Using Elgg as a Social Learning platform

Social Learning Part 2: Using Elgg as a Social Learning Platform Jane Hart Centre for Learning & Performance Technologies www..c4lpt.co.uk

Part 2 Using Elgg as a Social Learning Platform Jane Hart is a Social Media and Learning Consultant who has a 25 What is a Social Learning year track record of helping business year track record of helping business Platform? Pl tf ? and education understand how new technologies can be used for learning What is Elgg? as well as to improve job and business p j performance. She currently focuses Features of Elgg: on helping organisations introduce Personal Tools social media into their learning and g Group Tools performance support initiatives. (c) C4LPT, 2009

What is a social learning platform? Social media tools In Part 1 of this Presentation we looked at how a social learning platform can support Blogging both informal and formal social learning in an organisation. Micro‐blogging A Social Learning platform integrates a RSS feeds number of key social media tools (see right) and provides: Social bookmarking 1. a secure pace for individuals to Social networking aggregate, store and share their personal learning and working File sharing g resources Communication tools 2. a secure space for groups to work and learn informally and collaboratively Collaboration tools Collaboration tools 3. a secure space for formal social and collaborative learning to take place (c) C4LPT, 2009

What is Elgg? Elgg ‐ www.elgg.org - is a free, open source gg gg g ,p platform that has been around since 2004, and is currently in version 1.5. Elgg is a fully customisable, configurable gg y , g and extensible platform, both in terms of functionality and look and feel. In the next few slides we look at the features of Elgg that have been enabled in the c4lpt.NET site. c4lpt.NET is a social learning platform for p gp learning professionals www.c4lpt.NET The c4lpt.NET login page (shown above) has been customised to display recent and featured activity on the site. (c) C4LPT, 2009

Once logged in, the first page the user sees is the Dashboard. In this case the Dashboard has In this case the Dashboard has been set up to display the river of recent activity at the site. There is a place for site There is a place for site announcements by the site administrator. Recent members (i.e. users) are Recent members (i e users) are also displayed. And users can make postings direct to the wire (see later). direct to the wire (see later) At the top of the screen is the menu bar for access to the other activities and tools at the other activities and tools at the site. (c) C4LPT, 2009

Individuals have their own personal learning/working space in Elgg. learning/working space in Elgg. A profile page presents information about a user to others (see right). This page (customised as My Page in h ( d c4lpt.NET) is also used to display resources that the user has created or stored at the site. It is important to stored at the site. It is important to note that the user has fine control over access permissions, i.e. who can see what. The content is displayed in widgets, and the user also has control over the display of the widgets on their page. Note: an alternative version of the Dashboard is to display a user’s personal page with content only visible to them) (c) C4LPT, 2009

Social Networking Social Networking Establishing connections with others is an important aspect of the platform. When visiting a profile page, a user can easily add that member as a friend (or contact, which is the term used in c4lpt.NET). Messaging There is an internal messaging gg system that allows users to send messages to, and receive messages from, their contacts as well as others on the network. on the network (c) C4LPT, 2009

Blogs Every user can create a blog. Each blog posting can be assigned different access permissions, as desired, so that it can be d d h b targeted at specific users. An HTML editor lets users embed a variety of media resources into the posting. Draft postings can be saved and published when ready. b d d bli h d h d Comments on postings can be turned off, if preferred. (c) C4LPT, 2009

Bookmarks Every user can bookmark both internal and external web pages, and save them for their own personal use or share them with others o n personal se or share them ith others at the site, including any specified contacts. Bookmarks shared with a contact appear in their Bookmarks Inbox. (c) C4LPT, 2009

RSS Feeds RSS Feeds Most pages at the site have an RSS feed marked with “Subscribe to feed” (see example to the left) so that others can keep up with new postings. RSS feeds can either be read in an external feed reader, or in the site’s feed reader, where enabled, (see example below). Here a user can add both internal and external feeds to their personal feed list as well as view all site feeds. (c) C4LPT, 2009

Files Every user can upload and store files at the site. These could be documents, presentations, audio ,p , files, photos, etc. These are displayed on the file list together with an appropriate icon. There is also a Gallery view for each type y yp of file. In the case of audio files (i.e. podcasts), these can be played in the site (see below). As with all other resources, access , to every file can be specified, i.e. whether to be kept private or viewable by contacts or all users (c) C4LPT, 2009

Pages Every user can create web pages. These can also be set up to be editable by others, i.e. they act as wiki pages. The page history keeps track of versions. Pages can include a number of sub‐pages, shown in the page navigation area. (c) C4LPT, 2009

The wire The wire This is a micro‐blogging service, like Twitter. In 140 characters a user can tell everyone else on the site what they are doing. Other users can reply to wire postings and, in Twitter style, postings and, in Twitter style, their username is added to the posting. Users can also send their public wire postings directly to bli i i di l Twitter. (c) C4LPT, 2009

Groups Anyone can set up a group. Groups can be open (anyone can join or closed (only invited users can join). Groups can include discussions, files, pages, and (if enabled, an events calendar). Groups might be set up for collaborative project work, informal study groups, or for formal, social, collaborative learning purposes. (c) C4LPT, 2009

Tagging As you have worked through these slides you may have noticed that when a user you may have noticed that when a user creates any content they can assign a tag to it. A tag is a keyword that describes that content. Normally a user decides for themselves what keyword(s) they for themselves what keyword(s) they want to use, but keywords are the “key” to bringing related personal and group resources together. So e.g. if a user uses the group keyword in this example the group keyword – in this example uesc – then when they click on that keyword or search for a keyword, everything tagged with that keyword can be displayed as well as specific items can be displayed as well as specific items like blog posts or bookmarks. The keyword list also has an RSS feed so users can keep up to speed with new tagged content very quickly. This is a tagged content very quickly. This is a very powerful feature . (c) C4LPT, 2009

Elgg as a Social Learning Platform The range of social media tools means that Elgg can be used as a sophisticated social learning and collaboration platform. In Part 3 of this presentation we will look at how users can be supported to use such a social learning platform for their own personal learning as well as for both informal and formal social and collaborative learning. (c) C4LPT, 2009

The Centre for Learning & Performance Technologies provides a range of Elgg Consultancy Services Consultancy Services www.c4lpt.co.uk/ElggConsultancy.html as well as general Social Learning Consultancy Services Social Learning Consultancy Services www.c4lpt.co.uk/socialmedia/ (c) C4LPT, 2009

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Using Elgg as a Social Learning platform

by Jane Hart on Apr 30, 2009

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Using Elgg as a Social Learning platform — Presentation Transcript