Category Archives: Social Networking

Sense and order in Web 2.0 – and some!

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For many joining the world of Web 2.0 is still a new adventure, and for those of us working with these new adventurers it is important to be able to step back and start at the beginning. But it is also a wee bit magical to push forward, and look back on your own adventure – and be amazed at the change.

It was Del.ici.ous that did it for me!! To be so liberated by a single tool never ceases to amaze me – perhaps the most powerful personal web tool of all! For my money it remains the most important one to introduce to all teachers as a way of transforming or shifting their technology use from Web 1.0 to Web 2.0.

fans.jpgAlso, the power of the network cannot be underestimated!

I currently have 145 people in my network, and 291 fans – some of them very new as indicated by the star. Sometimes I know who they are (hi Chris!) and other times I don’t.

However, there comes a time when you KNOW that you’re no longer a newbie!! You know the way it is ….. you check your Network, and see great bookmarks that others have added. And then you smile, because you added those a LONG time ago. So information comes around, goes around, and gets shared at all different points of the sequence of people’s personal learning journey in Web 2.0.

Del.icio.us still powers the web for me, though how I use it hasn’t much changed since I started social bookmarking 18 months ago. In fact, I hadn’t come across much else new in the world of Del.icio.us until today.

Research Buzz reported Del.icio.us Spy, and I took a look.

deliciousspy.jpg

That blew my socks off!! Del.icio.us Spy, at http://www.ajaxonomy.com/deliciousspy/ , shows you bookmarks as they’re being added to del.icio.us, along with a screen shot and occasionally a little context.

If you don’t want to see every last bookmark being added, you can also filter by tag. If you happen to choose a tag that doesn’t get updated very often, you can have the site play a sound for you every time it updates. And finally, there’s a pause button if you see some links that you want to investigate before they scroll off the screen.

Oh, and as the links fly onto the screen, you can simply hit the Save for Later button, and then chill out and browse through the links you’ve saved – though you need to do this before the end of your session.

I found some cool stuff that I added to my Del.icio.us account – thus adding to the world pool of ever growing links. What a very different Web 2.0 world it is 🙂

Network fatigue and the remixable web

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That’s what it’s all about …. lets keep an eye on these developments!

The DataPortability technical blueprint uses OpenID to provide decentralized identity. OpenID 2.0 Attribute Exchange (AX) is utilised for discovery of user service details. XRDS/YADIS are utilised to provide the details of the various services a user employs.

As users, our identity, photos, videos and other forms of personal data should be discoverable by, and shared between our chosen (and trusted) tools or vendors. We need a DHCP for Identity. A distributed File System for data. The technologies already exist, we simply need a complete reference design to put the pieces together.

  • The Horizon Project 2008

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    Thanks to an alert by Vicki Davis for the information that the 2008 Horizon Report pdf.gif is available now from the Horizon Project wiki and will be announced to the world January 29, 2008 at the EDUCAUSE ELI Conference. Thanks also to Gabriela Grosseck who sent a direct link of the Horizon Project pdf to me via Delicious.

    Analyzing the five year history of the Horizon Reports, they have identified seven metatrends that have emerged with some regularity:

    This is there analysis, but they hope that readers will weigh in on these metatrends.

    They also look back to past Horizon Reports to ask “Where are they now?”

    In addition to analyzing the MetaTrends of the last 5 years, this report outlines the major emerging technologies for college level education in the next 5 years including:

    1 year or less

    • Grassroots Video
    • Collaboration Webs

    2-3 years

    • Mobile Broadband
    • Data Mashups

    4-5 years

    • Collective Intelligence
    • Social Operating Systems

    Interesting!! Read more about Horizon Report now ready from our wonderful Cool Cat Teacher, Vicki Davis and follow her advice about tagging to share information.

  • Quantifying the impact of social media

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    Kerrie Smith asked some discerning questions about my last post Google Generation and Virtual Libraries, making the link to the debate that’s going on over on the Economist.com about whether social networks do/can/will have a positive impact on education.

