Integrating Social Networking & Web
2.0 Applications into eLearning
Rob Gibson, Ed.D.

Social Networking in eLearning
What you will learn today:
 Understand how social networking is
impacting society
 See examples of common social
networking applications
 Have an opportunity to try social
networking applications
 See resources and data regarding how
social networking can be used within
eLearning

Social Networking in eLearning

Social Networking in eLearning
• Boyd and Ellison (2007) define social networks as
“…web-based services that allow individuals to….
1) construct a public or semi-public profile within a bounded system
2) articulate a list of other users with whom they share a connection
3) view and traverse their list of connections and those made by others
within the system. The nature and nomenclature of these
connections may vary from site to site.”

Social Networking in eLearning
The first officially recognized social network
was sixdegrees.com that launched in 1997 and
officially shut down in 2000. According to the
Wharton School of Business, as of October
2008 social networks impacted more than 230
million people worldwide.

Social Networking in eLearning
Social Networking Factoids (Nielson Netratings)
• Social networks now represent the
fastest growing Internet segment – 3x
the rate of overall Internet growth. (2009)
• Social networking sites are growing at
the rate of 47% annually, reaching 45%
of total web users. (2006)
• Social networking and blogging are now
the 4th most popular online
activities, according to Nielsen‟s recently
released Global Faces and Networked
Places report. (2009)

Social Networking in eLearning
Social Networking Factoids (Nielson Netratings)
• 67% of the global online population now visit a social
network site, and this sector accounts for 10% of all
Internet time. (Germany, Switzerland, Great Britain, and
Italy are the fastest growing segments.)
• Social networks and blogs are now the 4th most popular
online category – ahead of personal Email
• Member sites now account for 1 in every 11 minutes online

Social Networking in eLearning
Social Networking Factoids (Nielson Netratings)
Orkut.com in Brazil (operated by Google) has the largest
domestic online reach (70%) of any social network
anywhere in the world, whereas Facebook has the highest
average time per visitor among the 75 most popular
brands online worldwide. However, the amount of time
spent on Facebook.com increased by more than 566% in
only one year. (Nielsen, 2009)

Social Networking in eLearning

Social Networking in eLearning
According to the web site Social Media Defined
(http://www.socialmediadefined.com), Twitter is a microblogging
application that is more or less a combination of instant messaging
and blogging.

Social Networking in eLearning
in Academia
• Back-channel chat where participants at conferences
provide bursts of feedback regarding conference
proceedings to both other conference participants, and to
people who cannot attend the conference (Hargadon,
2009); or preceding a conference via keywords (Parry,
2008). Use Twitter during a webinar to post specific
keywords denoted by a hash (#facebook), and then
participants search on those keyword to see what other
people in the webinar (at other locations) were saying
about the topic. (Mullings, 2009)

Social Networking in eLearning
in Academia
• Class chatter that allows students to continue
discussion topics outside the classroom (Parry, 2008)
• Follow professionals who are actively engaged in
particular topics or events. For example, students can
follow any number of correspondents at
MSNBC, CNN, and other news outlets
• Writing assignments where students build on each
other‟s tweets to generate a story, poem, or haiku.
(Parry, 2008)
• Collaboration with students from other countries
regarding specific topics of political or historical
significance

Social Networking in eLearning
in Academia
• Use Twitter to “track” a word. This will subscribe you to
any post that contains said word. So, for example, a student
may be interested in how a particular word is used. They
can track the word and see the varied phrases in which
people use it. Or, they can track an event, a proper name, or
a movie title. (Send the message “track ______” to Twitter)
(Parry, 2008)
• Storytelling - George Mayo, an eighth grade English
teacher, recently used Twitter as a tool to collaboratively
write a story with his students. Mayo invited his students
and students around the world via his Many Voices Twitter
account to add to an ongoing story with individual \"tweets.\"
After six weeks and the help of more than 100 students and
six different countries, the story was finished. (Parry, 2008)

Social Networking in eLearning
in Academia
Use twitterfall.com Use twittervision.com
• Type in a keyword and watch • Twittervision and Twittervision
the results in real time 3D allow you to GeoTag users and
their posts to know where certain
topics are being discussed
http://twittervision.com/maps/show_3d

Social Networking in eLearning
in Academia
Use Freshlogic Atlas Use historicaltweets
• Type in a keyword and watch • Learn what it may have been
the results in real time like for historical figures to tweet

Social Networking in eLearning
in Academia
Use tweetdeck Use YouTube or twiddeo
• Create “groups” of students • Link to video files from Twitter

