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page id: 1202
This Wiki page will examine various social networking software and its relevance in an educational environment
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page id: 1202
This Wiki page will examine various social networking software and its relevance in an educational environment
Social Networking Software Summary of this pageThis page has been created by Janet Bradley for use in the FET 8611 "Emerging Educational Technologies" course in Semester 3 of 2007, beginning November 19, 2007. This page examines various social networking software and its relevance in an educational environment. This page contains these sections: Table of contents
Please add your name or avatar to the list of contributors Janet Bradley?, Skype: janetebradley Nathalie LefaivreUserpage:nathalie_lefaivre? (MSN:nlefaivre@hotmail.com)  ; Bebo ID: pennyjgardner; Twitter: catspyjamasnz; Blog: The Ed Tech Bach; Blog: Exploring Emerging Environments for Learning; Blog: FET8611 - Chris Woldhuis Justyna's kG blog Facebook: Justyna SzluinskaWhat is social networking?Social networking software (SNS) allows people to interact with each other - to share, to comment, provide feedback, collaborate, to build a community. If you look at the history of social networking, the opportunity to interact seems to be the key element. Remember the tamagochi craze - kids relished the opportunity to interact with it - to form a relationship. The other key element is that since SNS is web-based, users, who create an identify through a 'nickname' and 'avatar', are 'visible' online. SNS allows people the opportunity to make connections with people with whom they would not normally interact, through comments, public or private messages. They can join 'groups' of people who have a common interest, for example - educational technologists, classical music lovers. And the members of the group not only interact with their 'friends', 'contacts' or 'fans' but they can see their contacts and foster new ties with them, and their network grows. Originally when I first thought of writing about social networking, I was referring to software such as Facebook and MySpace where profiles are set up, tags are linked, friends are connected, communities form and people interact. There are many terms for technology that enables human interaction - ie. social network sites, social software, social media, collaborative software which includes other Web 2.0 tools such as blogs and wikis. Little did I realize there are courses on social networking offered at higher educational institutions such as Stanford University, University of N. Carolina and the University of Regina. B.J. Fogg has been investigating how technology can motivate and persuade people for over 13 years, an area called "captology." Facebook, probably the most popular SNS as of this writing, was nominated as the most persuasive technology of 2007. There is much discussion about the definition of social networking. Boyd and Ellison argue that unless we can agree on a definition and are on the same page, we can't really have "a functional conversation about the actual issues." Let's Define our Terms: What is a social networking technology? . As I said above, I originally was focusing on sites like Facebook and MySpace, both of which were new to me. These sites fall within Boyd's definition which she defines as "web-based services that allow individuals to (1) construct a public or semi-public profile within a bounded system, (2) articulate a list of other users with whom they share a connection, and (3) view and traverse their list of connections and those made by others within the system." http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol13/issue1/boyd.ellison.html You will note they did not use the term 'networking' because to them, it would refer to building a relationship, often between strangers. Their contention is that often on social networking sites, users are networking with people who they already know, and it is not necessarily their intent to form a relationship with someone they don't know.There are many who feel Boyd and Ellison's definition is too narrow as appears from the following comments posted on Boyd's Äpophenia blog:
A variety of web-enabled software allows for different ways of interaction, i.e. chat (referred to as IM, eg. Windows Messenger and Skype), voIP (actually talking/listening eg. Windows Messenger, Skype), share files and related projects, RSS feeds, share calendars, share images (Flickr), music, videos (You Tube), blogging. Educators such as Ewan McIntosh believe Boyd's definition is too narrow ands should include wikis, blogs, social bookmarking, Google documents, Blackboard, etc. One of the controversies surrounding social networking is the fear of exposure. An extensive study was undertaken by Lenhart and Madden over seven years analyzing the types of information teens (12-17) share online, what they share with their trusted friends and what they choose to share with the public at large (limited profile), the difference between profiles of boys and girls, the use of anonymity or fake identities