Social Software and more…

After about three months of being caught up in projects and doctoral seminars, I finally start to blog again. I’ll give it one more try and if it does not work this time, I’ll just quit. I have been reflecting whether this is my way of publishing at all; and I still think it might be. The incentive to start blogging again came through the author of the Ideant-Blog Ulises A. Mejias who recently posted his complete dissertation on networked proximity online. He wrote there:

I am thankful to those who read the dissertation drafts I posted on my blog, commented on them, or merely linked to them because they thought they were interesting. Given what I learned from the process of maintaining a blog during my graduate studies, I highly recommend the practice to anyone embarking on a similar journey.

 I think that provides a strong motivation… I’m still wondering how appropriate it is in the European system to put parts of my dissertation online before it is published. Not to speak of the fact that I’m writing in German. Anyway, I’ll see how it works and I keep you posted!

Since I recently decided that I would like to refresh my knowlodge on educational psychology, this recommendation on Gabi Reimann’s E-Denkarium came at the right moment.

On the website of David Wong: a number of articles on educational psychology can be found with some links to pdf-versions. Wondering how he cleared the copyright? Oh well… aren’t we all in favor of open access nowadays?

Yesterday, SCIL’s first online workshop on social software started. It was planned to be taught only through social software but indeed, we now also use a virtual classroom (Breeze) and of course, we still depend on e-mail. The idea behind it is to engage people in little projects where they plan how to use social software in their own teaching. The focus is on wikis, blogs, and podcasts and most participants want to get to know wikis and podcasts but one participant is about to produce his own podcast for his university, and I’m very much looking forward to this.

The course is supported by a blog (where I also do most of my blogging right now). And we also use a wiki which is protected by passwords to make participants feel more comfortable with putting their work online.

Here’s a graphic of how the workshop will proceed (in German):

More information on the course can be found at the SCIL website and at our course blog. Enjoy! 

I was asked to give a short presentation on social software in one of our IWP - team meetings. I will focus on the basic concepts of blogs, wikis, and podcasts, and on the possibilities to use them in educational settings - especially in universities. I made a number of graphics to illustrate the presentation, here’s one of them:

 (based on a graphic by Roell, 2005)

The presentation is just the basics and will be well-known to most of you but I thought I’d make it available nevertheless - you can find it here (in German only). Feedback, of course, would be very welcome.

In addition to my post on blog habits I found an interesting post by Kathy Sierra on how to insert graphics into your blog, presentations and so on (via Jochen Robes and Stephen Downes). Of course, we all know how important it is to illustrate our thoughts with graphics and how well some people (the visual type) learn from these illustrations. However, I guess we all need to be reminded every one in a while.

I really like and enjoy Gliffy which is a free tool available to make graphics online (can also be used by a team). In my opinion this tool lets you get quite a long way. Enjoy!  

I’ve been following Christopher D. Sessums Weblog for quite a while now and I always found that his posts were very thoughtful and elaborated. So today he provided some insights on Action Research and Social Software and how action research might be a model for educators to try out social software for teaching and learning. He provided a straighforward graphic on how action research works, i.e. experiment by actually acting, monitor and evaluate and then start to plan again, try it out and so on… Here’s the picture which I’ll attribute to him since he didn’t give any citation (hoping that I’m not violating any copyright).

I’m glad that the connection between social software and research has been stated by Christopher. This is exactly the focus of a recent study that we did at SCIL. We basically focussed on the literature of the past few years and tried to find scientific research on social software and its application in education. Results will be reported on this blog as well as soon as I’m done with translating them into English. Anyway, in my opinion we should have a closer (more scientific) look at how social software is used in the classroom and what are the factors that help teachers and learners. This might be the starting point for wider adoption of social software.

technorati tags:research, actionresearch, sessums, socialsoftware

I found this list on “Ten habits of bloggers that win” quite interesting (via James Fadden who got it form the Cool Cat Teacher): 

The habits are good guides for beginning bloggers.

1. If you mention it hyperlink it.
2. Get a Good Title
3. Write and then cut in half
4. Write and then format
5. Draw a picture
6. Before you bag it tag it
7. After you post it ping it
8. Make sure you set your pages to archive
9. Comment on articles you quote and hyperlink to your article
10. get the stats back.

So, I’ll try to tag my blog post from now on. I’m already doing this on FURL and in my endnotes library but never minded to do it with my first blog posts. Well, well, I guess I’m still figuring this out

technorati tags:blogging, bloghabits

Since November 8, the Edublog Awards are open for nominations. Appearantly, only educational bloggers are allowed to nominate other blogs (as it says on the awards homepage and in the OLDaily) are allowed . The categories for this year are:

• Best audio and/or visual blog
• Best group blog
• Best individual blog
• Most influential post, resource or presentation
• Best library/librarian blog
• Best newcomer
• Best research paper on social software within learning and teaching
• Best teacher blog
• Best undergraduate blog
• Best wiki use

Source: Edublog Awards 2006

The nomination period is open until November 30. Nominations should be sent to 2006awards@googlemail.com

The category on the “Best research paper on social software within learning and teaching” is quite interesting. Let’s see what they will vote on in the end and don’t forget…

…to get your European vote in today!

via A Difference

There’s an interesting discussion going on whether George Siemens’ Connectivism is indeed a learning theory or just another pedagogy. Verhagen from the University of Twente reviewed

1. Is connectivism a learning theory or a pedagogy?
2. The principles advocated by connectivism are present in other learning theories as well.
3. Can learning reside in non-human appliances?

Source: Connectivism: Learning theory or Past Time of the Self-Amused by George Siemens (connected blog post: Externalizing Knowledge)

This weekend, I read a little bit into “Knowing Knowledge”, the new book by George Siemens, who put it all up on the internet as free and open content. This link leads to the accompanying website with a community to discuss the book, a print-on-demand version, etc. The pdf-version of the book can be found here.

Also, see Siemens’s presentation at the University of Manitoba yesterday (MP3 audio and PowerPoint slides) on social technologies.

Source: via Stephen Downes

I haven’t made it through the whole book yet, but I do like it even though it is addressed rather to business leaders than to academia or to anybody involved in knowledge management. It is definitely worthwile to read through the book although one might have a different stance on certain subjects.