Documentation:FNHL Social Web Tools

From UBC Wiki

The Social in Social Web Tools

What is it?

The Conversation Prism by Brian Solis & JESS3

Social Web tools or technologies are those that make it possible, even easy, to collaborate, share, participate, communicate, and form and re-form relationships along the path of learning.

There is a match between what are seen as 21st-century learning skills, 21st-century employability skills and those engendered by engagement with Web 2.0 – communication, participation, networking, sharing. [1]

For an interesting review of educational uses of social software , see the JISC Study: The Effective Use of Social Software in Education: Final Report [2] and Case Studies [3]

Additional Resources:

Cooltoolsforschools: a compendium of web resources suitable for use in educational environments.

  1. ↑ from: Higher Education in a Web 2.0 World: JISC, 2009.
  2. ↑ JISC: The Effective Use of Social Software in Education:Final Report
  3. ↑ JISC: The Effective Use of Social Software in Education:Case Studies

Characteristics of Social Web Tools

  • Easy creation
  • Potential for collaboration
  • Avenue for feedback and conversation
  • Open Content (David Wiley's 4Rs)
    1. Reuse – the right to reuse the content in its unaltered / verbatim form
    2. Revise – the right to adapt, adjust, modify, or alter the content itself
    3. Remix – the right to combine the original or revised content with other content to create something new
    4. Redistribute – the right to make and share copies of the original content, your revisions, or your remixes with others
Flickr image: GaryHayes

Uses and Benefits

Social media tools allow you to support your student's learning in ways that have not been possible before. Students can more easily connect and collaborate with each other, or have easy access to timely and relevant news items, blog posts or other web resources relevant to the content they are studying. Below are some ways in which you could use social web tools in a classroom:


Group authoring on a topic

  • Blogs
  • Wikis
  • Collaborative Writing Tools

Easy and quick way to make course resources available

  • Blogs
  • Wikis
  • Feed Reading
  • Social Bookmarking
  • Media Sharing

Peer review/editing

  • Wikis
  • Blogs

Student generated resource development

  • Microblogging
  • Social Networks
  • Instant Messaging

Presentations

  • Online Presentation Tools
  • Media Sharing

Tools

Image by: Brian Solis & JESS3

All Tools

  • Wikis
  • Weblogs or Blogs
  • Microblogs
  • Online Presentation Tools
  • Instant Messaging
  • Visual Organizers
  • Social Bookmarking
  • Social Networking
  • Collaborative Writing
  • Feed Reading
  • Media Sharing
  • References

Things to Think About

Resources

UBC Services

Wiki

Description: [from Wikipedia ] A wiki is a collection of web pages designed to enable anyone with access to contribute or modify content, using a simplified [markup language]. Wikis are often used to create collaboration|collaborative websites and to power community websites. The collaborative encyclopedia [Wikipedia] is one of the best-known wikis.

Examples:

Uses:

Collaborative project development, collaborative writing, peer-reviewed authorship, keeping track of resources for group projects, sharing resources for tutoring, organizing group events, communities of practice, collaborative resource development, etc. Publishing in a web format allows for easy sharing via rss or simple url (link).

UBC Supported:

  • CTLT is piloting a [Mediawiki] service for the UBC community.

UBC In Practice:

Learn More:

Weblog

Description: [from Wikipedia ] A blog (a contraction of the term weblog) is a type of website, usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video.

Examples:

Uses:

Blogging allows you to share your thoughts, views, ideas, observations and learnings via an online journal of sorts. Most blogging applications allow you to upload your own (or other shared) media files. An important feature of blogging is that (through reader comments) it allows you to build a community of people who are interested in what you write and you want you to read what they write. Blogs can come in many flavors and have many uses beyond the single author, journal type blog. It may look like a website or a portfolio. It may include many authors or just one. It can be about text or just images.

UBC Supported:

CTLT is supporting the WordPress Multi-User platform for UBCBlogs and Sites.

UBC In Practice:

Learn More:

Blogger/Blogspot provide a short tour discussing what a blog actually is and what it can be used for at the following link: Blog Tour.

Here's a list of 40+ free blog hosts.

Microblog

Description:

Micro-blogging is very similar to weblogs, but the major difference is that long posts are restricted by setting an upper limit to the number of characters that the user is permitted to use.

Examples:

Uses:

The uses of micro-blogs are the similar to weblogs, except that blog posts are limited to 150 characters, encouraging snippets of "water-cooler" conversation rather than full on dialogues.

UBC In Practice:

UBC is experimenting with Yammer as a way to engage in "internal" conversations among various groups. It integrates with Twitter (in a superficial way) allowing Twitter users to send posts to Yammer by use of a hashtag #yam.

A Creative writing class uses Twitter to create stories, 142 characters at a time. Students receive an account with their order, they add to the story when it is their turn - a digital version of the campfire story.

Learn More:

A list of the Top 5 Micro Blogging Websites with descriptions and links to the respective sites.

