Social networking is growing rapidly and being adopted in educational settings. Some key points: - Social media usage has grown exponentially in recent years, now accounting for 10% of online time. Popular sites like Facebook and Twitter are increasingly being used for educational purposes. - Students are actively engaged in social media, with many discussing schoolwork, sharing music/videos, blogging, and participating in online communities. - Educators are exploring uses like backchannel chat, polling students, collaborating, and connecting to subject experts through sites like Twitter, Facebook, and Ning. - While offering opportunities, social media also presents challenges in academic settings regarding privacy, ownership of data, and replacing formal learning management

1. Social eLearning?Social Networking Meets eLearningRob Gibson, Ed.D.Emporia State University

2. Social eLearning?Contact information…Robert Gibson, Ed.D.Associate CIO, Academic Technologyrgibson1@emporia.edu620.341.6694

3. Social eLearning?What you will learn today:Understand current social media utilization growth metricsUnderstand how social network applications are utilized in both elearning and traditional environmentsUnderstand the implications of using social media in academia

4. Social eLearning?

5. Social 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 system2) articulate a list of other users with whom they share a connection3) view and traverse list of connections and those made by others within the system. The nature and nomenclature of these connections may vary from site to site.”

6. Social eLearning?The first officially recognized social network was sixdegrees.com (1997 -2000). According to the Wharton School of Business, as of October 2008 social networks impacted more than 230 million people worldwide.

7. Social eLearning?Social Networking Factoids (Nielson Global Faces and Networked Places)Social networks are growing 3x the rate of overall Internet growth (2009)Social networking sites are growing 47% annually, reaching 45% of total web users (2006)Social networking and blogging are now the 4th most popular online activities - ahead of personal Email (2009)Member sites now account for 1 in every 11 minutes online

8. Social eLearning?Social Networking Factoids (Nielson Global Faces and Networked Places) 67% of the global online population now visit a social network site - this sector accounts for 10% of all Internet time (Germany, Switzerland, Great Britain, and Italy are the fastest growing segments)

9. Social eLearning?Social Networking Factoids (Nielson Global Faces and Networked Places)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)

10. Social eLearning? According the 2007 report from the National School Boards Association entitled Creating and Connecting: Research and Guidelines on Social and Educational Networking some interesting data emerges regarding social networks and online students (Grunwald Associates LLC survey )

11. Social eLearning?Message Posting59% of online students discuss education topics, including college/college planning; learning outside of school; news; careers or jobs; politics; ideas; religion; morals; and school work50% of online students talk specifically about schoolwork21% post comments on message boards daily (7% in 2002)41% post comments weekly (17% in 2002)

12. Social eLearning?Music Sharing32% of online students say they download music or audio that other users uploaded at least once a week29% of online students upload third party music or audio themselves12% of online students say they upload music or podcasts of their own creation at least weekly

13. Social eLearning?Video Sharing30% of online students download and view videos uploaded by other users at least once weekly9% upload videos of their own creation once weekly22% have uploaded videos they’ve created at some point

14. Social eLearning?Video Sharing30% of online students download and view videos uploaded by other users at least once weekly9% upload videos of their own creation once weekly22% have uploaded videos they’ve created at some point

15. Social eLearning?Photo Sharing24% of online students post photos of art created by others at least once weekly22% post photos or art of their own creation50% have uploaded photos or artwork at some point

16. Social eLearning?Blogs17% of online students add content to blogs at least weekly30% have their own blogs (up from nearly 0% in 2002)

17. Social eLearning?Popular Social Networking Activities Among Online Students (K-12)41% post messages32% download music and videos29% upload music25% update personal web sites or online profiles24% post photos17% blog16% create and share virtual objects14% create new characters10% participate in collaborative projects and send suggestions to web sites9% submit articles to web sites; participate in quizzes, polls, or surveys

18. Social eLearning?

19. Social eLearning?Def. According to the web site Social Media Defined, Twitter is a microblogging application that is more or less a combination of instant messaging and blogging.

20. Social eLearning?Back-channel chat (Mullings, 2009)Class chatter (Parry, 2008)Follow subject matter experts (Kuhlmann, 2009)Writing assignments (Parry, 2008)Collaboration with other studentsPollingstudentsStorytelling(Parry, 2008)

21. Social eLearning?“Track” a word (Parry, 2009)Storytelling (Parry, 2009)Track geo-politicsHistory lessonsHook into podcasts

22. Social eLearning? twitterfall.comType in a keyword (e.g., Iranelections) and watch the results in real timetwittervision.comTwittervision and Twittervision 3D allow you to GeoTag users and their posts to know where certain topics are being discussedhttp://twittervision.com/maps/show_3d

23. Social eLearning?atlas.freshlogicstudios.comType in a keyword and watch the results in real timehistoricaltweets.comLearn what it may have been like for historical figures to tweet

24. Social eLearning?tweetdeck.comCreate “groups” of studentsYouTube or twiddeoLink to video files from Twitter

25. Social eLearning?twi.ttPoll students; add video/audiotwittergramConnect Flickr to Twitter

26. Social eLearning?twitdocShare PowerPoint and Word filespodbeanPublish podcasts through Twitter

27. Social eLearning?polldaddy.comTwitter-based pollsscreenr.comTwitter-based screen casting

28. Social eLearning?Caveats and implications of using Twitter in academiaUnwanted “followers”Trending topicsTorrent of tweetsURLs must be shortenedRetweets lose context

29. Social eLearning?

30. Social eLearning?Student-student networking (Damron, 2009)Quasi Course Management System (Drummond, 2009)Specialized curricular groupsBackchannel Chat (Online College, 2009)Poll students (Parry, 2008)Classroom Page (Hart, 2009)Track politicians (Online College, 2009)Multilingualism

31. Forbes allows users to track company stocks and access related financial information, along with business headlinesBlackboard Sync allows students to check Blackboard course content and grades directly from FacebookBooklist allowsusers to share their library or favorite booksWorldcatallows users to search for books through FacebookWashingtonpost.NewsweekInteractive offers two political applications built on the Facebook platform, giving Facebook users more access to current political affairsSlideShareallows user to post presentations to their Facebook profilePodcast Player allows user to post podcasts to their Facebook profileXmindcombined with Facebook, provides a way to enable both team brainstorming and personal mind mappingSocial eLearning?

32. Social eLearning?academia.eduFacebook-like applicationFacebook GroupsCreate a class-centric group

33. Social eLearning?ResearchAnalysis of how social networks are formedLMS replacementJournalismhttp://snipr.com/j5d2mhttp://snipr.com/j5di5

34. Social eLearning?Academic NetworkingCreate a networkedbloghttp://www.facebook.com/pages/wwwdonquijoteorg/27485153678?ref=ts/

35. http://www.inigral.com/products/schools.htm

36. http://www.inigral.com/products/standardissimo.php

37. http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=18977111129

38. http://phoenix.facebook.com/group.php?gid=12471635541

39. http://usask.facebook.com/group.php?gid=12256460391http://www.networkedblogs.com

40. Social eLearning?Caveats and implications of using Facebook in AcademiaFriending studentsStudents do not want to use FB as an academic toolInformation is not privateFacebook owns the dataInstitutional policiesFaculty ethicsEnglish was only option

41. Social eLearning?

42. Social eLearning?Def.Ning provides a software platform (the "Ning Platform") that enables you to create, join or browse Social Networks (Ning.com)Ning includes some interesting and useful tools out-of-the-box, including a blog, discussion board, groups, and video and photo uploading capabilities