    I do believe that blogs can provide solid, authoritative “knowledge” – but as these bloggers are doing the research (leg work) to investigate topics, doing the critical analysis and synthesis of what they have found – they are few and far between. That is not to say that other bloggers are any less valuable – just that they are fitting a different social network niche. Bloggers that more easily fit this category of comprehensive reflective research and analysis are Stephen Downes, Will Richardson,  Christopher Sessums, Dough Johnson, and Ewan McIntosh as examples. Many blogs are reflective conversations, others are disseminators of information or providers of tips and tricks in ‘how to’ do things – and are part of that personal learning environment at each of us is building around ourselves to help us in our networked world.

    Can blogs be authoritative resources? I thinks so – sometimes. At other times they are informative or trivial, relevant or off-beat, extroverted or muted – but whatever form they take they will have relevance to someone somewhere.

    Technobabble 2.0 provides a white paper outlining the thoughts and views of several key stakeholders who met late last year to discuss the issue of measuring online influence.

    Download: “Distributed influence: quantifying the impact of social media” (PDF)

    The catalyst behind this document was the publication of Edelman’s Social Media Index in July 2007 with David Brain. This attempted to propose a new way of calculating an individuals online influence beyond the ‘traditional’ method of analysing a blog’s inbound links to incorporate other social media tools such as Twitter and Facebook.

    The issue of influence is an important dimension of the creation of authority – particularly in the field of blogging and social networks. This is a concept we need to think about, and understand in the creation of knowledge networks.

    Read the paper. I look forward to Stephen’s analysis of the white paper 🙂

    From my point of view it raises some critical issues in relation to data mining and information manipulation that takes place in such arenas as marketing or monetizing of information.

    What do I think of ‘authority’ when this sort of activity is common. For example, its fascinating to follow Caroline Middlebrook, who has shared all her work extensively, and in the process allowed educators like myself to gain a little insight into the strategies adopted by those who wish to earn a living by disseminating information – pure and simple.

    I started with a single article which I re-wrote four times and then mashed up manually using the article mashup method I have blogged about to stretch that to 16 articles.

    I guess my answer would be that the material being produced would not fit into my understanding of ‘authority’. At what point then does blogging and other social networking activities become more noise (staff room/coffee shop babble) rather than activities in the pursuit of learning. I don’t know. Who am I to judge anyway?

    Photo: I make stuff up.

    Digital Natives explain!

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    What is a digital native? How does the generational divide impact the legal, societal, and educational realms?

    Great questions being answered – or at least explored in depth – through the research lead up to publication of a new book. There is some tremendously helpful feedback on the draft v.0.9 of the forthcoming book Born Digital (Basic Books, German translation with Hanser) from tertiary students at Harvard and St. Gallen Law School, which is very worth while reading.

    Discussing Born Digital with European Students, gives insights into Digital Natives ideas about the opportunities, challenges, and most promising approaches in digital technologies when asked three discussion questions:

    First, what do you think is the greatest opportunity for Digital Natives when it comes to digital technologies? Second, what are you most concerned about when thinking about the future of the Internet? Third, what approach – generically speaking – seems best suited to address the challenges you’ve identified?

    Join them in the discussion if you like, or check out their project wiki , their new DN blog, follow them on Twitter, or join their Facebook group.

    Here are the student’s thoughts in brief:

    Greatest opportunities:

    • Democratizing effect of the net: DN can build their own businesses without huge upfront investments (Rene, Switzerland)
    • ICT enables networking among people across boundaries (Catrine, Switzerland)
    • Encourages communication among DNs (Pierre-Antoine, France)
    • Increased availability of all kind of information, allows fast development and sharing ideas among DNs (Jonas, Germany)
    • Availability of information, DN can go online and find everything they’re looking for; this shapes, e.g., the way DNs do research; as a result, world becomes a smaller place, more common denominators in terms of shared knowledge and culture (Melinda, Switzerland)
    • Efficiency gains in all areas, including speed of access, spread of ideas, … (Eugene, Singapore)

    Greatest challenges, long-term:

    • Problem of losing one’s identity – losing cultural identity in the sea of diversity (Eugene, Singapore)
    • Dependency on technology and helplessness when not having the technology available; DNs are becoming dependent on technology and lose ability to differentiate b/w reality and virtuality; other key challenge: bullying (Melinda, Switzerland)
    • Who will get access to the digital world – only the wealthy kids in the West or others, too? Digital divide as a key problem (Jonas, Germany)
    • Addiction: DNs are always online and depend so much on Internet that it maz lead to addictive behavior (Pierre-Antoine, France)
    • DNs can’t distinguish between offline and online world, they can’t keep, e.g. online and offline identities separate (Catrine, Switzerland)
    • Notion of friendship changes; DNs might forget about their friends in the immediate neighborhood and focus solely on the virtual (Rene, Switzerland)

    Most promising approaches:

    • Teach digital natives how to use social networks and communicate with each other; law, in general, is not a good mode of regulation in cyberspace (Rene, Switzerland)
    • Technology may often provide a solution in response to a technologically-created problem like, e.g., privacy intrusion (Catrine, Switzerland)
    • Don’t regulate too much, otherwise people won’t feel responsible anymore; education is key, help people to understand that it’s their own responsibility (Pierre-Antoine, France)
    • The laws that are currently in place suffice (except in special circumstances); learning is key, but who shall be the teacher (since today’s teachers are not DNs)? (Jonas, Germany)
    • Generic legal rules are often not the right tool, problems change too fast; instead, kids need general understanding of how to handle technology; goal could be to strengthen their personality in the offline world so that they can transfer their confidence, but also skills to the online world (Melinda, Switzerland)
    • Technology will most likely help DNs to solve many of the problems we face today; education is the basis, but focus needs to be on the question how to put education from theory into practice (Eugene, Singapore)

    From the blog Law and Information: obtaining a better understanding of the information society and law’s role in it.

    Here comes everybody!

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    The grand thing about Web 2.0 and social networking is the opportunities for both serendipity and synergy in the process of networking and collaboration.

    Today I read with interest Beth Kanter’s (from Cambodia) notes about building your network strategically. Beth is writing an article and threw some thinking up on her Facebook notes. She starts by saying that

    Doing “outreach” or adding new friends to your network is a critical part of the work flow. To reap the benefits a using a social networking, you need to build your network, although as some experts say it is a matter of quality, not quantity. You want to avoid random outreach, but remember since outreach can be open-ended and there are opportunities for distractions. Remember to know when to stop.

    While Beth is looking at marketing in the non-profit sector her comments were of interest to educators – Vicki Davis (Southern Georgia, our coolcatteacher!) added a note saying

    In school we tell everyone,”Never add a friend of a friend, only add people you know,” and many of us are building our network in this way. Aren’t kids who add friends of a friend learning valuable networking skills? It is important to remember this, but also that we are creating a vast disconnect between what we tell students and what is going to make them successful in the future!

    So here we had just one of our many dilemmas in education being effectively highlighted and discussed, right in a social networking space, accessible only amongst ‘friends’.

    It didn’t stop there. I also had a message from Ken Carroll (Shanghai & Dublin) about the launch of his new blog Ken Carroll on Learning. Here we have Ken, and astute businessman, doing exactly as Beth advises – using friends networks to reflect and share, manage and promote.

    I am pleased that Ken shared his new blog link with me, because he has some highly relevant issues for consideration by educators. (Consider adding Ken Carroll on Learning to your RSS reader.)

    His post Here Comes Everybody touches on so many issues related to learning – information sharing, communication, gathering, discussion, utilisation etc etc. Yes, Ken, we have all been learning more, faster than we could 5 years ago….that is, if we are immersed in Web 2.0 tools and communication opportunities. As he puts it

    every individual now has a voice in the Big Conversation…. the participative web goes way beyond just high-speed access to information. It also enables us to form learning networks that include people, conversations, and information. This is a crucial development that we need to understand.

    Like Ken, I also connect with people on my network through blogs, social networks, email, instant messaging and more.

    This is what I want to share with my teachers. This is what I want to empower in the learning opportunities for my students. This is what future learning is all about.

