Social Software

We are all familiar with the common buzz words that create and drive the current technologies, but what about “Social Software”.
Social Software can be defined as the current technologies that enable users to create communities and resources to collaborate and build together.
In their book, Wikinomics, Tapscott and Williams site the fact that:

“Billions of connected individuals can now actively participate in innovation, wealth creation, and social development in ways we once only dreamed of. And when these masses of people collaborate, they collectively can advance the arts, culture, science, education, government, and the economy in surprising but ultimately profitable ways.”

Social Software is a broad term that basically supports multi-user interaction, the sharing of ideas, knowledge and feedback required to grow as a community.

With the advent and evolution of the Internet, we are now better able to communicate and collaborate with others. Some of these tools have evolved from chat rooms and now include: Wikis, Blogs, Instant messaging, Learning Management Systems, and Collaborative real-time editors (such as Google’s Notebook). One cannot overlook the gaming communities that allow the interaction of hundreds if not millions of users in a virtual environment.
For a more complete list of social software see “List of social software”

So how do we use these in education? Most of our students are already aware of or are using some of these tools, so why not use them in their education? Most, if not all of these tools are available for free and only require connectivity.
In my next post we will explore Wikis.

Blogs, Blogs and more Blogs

As of September 2007, the blog search engine Technorati was tracking more than 106 million blogs.

So, what is a Blog?

According to Wikipedia, “A blog (web + log) is a website where entries are written in chronological order and commonly displayed in reverse chronological order.”

The University of Lethbridge's Faculty of Education has a very brief definition.
Blog - A web log: an on-line diary or frequently updated personal web page.

Here is a quick online video by CommonCraft on“Blogs in Plain English”

DotSub.com
You can also view it on: TeacherTube, Blip.tv

How can you use Blogs with your students.

10 ways to use your edublog to teach

There are many ways you can use an edublog in your teaching, here are ten to get you started

1. Post materials and resources
2. Host online discussions
3. Create a class publication
4. Replace your newsletter
5. Get your students blogging
6. Share your lesson plans
7. Integrate multimedia of all descriptions
8. Organise, organise, organise
9. Get feedback
10. Create a fully functional website

http://edublogs.org/10-ways-to-use-your-edublog-to-teach/

Video Conferencing with ooVoo

In 1920 the French illustrator, Léon Saussine, sketched a series of pictures where he imagined life in the year 2000 (Online collection). Of interest is; "Correspondance Cinéma - Phono - Télégraphique". The drawing depicts a gentleman comfortably sitting down in an armchair and holding a “microphone”. He is having a conversation with a young woman whose image is projected on screen.

Visionary or dreamer?
Well he wasn’t that far off! Two-way video conference is available and has been for some time. With the advent of the Internet you can now have a face to face discussion with others. There are several free applications that you can use, Skype, Windows Live Messenger, ooVoo and many others.
It’s easy as plugging and all you need is some basic equipment:

• A computer
• A digital video camera (if not built-in)
• An Internet connection (high speed)
• Microphone and speaker (if not built-in)

Lately I’ve been playing with ooVoo as it offers the chance to communicate with multiple users (up to six people can talk face-to-face). Its easy to use, has a slick interface, the quality is great and like so many others, it’s free!

View Your Pics using FastStone Image Viewer

Here is another great little application that will allow you to view and modify your pictures. FastStone Image Viewer, is a freeware program similar to IrfanView. It has a slicker interface and will allow you to do most of what IrfanView does (resize/resample, rotate, etc…). Some features worth noting are; the Draw Board which allows you to add, text, lines (arrows), shapes (rectangles, ellipses, full or empty), highlight areas and watermarks to the image.

One of the neat features is the portable version. “… Major advantage is that you can carry it around on a memory stick / USB flash drive, or copy / migrate from PC to PC via simple copying of files. No installation is necessary.”

So click away and have fun!

Sharing Your Favourites

In February 2007, the Netcraft Web Server Survey found 108,810,358 distinct websites. That’s 108 million different websites! And that’s not including Blogs. In July 2007 it was estimated that there were 70 million Blogs!
OK, so how do you find those sites that are relevant and useful to my needs?
First you will need to search the web, then bookmark or save and manage the information for later use and reference.
But…

• What happens if you are using a different computer and you don’t have access to your favorites?
• How many other educators are doing the same?
• Are you not re-inventing the wheel?
• Wouldn’t it be nice if you could tap in to the resources that others like you have book painfully bookmarked?

In this era of collaboration the answer is but one click away.
Wikipedia defines Social bookmarking as: “a way for Internet users to store, organize, share and search bookmarks of web pages.”
There are several Social Bookmarking Tools available but one of the most popular one is del.icio.us.

To learn more about Social Bookmarking and how to use them view the Commoncraft’s video on: “Social Bookmarking in Plain English” (YouTube) or (Blip.TV)

Now that you know how it’s done, why not use of one the many Social Bookmarking services and start sharing the gems you found while searching the Web.

Pod Casting

Well considering that a good number of learners are more than visual learners I guess its time to talk about Pod casting.

Pod casting is a "digital audio media recording" that is posted on the Internet. Users can can either listen to from there computer or even download to their player for later use. Thus, with Pod casting, listeners can determine the time and the place, meaning they decide what programming they want to receive and when they want to listen to it.

These wonderful clips that can be easily created and used by students and do not require much equipment.

What you need:

• A computer with recording software (such as Audacity, free and very powerful!)


• A mike


• A place to post your pod casts.


• Then, tell the world about your pod cast!

Before you star producing your own Pods please see this handy list of top 10 things to remember.

For more information on how to Podcast visit Jason Van Orden's; How to Podcast tutorials.

Have fun with "Audacity"

I found a great little application that allows you to digitally record and edit audio. Audacity is free, open source software that will run on multiple platforms. Audacity is quite powerful and allows you record, edit (cut, paste, duplicate) multiple tracks, thus you can mix music, voice etc.. Other features included are:

• Importing and exporting of different format (WAV, MP3)
• Multi-track mixing
• Digital effects and effect plug-ins.
• Noise removal
• And many other neat features that will allow the creative mind some flexibility.

As a recorder and editor you will be able to produce simple audio files to attach to your presentations (Photostory, Moviemaker, Corel presentations etc…). Use it to create your Podcast or using the multi tracks create a unique sound recording.