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Glossary of 'Social Software' terms in education
Link back to instruction page
Definition: Wiki means Quick in Hawaiian. It is used to describe the taxis that run speedily between Honolulu Airport and the local hotels. In this electronic sense it takes the property of quick and basic method to create a text page that, through collaboration, can be quickly produced. This can result in somewhat untidy entries that may look a little basic. The content is important, not the formatting - that can be tidied up later. Consequently any Wiki is a great collaborative working tool and can quickly become a useful reference. The more people involved the greater the volume of knowledge. Wikipedia can be edited by anyone in the world and is consequently enormous. The name PBwiki is a short for 'Peanut Butter Wiki' (the creators want users to know that it is as easy to use as spreading peanut butter on a piece of bread).
When you set up a pbwiki, if you select education, you get an advert free site.
Use in Education: A class of students can record their individual work into one place creating something approaching a short book. Each thing learnt becomes available to everyone else in the classroom. Students and tutors can correct mistakes and add further points where information in another student's work is patchy. Tutors can add a reading text and then ask each student to add three sentences to the page recording their thoughts on some aspect of what has just been read.
Link to Example: http://geoffrebbeck.pbwiki.com/?pwd=c4FSvmCjmL
This wiki has been created using PBwiki
Piczo
Definition: Piczo is another Social Networking site, similar to My Space. Its real advantage is that it is something of a 'walled garden' and personal space cannot be viewed unless an invite is offered, unlike My Space.
Use in Education: A child care tutor in West Yorkshire is using Piczo to engage her 14-16 years old learners. They didn't like My Space (My Space users think that Piczo is 'chavvy') so they went with Piczo (which then turned out to have been a better move because of the 'walled garden' thing. There's a lot of fluff in there, so the tutor has to be on guard. Seems to have worked.
Link to Example: Can't show example but site is www.piczo.com
PLE
Definition: a Personal Learning Environment - like a VLE but for individuals. JISC ran a project in 2005-06.
Use in Education: Most VLEs are server based and hosted by an institution, so students are unable to access the VLE once they move on. The project looked at how to create a PLE that would work with various VLEs to suit the needs of individual students.
Link to Example: http://www.cetis.ac.uk/members/scott/blogview?entry=20050831112123 for Scott's Workblog; or JISC for the project on http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/programmes/elearning_framework/cetis_ple.aspx
Podcast
Definition: a podcast is an item of media content (often an mp3, but can also be a video file or a pdf) that is available for distribution to 'subscribed' computers via RSS protocol. By 'subscribing' to a podcast the content is automatically delivered to the listener whenever new content is available. The term is generally thought to be a combination of iPod and broadcast (or more correctly, narrowcast), but that is a matter for dispute. Most podcasts are free to download and there are podcast directories (e.g. Podcast Alley, Podnova, Yahoo) which classify and list available content. A media player is required to listen to (or view) podcasts on a PC or Mac. Several free players are available. iTunes offers a complete solution - it locates, downloads, updates and plays podcasts without the need to use any other software. It is NOT necessary to have an iPod in order to play a podcast. also see audio blog and blog.
Use in Education: the most popular podcasts are those that support the teaching of languages. They are used for ESOL/EFL/ESL, Chinese, Korean etc with very large numbers of subscribers. Podcasts can be used to deliver lectures (this is VERY common in the USA) and for students to post their own research. They are also ideal as instructional guides (e.g. a description of exhibits in an art gallery, a short video guide to using a particular tool in Photoshop). There is unlimited scope for the use of podcasting in education.
Link to Example: (Teaching English) http://splendidspeaking.podomatic.com/ (Business English) http://www.businessenglishpod.com/ (Photoshop tips) http://tricks.onigo.net/ (and one to relax to) www.DarkhorseRadio.com
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