Applications of Social and Collaborative Technologies in Education

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Applications ofSocial and Collaborative
Technologies in Education

• Stephen Downes April 8, 2008

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Why I came to New Brunswick
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NRC-IIT Moncton
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The Fall Foliage
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NAWeb 1996

• Wu Centre, Fredericton

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Rik Hall
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1997
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TeleEducation NB
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People helping each other learn
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EduCamp Colombia
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Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
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Taipei, Taiwan
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Communities of Educators Online
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http//www.flickr.com
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http//www.google.com/reader
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http//www.facebook.com
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http//www.ning.com
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http//www.plaxo.com
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http//groups.google.com
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Communities of learners, where they need to learn
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IBM Worldwide
http//www-05.ibm.com/cz/events/power6/pdf/Ton_Eng
bersen_Trends_in_microelectronics.pdf
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IBM Communities
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http//companycommand.army.mil/
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SWAT
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Second Life Communities
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Edublog Awards
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The new technology - even games - supports
learning by supporting community
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Learning Communities
Photo Joyce Valenza and Dave Thomson. Photo by
Ewan McIntosh
http//www.flickr.com/photos/edublogger/840478703/

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Elements of Learning Communities(Circa 1997)
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Sense ofshared purpose
Pam Vesely, Lisa Bloom and John Sherlock
Key Elements of Building Online Community
Comparing Faculty and Student Perceptions http//j
olt.merlot.org/vol3no3/vesely.htm
Photo Frederick Noronha http//www.flickr.com/pho
tos/fn-goa/236214205/
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Establishment of boundaries defining who is a
member and who is not
Photo Loungerie http//www.flickr.com/photos/lou
ngerie/827362903/
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Establishment and enforcement of rules and
policies
Photo ClintJCL http//www.flickr.com/photos/clint
jcl/375585107/
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Interaction among members
Photo Jason Rhodes http//www.flickr.com/photos/j
rhode/2040911590
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Trust, respect and support
Photo Nina Jean http//www.flickr.com/photos/nic
asaurusrex/777759933/
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Group identity
Misanchuk and Anderson http//www.mtsu.edu/itconf
/proceed01/19.html
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Since then, weve learned
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Online communities are not as united as supposed
Photo Harold Jarche http//www.jarche.com/?p152
5
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We dont want our classrooms to be like
classrooms
Photo Inx http//www.flickr.com/photos/lnx/62571
30/
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Far from it

• The challenge for educators across the nation
  has become how to design and develop a teacher
  corps and a school structure that allows for a
  school that operates in a completely different
  manner than the classrooms we experienced in our
  own education. - Sammon 2000, 2.
  http//www.stanford.edu/group/cubberley/node/2383

Photo Georgie Sharp http//www.flickr.com/photos/
georgiesharp/1180689591/
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Different levels of interaction

• Communication - individualism
• Cooperation - mesh, or network
• Collaboration - unity, or whole

