What is social software?

Social software is a term used widely in the current media and educational climate.  But when we use the term 'social software', what are we actually talking about?  We use the term, but do we actually understand what it means?

The term social software has been around since 2002 (McLoughlin & Lee, 2007), and seems to be used most commonly with the term Web 2.0.  In fact understanding the meaning of the one supports understanding of the other, as one does not seem to exist without the other.  I will attempt to define Web 2.0 and social software in terms of how they relate and co-exist.

Web 2.0 can be traced back to the time of the dot.com crash in 2001, when O'Reilly Media and MediaLive International noted the common characteristics of those companies and start-ups that were weathering the dot.com storm  (O'Reilly, 2005).  They identified Web 2.0 as the second generation of the Web, in which web use and tool creation has focused more specifically on collaboration and communication.  It emphasises interaction, involvement, collaboration and sharing of ideas and knowledge amongst internet users.  Some well known Web 2.0 applications include:

• blogs
• wikis
• RSS (Really Simple Syndication)
• podcasting
• social network sites
• media sharing sites

Social software can be defined as 'software that supports group interaction' (Shirky, 2003), and appears to be a fairly new term that has come about with the rise of social interaction and collaboration on the Web 2.0.  McLoughlin and Lee argue that the Internet has always had elements of social group interaction (email, discussion boards and chat rooms), but that Web 2.0 has afforded the introduction of social softwares that not only encourage social interaction, feedback, conversation and networking, but "are also endowed with a flexibility and modularity that enables collaborative remixability – a transformative process in which the information and media organised and shared by individuals can be recombined and built on to create new forms, concepts, ideas, mashups and services."  (McLoughlin & Lee, 2007). 

Some examples of social software:

• Wikipedia
• Facebook / Myspace
• Flickr - image sharing
• YouTube
• Blogger / Edublog
• Evernote
• de.lic.ious
• Second Life / Meez

A perfect demonstration of 'collaborative remixability' is Wikipedia, a site many of us know.  A quick search of the Wikipedia site uncovers the workings of the site in which an online, collaborative encyclopedia is written by volunteers who are not paid.  Anyone with Internet access is able to write articles and edit those written by others, meaning that the encyclopedia is constantly updated and changed by its users (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:About). 

Wikipedia doesn't follow the same rules as printed reference material.  Anyone can contribute, and while policies and guidelines have been created by Wikipedia users based on the 'Five Pillars', contributors are not required to read or understand them before they add to the site.  Wikipedia is collaborative effort that relies upon the honesty and integrity of its authors, but in no way is able to asure users of it's accuracy or truth. 

In reality, as a user of Wikipedia, we are agreeing to the principles of it's creation and must acknowledge the importance of verification and rigor in our own learning and research.  We can not and should not assume that everything that we read is true and this is something we need to teach children from a relatively early age.  As users of social software, we must be aware and receptive interactors within these technological environments.

While social software has many great potential uses within education, it also brings with it key issues of social and personal responsibility when operating in online environments. In future weeks I hope to examine many of the issues surrounding learning in an online environment, as well as discussing the role of blended learning in modern classrooms.  I look forward to my next post.


References:

ICT: Providing choices for learners and learning. Proceedings ascilite Singapore 2007: O'Reilly, T. (2005) 'What is Web 2.0: Design Patterns and Business Models for the Next Generation of Software', O'Reilly Media: Spreading the Knowledge of Technology Innovators, http://oreilly.com/web2/archive/what-is-web-20.html.

McLoughlin, C. & Lee, M. J. W. (2007). Social software and participatory learning: Pedagogical choices with technology affordances in the Web 2.0 era. In
http://www.ascilite.org.au/conferences/singapore07/procs/mcloughlin.pdf.

Shirky, C. (2003) ‘A group is its own worst enemy: Social structure in social software’, Paper presented at the O'Reilly Emerging Technology conference, Santa Clara, CA, April 24, 2003: http://www.shirky.com/writings/group_enemy.html.

Back again

I've been away for a while and have decided to renew my interest in blogging in order to share ideas, useful sites and anything else that comes to mind that may be useful.  I begin the planning stage of my Doctoral thesis this year, and I would like to attempt to produce regular blogs in the hopes that it will encourage me to organise my thinking and plan my research, time and work effectively. 

I am interested in the role of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in student learning, be it at primary, secondary or tertiary level.  My research will likely explore ways to teach pre-service teachers how to use and integrate ICTs into their classroom practice in a manner that is conducive to inquiry, creativity, personal and group harmony and the development of a life long love of learning.  I want to do this by gaining insights from all areas of education, the students, the pre-service teachers, the mentoring teachers, principals, lecturers, tutors, parents, the whole shabang! 

