Social Networking

Social networking is a social structure made up of individuals or organizations called “Nodes” which are connections that one or more specific types of interdependency. This can consist of friendship, kinship, financial exchange, dislike, sexual relationships, and knowledge. A node is the individual actor within the network, and ties are the relationship between the actors. Researchers have shown that social networking operates on many levels, from families up to the level of nations, and playing a critical role in determining the way problems are solved, and how an organization is running. A social network can also be used to measure social capital; the value that an individual gets from social networking. This concept can also be displayed in a social network diagram, where nodes are the dots and ties are the lines. When it comes to social networking websites are normally used. These types of websites are called social sites. Social networking sites ac t like an online community of internet users. A lot of these online community members share a common interest in hobbies, politics, and religion. Once you are allowed access to a social networking site you can start socializing. Having access to these types of websites may include reading is the profile page of another member and also contacting them. One benefit of becoming a part of a social website is that you can make friends. Another is diversity because a social website gives an individual from all around the world access to the site. Not only will you make friends, but you can learn a lot about other cultures. Teachers use social networking the same way their student use it, for staying in touch with their peers and also sharing information or experience that they have gone through. This goes back to the connective theory because an individual communicates and learns through a network environment.

Source(s):

www.jcmc.indiana.edu/vol13/issue/boyd.ellison.html

www.whatissocialnetworking.com

Social Media

Social media are a collection of tools or online spaces available to help individuals and their information and communication needs. Social media supports the people need for social interaction, using internet, and web-based technology for transforming broadcast media monologues. Andrew Kaplan and Michael Haenlein describe social media as “A group of internet-based applications that build on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0 and that allows the creation and exchange of user-generated content”. Social media are known to have three components; concept which is art, information, and meme. Media which are physical, electronic, and verbal. Last is a social interface which is community engagement, social viral, electronic broadcasting or syndication and other physical media such as print. The difference between social media and industrial media is that social media are usually inexpensive and has accessible tools that enable anyone to publish or access information. Industrial media usually need a lot of resources to publish information. One thing that both social, and industrial media share is the capability to reach small or large audiences, for example, you can make a blog post or start a television show and can reach zero or a million people. There are several different forms of social media like weblogs, social blogs, wikis, podcast, pictures, and videos, to name a few. Teachers that use this method with their students are constructivist because they see their student as active learners and want them to interpret and process what they receive.

Source(s):

www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/social_media

www.sbinfocanada.about.com/od/social/media/g/social media

Social Bookmarking

Social book marking is ways for internet users to share organize, search and manage bookmarks for web pages. A description can be added to bookmark in the form of a Metadata, so that other users will understand the content of the resource without first needing to download it for themselves. A description can consist of a free text comment or votes in favor of or against its quality, or tags that collectively or collaboratively become a folksonomy. A folksonomy also called social tagging is a process where many users add metadata in the form of a keyword to be shared. In a social book marking system a user can save links to web pages that they would like to remember or share with other users. These types of bookmarks are usually open to the public to view, or can be saved privately, shared only with specified people or s groups, shared only inside certain networks, or another combination of public and private domains. Users that are allowed to see these bookmarks can view it chronologically, by category or tags, or via a search engine. They also include information about the number of users who have book marked them. Some book marking services provide web feeds for their list of book marks, including lists that are organized by tags. This will allow users to become aware of new book marks tagged by other users. I think when teachers use this method with their students this is more of a connective learning for them because it’s a network environment and the students learn from other people in their network.

Source(s):

www.webtrend.about.com/.../socialbookmarking101

www.educause.edu/ir/library/PDF/ELI700/.PDF

Google Docs

Google's docs are web-based word processor, spreadsheet, presentation, and form application that’s offered free from Google. This program allows users to create and edit documents online while collaborating in real time with other users. Google's doc originated from two different products, Writely and Google’s spreadsheet. Writely is a web-based word processor created by Upsartle which is a software company that launched in August of 2005. Spreadsheets was launched as Google's lab spreadsheet on June 6^th, 2006, which originated by 2web technologies. Google's doc is Google’s version of an office suite. Its documents, spreadsheet, forms, and presentations can be created within the application itself. It can also be imported through the web interface, or sent via email. They also can be saved to your computer in a variety of formats like, Open office, HTML, PDF, RTF, and text word. When you open a document in Google’s doc it automatically saves to prevent any data loss, and a revision history is automatically kept. Google's doc is supported on all recent versions of Internet Explorer, Fire fox, Safari, and Chrome browser’s running on Microsoft Windows, Apple OS X, and Linux operating systems. Google’s doc recently set up a limit that a user can store on their account. Documents cannot exceed 500 k, embedded images must not exceed 2mb each, and spreadsheets are limited to 256 columns, 200,000 cells, and 99 sheets. That is a total of 5,000 documents and presentations, 5,000 images, 1,000 spreadsheets, and 100 PDF’s at one time. Teachers use this program to communicate with other teachers about assignments, essay’s, or homework that they prepare for their students. I think this could be part of the connectivist theory because teachers are learning from other teachers in a network environment.

