Copyright 2005 Digital Enterprise Research Institute. All rights reserved.

www.deri.org

Learning via the Social Web

John BreslinDigital Enterprise Research Institute

National University of Ireland, Galway

john.breslin@deri.orghttp://www.johnbreslin.com/

Conversations on Teaching and Learning Seminars27th February 2008

2

A little bit about myself!

1998: Forum* on the Irish Games Network

1998: Forum* on the Irish Games Network

2000: boards.ieLtd. Formed

2000: boards.ieLtd. Formed

2004: Researcherat DERI, NUI Galway

2004: Researcherat DERI, NUI Galway

2008: 10th

Anniversary*

2008: 10th

Anniversary*

Hello, World!Hello, World! 1990: VMSMAP.COM

1990: VMSMAP.COM

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A move from the Web to a “Social Web”

The New Yorker, 1993

“On the Internet, nobody knows you’re a dog.”

The New Yorker, 2005

“I had my own blog for a while, but I decided to go back to just

pointless, incessant barking.”

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What is the Social Web?

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_web– “The Social Web is a term that can be used to describe a subset

of interactions that are highly social, conversational and participatory. The Social Web may also be used instead of Web 2.0 as it is clearer what feature of the Web is being referred to.”

• Popular examples of social websites:– Wikipedia, MySpace / Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, SecondLife,

Upcoming, Digg / Reddit / StumbleUpon, Flickr / Zooomr, del.icio.us, World of Warcraft, Amazon

• Related terms:– Web 2.0, social media, social software, social networks, social

news, social bookmarking, user-generated content

5

The Social Web in simple terms

1. Users

2. Content

3. Tags

4. Comments– Users post content

– Users share content– Users annotate content with tags

– Users browse content via tags– Users discuss content via comments

– Users connect via posted content– Users connect directly to users

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Content can be…

• Books Amazon• Discussion postings Blogs• Bookmarks del.icio.us• Photos Flickr• Music Last.fm• Movies Netflix• Events Upcoming.org• Places Dopplr• Products Microsoft Aura• Articles Wikipedia

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Flickr, share your photos

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SlideShare for presentations

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The social bookmarking service del.icio.us

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All Consuming, what have you read today?

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Upcoming event listings and meetups

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Dopplr for managing travel, tracking friends abroad

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You can even share your favourite walks…

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…and find others with like musical interests

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TouristR for travel destination stories and info

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Blogging: a phenomenon for a new generation?

• Cincinnati Enquirer, October 2004

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Introduction

• Weblog, web log or simply a blog is a web journal• “A web application which contains periodic time-stamped

posts on a common (usually open-access) webpage”• Individual diaries -> arms of political campaigns, media

programs and corporations (e.g. the Google Blog)• Citizen journalism…• Posts are often shown in reverse chronological order• Comments can be made by the public on some blogs• Latest headlines, with hyperlinks and summaries, are

syndicated using RSS or Atom formats (e.g. for reading favourite blogs with a feed reader)

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The state of the “blogosphere”

• Source: Technorati (March 2003 to March 2007)

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Some quotes about blogs

• “It'll be no more mandatory that [CEOs] have blogs than that they have a phone and an e-mail account. If they don't, they're going to look foolish.” - Jonathan Schwartz, Sun Microsystems

• “Tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. If your competitor has a product that's better than yours, link to it. You might as well. We’ll find it anyway.” - Robert Scoble, Microsoft, “Corporate Weblog Manifesto”

• “Famous people have enough space to talk already. Blogging is interesting because of non-famous people.” - Lawrence Lessig, Stanford Law School

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Some non-famous and famous bloggers

• Made famous by blogging:– Washingtonienne (http://washingtoniennearchive.blogspot.com)– Salam Pax (http://dear_raed.blogspot.com)– Robert Scoble (http://scobleizer.wordpress.com)

• Already (semi-) famous:– David Miliband (UK Labour Minister,

http://blogs.fco.gov.uk/blogs/david_miliband/default.aspx)– Jamie Oliver (Chef, http://www.jamieoliver.com)– Jeremy Thompson (Sky, http://jeremythompson.typepad.com)– Liz McManus (Labour Deputy, http://lizmcmanus.blogspot.com)– Moby (http://www.moby-online.com/cms/viewalldiary.asp)– Zach Braff (Scrubs, http://gardenstate.typepad.com)