online, and the safety concerns that troubles parents. Software such as eLGG, which is an open source software, has all the features of a robust SNS which can be incorporated into a LMS allowing for more control. See eLGG: It's a social thing . Choice of social networks is based on the culture of a site. Facebook and MySpace seem to be in the limelight because they are the ones that have the largest membership, and the ones that our students have gravitated to. One of the attractions of Facebook are the many add-on applications such as Funwall and Superwall. Our students who have grown up with the Internet, computer and video games, embrace these new applications which are added to regularly. In fact, the Stanford University course based on Facebook includes an assignment wherein they develop such applications which 16 million viewers have installed! http://credibilityserver.stanford.edu/captology/facebook/This video explains social networking: Social Networking video |Social Networking in Plain English].A list of social networking sites: Wikipedia on Social Networking When did it all begin?The notion that individual computers linked electronically could form the basis of computer mediated social interaction and networking was suggested early on - for example The Network Nation by S. Roxanne Hiltz and Murray Turoff (Addison-Wesley, 1978, 1993) effectively sketched out how computer-mediated communication — such as the Internet — should be developed for this purpose.There were many early efforts to support social networks via computer-mediated communication, including Usenet, bulletin board services (BBS), Arpanet, and EIES: Murray Turoff's server-based Electronic Information Exchange Service (Turoff and Hiltz, 1978, 1993). The Information Routing Group developed a schema about how the proto-Internet might support this. Early social networking websites included Classmates.com (1995), focusing on ties with former school mates, and SixDegrees.com (1997), focusing on indirect ties. However, SixDegrees.com combined the features that define a true SNS in that it allowed users to create profiles, list their Friends and make them available to others which Classmates did not initially. Two different models of social networking that came about in 1999 were trust-based, developed by Epinions.com, and friendship-based, such as those developed by Jonathan Bishop and used on some regional UK sites between 1999 and 2001. Innovations included not only showing who is "friends" with whom, but giving users more control over content and connectivity. By 2005, one social networking service MySpace, was reportedly getting more page views than Google, with Facebook, a competitor, rapidly growing in size. In 2007, Facebook began allowing externally-developed add-on applications, and some applications enabled the graphing of a user's own social network — thus linking social networks and social networking. Social networking began to flourish as a component of business internet strategy in 2001 with the launch of Ryze.com which was to "help people leverage their business interests." Around March 2005, Yahoo launched Yahoo! 360°. In July 2005 News Corporation bought MySpace, followed by ITV (UK) buying Friends Reunited in December 2005. It is estimated that combined there are now over 200 social networking sites using these existing and emerging social networking models. See History of Social Network Services . (Nathalie)(Janet)History of SNS Resources
A new Social network is born On December 15, 2007, Google Knol, a new effort to capture human knowledge on the Web, was launched. KnolStuff.com is a brand new social networking community for Google's Open Encyclopedia. This site also supports the new Google OpenSocial Platform. Share with others updates and insites about Knol. Meet new people and network.But what does the future hold? Social networking may not remain in its present form but there will be a platform for people to network. See http://gigaom.com/2008/01/20/social-networks-from-the-80s-to-the-00s/ for an interesting article on the future of social networks.Who uses it and why?A picture speaks a thousand words! This recent 'tweet' explains in 140 characters who uses it and why!  Starting from the bottom up, the question is asked why and there are three answers almost spontaneously right on point - one from an educator/consultant/author, one from a librarian and a the other from a teacher/social media specialist. Notice the first response - "to connect to bloggers who share your passion." Although the answer is about blogging, the same applies to social networks. Carolyn Foote's response points us to her blog post Learning in a community which provides a passionate explanation of the power of social networks. And as she says, you need to experience a network in order to understand it. She also says "you have to “put something out there to get something back of value. But that’s how all of our relationships are–they are two way."You'll note the posts above-noted came from Twitter which has become a powerful social network in my life over the last three months, so much so that Joyce and I conducted a Twitterfest. Hear the