This document discusses microblogging and its use in education. Microblogging allows for brief text updates of 140 characters via various platforms and encourages real-time interaction between users. The Cirip.eu platform is highlighted as a microblogging tool designed specifically for education with over 70,000 users. Cirip.eu allows for public and private groups, polls, multimedia sharing, and mobile learning features. The document concludes that integrating social media like microblogging into academic courses requires rethinking pedagogy and assessment to match this new, collaborative learning environment.

1. Microblogging architecture and scenarios for learning
in mobile groups
Carmen Holotescu Vladimir Cretu Gabriela Grosseck
University Politehnica/ Timsoft University Politehnica West University
Timisoara, Romania
WCES13 5th World Conference on Educational Sciences
Sapienza University, Rome – Febr, 6-8, 2013

2. There are many definitions of Social Media, and they are evolving in time
Brian Solis (2010), “Defining Social Media: 2006 – 2010”
Kaplan&Haenlein (2010): „social media is a group of Internet-based applications that build on
the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0, and that allow the creation and
exchange of User Generated Content (UGC)”.
Jane Hart(2011): „Social technologies, aka social media, are a new breed of technologies that
have emerged over the last few years and have changes the face of the Web.”
image: http://matetrack.webs.com/SOCIAL/SOCIAL.html

3. Amy Campbell (2010)
3 characteristics of social
media: the majority of
content is user generated, a
high degree of
participation/interaction
between users, and easily
integrates with other sites.
Anthony J. Bradley (2010)
6 core principles:
participation, collective,
transparency, independence,
persistence, and emergence.
JESS3 Labs The Geosocial Universe 2.0
Comparison between the total amount of registered users with the
percentage of people accessing the sites via mobile
http://jess3.com/geosocial-universe-2

4. SOCIAL LEARNING
becomes formal

5. Web2.0 / social networks have great impact
in collaborative / social learning ( eLearning2.0 )
Web2.0, eLearning2.0/Social Learning, Open Educational Resources, Learning Design,
Social Learning Management Systems, Personal Learning Environments, Mobile
Learning, Digital Curation, Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC)

6. MICROBLOGGING:
What is it? And why should I care?

7. Microblogging is a new form of blogging, with brief text updates of 140
characters, via Web, SMS, email, IM or 3rd party applications, which allows
real-time interactions between users.

8. Microblogging is a collaborative technology
photo: http://media2.lelombrik.net/13501-14000/13845.jpg

9. Diagrammr at diagrammr.com/edit?key=dy4NKMc8XsZ embedded
in the note at cirip.ro/status/1644841

10. Microblogging platforms used in education
photo: http://www.heikkironkko.com/images/yolehti_jaiku.jpg

11. Overview of the Microsphere Timeline
Mar 2006 Oct 2007 Dec 2007 Jan 2008 Mar 2008 Jul 2008 Sep 2008
4 platforms in Tops 100 Tools for Leaning 2009-2012: Twitter, Cirip, Yammer, Edmodo
Elizabeth Koh, An overview of microblogging, http://www.slideshare.net/elizabethkoh/an-overview-of-microblogging, slide 16

12. From Grosseck,Holotescu “Academic research in 140 characters and more”
http://slideshare.net/ggrosseck

13. Cirip.eu - a microblogging platform specially designed for education;
launched in March, 2008, by Timsoft, a Romanian company specialized in
eLearning and mobile applications
- 70000 users
- interface in Romanian, English, German
- Nominated by UNESCO Romania for
"UNESCO King Hamad Bin Isa Al-Khalifa
Prize for the Use of ICTs in Education" -
April, 2012
- Finalist at Seedcamp Zagreb, Jan 2010
- In Top 100 Tools for Learning 2009

14. Facilities Cirip.eu (1)
• public and private groups Cirip.eu TUTORIAL
(courses, internal training,
projects, events, internal
communication, service,
family, hobby, etc);
• group communication via SMS
• polls, quizzes – online or via SMS
• feeds monitoring
via SMS / sites / blogs /
social networks / search feeds
• statistics, visualizations, tags.

15. Facilities Cirip.eu (2)
social network around multimedia objects
multimedia objects embedded in messages (part of the communication flow,
created/recreated, openess to (small) OERs - Weller, Martin (2010)):
- livestreaming,
- images (flickr, tinypic),
- audio (eok, trilulilu, deezer, blip.fm, vocaroo, mp3),
- (live) video (youtube, dotsub, vimeo, screencastle, screenjelly, screenr,
220.ro, myvideo),
- presentations/learning design (slideshare, capzles, voicethread, flowgram,
photopeach, picasa,
notaland, prezi, diagrammr, mindomo, mindmeister, spicynodes),
- documents (odf, odt, pdf, doc, xls, txt, ppt, google docs/forms/spreadsheets)

16. Mobile learning features
On technological level
create, localize and join mobile groups
access social media and open educational resources
share opinions
work collaboratively on multimedia objects
participate in polls and quizzes
receive/send updates via SMS On pedagogical level
create and manage mobile PLEs; develop multimedia educational resources /
recover password via SMS. learning objects by using mobile technologies specific
for different subject areas,
build mobile social learning environments engaging
students in PBL, case studies, and collaborative
projects
capture and formally represent experience and new
pedagogical approach as learning design objects -
shared, discussed, validated, improved, and reused.

17. Educational uses
information and knowledge management
courses enhancement
delivering entire online courses
learning from the stream
collaborative projects in universities
communities of practice
ePortfolios Social networks
social LMS. Feeds
Users
Personal Learning Environments ( Networks ) - PLE/PLN

19. Course Elements in a Mobile Group (1)
collaborative
announcements exercises
modules -
LOM/SCORM
learning from the
objects
stream
polls/quiz/ multimedia
comments via messages
SMS (f2f)
Cirip as a social
validations - network of msLMS
interactions with (mobile social
users/experts/ Learning
Management
groups Systems)

20. Course Elements in a Mobile Group (2)
Mindmeister mindmap at
http://www.cirip.ro/status/25893812

21. Learning Design Group
cirip.ro/grup/lds

22. Conclusions
The integration of social media, in particular microblogging, in academic
courses demands a new pedagogy of the teaching and learning process and a
rethinking of student assessment.
“It is not only about bringing into education a set of new tools and technologies; it is
about a change in the learning ethos. And the way in which such learning is assessed
needs to be consistent with this change in learning philosophy” [ Summary report on the
Workshop Assessing Learning in a Digital World. Online Educa Conference Berlin, 2010]
The mobile groups of Cirip.eu have proved to bring authenticity, collaboration
and personalisation in the Higher Education teaching/learning process.

23. Thank you!
Carmen Holotescu
cirip.ro/u/cami13
twitter.com/cami13
Vladimir Cretu
Gabriela Grosseck
cirip.ro/u/gabriela
twitter.com/ggrosseck