Engagement 2.0: Using Social
Networking Web Apps to Increase
Interaction and Learning
Manuel A. Pérez-Quiñones Carlos Evia
Dept. of Computer Science Dept. of English
perez@cs.vt.edu carlos.evia@vt.edu
http://perez.cs.vt.edu http://faculty.english.vt.edu/evia/
Wednesday, October 7,

Social Software*...
• ...enables people to rendezvous, connect or
collaborate through computer-mediated
communication [Wikipedia]
• 55% of all American youth (ages 12-17) use
some form of social networking site [Pew
Internet & American Life Project, Lenhart
2007]
* social software is sometimes a synonym for Web 2.0 2
Wednesday, October 7,

Web 2.0 ... The Machine is Us/ing Us
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLlGopyXT_g
Wednesday, October 7,

Web 2.0 ... The Machine is Us/ing Us
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLlGopyXT_g
Wednesday, October 7,

Interaction and learning with
online collaboration
• Agenda for meetings (Google Docs)
• Common calendar deadlines, conferences,
trips (Shared calendar)
• Shared documents folder (Dropbox)
• Quick communication/collaboration
(Twitter)
4
Wednesday, October 7,

Google Docs
• Online documents, edited and
stored within a browser with
Word-like interface
• Share document with each
student
• Use for agenda or common
notes, document writing, etc.
• Publication plans
• Forms (with data gathering)
• etc...
Wednesday, October 7,

Agenda for Meetings
• Document between student
and advisor
• Shared agenda, updated
ahead of time (often by
student)
• I check agenda before meeting
and address issues
• Keeps record of previous
meetings
• Marissa Mayer's how to run a
meeting
• http://www.businessweek.com/
smallbiz/content/sep2006/
sb20060927_259688.htm
Wednesday, October 7,

D
em
Documents shared
o
• Publications plans
• NSF Proposal in the making
• Forms/Spreadsheets for data gathering
7
Wednesday, October 7,

Shared calendar
• Keep track of upcoming
deadlines for conferences,
fellowships, grant
opportunities, events, etc.
• Group responsibility to post/
manage
• Google Docs, iCal or even
Exchange
• Student benefit of seeing when
I am in the office
Wednesday, October 7,

D
Calendar
em
o
• Quick demo
• Google Calendar -
conference deadlines, CDC
• Personal Calendar
• Family, Work, Others
Wednesday, October 7,

Dropbox
• Store and share documents online
• Software syncs your computer files with
their online repository
• Can have multiple computers per account
• Share folders transparently
• Free software, limit of 2GB; paid option for
more storage
10
Wednesday, October 7,

Share with many
D
em
o
• Thesis folder, shared with
student
• Book, shared with co-authors
• Folder shared with family
• Software folder, shared with
middle school teachers
• Grant folder, shared with coPIs
• Others for me, available on my
iPod touch, on web
Wednesday, October 7,

iPhone support
• Access whatever files you put
in dropbox from your iPhone
• Basic support for viewing
content (but not editing)
• New iPhone App (haven’t
played with it yet)
Wednesday, October 7,

Middle school setup
• Description http://perez.cs.vt.edu/bns-computers
• One dropbox account for all computers
• All contents automatically replicated to all
• Parent’s home computer has their own dropbox
• Kids folder shared with parent’s account
• Teacher’s see all content at their workstation, no
submission of work needed
• Can see from home without moving materials 13
Wednesday, October 7,

Twitter.com
D
em
o
• Micro blogging platform • Has been used in courses to
support “contextualized”
• Status (what are you doing) teaching (teaching in the
moment)
service
• Inform your friends, be • I use it to post announcements
informed about their status and updates to course
materials, and to interact with
• “Follow” friends, famous students in short bursts
people, or single words
• Follow us: mapq and carlosevia
• Updates can be received via
email, SMS (to your phone),
desktop client, etc.
14
Wednesday, October 7,

Casual conversation with the
world
• Different people catch what
you say and repeat it (RT)
• Turn taking conversation
online (asynchronous)
• Global conversation
D
em
o
Wednesday, October 7,

Student from CS 5774 Fall 2008
“The class twitter account served as a nice
platform for the class participants to built rapport
and exchange thoughts and ideas. On a personal
note, […] whenever I wanted a clarification, I just
sent him a private message on Twitter and got
back a quick reply.”
16
Wednesday, October 7,

Wednesday, October 7,

slideshare.net
18
Wednesday, October 7,

D
em
Embeddable...
o
• Because all content is on the web, it can be
embedded in other pages
• See http://happy.cs.vt.edu/fdi09/
19
Wednesday, October 7,

Questions?
Manuel A. Pérez-Quiñones Carlos Evia
Dept. of Computer Science Dept. of English
perez@cs.vt.edu carlos.evia@vt.edu
http://perez.cs.vt.edu http://faculty.english.vt.edu/evia/
Twitter: mapq Twitter: carlosevia
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Wednesday, October 7,