Social Software

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Social Software Distance Ed.Killer
Application or Hype?
DETS 06 June 8,2006
Terry Anderson, Ph.D. Canada Research Chair in
Distance Education Terrya_at_athabascau.ca
Michael Hotrum B.Ed., MDE Educational
Technologist michael.hotrum_at_ualberta.ca
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Social Software - Agenda

• Context
• Issues and Applications in Distance Education
• Me2u.athabascau.ca an ELGG instance

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The Technological Determinants of Education

• Forms and uses of technology defines distance
  education
• As technologies change so does the learning
  experience
• Current challenge and opportunity is to
  effectively use emerging tools to meet learning
  needs

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Distance Education

• Pre LMS free range grazing
• LMS fenced pastures
• Post LMS networked free range grazing fertile
  web

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Learners Lament Dont Fence Me In

• Oh, give me land, lots of land under starry
  skies, Don't fence me in.

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Lest we forget

• Learning is a social process
• Learning is an individual process
• Learning is a self guided process
• Learning is action and knowledge
• Attwell(2003)
• The playground approach to learning it's what
  you bump into that counts.

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Type I Information Technologies (after Rumble,
2003 and Hulsman, 2004)

• Any information, anytime, anywhere
• Customizable content interactive content
• Information in any format
• Information wants to be free!
• (John Barlow)

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Open Source Open ContentOpen Access
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Type C Communication Technologies

• Human communication for student-student and
  student-teacher interaction
• Synch and asynch
• Text, audio and video
• Stored for recall, classification and multiple
  re-use
• Approaching insignificant technology charges

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Solitudes of Distance Education
Collaborative, Distance education 3rd gen.
video, audio and computer conf
Type C Communications Technology
Independent Study 1st gen. correspondence 2nd
gen. telecourses Type I
Information Technology
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Type S Social Technology

• Allows users to find, cooperate, when needed, and
  when desired, for learning
• Uses intelligent processing to filter, control
  and enhance processing and the utilization of
  Type I and Type C technologies
• Unclear of the exact educational value of type S
  technologies many will fail.

We are now engaged in a grand scheme to augment,
amplify, enhance, and extend the relationships
between all beings and all objects. That is why
the Network Economy is a big deal (Kelly, 1997,
p. 140).
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Social Distance Education
Collaborative, Distance education 3rd gen.
video, audio and computer conf
Type C Communications Technology
Independent Study 1st gen. correspondence 2nd
gen. telecourses Type I
Information Technology
Socially Enhanced Self-paced Learning Type S
Social Technology
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Social Software
Online Presence
Physical Presence
Based on Maurya 2005 www.wiredreach.com/
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What is Social Software?

• social software links people to the inner
  workings of each other's thoughts, feelings and
  opinions. Lefever (2003)
• supports the desire of individuals to be
  pulled into groups to achieve goals. Boyd,
  (2003)

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Educational Social Software defined

• Networked tools that support and encourage
  learning through face-to-face and online social
  interactions while retaining individual control
  over time, space, presence, activity, identity
  and community. (Anderson, 2005)

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Social Software Process
New knowledge Offline meeting Maintain
presence/social capital Build reputation/relations
hips Filter, share, recreate Establish
trust Identify, link, refer Broadcast
interest/need/offer Establish profile
Independent learner.
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Filtering

• Reducing information overload
• Things my friends and colleagues like are more
  likely to be attractive to me than random things
• "the better path in creating social documents
  (and social communities) ltnot to increase amounts
  of information..., but increase amounts un or
  underrepresented. Brown and Duguid P. 205

I wonder if anyone else in this section has read
Deweys article?
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Persistence

• "Persistence expands conversation beyond those
  within earshot, rendering it accessible to those
  in other places and at later times. Thomas
  Erickson, 1999.
• Importance of leaving contributions for use by
  others