Online Presentation/Meeting Tools

Description:

Web presentation tools and technologies provide the means to deliver any PowerPoint-based or similar type of visual presentation to an Internet-connected audience, no matter where participants are connecting from. Many applications also provide audio and application-sharing capabilities - which enhance the collaborative learning experience.

Examples:

Uses:

Web presentation and meeting technologies reduce the requirement for face to face meetings, encourage broader participation (especially when travel to meetings/workshops is a barrier to participation) and open up access (potentially) to participants located anywhere in the world.

UBC In Practice:


Learn More:

Web Presentations and Tools and Technologies are broken down with costs and features on this site as well as more examples and descriptions of individual pieces of software.

Instant Messaging

Description: [from Wikipedia] Instant messaging (IM) is a form of Real-time computing communication between two or more people based on typed text. The text is conveyed via devices connected over a network such as the Internet.

Examples:

Uses:

Instant messaging (IM) clients are tools that make real-time text-based communication possible between two or more active participants at the same time, using the Internet.

UBC In Practice:

CLC Help Desk Meebo chat connects students online with CLC Help Desk Assistants on site at the Chapman Learning Commons in the Ike Barber Learning Centre.


Learn More:

Wikipedia provides an extensive IM Comparison Chart that shows which features are offered by which instant messaging clients and the type of communication that is possible using one client over another.

Visual Organizers

Description:

Visual organization tools and technologies enable the creation of any kinds or charts and diagrams for statistical purposes as well as creating a visual to help interpret the data set at hand.

Examples:

Uses:

Visual organization tools are very useful for brainstorming ideas, organizing similar or distinct content and for providing a visual display of the information that can be easily presented and understandable for others.

UBC In Practice:

Learn More:

Mind Mapping Resources: a collection of resources related to mindmapping and demo of Bubbl.us for collaborative presentation.

A compilation of different diagrams that can be used as visual aids are shown at the following link: Interactive Graphic Organizers

Social Bookmarking

Description:

[from Wikipedia] Social bookmarking is a method for Internet users to store, organize, search, and manage bookmarks of web pages on the Internet with the help of metadata, typically in the form of tags

Examples:

Uses:

Social bookmarking allows users to save links to web pages that they want to remember for the future and/or share with others. The stored bookmarks are usually public, but can be saved privately, or shared only with specified people or groups, shared strictly inside certain networks, or another combination of public and private domains. The allowed people can usually view these bookmarks chronologically, by category or tags, or via a search engine.

UBC In Practice:


Learn More:

The top ten best social bookmarking sites are listed on this website, with a brief description and link to the sites of each of these social bookmarking technologies.

Here's a list of 50+ social bookmarking sites

Social Networking

Description: Social networking is a term used to describe the way that people build online networks of contacts and interact with them in a secure environment. Some of the most popular social networking sites include Facebook and MySpace.

Examples:

Uses:

  • sharing resources/ideas
  • socializing
  • learning
  • connecting with colleagues
  • keeping friends/contacts updated with your activities.


UBC In Practice:


Others In Practice:


Learn More:

Collaborative Writing

Description:

[from Wikipedia] The term collaborative writing refers to projects where written works are created by multiple people together (collaboratively) rather than individually. Some projects are overseen by an editor or editorial team, but many grow without any of this top-down oversight.

Examples:

Uses:

In a true collaborative environment, each contributor has an almost equal ability to add, edit, and remove text. The writing process becomes a recursive task, where each change prompts others to make more changes.


UBC In Practice:

Learn More:

A small guide for collaborative writing and available writing tools and technology are available here with brief descriptions of the individual pieces of software.

Feed Reading - shared

Description:

[from Wikipedia] Feed Reading is also known as feed aggregating, news reader or simply as an aggregator. This is client software or a Web application which aggregates syndicated Web content such as news headlines, blogs, podcasts, and vlogs in a single location for easy viewing.

Examples:

Uses:

Aggregators reduce the time and effort needed to regularly check websites for updates, creating a unique information space or "personal newspaper." Once subscribed to a feed, an aggregator is able to check for new content at user-determined intervals and retrieve the update. The content is sometimes described as being "pulled" to the subscriber, as opposed to "pushed" with email or IM. Unlike recipients of some "pushed" information, the aggregator user can easily unsubscribe from a feed.

UBC In Practice:

Learn More:

A list of the Top 10 RSS Feed Readers with their descriptions and functionality can be found at this website.

Media Sharing

Description:

Sites that allow users to share any type of media with other people that they know or publicly on the Internet. All forms of media including photos, songs and even video can be shared between two people using these content sharing technologies.

Examples:

Uses:

These technologies are used for uploading videos, images and music to various websites that are available on the Internet and these allow people to share these types of media with their friends, family or anyone that they choose online.


UBC In Practice:


Learn More:

References

Additional Resources:

Alex Couros' Understanding and Using Social Networks & Social Media

Cooltoolsforschools: a compendium of web resources suitable for use in educational environments.

  1. ↑ Social Networking Technologies: A Poke for Campus Services (Educause, 2007)
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