Social Networking in eLearning

Social Networking in eLearning
Facebook is a social networking website that was
originally designed for college students, but is now open
to anyone 13 years of age or older. Facebook users can
create and customize their own profiles with
photos, videos, and information about themselves.
Friends can browse the profiles of other friends and write
messages on their pages. (TechTerms.com)

Social Networking in eLearning
in Academia
Use academia.edu Use Facebook Groups
• A facebook-like application • Create a class-centric group

Social Networking in eLearning
in Academia
Research Academics
• Analysis of how social networks • Journalism
are formed
http://snipr.com/j5d2m
http://snipr.com/j5di5

Social Networking in eLearning
in Academia
Academic Networking •http://www.facebook.com/pages/ww
wdonquijoteorg/27485153678?ref=ts/
• Create a networkedblog
•http://www.inigral.com/products/sch
ools.htm
•http://www.inigral.com/products/stan
dardissimo.php
•http://www.facebook.com/group.php
?gid=18977111129
•http://phoenix.facebook.com/group.p
hp?gid=12471635541
http://www.networkedblogs.com
•http://usask.facebook.com/group.ph
p?gid=12256460391

Social Networking in eLearning

Social Networking in eLearning

Social Networking in eLearning
A blog (an abridgment of the term „web log’) is a
website, usually maintained by an individual, with
regular entries of commentary, descriptions of
events, or other material such as graphics or video.
Entries are commonly displayed in reverse
chronological order. \"Blog\" can also be used as a
verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog.
Co-Winner, Word-of-the-Year: 2004

Social Networking in eLearning
in Academia
Wordpress.com (no fee; hosted option)
Wordpress.org (free software; non-hosted)
Variety of fee-based hosts that support Wordpress
Hostican
Laughing Squid
Bluehost
Mu.wordpress.org (Fee-based; multi-user; multi-host)

Social Networking in eLearning
in Academia
From http://onlinedegreetalk.org/blogs/
• The instructor posts various announcements, information,
assignments, and abbreviated lessons for student reference
• More aptly called an interactive medium of study, students get
an opportunity to express their opinions about a particular
topic or subject posted for discussion over the net
• Articles on various topics provide extensive knowledge on the
subject. Students, in turn, post their comments on these
articles
• Used as a writing portfolio, blogs are found to be very helpful
in expressing thoughts by students about their subject of
study

Social Networking in eLearning
in Academia
• Students find it very useful to post comments, throw
questions to their instructor about the course and the
subjects in particular and talk to fellow students about
course progress and related benefits
• Activities and presentations pertaining to a particular
subject can be discussed over the net by way of blog posts
• Students get to know each other, by not just chatting, but
instead by responding to the posts offered by various
students
• As a means of evaluation, assignments are cross verified
and the qualities of presentations are evaluated by fellow
students positively by way of blog posts and related
responses

Social Networking in eLearning
in Academia
Wordpress Plugins (5,000+) Scholarly Citations
•Twitter Tools
•Wordbook
•Daiko‟s Video Widget
•Flickr plugin
http://snipr.com/j5rqk

Social Networking in eLearning

Social Networking in eLearning
A wiki is a website that uses wiki software, allowing the
easy creation and editing of any number of interlinked
Web pages, using a simplified markup language.
Wikis are often used to create collaborative websites
and to power community websites (Wikipedia)

Social Networking in eLearning

Social Networking in eLearning

Social Networking in eLearning
Ning provides a software platform (the \"Ning
Platform\") that enables you to create, join
or browse Social Networks (Ning.com)

Social Networking in eLearning
in Academia
Ning
http://bioarchaeology.ning.com/
• A custom social network
http://education.ning.com/
http://www.ourprivatenetwork.com/
http://podstock.ning.com/profile/RobGibson

Social Networking in eLearning

Social Networking in eLearning
Social bookmarking is a method for Internet users to
store, organize, search, and manage bookmarks of web
pages on the Internet with the help of metadata, typically
in the form of tags that collectively and/or collaboratively
become a folksonomy. Folksonomy is also called social
tagging, \"the process by which many users add
metadata in the form of keywords to shared content“
(Wikipedia.com)

Social Networking in eLearning
in Academia
• A professor can save readings for a class. Since each tag
has it's own URL, the URL can be posted in the syllabus.
Many of these services also have RSS feeds, so students
who use a news aggregator can see new postings
automatically.
• Bookmarks available from any PC
• Merge Delicious links into Facebook via a plugin