Source(s):

www.Google.com/Google-d-s/tour/.html

www.Googledocs.blogspot.com

How to create a website with Google sites

A Google site is a tool found in Google’s nonprofit resources that allows users to display a variety of information in one place, which can be videos, slide shows, calendars, presentations, attachments and text. You can share it so small groups can view it, or for the entire world to see it. You can always control who has access to your site. To start your own Google site you have to sign in to your Google account if you do not have one you will have to sign up for one at www.Google.com. Once you have signed in or set up your account you have to click on create a site. Then you will enter your sites name and URL as well as an optional description of the site, after that select one of the sharing options; “Everyone can view this site” or “Only people I specify choose can view this site”. Then pick a theme for your site that will go with your organization colors. You don’t have to worry about choosing the right theme at this time because you can change settings at anytime. Once you have created your personal website you can create a new page by clicking the create page button. Then after you’re done doing that all you have to do is name your page and select the type of page you want, for example, web page, dashboard, announcement, file cabinet, or list. Aglak Grinsted a scientist/teacher likes to use Google’s sites because he uses it to present research of him and his collaborators. It allows him to maintain a personal presence on the web that he can take wherever he goes. I think this would be a constructive learning because the learner interprets and processes what they receive to create knowledge for everybody else.

Source(s):

www.Google.com/sites/help/intl/en/overview

www.wikihow.com/create-a-website-using-Google-sites

Podcasting

Podcasting is an online audio content that is sent through a RSS feed. RSS also known as “Really Simple Syndication” is a family of web feed formats used to publish frequently updated work like podcasting, blog entries, and news headlines. RSS usually benefits readers who want to subscribe to timely updates from a user favorite website. Podcasting gives you more options in terms of content and programming than radio. Listeners can decide the time, place and programming, they would like to receive. Podcasting has about five different ways it can be used. The first is for a self guided walking tour, which is an informational content. The second is for music like the band promotional clips and interviews. Third is for talk shows like industry or organizational news, investor news, sportscasts, news coverage, and commentaries. Forth is for training, which can be instructional informational materials. The last use of a podcasting can be for story telling for children or the visually impaired. Teachers all over are starting to like and use podcasting in classrooms with their students. Teachers say that they are drawn to this technology, this is what excites them, and they are comfortable with it. Teachers that believe that this is an effective tool for their student think what excites a student will help a student remember and learn better as well. I think this would be part of the connectivists theory because the student learns and works online with a network environment, which I think helps the student better.

Source(s):

Washington post.com

Surfnetkids.com/photo_sharing

Online Photosharing

Online Photo sharing is a way that you can publish or transfer digital photos online. This ability is provided through different websites and applications that display the images. Photo sharing sites started during the mid to late 1990’s primarily for online ordering of prints. Some of the photo sharing sites provide complete online organization tools similar to a desktop photo management application. A desktop management application can include its own photo sharing features that have sites included for uploading images to them. There are even desktop applications that only share photos, generally using a peer to peer network. The web is not the only way you can share photos. A portable device such as a camera phone can transfer photos to different photo sharing websites and photo blogs, either directly or via MMS. There are a lot of uses for an online photo sharing like sharing vacation photos, posting pictures for blogs, ordering prints, and organizing your photos so you can find them easier. Teachers use online photo sharing to shoot and share photos of student activities, field trips, etc. Students and teachers can use it in projects and presentations; they can also now create slide shows for school library media center events to share on websites. Some really good sites that you can try out are Kodak gallery, Snap fish, Flickr, and Picasa. I think the method that teachers are taking with photo sharing is part of the connectivist theory learning because the students are learning in a network environment.

Source(s):

Allthingsd.com/20061019/photo-sharing-web-sites/

Webtools4u2use.wikispace.com/photo+sharing

Henry Jenkins on New Media

Henry Jenkins is an American scholar, he earned his M.A. in communication studies from the University of Lowa. He then went on to get his PHD in Communication Arts from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He was born on June 4^th, 1958 in Atlanta, Georgia. Henry and his wife Cynthia Jenkins were house masters of the senior house dorm at MIT before their relocation to southern California in July of 2009. They have one son and his name is Henry Jenkins IV. In the Henry Jenkins on new media video, he made a lot of key points that I agreed with. The first point he made was about the limit that the schools have on the internet. He thinks that the schools should get better filters for their internet, then just limiting access to the students. The reason he says that is because websites like You Tube, which has a lot of bad things on there also has a lot of good information that the student can use and learn from as well. The second point he made was about how he didn’t agree with teachers shutting down technology and telling students that what they learn out of school doesn’t belong in school. I agree with Henry about this because if teachers continue to do that you will break student’s hopes and dreams. If they're not allowing them to experience new technology or fresh new idea or knowledge that they learn outside of school, it can discourage a lot of students from explore new ways of learning.