recording of our Twitterfest . For more information on Twitter, see our kG Twitter page.For educators, SNS allows opportunity for classrooms to talk to other classrooms - to communicate and collaborate with students around the world which creates a more global learning environment, and introduces an awareness of cultural differences. Educators There are some SNS applications that are designed for certain groups and professions. Eduspaces has created a SNS that is dedicated to support people involved with education and educational technology. They not only provide a social community but a large amount of resources for both parents and educators in regards to Social Networks. http://eduspaces.net/ Nathalie Jeff Utecht blogged in his December 31st, 2007 post that although he enjoyed being offline for about two weeks, he missed the ‘daily connections’, the Skype chats, the reading and writing. He will remember 2007 as the “Year of the Network”. He claims emails no longer do justice to the social conversations.Ginger Lewan, Director of Face to Face Program, Turning Point Learning Center, finds that social networks answer all of her possible questions, and is her own 24 hour feedback station for technical and moral support, where she can offer the same assistance to others. Social networking allows her students to "thoughtfully experience not only academic learning, but true community-building." She forged distance collaborations with other teachers through different time zones across the country and around the world. Educational Technologists such as Will Richardson use Twitter as a sounding board and a 24/7 resource for new technology, ideas, upcoming conferences, relevant podcasts, collaboration, making connections and daily food for thought. Professionals are using LinkedIn to stay connected to other professionals in the business world. It is purposely being developed to include some aspects of Facebook but without the social aspect. It hopes to transform itself into an indispensable daily tool for business users. It has formed a partnership with McGraw-Hill Co.'s BusinessWeek and will link keywords, such as company names, to the LinkedIn service. By placing a mouse over a keyword at the BusinessWeek online see a pop-up box detailing how many of their LinkedIn contacts are related to the company or keyword. What we are trying to do is make professionals more productive by making them able to find one another, learn more about each other and communicate efficiently with each other,” LinkedIn Chief Executive Dan Nye said in an interview. “It's not a place where you waste two hours of your time trying to find a date.” Robert Scoble is one of the best-known and most prolific users of social networking software. He posted about the reasons why he uses the technologies that he does, what the function of each is and how that improves his own knowledge and connectedness. He also ponders the next step, why can we only see and use his network through him making him act as a funnel. Why isn't there an easier way of sharing networks? I love my friends but why am I between them and you? JoyceEmployers are desperate for bright, young minds and there are several large companies who have created a Facebook profile to attract fresh graduates. the New Stealth Recruiting Tool We can't forget the teens! From a survey conducted in the US of 935 teens between the ages of 12 - 17, statistics showed that 55% of those surveyed used an online social network, however, that number has increased as of this writing. Of those, 49% have a profile to make new friends and 79% use the network to post photos of themselves or of their friends. From a survey conducted at UNC, 94% of the Freshman student population had Facebook accounts and another study reported that 85% of college students had Facebook profiles. Nicole Ellison writes about the correlation between social network users and social capital (the connections within and between social networks). She believes that if you're rich in social capital, you're more inclined to be charitable. Ellison concludes that Internet use alone did not predict social capital accumulation, but intensive use of Facebook did. The ability to maintain regular contact with a close and not-so-close acquaintances "could have strong payoffs in terms of jobs, internships, and other opportunities." There are those like Michael Bugetja who feel that youth today are missing out on the 'real world' by being too involved in 'virtual worlds'. On the other hand, others suggest the online presence supports keeping people more in contact, even when they move away from close proximity. The social networking groups being form in fact, assist in populations maintaining ties, be they professionals, neighbourhood and community members, company employees, interest groups for example. Has your email inbox decreased while your social networking has increased?
Are you using a network moreso since the beginning of this course? If so, why?
Are you part of a social networking circle? How did you choose it?Is anyone on Bebo, College Tonight,Elgg, Facebook, Friendster, LinkedIn, MySpace, Ning, Twitter, (please add to this list).