Whether this will actually be possible within the scope of my research is another matter entirely.  I figure it is best to aim big and whittle my ideas down to a finely honed piece of research, rather than maintaining boring or limited ambitions.  I have found in recent years that things don't always happen as you might anticipate, so it is best to have a go and see what happens.

I would like to also share a different website each time I blog in order to actually contribute to the wider educational community.  My website for today is:

http://www.writingfun.com/writingfun2010.html

This is a website I used to use regularly in my teaching, and now tell all my students about in lectures and workshops / tutes etc.  It is a fantastic site for anyone who wants to teach writing.  Heaps of exemplars, all with linguistic structures and features. 

Have a good week.

The Potential of the LMS

Having viewed a few of the other VLEs of the FLE class, I have had a re-think or I guess have been reminded of the use of LMSs as part of a VLE (or Virtual Learning Environment). A LMS is a 'Learner Management System', usually an online space that provides a variety of tools for teachers and schools. This is in an educational sense, but the concept of the LMS began in the commercial sector and has only in recent years been taken on more comprehensively by the education sector.
Learning Circuits, an e-learning provider for the commercial sector, provides two definitions of LMSs: From IDC - "a software application that automates the administration, tracking, and reporting of training events". eLearning Age - "software systems used to collect and analyze data relating to existing and developing skills of a workforce."

Within education this tends to be online learning environments that provide a range of functions, including class and teacher homepages that can house: calendars, quizzes, surveys, learning tasks, links to outside learning, discussion boards, forums and lots more. I think they are a great way to house all the aspects of a diverse Virtual Learning Environment in one place. They allow for user, manager and editor interaction and give classes and learning groups the opportunity to share opinions, thoughts and learning.

I'd really like to hear what other's think of the role of LMSs. Here are some that I have read or heard about:

• Blackboard: lots of universities use this
• MyClasses: Telecom NZ (Not sure if AU as well?
  
• Ultranet otherwise known as KiwiSchools
  
• Having trouble remembering others - anyone else know of any good ones?
  

Assignment 2 -Link

This is the link to my VLE on a wetpaint wiki. It is called 'All About The Smarts' and asks learners to use the levels of Bloom's Taxonomy to learn about The Smarts, otherwise known as Gardner's Multiple Intelligences.

Avatars in teaching

I have just been looking at creating avatars recently. I think they are great because they give people who aren't necessarily great artists the chance to develop realistic portraits of characters they have created. How fun would it be to get students to do character description this way! Create a character, write a character description, then move on to story writing, and put it all on a blog. This would be very engaging for students of most ages, and blogs would allow them to view each other's work, making more authentic audiences.

Digital Natives

When I spoke about Sisomo several weeks ago I attempted to quote something someone said on the Apple Bus Tour I went on in early April. Thanks to Dorothy Burt from Pt. England School I now have the actual quote about teachers of the 20th century.

“One of the challenges of the 20th century was that we spent most of it trying to perfect 19th century schools.” Stephen Heppell

This quote has a strong resonance for me, as I believe it is vital that we all make sure we don't do this with this century.

Assignment 2 Outline

For this project I will be running a wiki for the teaching team I lead. We will be investigating the Multiple Intelligences through the following social software:

– Wikipedia
– Stumbleupon – a tool that enables users to follow the most common next step of other visitors to a particular website.
– Social bookmarking – del.icio.us
– Facebook or myspace

People in my team will follow the steps of Bloom's Taxonomy to learn about the Multiple Intelligences. I will paste an outline below - I think it will change as I plan and implement the project because of the nature of a wiki, and because I am not completely happy with it at the moment.

1. Remember – Define or outline the Multiple Intelligences using Wikipedia.
2. Understand – Review the wikipedia definition, based on other sites they have found and bookmarked using del.icio.us.
3. Apply – Use stumbleupon to find where people go after wikipedia – where do they go and why?
4. Analyse – Take the Multiple Intelligences quiz – present your results on the wiki, including an image of quiz results and an explanation of how undergoing this quiz could be valuable to students (with references).
5. Evaluate – Use facebook or myspaces to find people who learn like you do, with your strengths or weaknesses and find out how they perceive the Intelligences (this is the main step I’m still not sure about, but definitely want to include facebook in some way).
6. Create – a voicethread or podcast of your learning about the Multiple Intelligences. Include a definition, an outline of your results, other people you know of that think like you, and how the Intelligences can support 21st century learners. Post on the wiki and use footprints to get other people to view & give feedback.

Would welcome any comments or thoughts!!!

