Moving from Transfer to Discovery: Social Networking Software for Education

The power of electronic communication to build ad hoc community is facilitated by social networking software. As the challenges for participation get reduced, students, researchers, and professors are finding new ways to engage learners. Social networking software allows information to be exchanged in new timely and nuanced ways never before seen. People are engaging in ways similar to remote sensing with remote interpretation. Social networking software allows an aggregation of queries to a knowledge base that uncovers additional ironic juxtapositions. Naturally there is controversy. Should we trust Wikipedia? Why not? Should we trust a folksonomy of categorization? Why not? Finally, what is amenable to worthwhile uses of social networking software in the service of education?

Resources

Social Tools

• del.icio.us
• flickr
• Cite-U-Like
• digg

Aggregators

• Bloglines
• Technorati

Wikis and Wiki Software

• Wikipedia
• Quantum Physics Wiki
• Undergraduate Physics Wiki
• Wikicities (like Geocities, but for Wiki space)
• pmWiki (free wiki server software)
• MediaWiki (free wiki software, same used by Wikipedia)

Blogging Software and Services

• Physics Forum Blog
• Blogger (free basic blogging)
• EduBlogs (free blogs for educators)
• WordPress (free server software)

Folksonomy and Tagging

• Wikipedia Article on Folksonomy
• What Folksonomies Are
• Folksonomies - Cooperative Classification and Communication Through Shared Metadata
• Folksonomies - Tidying Up Tags?
• Broad and Narrow Folksonomies
• New York Times Article

Connectivism

• A Learning Theory for the Digital Age
• The Connectivism Site
• Connectivism Blog
• Technorati Tag ‘Connectivism’
• del.icio.us Tag ‘Connectivism’

OurNotes

Presentations