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Referring

• Helping colleagues pick the best paths is as old
  as friendship
• Recommendations gathered algorithmically
• Kopers (2004) work on simulations paths of
  phernoms laid by learners as they navigate
  through learning networks
• Or social systems
• Social recommender systems Recommendations in
  support of e-learning (Rafaeli, Dan-Gur, Barak,
  2005)

I wonder which of this modules students from last
year liked the most?
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Social Bookmarking

• Applying meta-tags to artifacts to permit
  retrieval, evaluation and use by others
• Social bookmarking systems profiled

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Folksonomies

• Allows for free form tagging
• Users define the tags
• Maximum freedom, ease of use
• Problems linking associated fields
• Synonyms
• Speling mitsakes
• Spaces and abbreviations

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Notification and Syndication Tools

• When Pull system arent enough
• RSS, listservs etc.
• Need priority settings, spam control
• With GPS enhancement add place sensitive
  notification

I wonder if anyone has replied yet to my E351
question?
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The Tools of Educational Social Software (ESS)

• Blogging production and ind. Ownership
• E-Portfolios selective release of personal data
  and compositions
• E-Profile enabling search for friends and
  collaborators
• Wiki Collaborative development
• Friends of Friends, social bookmarking referrals
  and filtering
• Selective file sharing and social workspaces

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Educational Applications of ESS
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Why Education is the Killer App for Social
Software

• Learning is defined by social norms, tools and
  contexts
• Education creates the reason to expend the
  necessary energy to create a community
• Learners will pay for quality learning
  experiences
• The social structure of classes, programs and
  disciplines allows familiar filtering of people
  overload

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Why Social Software is Right for Distance
Education

• Self paced independent study offers limited
  capacity for building social capital
• Resolves privacy problem through selective
  exposure
• Learners want to network and learn
• Allows education to flow into real life
• Knowledge is created learning happens through
  social discourse (Vygotsky)
• Public, persistence encourages ownership and
  commitment
• DE learners are lonely

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Are Learners Ready?

• A 'trial and error' approach to learning vs
  linear (learn, review, apply)
• Emphasis on the process of learning not content
• To be part of a community for learning and social
  support
• To have access to community 24/7.
• Frand V L - The Information-Age Mindset. Educause
  review September/October 2003. Vol 35 No. 5.

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Learners Are Already There.

• 56 of U.S. youth create, remix, share content
  online
• Pew Internet Nov. 2005 http//www.pewinternet.org/
  pdfs/PIP_Teens_Content_Creation.pdf
• 7 country study on ICT for learning in SME
  businesses found employees solving problems
  through Google, Bboards and forums. (Attwell,
  2003)
• Top 3 games world building Civilization,
  SIMS, Spore

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Social Networking Stats
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Survey Results Athabasca Univ, 2004

• 71 chose not to participate in the interactive
  components of their courses (online discussion)
• Reasons for non participation
• takes too much time - 18
• not aware they were available - 17
• thought would not add to learning - 14
• nothing to contribute - 10
• lack of recent postings - 10
• no access to the necessary technology - 1

See Anderson et al, 2004 www.ascilite.org.au/ajet/
ajet21/anderson.html
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Survey Results

• 78 indicated they would interact w/ other
  students if they were also able to proceed
  through the course at their own pace.
• Preferred Interaction Mode
• 70 preferred asynchronous media (email and
  computer conferencing)
• 27 preferred synchronous and asynchronous
• 3 preferred synchronous interaction alone (e.g.
  audio conference or F to F).

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Survey Results

• 95 reported a desire to access the work of other
  students either currently or previously enrolled
  in the courses.
• only 25 of students felt that such participation
  should be graded.

