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?
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and education understand how new
technologies can be used for learning
What is Elgg?
as well as to improve job and business
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performance. She currently focuses
Features of Elgg:
on helping organisations introduce
Personal Tools
social media into their learning and
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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
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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
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platform that has been around since 2004,
and is currently in version 1.5.
Elgg is a fully customisable, configurable
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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.
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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
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files, photos, etc. These are
displayed on the file list together
with an appropriate icon. There is
also a Gallery view for each type
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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