it? What can it be used for? Varieties of Software RGU School of Computing Examples First Year Blogs Hands-on session Twitter

3

4 Social Software Two Aspects Social software is sometimes defined as software that supports group interaction Web 2.0-based social media tools such as blogs, wikis, social bookmarking tools, and collaborative authoring environments. Social software can is also defined as software that supports user-generated content, i.e. content generated by the people that use the website rather than content specially prepared by the site providers. Social Networking, e.g. Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter Video sharing, e.g. Youtube, Podcasting, e.g. iTunes

5 Social Networking Sites List of Social Networking sites Facebook The Wall Multimedia content Example MySpace Bulletin Boards Example

6

7

8

9 Social Networking Sites Bebo Example Twitter Example 1 Example 2 LinkedIn Example Example 2

10 Social Networking Sites Dangers

11 Blogs Vast(!!) number of blogs As of December 2007, blog search engine Technorati was tracking more than 112 million blogs. Lots of blog directories Creation is easy using blogging software Blogger Templates Wordpress Themes

12 Educational Blogs Educational blogs form a subset of these. Commentary on issues, e.g. elearnspaceelearnspace Dissemination of ideas and events, e.g. Leeds UniLeeds Uni General school sites, e.g. edubuzz, edublogs,edubuzzedublogs School blogs e.g. AberladyAberlady e.g. CulterCulter

13 Flickr Images and Photos Found at Conventional browsing Less conventional browsing Retrievr Tags Interestingness

14 Wikis Wikipedia Other examples Ideas Wikis in Education Guides Wikis in Plain English Wiki Walk-through Interview GCSE History Wiki

15 Other Tools Social Bookmarking/Recommendation Tools Del.icio.us Digg StumbleUpon What We Havent Talked About Collaborative Authoring Tools, e.g. Google Docs Video, e.g. Youtube Pod/VodCasting, e.g. iTunes See

16 Computer supported cooperative work

17 How-to Guides Lots of sources of information Google Mashable Lifehack

18 Blogs As part of the redesigned Foundation Year, students were required to keep a personal blog which detailed their learning journey throughout the year. The ability of readers to comment on publicly accessible material encourages a conversational approach to reflection with incorporation of and reflection on different types of narrative.

Guidance Teachers Visit, May Students required to keep a personal blog detailing their learning journey throughout the year. Forms part of an e-portfolio of work which would accompany the student throughout their course of study, Forms the basis of further activities in later years, Tried to encourage a conversational approach to reflection on different types of narrative. Seeks to develop framework for critical analysis and reflection Activities form the basis of PDP strategy aimed at enhancing employability. Personal Reflective Blog

Guidance Teachers Visit, May The Theory… Students can articulate a personal learning narrative that is provisional but still locally coherent. Promote interaction with feedback and commentary from colleagues and tutors. Integrate personal reflective activity with social character of blogging Can be used to enhance both autonomous and collaborative aspects of learning. Why Use Reflective Learning Blogs?

Guidance Teachers Visit, May The Student Blogging Environment

Guidance Teachers Visit, May The Student Blogging Environment

Guidance Teachers Visit, May The Student Blogging Environment