Higher Ed Tech News and Research ~ Ray Schroeder, editor. Participate Learning now allows educators to submit open educational resources (OERs) to its Learning Registry by tweeting a link with the #ParticipateOER hashtag. More...
Mobile microblogging: Using Twitter and mobile devices in an online course to promote learning in authentic contexts
This research applied a mixed-method design to explore how best to promote learning in authentic contexts in an online graduate course in instructional message design. The students used Twitter apps on their mobile devices to collect, share, and comment on authentic design examples found in their daily lives. The data sources included tweets (i.e., postings on Twitter), students’ perceptions about mobile microblogging activities, and self-reported Twitter usage. More...
Facebook groups as LMS: A case study
This paper describes a pilot study in using Facebook as an alternative to a learning management system (LMS). The paper reviews the current research on the use of Facebook in academia and analyzes the differences between a Facebook group and a regular LMS. More...
Odyssey of the mind: Social networking in a cyberschool
K-12 online learning and cyber charter schools have grown at a tremendous rate over the past decade. At the same time, these online programs have struggled to provide the social spaces where students can interact that K-12 schools are traditionally able to provide. More...
Montpellier : L’université Paul-Valéry lance son propre réseau social
La faculté propose aux étudiants, diplômés, enseignants et professionnels de se retrouver sur son « Alumni », lancé il y a une quinzaine de jours. Voir l'article...
Facebook is eating the world
By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. Facebook is eating the world
Emily Bell, Columbia Journalism Review, 2016/03/14
There's a danger, writes the author, in danger, writes the author, in the ascendancy of social media networks. "We are handing the controls of important parts of our public and private lives to a very small number of people, who are unelected and unaccountable." True, and it's a concern. More...
Online social networks as formal learning environments: Learner experiences and activities
While the potential of social networking sites to contribute to educational endeavors is highlighted by researchers and practitioners alike, empirical evidence on the use of such sites for formal online learning is scant. To fill this gap in the literature, we present a case study of learners’ perspectives and experiences in an online course taught using the Elgg online social network. More...
Designing for learning: Online social networks as a classroom environment
This paper deploys notions of emergence, connections, and designs for learning to conceptualize high school students’ interactions when using online social media as a learning environment. It makes links to chaos and complexity theories and to fractal patterns as it reports on a part of the first author’s action research study, conducted while she was a teacher working in an Australian public high school and completing her PhD. The study investigates the use of a Ning online social network as a learning environment shared by seven classes, and it examines students’ reactions and online activity while using a range of social media and Web 2.0 tools. More...
Distance students’ readiness for social media and collaboration
In recent years, there has been a rapid growth in the use of social networking tools (e.g., Facebook) and social media in general, mainly for social purposes (Smith, Salaway & Caruso 2009). Many educators, including ourselves, believe that these tools offer new educational affordances and avenues for students to interact with each other and with their teachers or tutors. More...
Frameworks for understanding the nature of interactions, networking, and community in a social networking site
This paper describes a new social networking site, Cloudworks, which has been developed to enable discussion and sharing of learning and teaching ideas/designs and to promote reflective academic practice. The site aims to foster new forms of social and participatory practices (peer critiquing, sharing, user-generated content, aggregation, and personalisation) within an educational context. More...