Jafari Model

(http://edutechwiki.unige.ch/en/Personal_learning_environment)

This is an interesting model to consider in developing Learning Environments for students. When working on my thesis (unfortunately no more) I conducted an action research project into 'The Wiki as Collaborative Learning Tool'. While working at my previous school we were trying to choose an effective LMS and investigated ways to integrate LMSs with other online technologies. This model is useful to consider in such an undertaking. Thanks to Bill for the link to Edutechwiki!

Podcasting at Pt. England - take 2

Having had a bit more of a look round at everyone else's blogs has made me realise I need to say less and add more to my blog. Pt. England was a school I visited recently on the Apple Bus Tour. It was a low decile school in Auckland that has effectively used podcasting to improve literacy levels in their students.

Students in year five read NZ books, then podcast their reviews of what they have read. From what I understand the process they follow is:

1. Read a book.
2. Review it.
3. Turn into a podcast - script, record, edit, etc.
4. School elearning facilitator publishes to the school's blog.
5. Students leave footprints around the web to encourage visitors to their blog.
6. People view. They use RSS to monitor use and FEEDJIT to track who visits the site from around the world.

Dorothy Burt, the leader for elearning at the school conducted research into the programme during 2007 as part of an elearning Fellowship. Authentic audience in an online environment has proved the key to success in this school, as students found this to be the number one motivating factor. Knowing that people from anywhere in the world can view their work has been hugely motivating.

Podcasting at Pt. England

Will add to this later - I have started writing about this five times and just can't get going. Time to stop I think. Will have a go at adding my Inspiration notes.

Sisomo

I just wrote about Sisomo on the 'Flexible Learning Environments' discussion board, and thought I might continue along this vein for my next contribution to this blog.

Sisomo, or the concept of selling through Sight, Sound and Motion has powerful potential in modern classrooms. We all know the concept of the 'Digital Native, Digital Immigrant'. The Digital Native is our modern learner - the K to 12 students that are first generation to grow up in a digital world full of technology. These learners are natives to the technologies that the rest of us 'Immigrants' are having to learn to come to grips with.

Some examples of these digital technologies are: the Internet, Web 1.0, Web 2.0, social software, Computers, email, PlayStation, Wii, Xbox, wikis, blogs, myspace, bebo, podcasting, ipods, cellphones, mp3 players, computer games, console games; and the list could literally go on and on.

The point however is that these modern Digital Natives are swamped with a multitude of stimuli on a regular basis that they are both comfortable and confident with using. The regular chalk and talk classroom of the 19th and 20th century bore these students - because they don't involve the Sight, Sound and Motion they are exposed to in their lives outside of the classroom.

While I was on the Apple Bus Tour in Auckland and Tauranga recently, one phrase I heard stood out to me. As educators we spent most of the 20th century getting our heads around teaching in the 19th century (sorry I can't remember exactly who said it - I'll get back to you on that one). Styles and ways of teaching were very similar in terms of technology for most of this time. Our teaching methods and strategies have diversified but our use of technology in teaching and learning have only been truly highlighted in the 21st century.

As Digital Immigrants who grew up in the 'pre-digital' age, it is now our job to engage and motivate Digital Native learners in the 'language' that most appeals to them. Keeping it world oriented is going to engage and motivate them. As a Digital Immigrant who is trying to learn this new language, Sisomo appeals. Keeping it simple and to these principles may make it easier to keep on track - remember we don't have to know it all - they're the Natives - I think I'll let them teach me.

Defining Social Software Learning Environments

I just posted my thoughts on Social Software Learning Environments in the course Wiki Definitions of Social Software. From now on I will use the acronym SSLE so that it makes life easier for my fingers when typing for this subject.

I will paste my comments below, as I quite liked what I had figured out, once I finally got there. It is not an easy concept to attempt to define and I found other's comments particularly useful in developing my thoughts and opinions. I felt Annabel raised a great question with regards to email and websites, and I attempted to cover this in my definition.

Social softwares are tools that encourage discourse - communication, interaction and some form or sense of collaboration. They may be real time or more like wiki, blog and discussion board technology where people read and respond to threads in their own time. The emphasis is on the collaboration that is required from the wider community. It is not something that one person can or should do independently, but rather the value is gained from the interaction of the group.

Even with the blog - a journal like space, the blogger is encouraged by the knowledge that they will have a wider audience than themself, and the possible feedback or interaction this may entail. Email and websites are technologies or tools that we can all use independent of the collaboration or interaction of others and still maintain some success. They can simply divulge information without asking anything in return. Social software requires more of its users.

