Social Networking Tools
Knowledge Sharing and Creation
The concept of anytime, anywhere learning is not new to the majority of Northeastern University students. With personal Web sites, multi-functional cell phones, MP3 players, YouTube accounts, Facebook profiles, and gaming personas, students are sharing and creating knowledge at an unprecedented rate.
At a recent talk on social computing, MIT's Henry Jenkins pointed out that many young people do much of their learning outside of school. As part of "the participatory generation," they create learning environments that interest them and invite others to collaborate with them (for more on these students see "Net Generation Learners"). Yet, few of these same young people equate anytime, anywhere learning with a university education. Professor Jenkins asserts that it is the job of teachers to take advantage of the passion of these young people for learning by tapping into the tools they use, or at least learning how to use them.
Social networking tools allow you to share, store, sort and search for websites (del.icio.us), people (Facebook), photos (Flickr), and videos (YouTube). Many commercial sites allow you some of this functionality as well. You can get recommendations for, write reviews of and purchase books and other products (Amazon.com), music (iTunes), movies (IMDB.com).
Educational uses for social networking tools are on the rise. Check out these examples and ideas for using social networking tools in your courses.
del.icio.us
A social bookmarking tool for sharing, storing and exploring links to websites. This tool allows users to store links on the Internet rather than on a personal computer, thus making them available on any computer. See the Ed Tech Center staff's favorite websites.
Facebook
An online directory that connects people through social networks at schools and colleges.
For information about how one professor at Northeastern uses Facebook to connect to his students, listen to Professor Dan Scheirer's webcast on "Connecting Your Classroom with Facebook"
Flickr
A photo management and sharing application that allows you to store, search, sort and share photos. A committee at Northeasten that is investigating learning spaces uses it to share photos of locations at other institutions they have visited. Groups can also use it to share photos of activities.
Wiki
A Web site or other online resource in which users contribute and edit content. The most well-know example is Wikipedia. Others include:
- Romantic Audience Project This site provides extensive resources on Romantic Literature developed by faculty and students at Bowdoin College
- Wikiversity A Wiki designed for the creation and free use of learning materials and activities.
Blog
A blog, or Web log, is an online journal or reverse chronological publication which is generally maintained by one author and available to the public via the Web.
Northeastern Professor Mark Bridger created a blog to explain the math used in each episode of the CBS hit series Numb3rs. At a recent EdTech talk, he discussed how he hopes the blog will encourage more students to study math. ("Can Blogs and the Popular Media Help Educators Working with Numb3rs")
Also see information on the EdTech site on how to create a blog.
Vlog
A vlog is a or videoblog that combines video, web and a log. As with a blog, entries are typically presented in reverse chronological order.
See Sue LeBeau's website for an index of educational uses of blogs, vlogs, wikis, and podcasts.