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The Irish connection

• There has been an explosion in the awareness of Irish blogs in the past three years

• Irish “blogosphere” (boggersphere!) size is in the thousands

• Irish blog aggregators:– http://www.irishblogs.ie/– http://planet.journals.ie/

• Irish blogs awards in its third year:– http://www.awards.ie/blogawards– The awards are being held this Saturday

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Get your own blog

• journals.ie provides free hosting of Irish blogs• Simple three-stage signup for a new blog at

www.journals.ie• Other popular services:

– www.blogger.com– www.wordpress.com

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Blogging in education

• For teachers:– Instructions and summaries for students– Course announcements and reading materials– Personal knowledge sharing– Peer networking

• For students:– Reflective writing or study journals– Knowledge management– Submission and review of assignments– Dialogue for group work– Share course-related resources

Definition of wikis

• A community-developed documentation project• “A piece of server software that allows users to freely

create and edit Web page content using any Web browser. Wiki supports hyperlinks and has a simple text syntax for creating new pages and crosslinks between internal pages on the fly.” -- http://wiki.org/wiki.cgi?WhatIsWiki

• “A wiki is a type of website that allow users to easily add and edit content and is especially suited for collaborative writing. The name is based on the Hawaiian term wiki, meaning "quick", "fast", or "to hasten" (Hawaiian dictionary).” -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiki

Makao, famous Hawaiian runner

Some uses of wikis

• Wikis are being used for:

– online encyclopaedias– free dictionaries– book repositories– software development– project proposals– writing research papers– event organisation

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The Wikipedia: from Gaeilge to Esperanto

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Some Irish wiki sites

• www.wiki.ie – Wiki Ireland– The aim of Wiki Ireland is use wiki technology to create a

knowledge store for Ireland's culture and heritage

• wiki.politics.ie – An Irish politics wiki– Aim is to create the largest online resource of Irish political

information

• wiki.boards.ie – The boards.ie Wiki or “Biki”– Collaborative pages devoted to boards.ie culture and topics of

interest

• Make your own wiki:– http://www.wikidot.com

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Podcasts are like audio blogs

• “Podcasts are to radio what blogs are to newspapers and magazines”

• The name “Podcast” is a portmanteau of “pod” from iPod and “broadcast”

• Basically, podcasts are MP3 audio files created by individuals or organisations, published on the Web and downloaded by others to their iPods or other MP3 playing devices

• Can be interviews, music shows, comedies, etc.• Famous podcasters include Ricky Gervais for the

Guardian Unlimited site

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History of podcasts

• Concept suggested in 2000• Technical roots in 2001, with blogs being the key• The term came into use around 2004 (Adam Curry = #1)• Several technologies had to be in place:

– High-speed Internet– MP3 technology– RSS, podcatching software– Digital media players

• 2005, >100M Google hits• In 2006, the number of podcasts surpassed the number

of radio stations worldwide

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How do I get them?

• Can play on your PC even if you don’t have an iPod or Portable Media Player

• Can use iTunes for Windows or MacOS– Click on Music Store -> Podcasts -> Browse

• Get direct from sites…

• Odeo podcast directory

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And now there are video podcasts…

• Video podcasts are similar to audio podcasts, and can be downloaded to PCs or PMPs

• Some television stations are making episodes of series downloadable for free (e.g. C4’s 4oD) or for a fee

• There are also many free video podcasts (interviews, news, documentaries, behind the scenes, etc.)

• Your own internet TV station…• All you need is a cam!• AKA vodcasts or vidcasts• (VOD = video-on-demand)

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Podcasting process

• Podcast creation:– Computer with a line-in jack or USB microphone (€8!)– Audacity – http://audacity.sourceforge.net/ (Free!)

