Social software and education can enable communities of learners beyond traditional boundaries. Information spreads faster than can be controlled, so collaboration takes different forms through both online and offline social interaction. Social software allows people to connect and collaborate through computer-mediated communication using features like user connections, tagging, commenting, and syndication. These tools have implications for education by supporting sharing of resources and participation beyond the classroom. Educators should consider having an online presence and using social tools to engage students.

1. Social Software and
Education
Manuel A. Pérez-Quiñones
Department of Computer Science
Virginia Tech

2. Web 2.0
The Machine is Us
by Michael Wesch
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLlGopyXT_g

3. We need to rethink...
education
• •
Community of learners Information spreads
that go beyond the faster than we can
classroom, major, control it
campus, town
• Collaboration take
• Community of different forms
educators ...
• social interaction is by
• Sharing of resources is both online and
the norm offline

4. Social Software is...
• ... 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]

5. Features of Social SW
• Goals vary - identify friends, resources,
staying in touch, sharing interesting news...
• Connections - friends, “following,” groups...
• User-provided tags
• Commenting features... support discussion,
collaboration, exchange
• Syndication in the form of RSS, ics, Atom...
• API - for the techies, build your own stuff

6. Goals of SSw
• Identify friends (facebook, okrut, friendster)
• education (campusbug, carmun,
rateteachers)
• Share resources: movies (youtube), pictures
(flickr), bookmarks (del.icio.us,
SumbleUpon), status (fliker), news (digg,
reddit), citations (citeulike), slides
(slideshare), exams (koofers)...

7. carmun.com

8. Koofers.com

9. My CS 2 Course @ Koofers.com
koofers

10. Beauty of Social Tagging
• Free for all tagging, users
pick their own tags Joe Mary
• But social network gives
tag_x
meaning to tags tag_y
tag_y
• Joe receives as a
url_a url_b
recommendation url_b

11. citeulike.org
• Bookmarking for references

12. SSw APIs and
Syndication

13. SSw APIs: Mashups
• Combination of
multiple
applications
• Google maps is a
popular partner in
mashups
http://perez.cs.vt.edu/peer-cs.html

14. SSw APIs: custom
interfaces
• Syllabus collection
• Computing
News, as a result
of Google search
• Google COOP

15. Syndication: Embedding

16. Multiple Personalities
• On the web,
everybody has
schizophrenia
• Accounts in
facebook, flickr,
twitter,
slideshare, etc....

17. Implications for
Education
• •
the sky is falling, cheating Post some pictures to
is rampant, we are flicker, movies to
doomed YouTube, slides to
SlideShare
• Make use of embedded
• content, rss
Have a presence on
facebook - make
•
students know you are Make use of these
participating examples in classes
• process rss, etc.

18. Implications for
Education
• •
the sky is falling, cheating Post some pictures to
is rampant, we are flicker, movies to
doomed YouTube, slides to
SlideShare
• Make use of embedded
• content, rss
Have a presence on
facebook - make
•
students know you are Make use of these
participating examples in classes
• process rss, etc.

19. Trip SIGCSE • Dinner with CREU students
Diversity
HCI REU
CREU: Collaborative Research
Experience for Undergraduates in
Scholars of the Future
Computer Science and Engineering
http://www.cra.org/Activities/craw/creu/
Idris
Sergio
Gregg
Jaime
NSF
Morgan Lauren Sarah
Crystal Tarish
Emily

20. Questions?