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The Pedagogy of Social Software

• our educational discourse is largely stuck in a
  time warp, framed by issues and standards set
  decades before the widespread use of the personal
  computer, the Internet, and free trade
  agreements. Stewart Kagan (2005)
• social constructivism theories
• learning in virtual spaces
• self-directed learning

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Social constructivism

• Vygotsky social construction and validation of
  knowledge
• Authentic learning - Bruner
• Communities of Practice Wenger
• Jonassen Mind tools

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Connectivism

• George Siemens A learning theory for the Digital
  Age
• Problems are becoming so complex that they
  cannot be contained in the mind of one individual
  - problems are held in a distributed manner
  across networks, with each node holding a part of
  the entire puzzle.

www.elearnspace.org/Articles/connectivism.htm
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Pedagogy of online existence

• Pedagogy of Nearness
• social software can positively impact pedagogy
  by inculcating a desire to reconnect to the world
  as a whole, not just the social parts that exist
  online.
• Ulises Mejias (2006) http//www.line56.com/article
  s/default.asp?articleID7533TopicID7

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Heutagogy

• For self directed learners operating in a world
• where information is readily and easily
  accessible
• where change is so rapid discipline based
  knowledge is inappropriate to prepare for living
  in modern communities and workplaces
• where learning is increasingly aligned with what
  we do
• where modern organizational structures require
  flexible learning practices and
• Where there is a need for immediacy of learning
• (Hase and Kenyon, 2000)

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Privacy Issues

• The privacy issues in such environments are not
  a priori very different in nature from the ones
  that can be found in the off-line communities.
  They are just considerably magnified. (Nabeth
  2005)
• Key safeguards
• Voluntary participation
• Selective release of information
• Permission to allow social advances
• Secure systems

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Implementation Issues

• New digital divide those that have access, those
  that dont/cant (ltsocial capital)
• net neutrality vs net regulation
• tools that enable cooperation need intimate
  details about us
• Surveillance, virtual vandalism
• Identity theft, loss of privacy
• Continuous partial attention

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Social Software/LMS Integration

• WebCT Elgg - by Aperto (Sasan Salari, ex.
  WebCT)
• Moodle Elgg by Catalyst
• WebCT Elluminate
• WebCT eportfolio

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Beyond the LMS toPersonal Learning Environments
(PLEs)
Learner Links their environment to that of the
education institution(s)
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Me2u.athabascau.ca
Powered by elgg.net
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Online Collaborative ActivitiesThe following
activities can be used by self-paced
undergraduate students to add a social component
to their learning.

• Me2U Orientation Activities
• Registration
• Lurking
• Introduction
• Whos Who
• Joining Creating Communities
• Online Chats
• Group Activities
• Jigsaws
• Mentoring
• Debates
• Group Response
• Discussion Groups
• Posting a Review
• Survey
• Document Sharing
• Data/File Collection
• Information Search

• Advanced Activities
• Create a Web Site
• Work on a Wiki
• Develop an E-Portfolios
• Additional Collaborative Tools

see http//cider.athabascau.ca/Members/terrya/soc
ialsoftware/
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Just a thought

• At an Amish-run machine shop -- a place that uses
  machines, powered by diesel and hydraulic power
  rather than electricity, to make machines. I
  asked the owner about his philosophy of
  technology
• "We don't stop with asking what a tool does. We
  ask about what kind of people we become when we
  use it." http//www.rheingold.com/rants/

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Conclusion

• Learning opportunities that maximize learner
  freedom will be increasingly attractive.
• Social software offers new ways to support a mix
  of independent and cohort learning
• Institutions must be flexible and innovative to
  meet the demanding needs of networked learners.
• Those not as adaptable will be left fighting each
  other over a shrinking population of traditional
  campus and distance education learners.

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Over to You?

• Is Educational Social Software a revolutionary
  new tool for DE?
• Is it important for paced, cohort distance
  education as well as self-paced systems?

Terry Anderson, Ph.D. Canada Research Chair in
Distance Education Terrya_at_athabascau.ca Michael
Hotrum, B.Ed., MDE Educational Technologist michae
l.hotrum_at_ualberta.ca