Web 2.0 Teaching Circle
Social Networking

Who wants to be a millionaire?

How many social networking sites are
you part of?
34%
1. None
2. One
3. Two
22%
4. Three 20%
17%
5. Four or more
7%
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How many people are you connected to
through social networking?
1. None 47%
2. Under 25
3. 25 to 100
4. 100 to 500
5. More than 500 20%
13%
11%
9%
0
0
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ne
0
50
10
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What do you think is the main benefit
of social networking in a professional
context?
46%
1. Separates private and
professional contacts
2. Makes it easier to share
information 22%
3. Publicity / Promotion of 15%
12%
information 5%
4. Time / efficiency
5. Benefit not covered here
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Which Social Networking sites do
you use?
1. Facebook 74%
2. LinkedIn
3. MySpace
4. Friends Reunited
5. Another site
18%
5%
3% 0%
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Why are you here?
38%
1. I don’t use SN currently am
thinking about it
2. I use SN already but want
to learn more about it 21%
17% 17%
3. I have useful ideas about
how SN can be used in the 7%
University
4. I am sceptical about SN but
am willing to discuss it
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5. Reason not covered
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Why a Social Network?
 Student-led
 “Can we have a wiki please?”
 Administration time in allocation of wikis
 Moodle used as wiki hub
 By making it easier, would we get more collaborative
working?*
* (visible)


Why not Facebook?
 Students reported in other projects that they are
possessive of their personal space
 Can be managed, but easier to have it done for you…
 Group membership is as important to many
 Potential to put staff in a position of conflict
 A new system can have clearly defined rules and norms

All about Elgg
 Open source social network software
 In current form, available since August 2008
 Dental School eLearning Team evaluated it for CPD
provision (and rejected it!)
 Found to bridge the gap between MOLE, Moodle and
USpace
 Launched as a beta September 2008
 Credit to Arunangsu Chatterjee for this

What happened?
 Students not pre-registered, not mandatory
 Slow building up of profiles
 Seemingly associated with social groups
 Friends collection race
 Staff collection race!
 Initial groups were formal
 Physical and/or geographic (e.g. a lab, research group)
 Tutor groups
 Seminar tutorials
 Later used for creative assessment - collating and blogging
 PDP reflection blogs
 Fresher forums

Patterns of use
Dental Connect Profile Creation (by week)
300
250
200
150
100
50
0
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16