If you want to understand the “big picture” of the impact of social software on education, including the problems, I suggest you go to the Academic Commons and read Joseph Ugoretz”s Three Stars and a Chili Pepper

Ugoretz starts from this premise:
Social software includes many communication media, but the new tools which are the subject of this essay all fit three broad descriptions. These tools are interactive, with the content created and structured by a wide mass of contributors. These tools are also interconnected, with user-provided searchable links structuring and cross-referencing that content. And finally, these tools are bottom-up and communitarian, with the users of the tools providing and benefitting from associations, reputations, and authority within a many-to-many community. The various tools of social software are an increasing presence in the online world, as well as the offline lives of their users.

He uses anecdotes and clear explanations.

I recommend it.

tags
social software
education

I’ve been playing on (with?) a new resource for learning and teaching called SocialLearning.ca

You can learn a lot on this site. For direct learning, take a look at the Tutorials section – the link is on the far right on the navbar at the top.

You can also learn by exploring a little using the (right)sidebar to click on tags or other links –

And finally, you can learn by exploring the navbar at the top. For example, by clicking on “Software” you will find information on various software that SocialLearning.ca members recommend and/or describe.
If, as a teacher, you have trouble filling your time during the summer (;-> irony alert!) you could spend at least some of your “free” time exploring and learning from this site.

tags
SocialLearning.ca
social learning
social

Tagging is an essential tool for anyone who wants to find interesting Websites again sometime in the future. In a previous post, I explained tagging, using extensive quotes from Ellyssa Kroski’s post, The Hive Mind: Folksonomies and User-Based Tagging at InfoTangle. It’s still an excellent starting point for understanding the significance of tagging. However, sometimes “quick and dirty” howto’s are all someone wants to know. With that in mind, here’s a link to –

Thirteen Tips for Effective Tagging, an excellent post on the “how’s” of tagging with del.icio.us. For example:

Below are some tips for choosing tags on del.icio.us from Web Consultant Alexandra Samuel.

1.
Be a lemming. Check how other people are tagging the kinds of sites you want to remember. Del.icio.us Linkbacks makes this very easy. Bear in mind that different people will bookmark the same site for different reasons: I might bookmark Terminus 1525 as a great example of a Drupal site, while you are saving it as a link to young Canadian artists.
2.
Follow the herd. When in doubt, pick the tag that seems to have the most links — this is the leading tag of the options you’re considering, so hopefully will emerge as the dominant focal point (so you don’t have to check “open-source,” “opensource,” and “open_source” to keep on top of the big world of open source).

I recommend the whole post, and suggest you bookmark it using del.icio.us ;->

tags
tagging
tags
del.icio.us
tips

From CorrecteurOrthographiqueOffice, a truly significant development in spell checking – contextual spell checking!

A writing-teacher fantasy come true!

tags
MS Office
spell checking

The Web can be a confusing and therefore intimidating space. Matthew McKinnon, published on CBC’s Arts & Entertainment Website, gives the clearest map I’ve seen:

Think of the web’s old guard as TV networks — they provide mainstream programming for amorphous audiences — and its young turks as cable channels, offering niche content to avid subscriber bases.

The leaders of this new school excel at creating online communities. MySpace, YouTube and Flickr function as self-contained planets in cyberspace; Blogger is chief architect of the blogosphere. All of them encourage their users to contribute content, engage in conversation and form personal relationships. It’s a totally different tao of building traffic: Yahoo! takes you places, MySpace means you’re already there.

Settle in, and get a load of the big stars of the net’s new wave…

Here’s the link to his article: http://www.cbc.ca/arts/media/megasites.html.

Enjoy!

tags
Web 2.0
Matthew McKinnon
Web Megasites

Some conferences are just great, and this was one. Today I attended the CCHRD (College Committee on Human Resources Development) Central Region (Centennial, Seneca, George Brown, Sheridan, Mitchner Institute) Conference called Connecting the Dots. The one & a half hour rush-hour commute was not fun, but shortly after I arrived, I was greeted by two women, one of whom, with a lovely warm smile, told me she reads this blog! It was exciting to meet a such a positive reader!

Then Dr Marcel Danesi spoke, and he’s wonderful! He talked about the fact that academic researchers don’t actually know how people learn, however the person and their background, both personal and cultural, are at the core. He went on to affirm that human contact is central to teaching. Yes. I agree totally.

As a teacher you have to shut up and listen, which is part of becoming wise, and part of seeing your students as researchers of what you both are interested in. Absolutely! You want your students’ respect, not their friendship. You want to be a “wise elder” and their mentor.

I can’t possibly impart the flair and humour of his talk, but I enjoyed and benefitted from it.

The students on the student panel had interesting comments and insights.

The morning workshop session I went to was called “Popular Culture and Critical Media Literacy” given by Lena Carla Gutekunst, and it was very interesting. She’s an engaging speaker with real insight into the culture many of our students live in, and how to teach critical thinking using (and respecting) it.

Lunch was great, as was the conference space Centennial had provided.

I presented on Blogs, Wikis and Students in the afternoon, and was grateful for the help I got from the sound man and a quiet stranger I later realized was Dr. Sandy Shugart, the closing keynote speaker. I loved talking about Web 2.0, and how it helped my students connect with each other, and how it gave them a real context for communicating with each other. (If they didn’t reseach, present and post on the wiki, their fellow students wouldn’t learn what they needed to learn.) And the subtext to both the class and the presentation, was that my students had engaged with each other because they had heard each other’s stories, and had been heard when they told their stories.

The Web, my message was, is easy and allows our students to communicate in ways they find meaningful, using a technical tool they are familiar with, though they might have to learn some new elements. It is a powerful teaching/learning tool, especially when combined with face-to-face time in class.

Dr Sandy Shugart gave the closing keynote and what a wonderful note to close on. He spoke holding, and occasionally playing his guitar. He talked about Robert Frost’s “Two Tramps in Mud Time” and how our work can deform us, how it can be a shrinking prison, or how it can be a crucible, where we are transmuted into our full humanity. He spoke about how important it was to a “servant leader” – and he sang great lyrics. I was very glad I’d stayed (instead of leaving early to miss the traffic). I needed to hear what he was saying, at many levels. Here’s a description of him – http://www.imakenews.com/orcc/e_article000400176.cfm?x=b11,0,w

A lovely, rewarding day!

tags
Connecting the Dots
Marcel Danesi
Sandy Shugart