A learning environment is a situation in which an individual or group has the various materials or tools needed to learn. These 'tools' can be as simple as a book and a piece of paper to jot ideas on, or as complicated as the modern classroom with its various teaching and learning styles, strategies and scenarios. But is every learning environment successful?

In order to be successful a learning environment requires a sense of meaning that is being developed and explored, support for the learning needs of those participating in the environment, structure that ensures participants understand expectations and collaboration that adds value (http://www.webs1.uidaho.edu/ele/Definitions/ele.htm).

A social software learning environment (SSLE) blends the above factors in an online environment. An SSLE is not any one item of social software used independently, but rather the effective combined use of various social softwares in an interactive manner. The emphasis is on the quality of discourse and interaction taking place, and as a result the quality of learning that ensues. A SSLE requires both a thoughtful individual weaving together their own learning experiences, but also the contributions and interactions of others to ensure the learning is meaningful, varied and critical.

Time4 Online Conference

I know I've already written a lot for today, but wanted to include a bit about the Time4 Online Conference. This site is fantastic - heaps of great seminars about Web 2.0, collaborative learning online, and other vital factors for modern reflective educators to consider. I recommend this site to anyone wanting to get some ideas about Web 2.0 and teaching and learning online.

Wikis and Web 2.0

I actually got really interested in Web 2.0 last year when I was trying to come up with what I was going to do for a Thesis action research paper. I have since transferred across to coursework and the subject 'Flexible Learning Environments' but have done a large literature review encompassing wiki technology, collaborative learning and online learning environments, which are also part of the Web 2.0 phenomenon.

I am having trouble accessing all the Inspiration documents I created when reviewing the documents as I have recently made the move to a MacBook, but will endeavour to recall some good articles that got me off to a good start. Inspiration is a great brainstorming programme that I use to review and plan. Its great to use with kids too - they love organising their ideas this way.

• Wiki as a Teaching Tool - This is a great article from the Interdisciplinary Journal of Knowledge and Learning Objects and is written by Kevin Parker of Idaho State University and Joseph Chao of Bowling Green State University. The article examines the literature on wikis in education, listing various uses for the technology and things that need to be considered in using the technology in these ways. It also includes a useful discussion of approached to learning with wikis, including cooperative / collaborative learning, and the constructivist view.
• Using Wikis in Schools: A Case Study - Another useful resource, this article from FutureLab in the UK attempts to define what wikis are, and reviews the literature and research in the field. It looks into the connection between wikis and communities of practice and knowledge-building networks, and goes on to outline a case study of wiki use in collaborative writing. It is helpful in identifying issues to consider when creating wiki learning resources for learners of all ages.
• Is There Space for the Teacher in a Wiki? - This is an area of obvious area of interest for all teachers considering creating wiki learning spaces. When I did my class wiki last year - this article was invaluable in getting me thinking in the right direction before I started. It examines the balance between activity design and goal development, as well as how wiki design can support collective cognition and how the teacher teaches in this new knowledge collective.
• Wiki as a Tool for Web-based Collaborative Story Telling in Primary School: A Case Study - Published in 2005 for the World Conference of Educational Multimedia, Hypermedia and Telecommunications, this article Desilets and Paquet outlines a detailed case study of wiki use in collaborative story telling. This article was particularly useful to the planning and organisation of my wiki and encouraged me to think about the way I structured my learning teams, the role individuals would have in these teams, and the role of myself as both an instructor and co-collaborator.

Well these are a few of the more helpful articles I have read. I have just contacted the Inspiration company regarding transferring PC documents to a MacBook, and then I will hopefully be able to add more for everyone to use. I will also try to add any Inspiration documents I create from now on for the articles we are reading in class. Hope this is all somewhat useful.

Introductory Blog

Hi all who are reading this.  This is my contributing blog for the subject - Flexible Learning Environments.  Not my first blog - but looking forward to adding to this in the future.  

I am working in New Zealand, was born in QLD and trained to teach in Melbourne.  Currently I am a syndicate leader at a large normal school in Wellington.  Normal schools support trainee teachers by having heaps of them and being closely affiliated with the Universities training teachers.  I teach year 3 / 4 which is 7 and 8 year olds.  Previously I taught at an Intermediate school, which is year 7 / 8 - eleven and twelve year olds.

During term four of last year I ran a class wiki using wikispaces.com. We investigated the role of images in 'Events that have changed the world'.  This was a great learning experience for myself and my class, and a huge part of my teaching development in 2007.  This year I am getting back to my Masters study and plan to finish at the end of 2009.  

I will keep posting and chatting with you all.  Hope to hear from people soon.