... and here is the lesson I've yet to mention for those implementing social technologies - no matter how good the software (and I'm convinced we're using the best there is), it is still entirely dependent on the community who use it and the fickle nature of people. I have absolutely no worries regarding the reliability of our servers or the technologies driving the service but I do lie awake at night worrying whether the wind will change and we'll suddenly find ourselves with a community that has virtual tumble weed blowing through it. So far that's not happened - far from it in fact, but there's always the possibility...

Thanks,

Stan

Following a comment over at Explode, I've done some further thinking about how we explain the potential of Elgg to our academics. Up to now, we've done a lot of talking and prepared the usual "point & click" help documents i.e. the "How" but we've done very little in the way of "why". So, what follows, are  my immediate thoughts and how they may be structured. I'm not an educator and don't regularly teach students so always feel slightly nervous about making statements about the "whys" when there are plenty of real experts out there who probably know much more than me! Consequently, I post these thoughts here in an effort to develop a collective sense of what might form a comprehensive set of "whys" which we could work into a coherent set of documentation - the view being that we make the results available in the documentation wiki on elgg.org for everyone to access:

• Personal learning
  • Reflection
  • ePortfolio & presenting to others
  • Presenting work for analysis/feedback by peers
  • Capture the moment - moblogging - including captuiring and posting photos and videoa captured on mobile phone cameras
• Sharing information
  • podcasting
  • sharing files - Word, Powerpoint etc
  • Sharing media - videos flash, audio
• Adding to traditional course work
• Everyone can participate - not just tutors - all can contribute resources, comment, reflections etc
• Group work
• Refined privacy - make available to exactly who you want
• Discussion boards+ - easily add files, video, podcasts to a forum-style presentation
• breaking barriers
  • Spanning courses - communities of like minds - no longer restricted to the course/module structure - students and staff can form communities of interest across courses boundaries
• Breaking institutional barriers - external participation - invites the experts, connect to current research etc
• access to external resources - RSS
• Bringing in resources from elsewhere - dashboard brings together other networks - Flickr, De.Lic.ious, MySpace, YouTube
• Students & Staff linking with other students from other institutions - Explode
• Socialising
  • Making friends and discovering similar minds
• Socialising across campuses
• Student support - the whole community an contribute
• Just having your say - and being part of the community
• Modern and appealing to students
• Evolution through the community of users

Having attended last year's conference I can say it was a very enjoyable day full of interesting conversations and mutual support so hopefully, if we go for a similar event in Brighton it will be as useful.