Fused - social networking for learning

Background

• Learning is a ‘social’ thing• ‘Connecting’ with others to learn– Think about some recent learning you did, either

formal or informal – (how) did it involve others?– A ‘good teacher’ is a leading learner in a

community of learners– How do you find an expert?

The rise of the Social Web

• Evolution of the ‘Web’– Realising the promise of the inventors of the Web:• A platform for collaboration

• Web 1.0 --> Web 2.0– Empowerment of the individual (learner)– Publishing --> participation– Taxonomy --> folksonomy (tagging)– LMS --> Personal Learning Environment (PLE)• Fused: a platform for learning

Streaming your education

• What is a lifestream?– From the lifestream blog, it is ‘a chronological

aggregated view of your life activities both online and offline.’

• Why do it?– For the benefit of others– Promote your online identity– To follow people– To enhance your learning

Fused

• Activity streaming for teaching and learning• Aggregates content from all over the Web• Anywhere, anytime learning• Can be deployed as a public or private service• Realising the potential of the Web for learners– Create– Discover– Participate– Share

An Exemplar

• me.edu.au, the first public implementation of FusED• Provides Australian education and training professionals

with an online networking and profile space• Use me.edu.au to:

– Create an online professional profile– Connect with educators who have similar interests– Share links, news, photos, ideas, opinions– Blog about your work and professional learning– Aggregate your online activity to showcase what you are

doing online

Let’s take a look…

What people are

doing

Popular communitie

s

…about me

Aggregated list of

my activity onthe Web

Some stuffabout me

Link to my blog

My activity can be anywhere on the

Web. It is all aggregated by

Fused

bloggingBlogs are an

important part of a collaborative

learning environment

In Fused you may choose an external one or

the one provided

Here’s an external one

bloggingHere’s a

friend’s blog, using the

inbuilt Fused blog

collaboration

Finding and

connecting with

others is key to

learning

Use Fused to

subscribe to people

Communities Create/join, and contribute

to a community of

interest

Search

Find and connect to

people, communities, content etc

ShareTag and share

content with

friends and communiti

es

Organise your stuff

Anything you

create can be

exportedImport your

bookmarks / tags

from Delicious, Diigo etc

iFusED

• Did we say anywhere, anytime? Meet iFusED

Some important stuff

• Fused is built on standards:– Those standards and specifications must be:

• Lightweight• Easy to use• Web 2.0 friendly

• Must integrate with other services• All content created by users belongs to them– Can import/export all their content at any time

• The Web is the platform– Fused brings it all together for learning

So..why use Fused?

Lets’ see that again

Fused

• For more information on Fused please go to

• http://educationau.edu.au/fused