Misanchuk and Anderson http//www.mtsu.edu/itconf
/proceed01/19.html
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Which level prevails in Web 2.0?
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Learning in a Mesh
Collaborative
Cooperative
Image Noakes http//kolea.kcc.hawaii.edu/tcc/tcon
99/papers/noakes.html
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Learning in a Mesh
Collaborative
Cooperative
Many contents
One content
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Interacting in the Network
Marc Canter http//blog.broadbandmechanics.com/200
8/03/how-to-build-the-mesh-1-id-social-graphs-and-
groups
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Interactive Content
Marc Canter http//blog.broadbandmechanics.com/200
8/04/how-to-build-the-mesh-2-persistent-ubiquitous
-content
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Personal Learning Environments
Scott Wilson http//thand.files.wordpress.com/2007
/05/futurevle.jpg
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Personal Learning Landscape
Dave Tosh http//tesl-ej.org/ej34/m1.html
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PLE asFunctions in Social Media
Mohamed Amine Chatti http//mohamedaminechatti.blo
gspot.com/2007/06/my-plepkm.html
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PLE as applications
Marianne http//mlxperience.blogspot.com/2007/11/m
y-personal-learning-environment-model.html
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Essentials of Web 2.0
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User Generated Content
Content
Content as object, not subject
Photo Kbaird http//www.flickr.com/photos/kevlar/
1152595430/
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Syndication
Photo Orin Optiglot http//www.flickr.com/photos/
orinrobertjohn/170352038/
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Software as a Service
AJAX REST WSDL / SOAP etc etc
Photo Peter Renshaw http//www.flickr.com/photos/
bootload/243444537/
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Identity
Image Cedric Huesler http//www.flickr.com/photos
/keepthebyte/347821691/
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Office 2.0
http//www.downes.ca/post/43918
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Bookmarking - del-iciou.us
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Calendar - Google calendar
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Contacts - LinkedIn
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CRM - Salesforce
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Database - Dabble
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Desktop - Google Homepage
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Document Managementscribd
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Email - Google Mail
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Feed Reading - Google Reader
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Presentation - Zoho Show
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Spreadsheets Google Spreadsheet
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Weblog - Word Press
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Documents - Google Docs
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Drawing - Gliffy
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Group Management - Ice Core
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Mind Mapping - MindMeister
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Photo Editor - Picnik
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Photo manager - Flickr
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Web Conferencing - Vyew
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Webcasting - Ustream.tv
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- Web 2.0 Applications Are Virtual Worlds -
Multiple users, avatars, user generated content,
persistent world
http//www.secretlair.com/index.php?/clickablecult
ure/entry/google_spreadsheet_as_virtual_world/
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Their contents are mobile
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They belong to the user
Photo occ4m http//www.flickr.com/photos/occam/33
233905/
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They are shared
Photo Carf http//www.flickr.com/photos/beija-flo
r/1571916042/
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The key to community is not doing things for
people, but enabling them to do things for
themselves
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Cooperative Learning
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The basic elements critical to cooperative work

• positive interdependence
• individual accountability
• promotive interaction
• social skills
• collective processing

Johnson, Johnson and Smith http//www.maine.edu/pd
f/CooperativeLearning.pdf
are the basic elements of virtual worlds and
web 2.0
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Software architecture that supports cooperation
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Yahoo Pipes
http//pipes.yahoo.com
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Google Gears
http//gears.google.com/
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gRSShopper
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gRSShopper Demo
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gRSShopper mapping
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Changing Community
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Community as Connections
http//www.edsupport.cc/mguhlin/archives/2008/04/e
ntry_6926.htm
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Groups vs Networks
http//www.flickr.com/photos/stephen_downes/252157
734/
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Diversity
Photo Brandon Shegeta http//www.flickr.com/photo
s/brandonshigeta/1161603826/
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Autonomy
Photo Kenoir http//www.flickr.com/photos/kentura
mon/342946821/
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Openness
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Connectivity

• Interactivity, Emergence

Photo Jeff Safi http//www.flickr.com/photos/jef_
safi/225426814/
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Supporting Educational Communities
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The idea of providing services
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19 of the top 20 software applications used by
educators are free
Jane Hart
http//c4lpt.co.uk/recommended/top100.html
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The Moodle Experience
Photo Pescosolido Library http//www.flickr.com/p
hotos/peskylibrary/175701858/
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Dougiamas

• A clear, obvious web site design
• Demonstrations of the software
• Simple but extensive documentation
• Structured, easy-to-use forums
• A central source code library

http//dougiamas.com/writing/edmedia2003/
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This is what we could do
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There arecertainly precedents
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WikiEducator
http//www.wikieducator.org/
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Connexions
http//cnx.org/
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European schoolnet
http//www.eun.org/
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Joint Information Systems Committee - JISC
http//www.jisc.ac.uk/
http//www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/services.aspx
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New Media Consortium
http//www.nmc.org/services
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EdNA
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Edublogs
http//edublogs.org/
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Where are we in Canada and New Brunswick?
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We have the talent, the expertise
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Can we see the way forward?
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Thank you
Stephen Downes http//www.downes.ca