Could it add value to an educational course?Facebook is one of the fastest growing social networks. In fact, Canada has over 6 million users and it's growing every day. Apparently the fastest growing demographic is 25 years and up but my college students are on it every day and they range from 18 - 24. From what I've seen, there is a lot of 'stuff' on Facebook that I don't really have the time to read and it doesn't really interest me, i.e. Funwall, SuperWall, Beacon, etc. However, Facebook is capable of much more. It is marketed as a 'social utility that connects people' and it is that feature that perhaps could make it useful in an educational environment. It brings people together with common interests and activities. Like-minded people can share experiences and opinions. It has the possibility of building a 'community of practice.' Could it be possible that a class of students could share their experiences, notes, photos of field trips, opinions, questions, announcements via Facebook or would it be too public? Does the 'limited profile' feature keep everything within that group private? Would it be a good idea to use a tool that students are already very familiar with, to keep them motivated in a course? Some professors at the University of Madison in Virginia began to create Facebook profiles to keep in touch with old and new students. Some students seemed to support their professors' attempts to keep in touch and use current technology, but other students didn't like the idea of their professors perhaps seeing too much on their site. A librarian said she has had some students invite her to be a friend. She waits for the invitation and doesn't extend them herself. Another prof rarely opened his profile but had his blog posts feed automatically to his Facebook profile. Here's a link from a prof who decided he wouldn't stomp on his students' turf any longer. Time to Go SnapVine allows you to record voice comments and then attach them in a variety of ways, including adding your voice to photos and sharing them with friends, creating an audio blog entry - including from your mobile phone!, and sharing voice comments with friends in MySpace etc. SnapVine integrates with a number of social networking applications, including Bebo, Myspace, Facebook, Xanga and Friendster.See eLGG - a SNS dedicated to education and educational technology. The value of SNS in an educational setting is that it combines many of the 21st century skills needed by our students - information and communication skills, thinking and problem-solving skills, interpersonal and self-directional skills.Classroom 2.0 is a social networking site for those interested in Web 2.0 and collaborative technologies in education. It's the winner of the 2007 edublog award for best use of a SNS.But perhaps the most valuable benefit of SNS is allowing students to socialize, according to Danah Boyd . In reality, students use these sites to socialize with their own network of friends, and don't reach out to meet strangers, to build a new community of friends. Instead of congregating at Starbucks, they catch up with their own network online because "we’ve systematically taken away the opportunities for socialization. And yet we wonder why our kids are so immature compared to kids from other cultures. Social network sites are popular because youth are trying to take back the right to be social, even if it has to happen in interstitial ways."In Will Richardson's January 16, 2007 post Social Networks (No) vs. Social Tools (Yes) in Schools , he states that "social networks as they are currently defined and delivered aren’t for schools. But using social tools to teach our students to build their own networks, networks that go beyond simply socializing with the people they already know has to be."Educator's role in socialising today's youth (in Web2.0)Danah Boyd is a researcher well-known for her work in social networking. This article in the knowledgeTree seeks to explore the social dynamics of mediated public life in order to help educators understand their role in socialising today’s youth."New social technologies have altered the underlying architectures of social interaction and information distribution. They are embracing this change, albeit often with the clumsy candour of an elephant in a china shop. Meanwhile, most adults are panicking. They do not understand the shifts that are taking place and, regardless, they don’t like what they’re seeing." This is where the educator's role lies, in helping the elephant become a reflective, thoughtful and efficient communicator in this flat world we now inhabit, but often the educators are in the latter category. Other than discussing the importance of SNS, Danah also gives a small intro to SNS in this article by explaining how each SNS is basically composed of 3 features:profiles, Friends lists, and comments. Social Network Sites: Public, Private, or What? JoyceDaniel Churchill plans to explore the benefits of a social space that supports the sharing of resources for teachers. His study intends to design and implement the system and to subsequently study a spectrum of relevant issues - teachers will share, catalog and reuse digital resources in a Web 2.0 environment as compared to a learning object repository such as MERLOT, and have access to a social space. Teachers will benefit from harnessing the ideas and activities of colleagues through discovery of useful pedagogical ideas, sharing of experiences, recommendations, etc. He refers to this as 'community plumbing' - the teachers would contribute and develop their own knowledge and pedagogical expertise, leading to the advancement of teaching and learning. (Web 2.0 and