    Photo: Casa Batllo, My Social Network

    International Edublog Awards 2007 Finalists

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    This year we see another fabulous line-up in the annual Edublog Awards.

    I am genuinely amazed and proud to find this blog nominated for Best Librarian blog – special thanks to those who considered Heyjude worthwhile for the honour!!

    The wonderful thing about the annual Edublog Awards is the opportunity to share our finds, celebrate our work, and discover the wonderful new people who have joined us in the world of blogs and wikis.

    As my super online friend (and multiple nominee) Sue Waters said

    While it is really nice to be nominated we need to remember the best aspects of the awards is it creates a fabulous resource for educators to use for ideas on how social software is used in different contexts, with a range of different learners; which means we are introduced to new sites that we might not have found if not for the awards process.

    Please take the time to visit the web sites of the Edublogs Award Finalists, explore the resources, do some voting, and perhaps add some excellent educational blogs to your feed reader.

    It’s great to see Best Library/Librarian listed amongst the award categories. In schools we work hard to promote the role that Teacher Librarians/Librarians/Media Specialists have to play in 21st century learning. Our work is vital (critical even!) yet not always acknowledged for being central in each of our student’s lives.

    I’m a teacher and I’m a librarian. That’s special – and what makes Heyjude special for me is that I know that the audience is strongly drawn from teachers and librarians alike – all interested in 21st century learning issues. Teacher Librarians are very special people 🙂 and we all have to work hard together to makes sure that we keep good school libraries in our Australian schools.

    If you are keen to help the promotion efforts, take a visit to The Hub – the campaign blog for quality school libraries in Australia!

    The best Award innovation this year?

    The winners will be announced at the Award ceremony which will be held in Second Life on Saturday December 8. Cool!

    Congratulations to all the nominees !!!!! It’s a stunning lineup of great people.

    Happy voting – and thanks to all the work by James Farmer and Josie Fraser behind the scenes. 🙂

    Photo: Special

  • CNN enters Second Life

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    Just as CNN asks its real-life audience to submit I-Reports — user-generated content submitted from cell phones, computers, cameras and other equipment for broadcast and online reports — the network is encouraging residents of Second Life to share their own “SL I-Reports” about events occurring within the virtual world.

    CNN citizen journalism everywhere you turn! It is interesting to speculate how many teachers are abreast of citizen journalism trends, and the impact of these types of initiatives.

    Read the report or watch this introductory video from CNN.

  • Big juicy Twitter Guide

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    Thanks to Caroline Middlebrook  for compiling this great guide.

    She’s included heaps of information and ideas – no excuse now for not understanding Twitter. Even if you don’t use Twitter, you have to stop and take notice of Twitter – because it’s where lots of good educators are sharing – ripping through the global information repository and picking the best just for you and me!

    Big Juicy Twitter Guide

    Ning Facebook face-off?

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    You’ve got to love the pace of change…now it’s OpenSocial!

    For those of you who don’t eat, breathe, and sleep web standards, OpenSocial is a new open web API being spearheaded by Google. OpenSocial applications will be able to run easily and reliably inside social networks, and be able to be tailored by the user to create personalisation of their social space.

    Ning already has one-click integration with Facebook automatically on your social network using the Facebook proprietary platform approach.

    Now Ning has released OpenSocial across their now 115,000 social networks. This means that you can enable OpenSocial “Apps” or “Gadgets” on your social network on Ning today!

    So if you are a Network creator, you have the choice to add OpenSocial Gadgets to your network- it is entirely optional. If you don’t choose the OpenSocial Gadget option from the Features page, then your members will not have the option to add OpenSocialOpenSocial Gadgets to their profile page. It’s up to you. If you do decide to enable Gadgets on your network, your members can add any OpenSocial Gadget of their choice to their member profile page.

    Keep up to date with ongoing Ning changes and developments at the Ning Blog.

    I think there is a rumbling in the firmament again! Facebook – hang on!

    Here’s a quick screencast which describes how to get started with OpenSocial Gadgets on your social network right now.

    From Ning Blog. Photo: FaceOff