USING MICROLOGGING TO DELIVER ONLINE COURSES CASE STUDY Carmen HOLOTESCU Politehnica University of Timisoara Manager Timsoft Gabriela Grosseck West University of Timisoara Romania World Conference on Educational Sciences, North Cyprus February, 4-7, 2009

AGENDA: Presentation Agenda: Microblogging technology Microblogging platform Cirip.ro An online course Conclusions

Presentation Agenda:

Microblogging technology

Microblogging platform Cirip.ro

An online course

Conclusions

RSS/blogs-2004, podcast–2005, vlog–2006, video–2007, microblogging-2008 Web2.0 / social networks have great impact in collaborative / social learning ( eLearning2.0 )

Microblogging is a collaborative technology, a new form of blogging, with brief text updates of 140 characters, via Web, SMS, email, IM or 3th party applications - RT interactions between users

photo: http://www.heikkironkko.com/images/yolehti_jaiku.jpg The best known microblogging services

Educational uses: information and knowledge management courses enhancement delivering entire online courses collaborative projects in universities communities of practice ePortfolios. Cirip.ro - a microblogging platform specially designed for education and business; launched in March, 2008, by Timsoft

Educational uses:

information and knowledge management

courses enhancement

delivering entire online courses

collaborative projects in universities

communities of practice

ePortfolios.

Personal Learning Environments / Networks of users Cirip.ro special features: public and private groups (courses, projects, events, different topics) multimedia objects embedding in notes: images ( flickr , tinypic ), audio ( deezer , vocaroo ) and (live) video clips ( youtube , dotsub , vimeo , seesmic ), presentations ( slideshare , capzles , voicethread , flowgram , photopeach , notaland ) documents (pdf, doc,xls) feeds monitoring (from sites/blogs/social networks/search). Users Groups Feeds Networks of Edu-Resources

Cirip.ro special features:

public and private groups (courses, projects, events, different topics)

multimedia objects embedding in notes: images ( flickr , tinypic ), audio ( deezer , vocaroo ) and (live) video clips ( youtube , dotsub , vimeo , seesmic ), presentations ( slideshare , capzles , voicethread , flowgram , photopeach , notaland ) documents (pdf, doc,xls)

feeds monitoring (from sites/blogs/social networks/search).

PLE/PLN: users, groups, feeds Interactions online, via ciripfox, SMS, mobile, IM, (MMS), API, twitter2cirip, rss2cirip Text messages, images, audio, video (live), presentations, files Profile cirip2twitter, widget, export notes,

Group news: announcements materials as LOM/SCORM objects An online course about microblogging platforms Investigations: integrate microblogging with other Web2.0 technologies microblogging platform as LMS course facilitation

An online course about microblogging platforms

Investigations:

integrate microblogging with other Web2.0 technologies

microblogging platform as LMS

course facilitation

Course elements: announcements materials as LOM/SCORM objects collaborative exercises multimedia messages built PLE / PLN

Collaborative exercises using different Web2.0 technologies: puzzle images/digital storytelling flickr , CC del.icio.us collection video translation - writeboard , dotsub comments on voicethread tagcloud - wordle code of good practices on microblogs - writeboard

Collaborative exercises using different Web2.0 technologies:

puzzle images/digital storytelling

flickr , CC

del.icio.us collection

video translation - writeboard , dotsub

comments on voicethread

tagcloud - wordle

code of good practices on microblogs - writeboard

Conclusions : Cirip.ro has facilities to deliver successful and qualitative online courses and to enhance courses; the communication, authoring, monitoring, statistical facilities make Cirip.ro a modern free LMS . Facilitating an entire online course or a part of a course on such a platform requires specific facilitation skills, and collaborative technologies knowledge . Participants gain important digital and communication skills , build PLE / PLN , continue to collaborate in community

Conclusions :

Cirip.ro has facilities to deliver successful and qualitative online courses and to enhance courses; the communication, authoring, monitoring, statistical facilities make Cirip.ro a modern free LMS .

Facilitating an entire online course or a part of a course on such a platform requires specific facilitation skills, and collaborative technologies knowledge .

Participants gain important digital and communication skills , build PLE / PLN , continue to collaborate in community

Future work: Tags will be implemented to classify notes and to organize the group messages in topics defined by the facilitator. Authors intend to develop a specification for evaluating students’ eportfolio and participation in courses run or enhanced by microblogging. Scenarios for using microblogging together with different collaborative technologies in formal and informal courses will be modelled using Educational Modelling Language.

Future work:

Tags will be implemented to classify notes and to organize the group messages in topics defined by the facilitator.

Authors intend to develop a specification for evaluating students’ eportfolio and participation in courses run or enhanced by microblogging.

Scenarios for using microblogging together with different collaborative technologies in formal and informal courses will be modelled using Educational Modelling Language.