Here are the slides associated with two talks I gave yesterday on Blogging and Social Networking for the University of Florida Libraries Technology Expo 2008.
The turn out was greater than I expected (around 25). My goal was to talk on topic for about 10 minutes (15 max) and then open the floor to discussion and conversation. With this size of a group, this format proved to be quite fun and engaging, allowing for local expertise to shared and acknowledged.
Two items that are connected to the Social Networking presentation that I would like to point your attention to:
1) Social Network Sites: Definition, History, and Scholarship by danah m. boyd and Nicole B. Ellison -- a terrific primer for framing a definition of social networks and encapsulating early research associated with social network sites.
2) Why do people participate in social applications? by Josh Bernoff -- a blog post based on associated findings by the people at Forrester Research. Not as academic as the boyd & Ellison piece, but equally compelling in terms of thinking about what motivates people to participate in online social communities.
Other highlights:
At the end of my Social Networks talk, I asked participants what they would like to see in a social networking application. A young undergraduate student promptly raised his hand and said (I am paraphrasing),
I would like to be able to belong to a university network where each course had a socially managed website where students could upload their notes for a particular class, engage in discussions, share resources, collaborate on assignments.
The student was not satisfied that the university's current learning management system was adequate for such student-centered activity. He went on:
This site would be a resource hub, provided to the students by the university, and would be accessible to all students so they can get a sense of what kind of work is associated with a particular course or instructor.
I admit, the smile on my face crossed two county lines! I was amazed at the suggestion and the cooperative and participatory ethos engendered by the student's comment. Responses from other participants in the audience to his suggestion ranged from potential intellectual property issues, issues with the student honor code, as well as student privacy issues. Nevertheless, I imagine there could be a set of norms or ground rules developed outlining what participants in such a system could and could not do.
We're essentially talking about creating and organizing a wiki for each course on campus that could be sorted, viewed, and connected to a larger online social hub for students.
QUESTION:
Is anybody familiar with a similar service? Does this idea ring any bells with you? Your thoughts are dearly encouraged.
Comments
A problem that I have not resolved in my own thought is where the benefit lies in such activities. I am going to say this badly, but people learn by elaborating, extending, and practicing. You have to work with something and make connections. Learning takes effort!
So my problem is that I can see the idea of the collaborative being very valuable for the original set of collaborators! But when it is done, and the second, third, and fourth set of collaborators come along, will they really be learning? Or will they just be interacting superficially with a construct that was substantially built by someone else?
How do you keep this meaningful, when the initial work has been done?
@ awyatt --
You keep an archive of the original class open during course sign-up. Then, students in the next version of the course learn in their own space.
It's comparable to having a discussion of Gatsby -- One group of students discussing the text, adn sharing that discussion, doesn't diminish the value (or eliminate the need) for the next cohort to follow a similar process.
By starting each group in a separate space, you provide each group with the means to break their own ground.
This is also an instance where combining a class-based discussion with an external wiki can be useful -- the wiki gets updated by various classes, but those updates reflect the work that has transpired within the course.
@Bill Fitzgerald
Aha! That makes more sense. I have had instructors try wikis before, but because they did not think through the purpose of the wiki and it did not require new, original content, the students often either a) dismissed the assignment because it was "busy work" and b) felt that copy and pasting was about as much effort as it was worth! Clearly, that sort of result could not be considered a success . . .
The tool that jumps to mind is Ning and while it doesn't contain a wiki, I think it can provide a solution from a different direction. It allows for flexible membership and can be kept private so learners can't see previous versions. It can also be linked to a 3rd party wiki. It isn't owned by the university though and that aspect is something that institutions are still wary of. A solution to that last issue is to install Elgg. That of course comes with its own raft of problems: hardware, staff, customisation. I know that Brighton have a very successful install of Elgg running but I'm not aware of any other universities that have taken the plunge.
The nub of the issue is how we persuade universities to become enablers of education rather than providers. The student that you paraphrase is someone who wants to learn and recognises that he can learn in a socially constructive way. Unfortunately, many academics (and I'm about to stereotype and I know that there are many who don't fit this type!) are unable to see the difference between collaboration and collusion and so would be quite negative about providing social and sharing hubs. While it would likely be beneficial to actually task the students with creating the site and documenting the process and the decisions made in getting there, I think that many of them will be consigned to reading lecture notes and perhaps having a discussion board as their official 'interaction' with their learning. Currently students share their learning through email, facebook, sms and the traditional standby, the coffee bar. An important thing about ning in this respect is that the learners can be given control over the site, to run and manage it in ways that are useful amnd meaningful to them.
Others in the audience alluded to issues around honour codes and plagiarism. These tend to really be issues with assessment design (IMHO) and could largely be designed out by focussing on the process rather than the content produced. This though is an aside to the shifts that need to happen in sections of universities so that they enable learners rather than constrain them.