Possibilities for Educational Applications, Educational Technology, March - April 2007)The National School Boards Association in the US, representing 95,000 school board members, is encouraging the use of social networking in schools. Their reported that many educators surveyed already use social networking sites, and are of the opinion that social networking may be advantageous to students. For example - students who are often reluctant to participate in class find their voice with SNS. Parents surveyed indicated that social networking may improve reading and writing skills as well as improve socializing skills. Here is an example of both management, teachers and parents agreeing that there is value of social networks in the classroom. As Will Richardson says: (See Will Richardson blog post of August 20, 2007 where he says that "it all of a sudden feels like there will be a moment close at hand where “innovation” might be possible. CyberbullyingWikipedia defines Cyberbullying as willful and involves recurring or repeated harm inflicted through the medium of electronic text. Cyberbullying is when a child, preteen or teen is tormented, threatened, harassed, humiliated, embarrassed or otherwise targeted by another child, preteen or teen using the Internet, interactive and digital technologies or mobile phones. It has to have a minor on both sides, or at least have been instigated by a minor against another minor. Cyber911 Emergency Nancy Willard, author of "An Educators Guide to Cyberbullying and Cyberthreats" categorizes and defines cyberbullying as follows:
In educational settings, there are two sides to the story - cyberbullying is not just directed at students but also staff. Carol Brydolf writes in the October 2007 edition of Education Digest of the principal of a prestigious public high school in San Francisco having to suspend a student and requesting he pull his web page off of MySpace.com because his nasty post targeted some of the school's students. The post was offensive, inappropriate, endangered the students and the integrity of the school - it was a clear cut case of cyberbulling. However, the principal may not have acted within his legal rights but to him it was worth the risk. David Knight left school because of cyberbullying. "Rather than just some people, say 30 in a cafeteria, hearing them all yell insults at you, it's up there for 6 billion people to see. Anyone with a computer can see it," says David. "And you can't get away from it. It doesn't go away when you come home from school. It made me feel even more trapped." CBC News: Cyberbullying, March 2005 Cyberbulling is not just directed at students, but also staff. In February 2007, 11 students were suspended from a Toronto Catholic high school after posting demeaning and profane comments about their principal on the online social networking site Facebook referring to him as the "grinch of school spirit". The comments violated the school's code of conduct, and was "a case of cyber-bullying." Bruce Campbell, a spokesman for the Dufferin-Peel Catholic District School said that Facebook has also caused problems in other school boards in the province. http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2007/02/12/school-facebook.html A study reported in April 2007 by Amanda Lenhart and Mary Madden reports that most teenagers do take steps to limit their exposure to victimization and actively manage their personal information, sharing more information with their trusted friends while at the same time creating a public profile for new friends. However, 32% of the teenagers surveyed had been contacted by a stranger. But being contacted by a stranger isn't the only danger. Steve posted a BBC story in one of his comments about the student who tried to remove his MySpace account. The student had posted some things he didn't feel a prospective employer would want to see, but despite following MySpace's instructions to delete his account, he found it wasn't that easy. After a frustrating six weeks and emails back and forth, MySpace finally closed his account. The problem is, however, links to some information about him still remain on the Internet. Jane writes about identification theft. "This has also occurred on My Space and Hi5. Here is one article http://www.networkworld.com/news/2007/081407-facebook-identity-theft.html and another http://www.blogsafety.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1200000303."There are many sites such as Wired Safety http://www.wiredsafety.org/ which "provide help, information and education to Internet and mobile device users of all ages. We help victims of cyberabuse ranging from online fraud, cyberstalking and child safety, to hacking and malicious code attacks. We also help parents with issues, such as MySpace and cyberbullying." MySpace doesn't allow anyone under 14 years of age to set up a profile; however, it is difficult to catch someone lying about their age. MySpace does patrol the profiles of their members to try to find anyone who is underage.Dr. Alec Couros suggests that educators having control over which social network students use 'may be the most important strategy for assuring safety within the social learning experience, especially when working with young children.' He suggests 'carefully crafted guidelines' are key to the success of using social networks in the classroom. MySpace and Facebook does not allow teachers to have control over student activities while a service such as Ning does. Two successful global projects he refers to are The Flat Classroom Project, cofounded by Vicki Davis, known in the edublogosphere as "coolcatteacher," connecting students from the US, Australia, China, Austria, and Qatar to work together on projects inspired by Thomas Friedman's groundbreaking book, The World Is Flat and a reading project at the International School Bangkok, in Thailand, where fifth graders use Ning to connect to students in Australia, China, the UK, and the US.Here are links to several well-written articles on cyberbullying:
Does the educational value referred to in the NSBA report mentioned above outweigh the dilemma that online social networks pose for school boards? The California School Boards Association issued a new policy brief in July 2007 giving schools the right to deny computer privileges to underage users and to misusers. Many school boards block students' access to social online networks. For parents and educators, "it's hard not to be overwhelmed by fear" of the unknown. Under the Children's Internet Protection Act, most schools must have some sort of internet filter to block access to unsafe and inappropriate material but they don't affect peer-to-peer sites. Denver Public Schools adopted the R3000 filtering tool as well as a web reporting tool. A question that many teachers ask is if they will be found liable of any misuse or improper/inappropriate posting on a public site.Are students asking for problems, despite warnings? This is a post by Jane in a Moodle forum on Thursday, 20 December 2007, 08:24 PM I’m not able to use these Internet forums with my students as they are 8-10 year olds. I use a class blog because in the past some of my students were going into My Space and Friendster and pretending to be 19 years old! I also have found that blogs are a great motivator for learning and it improves my students reading comprehension as well! The main reason for my students using Friendster etc is the need to connect online with others. Friendster was rated the second most popular site in Indonesia by Alexa (2007). By creating a blog environment I have managed to somewhat satisfy their need for online connectivity. I’m not naive enough to think that I’ve stopped my students going into those sites totally but at least I have given them a safer option and some Internet ‘street’ skills as well. Internet safety is an ongoing theme in my teaching. I'm wondering if anyone else uses these online networks for educational purposes? Jane
What do you think about using Facebook as a social networking tool in an educational environment? Is there something better, more 'professional' or 'academic' that would perhaps maintain the student-teacher relationship in a better way? I invite your comments.
The Great DebateIn October 2007, the Economistran an “Oxford-style debate” based on the proposition that Social networking technologies will bring large positive changes to educational methods in and out of the classroom. It pits Ewan McIntosh of edublogs.com against Michael Bugeja (author, journalist, educator). Sixty-three percent voted in favour of the proposition. Some major points made by Ewan McIntosh are:
Michael Bugetja's arguments against it are:
SummaryThe jury continues to be divided on the value of SNS in an educational setting. Boyd believes that social technology is valuable in the classroom, however she doesn't believe social networking sites such as Facebook or MySpace have any educational value, and that youth do not use these sites to 'network' with anyone that is not part of their close social circle. However, we have to ask ourselves - has anything so attracted our students recently other than the Harry Potter craze both in and out of the classroom? By recognizing that social networking is a reality and an important aspect of our students' lives, educators can skillfully leverage students' enthusiasm and skills to bring added value into the classroom. Incorporating social networking can have a positive effect in engaging students, while fostering communication, achieving outcomes, enhancing learning, and building knowledge and global awareness through collaboration.Our challenge as educators is to move the traditional classroom into the 21st century, and to stay "relevant in our students' learning lives." (Richardson, Will. "Locked in an Irrelevant System?"). The new literacy is for educators to provide guidance and experience in answering questions: "Who can I trust?" "What defines expertise?" "Where can I find teachers?" "How do I build a learning network?" If we can use social networks to ignite a spark of interest and connect students to learn in new and exciting ways, what more could a one ask. Related ArticlesMaking an impact Jeff Utecht's presentation to students on accountability and understanding of the power of the web. "Showing universities and future employers that you know there are responsibilities that come with posting information on the Internet.Cyber thieves target social sites By Mark Ward Technology Correspondent, BBC News website: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7156541.stm Social sites are already being targeted by hi-tech thieves. It is not just the average net user who is a fan of social network sites, so are hi-tech criminals. So say security professionals predicting what net criminals will turn to in 2008 to catch people out. The quasi-intimate nature of the sites makes people share information readily leaving them open to all kinds of other attacks, warn security firms. Detailed information gathered via the sites will also help tune spam runs or make phishing e-mail more convincing. Posted by PennyROK I wish I had found this site before this kG wiki was submitted! Many to Many is a group weblog on social software and covers many of the topics contained herein.Related web sites
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