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Using Social Software for Educational Purposes
by Joan Vinall-Cox, Ph.D. - http://joanvinallcox.wordpress.com/
The World Wide Web and computer-use in general have caused massive changes in how we communicate, and consequently, how we teach and learn. Currently, the Web has changed from a “read-only” environment to a “read/write” space where lack of technical knowledge is no longer a barrier. Anyone who can send and receive email has the skills required to be part of what is called Web 2.0, the Read/Write Web, or Social Media.
Web 2.0, the social web, is of special importance in education for two reasons:
1. It is a superb environment for teaching and learning as it allows, indeed almost demands, collaborative construction and sharing of projects and papers.
2. We must not abandon students to simply a youth-culture use of the social web. They are on it, they understand the technical aspects, but they need to balance what can be a rather unstructured space with an understanding of the possibilities for civil, educational, and business uses.
An Introduction to The Significance of the Social Media for Learning and Teaching
- An Opening Education Report from Futurelab - by Martin Owen, Lyndsay Grant, Steve Sayers and Keri Facer
Regularly Updated Information and Ideas for Using Social Media in Education
In my blog, WebTools for Learners, I write regularly about new web applications and uses for educational purposes. To keep up-to-date, you can follow me there.
Uses of Wikis in Education
Uses of Blogs in Education
- Explanation of blogs - http://www.commoncraft.com/blogs
- Blogs can be set up to be individual or to have groups where everybody can post in the same blog. The teacher can maintain a single blog, allowing student comments, or can set up a group blog where all the members of the class can add posts.
- Blogs can private by setting them up so the readership is limited to the students, or to he students and their parents
- EduBlogs - especially for teaching - http://edublogs.org/ - powered by WordPress, free - http://edublogs.org/10-ways-to-use-your-edublog-to-teach/
- Blogger - easy, familiar, free - https://www.blogger.com/start - blogs here can also be set up to be individual or to have groups to post on.
Other Uses of Social Software - (Knowledge Management)
RSS and Aggregation
Social Bookmarking
- An explanation of social bookmarking - http://www.commoncraft.com/bookmarking-plain-english
- Using del.icio.us, or other social bookmarking tools, you can save links and access them from any online computer.
- You can also categorize or “tag” them for future searching
- You can share all or parts of your collection, a feature which can very useful for sharing a collection of links with classes
- Using tags, you can also find URLs saved by others on the topic you are searching in, which can help you in your search.
Tagging & Folksonomy
Other Applications for Educational Communities
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