Social software in education

Social Software in Education

Andrej Afonin

Web 2.0 definition

• Web 2.0 is commonly associated with web applications which facilitate interactive information sharing, interoperability, user-centered design and collaboration on the World Wide Web.

• Examples of Web 2.0 include– Web-based communities– Hosted services– Web applications– Social-networking sites– Video-sharing sites– Wikis– Blogs– Mashups– Folksonomies

Social Software definition

• A range of web-based software that allows users to interact and share data with other users

• The one that enables people to rendezvous, connect or collaborate through computer-mediated collaboration.

• Software that enables groups interaction and knowledge sharing

What do we mean by ‘social software’?

What will I learn here?

• RSS and Atom feeds• Social Bookmarking• Blogging• Wiki• Photo Sharing• Video services• Podcasting

What is RSS and Atom feeds?• RSS is an acronym that stands for Rich Site Summary, through it’s

often alternatively defined as Real Simple Sindication, based on XML technology

• Similarly Atom is another format based on XML technology

• RSS and Atom feeds are the structures that organize content that is being updated on a regular basis in order for other to retrieve it.

• Content– Articles– blog posts– photos– PDF documents– PowerPoint presentations– audio files– video files– …

How can I use feeds?• The information contained in the

RSS feed is accessed by a piece of software called an aggregator.

• The aggregator holds a list of web sites and resources that offer RSS feeds. When it’s opened the aggregator retrieves the information from each RSS feed page listed.

• The aggregator may be a desktop application, a browser or mail application extension, or web-based, some of them are commercial products and others are freeware.

Using an Online Aggregator - Blogglines

Social Bookmarking

A web-based service to share Internet bookmarks

• Store bookmark!• Tag it!• Share it!

• Search by tag• Search by user

Social Bookmarking ideas• Create a set of resources that could be

accesses on any computer connected to the internet

• Conduct research and share that research with your peers

• Group of students doing a classroom project sharing their bookmarks

• Create shared account for a group of teachers with a same field of interest

• Rate and review bookmarks to help student decide on usefulness of resource

• Setup a group of tag in order to share educational resources

• Discover information shared by others by tags• Evaluate the popularity of the resource by

examining its rating• Subscribe a feed to have up to date data

What is a blog?

• The word blog is shortened from the word "weblog." It is often inaccurately described as an online diary that is subscribable, organized in categories, and displayed in reverse chronological order.

• A blog is similar to an empty book, it is how we use the book that turns it into something. This book can be anything we want it to be from a sketchbook, a diary, a dictionary or writing portfolio it depends on the content that we put into this book.

What is a blog?

• Blogs offer the ability to archive content that is posted by date.

• The commenting feature of blogs allow for immediate feedback on a posting.

• The content that can be posted to a blog can be text, images, files, audio and video.

• Publishing postings to an intranet or the internet can by done quickly and easily.

Blogging ideas

• Use blogs for real-world writing experience

• Pill class blogs into one area for easy tracking

• Prolong discussions outside of the classroom

• Quickly give feedback to students, and students to each other

• Students using peer network to develop their own knowledge

• Update new information such as homework and assignments

• Encourage students to help each other with their writing

What is Wiki?

• A wiki is a type of free on-line writing space that allows users to add, modify and update its pages. It is essentially a fully editable web site.

• One of the most obvious benefits of using a wiki is the ability to offer a quick way to collaborate textually.

What is Wiki?

• A Wiki, allows multiple authors to contribute and edit shared document.

• Changes to the document are tracked, making it easy to revert to earlier version.

• A wiki gives the classroom teacher– the ability to offer the class

collaborative document to work on– negotiate meaning– construct knowledgeknowledge

Wiki ideas• Use for students projects where group

members need to contribute at different times and from different geographical locations

• Use for collaborating on ideas and organizing documents for students

• As a group research project for specific area

• Manage school and classroom documents

• Create and maintain classrooms FAQ• A place to aggregate web resources

More ideas…

• Photo Sharing– Flickr– Google Picasa

• Video Sharing– You Tube– Google Video– TeacherTube.com– MyLearningTube.com

• Audio Sharing– podcasting

Multimedia sharing ideas• Share, comment, and add notes to images to be used

in the classroom• Embed your photos into your school or class web

space• Inspire writing and creativity• Create storybook using shared images• Find photos that can be used by students/teachers that

are under creative commons license• Use photos to enhance students classroom work• Promote and document school events in order to share

photos with school community• Create digital portfolios where students/teachers can

comment on the photos that are included• Video professional development on your own terms• Create your own subject specific videos with students• Use video sharing sites to find videos on current issues

Audio blogging and podcasting

• A podcast is a multimedia file that is distributed by subscription (paid or unpaid) over the Internet using syndication feeds, for playback on mobile devices and personal computers

• Use in education– Taking control of your own professional

development– Use audio books to enhance classroom programs– Create classroom radio show and publish it to

authentic audience– Podcast lessons to your students and create audio

lessons archive – Podcast interviews with guests speakers for

students, parents and school community– Share an audio tour of the school or surrounding

areas

Own tools…• Video Lecturing System

ViPS– http://distance.ktu.lt/vips

• CDK– http://distance.ktu.lt/cdk

• ObjectSpot– http://www.objectspot.org

• VideoWiki– http://distance.ktu.lt/videowiki

Own tools in use…• RSS aggregator

– http://distance.ktu.lt/feed-on-feeds

• Social Bookmarking– http://distance.ktu.lt/scuttle

• Wiki– http://distance.ktu.lt/wiki

• Blogging– http://distance.ktu.lt/wordpress

Modern e-Learning conceptions

Virtual labs and remote labs • In virtual lab each experiment is

simulated by using software such as LABVIEW, MATLAB, ORCAD

• The remote lab is designed to provide real-time experience to students via Internet

Mobile Learning• Any sort of learning that happens

when learner is not at a fixed, predefined location, or learning takes advantage of the learning opportunities offered by mobile technologies.

Game based learning• Game based learning (GBL) is a branch of serious

games that deals with applications that have defined learning outcomes. Generally they are designed in order to balance the subject matter with the game play and the ability of the player to retain and apply said subject matter to real world

• Benefits– Motivating learners to succeed and to continually improve– Fostering self-esteem, self determination and enhancing

self-image– Facilitating collaborative learning– Implicitly develop learners ability to observe, question,

hypothesise and test– Facilitate metacognitive reflection– Develop complex problem-solving skills– Make school an exiting place to be– Offering inroads into other curricular areas

Virtual reality• Virtual Reality (VR) is an artificial environment

that is created with a help of specialized software and presented to user in a way that he accepts it as a real world replacement.

• virtual reality is a “technology which allows users to interact with a computer-simulated environment, whether that is a simulation of real world or an imaginary world”

• Virtual reality could be divided to two main categories:– The simulation of real environment for training and

education– The development of imaginary environment for

gaming or interactive story

Augmented reality• Augmented reality is a term for a

live direct or indirect view of a physical real-world environment whose elements are merged with (or augmented by) virtual computer-generated imagery – creating a mixed reality.

Thank you

Andrej Afonin

Kaunas University of Technology,Department of Multimedia Engineering,

Research Laboratory of Distance Learning [email protected]