Oct
25
Social Software in Higher Education: Isolated Accidents or the Start of Something Big?
October 25, 2007 |
Educause 2007 - Wednesdsay 24 October
Presenters were: Bas Cordewener – Manager International Collaboration, SURF Foundation; Eja Kliphuis – Educational Consultant, INHOLLAND University of Professional Education; Julie K Little – Associate Director, ELI, Educause; Cyprien P Loma – Director, Learning Centre, University of British Columbia
The session covered four examples of social software use and some reflections on the different experiences:
Edutrip
Last year 40 dutch participants went to Educause and planned to publish a Wiki and some blogs. There was a good level of participating in the wiki (95%) with some interaction and success, due in part to the moderation and a structured wiki to start with. The blog was used as a connection with the home audience. In 2007 a combined wiki and blog is being used
Knowledge Exchange
Brief explanation of SURFgroups in Netherlands for blogs and wikis and collaborative spaces. Knowledge Exchange is a collaborative effort between SURF, JISC, DEFF and DFG as a way of sharing experience and knowledge. SURFgroups were proposed as a platform for KE to work through and generate joint proposals. However the platform was not used extensively and preferred traditional phone and meetings. This was party because of small numbers of people involved (10-12 people) and there was a reliance on individual expertise and authority
Educause Connect
Early stage of search, browse and contribute through blogs, wikis, comments, podcasts etc. Content is created by employees of Educause organisations but can be accessed by anyone. Now has 3000+ blogs, 300+ wikis and 220 contributors. Whilst numerically lower than more established routes, is more widely used by international contacts and is being used as a means of extending conference experience. Challenges are around folksonomies that inhibit searches
Horizon 2007 Wiki
The report comes out once a year and looks at six technologies that are thought to impact on teaching and learning. Challenge is to get a handful of people across different continents to collaborate on a report. The contributors encouraged to work through a structured wiki within set timescale and goals after which people asked to vote on emerging technologies. Seems ideal for a very specific task within timescales
Practices Compared
I found the conclusions on practices quite hard to identify and didn’t see the point they were trying to make. They used the Wiki Cycle by Jonathon Davies to compare practices – this centres around F2F facilitation, trust, anonymity, facilitation and collaboration. There did seem to be some link to the use of facilitators in the more successful wikis. Following discussions touched on issues including how specific the purposes of the wikis were, the challenges of ‘older’ people being worried about experimentation with wikis, and whether wikis are always the most appropriate technology. They also referenced another experiment – Paul Traffords social book marking experiment http://connect.educause.edu/blog/pault/linkingsiteswithsoci/45118
