Social Computing Tools in the Curriculum

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Social Computing Tools in the Curriculum

• Katie L. Vale, Ed.D.
• Massachusetts Institute of Technology

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Overview

• Social computing tools are applications that
  allow people to create or recreate social
  contexts online.
• They can be useful for collaborative learning,
  self-assessment, constructivist activities,
  personal expression, and project-based work.

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Whats a blog?

• Web-based publication of periodic articles,
  usually in reverse chronological order
• Often subject-based or in diary form
• Typically combine text and graphics, with links
  to other materials
• Easy web publishing without needing to know much
  HTML

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Blogs vs. Wikis

• Blogs generally have a topical element and a
  single author (but not always)
• Wikis are designed to be easy to use
  collaboration spaces for storage of shared
  material.
• Blogs are more like journals Wikis are shared
  reference sites

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Other social computing tools

• IM - AOL, Jabber, Twitter
• Frappr, Flickr, YouTube
• Del.icio.us
• Reddit
• Digg
• SecondLife
• Friendster, Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn

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Whats so great about blogs?

• Tool for personal reflection
• Citizen journalism
• Forum for publishing your views or expertise
• Reader feedback

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Freshman Advising Seminar

• Taught a freshman seminar on reflective practice,
  Fall 05 and 06
• Nearly all freshmen already had blogs (MySpace,
  Facebook, Xanga, etc.)
• Also set up private, class-only blogs via IST
  Blog Service (as per MIT student privacy policy)

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Seminar topics Personal Reflection

• MIT Admissions blogs - What MIT is really like
  for students
• Dooce.com - irreverent diary of a woman coping
  with unemployment, post-partum depression,
  parenting, and religion
• Drivetime - video blog of commute from JP -
  Allston/Cambridge (Ravi Jain guest lectured)

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Seminar topics Citizen Journalism

• Iraq war - soldier, civilian and journalist blogs
• Israel/Lebanon conflict
• Katrina/Rita witnesses and journalists
• London bombing survivors
• Gush Katif and Gaza residents

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Seminar topics Cool stuff

• One persons amalgamation of interesting things
• Notmartha.org
• Kottke.org
• Boingboing.net

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Seminar topics project blogs

• Numb3rs blog from Northeastern
• The Blue Blog , Eunny Jang
• The Julie/Julia Project , Smitten Kitchen,
  Chocolate and Zucchini

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Seminar topics productivity and social computing
sites

• Lifehacker
• 43folders
• Ask.metafilter.com
• Technorati
• Bloglines
• Parent Hacks
• Flylady

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Blogging and risk avoidance

• Services are advertising to high school and
  younger audiences who are not savvy about
  personal security MySpace, AOL, Xanga, Facebook
• Blogs give an appearance of anonymity while
  allowing for human connection via commenting
• Blogs (and web pages, and Usenet postings) are a
  permanent record

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Personal security

• Posting personal info names, birthdays, towns,
  team names, phone numbers, dorms, etc.
• Harassment and bullying via blog postings libel
  suits stemming from blogs
• Others can reuse your info eg. Flickr photos

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Blogging and anonymity

• They only seem anonymous
• Identities of bloggers can be traced
• Police departments now look for blogs, Yahoo
  group postings, etc. when investigating crimes
  (recent cases in high schools north of Boston)
• High schools beginning to have blogging policies
  for students

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Your permanent record

• Even if you delete your blog, a part or entire
  copy is probably archived somewhere (eg. your
  1992 Usenet postings)
• Companies now routinely do online searches on
  prospective employees and may bar (and fire over)
  work-related blogging (NYT 7/17/05, Dooce)
• Reporters will search online backgrounds of
  future political candidates

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Blogging seminar student work

• After formal part of class, students reflected on
  previous week and created blog entries
• Required some guidance on how to do this
• Structured end-of-term (and earlier) blog
  assignments

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Using social computing tools in classes or teams

• For assigned blogging or wiki work, people need
  guidelines
• Comment often, but judiciously
• People reveal things in blogs that they may not
  in person
• Blogging can help you know team members better
  than face to face interactions
• Students will be familiar with blogging when they
  get to college faculty and staff must use that
  to their advantage

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Wikis in education (some MIT examples)

• Method for obtaining feedback about contents of a
  proposed new subject
• Cooperative final project by student teams
• Common project space for notes, comments
  multimedia lab notebook
• For geographically distributed population, can be
  a community of practice or support group (eg.
  iLabs, study abroad)

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Impact of MMORPGs and virtual environments

• 8 million worldwide play World of Warcraft WoW
  has 50 of market.
• WoW players obtain significant experience in
  online teamwork, leadership and microeconomics
  via gaming
• Players extremely comfortable with instant
  messaging (class help), VoIP (homework
  submission), etc.
• Players used to spending multiple hours on a
  complex coordinated task.

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Other uses for social computing tools in education

• IM or Twitter can help students seek help when
  they need it.
• Reddit-style forums could help students evaluate
  primary sources with guidance.
• Flickr groups, Del.icio.us lists can be used for
  project data, media studies (or other) exercises

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Summary

• Social computing tools are already part of the
  fabric of students lives
• Blogs, wikis, messaging and games can be
  successfully integrated into teaching and
  learning contexts - but the pedagogy should come
  first
• Be aware of continuous partial attention
• Remember to have a First Life too, though your
  Net presence is increasingly important

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Thanks for your attention

• KatieL_at_mit.edu