Virtual Classroom

A virtual classroom is a learning environment where both teachers and students are separated by time and space. This can have its advantages and disadvantages for some students. The objective of a virtual classroom is to improve the student educational experience online by allowing students and teachers to participate in remote learning by using their personal computers. I think the advantages of a virtual classroom are that the teacher can improve the quality and effectiveness of a student education. This can be done by using the computer to support a collaborative learning process. The disadvantages of a virtual classroom are if the student has no self motivation then there is a good chance they can fall behind on class work, or fail the class if they can’t catch up. I like how the virtual classrooms are being used in the video. I didn’t know that a student and teacher could communicate through video or audio streaming. A hybrid class is a great way to go to school. I’ve taken a hybrid class once before not knowing that I signed up for it. I ended up liking it better than a normal online class because I like to talk to somebody in person if I had a question and a hybrid class gives you a chance to meet with your teacher if you have any questions. It also allowed me to still work and take care of my son without having to quit my job or get a babysitter for my son. Hybrid classes normally meet once a week after normal working hours.

Web Search

Web search engine is used for locating web pages; they often will bring up thousands of results. To have a successful web search it involves two very important steps. The first step is to have a clear understanding of how to prepare your search; determine if there are any synonyms, or alternate spelling. Second you need to learn how to use the various search tools that the internet provides for you. The web search is very useful because it makes it easy to search for just about anything that you need, from searching for your favorite actor to looking for information for your research paper. Web searches do not search the World Wide Web directly. Each search that you conduct goes through a database of web pages. When you use a search engine it normally connects you with a stale copy of the real web page. When you finally decide to click the links provided in your search results, you retrieve the correct version of the page you were looking for. Search engine databases are built by computer robot programs called spiders. This program crawls the web, finding pages for potential inclusion by following the links in the pages. Teachers use a search engine for many things like making sure students are not committing plagiarism when they are writing papers, looking for homework assignments, and also creating assignments that allow students to get comfortable with search engines. I think if a teacher take this approach in assignments it would allow students to use their cognitvist learning because it approving their memory and learning skills.

Source(s):

Lib.berkeley.edu, websearch.about.com

World Wide Web

The World Wide Web was invented in 1989, by Tim Berners-Lee a scientist at Cern. World Wide Web also known as web is a system that lets you access information over the internet. Based on (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/world wide web) it was originally developed to meet the demand of sharing information between scientists working in different universities all around the world. The first web servers were all located in European physics labs. In 1991, an early World Wide Web system was released to the high energy physics community via the Cern library. A little later it was made available via the internet, especially to the community of people working on hypertext systems. The web is a world of information available at the click of a mouse, there are many ways it can be useful, and used in today’s demand. When you are running a browser it finds and displays pages of information. The function of a browser is to translate the program's language and transform it into words and graphics that you see on the computer screen. In order for you to be connected to the internet your computer must follow internet protocols. It can only do that if a compatible layer of software has been installed on it. The common protocol for the internet is called the Transmission Control protocol/Internet Protocol or TCP/IP. With having this properly installed you can communicate with friends and families, play game against somebody across the world, research homework and even run a business from the comfort of your home, thanks to the world wide web. Teachers use the World Wide Web to stay in touch with their student by emailing them. They also can find or get new ideas from the web as well. Connectivist learning would be the best in this case because the students are learning and working in a network environment.

Source(s):

Webopedia.com, public.web.cern.com

Blogs

A blog is a website that is usually maintained by an individual. Many blogs provide commentary or news on a current subject. A typical blog will combine text, images, and links to other blogs, and web pages. There is not just one type of blog, there are many different ones, differing not only in the type of content, but also in the way that content is delivered or written. A personal blog is a diary or commentary by an individual, and it’s the most common traditional blog. A corporate and organizational blog can be internal to help the communication in the business or external to marketing, or branding purposes. Nobody really knows who invented blogging, but everybody has their own opinion. Some people think Dave Winer, some think Jorn Barger, and others think Justin Hall. A blog can also be composed by a mobile device like a mobile phone, or a PDA, and it’s called moblog. Teachers use blogs to communicate and teach other teachers. Some teachers think that blogging brings new energy to their students. They also believe it’s a powerful underground resource, waiting to be tapped. I think the learning processing that would go best with these teachers and how they are using blogging to teach their student is constuctivist. The student interprets and processes what they hear and see to create knowledge by blogging.

Source(s):

Showmeblog.com,livejournal.com