• Podcast hosting:– Loudblog – http://www.loudblog.de/– WordPress (and optional PodPress) – http://www.wordpress.org/

and http://www.podpress.org/– Blast – http://www.blastpodcast.com/– Blogger – Upload a file to archive.org for example, link from a

post using “Show link field”

• Podcast listening:– iTunes - http://www.apple.com/itunes/– Juice - http://juicereceiver.sourceforge.net/

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Podcasting legalities

• “Copyright is the branch of law that protects creative expression”, including:– Texts displayed, read aloud, etc.– Music played during podcasts, intros, outros– Audio content performed or displayed– Interviews of others are also protectable

• Solution is to try and use “podsafe” content:– “Creative Commons”-licensed works, PD works, fair use, etc.

• Related links:– http://www.higheredblogcon.com/index.php/legal-issues-in-

podcasting-the-traditional-classroom/print/– http://www.archive.org/details/opensource_audio– http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Podcasting_Legal_Guide

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Podcasting in education

• Listen to or view your lectures on demand!• Teachers can publish podcasts of their lectures and

assignments for an entire class or for the public:– May supplement physical lectures– May fully serve distance learning students

• Conversely, students can create and publish content and deliver it to their teachers or other students

• CELT’s Iain MacLaren on podcasting in education:– http://ollscoil.blogspot.com/2006/11/podcasting-in-higher-

education.html

• Educational podcasts:– http://www.uccinteractive.tv/test/new/podcasts/index.html– http://itunes.stanford.edu/ and http://web.mit.edu/ist/podcasts/

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Podcasting in Ireland

• Bernie Goldbach’s podcast from the Tipperary Institute:– http://www.podcasting.ie/

• Brian Greene’s Irish podcasting news:– http://www.doop.ie/podcasting_news/

• Irish podcast directory:– http://www.podcastingireland.ie/

• RTÉ’s R1 podcasts:– http://www.rte.ie/radio1/podcast/

• Irish Emigrant podcasts:– http://www.emigrant.ie/podcast.htm

• Irish podcasting representative body:– http://podireland.org/

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We all live in a social network…

• …of friends, family, workmates, fellow students, acquaintances, etc.

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• Friend of a friend, or “dúirt bean liom go ndúirt bean leí”

• Theory that anybody is connected to everybody else (on average) by no more than six degrees of separation

Everyone’s connected…

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The Erdős number

• Number of links required to connect scholars to Erdős via co-authorship of papers

• Erdős wrote 1500+ papers with 507 co-authors

• Jerry Grossman’s site allows mathematicians to compute their Erdős numbers:– http://www.oakland.edu/enp/

• Connecting path lengths, among mathematicians only:– The average is 4.65

– The maximum is 13

Paul Erdős (1913-1996)

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The Kevin Bacon game

Boxed version of the game• Invented by three Albright College students in 1994:– Craig Fass, Brian Turtle, Mike

Ginelly

• Goal is to connect any actor to Kevin Bacon, by linking actors who have acted in the same movie

• The “Oracle of Bacon” website uses IMDB to find the shortest link between any two actors:– http://oracleofbacon.org/

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What are social networking services (SNSs)?

• From the beginning, the Internet was a medium for connecting not only machines but people

• Idea behind SNSs is to make the aforementioned real-world relationships explicitly defined online

• 2002:– Friendster

• 2003:– MySpace, LinkedIn, hi5

• 2004:– orkut, Facebook

• 2005:– Bebo

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The popularity of SNSs

• The 10 most popular domains ~= 40% percent of all page views on the Web (Compete, November 2006)– Nearly half of those views

were from the social networking services MySpace and Facebook – wow!

– And that’s just in the top 10…

Alexa rankings:

#6: MySpace

#7: orkut

#8: Facebook

#10: hi5

#16: Friendster

#95: Bebo

#142: LinkedIn

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SNSs attracting lots of monetary / media attention

• Friendster – $13M VC• Tribe – $6.3M VC• LinkedIn – $4.7M VC• Bebo – $15M VC• MySpace – Sold for $580M• Friends Reunited – Sold for £120M• Facebook – Purported $1B Y! offer, 1.6% sold to MS

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Other niche SNSs

• Age:– Multiply (seniors and settled); Boomj (baby boomers); Rezoom

• Country of origin:– Silicon India

• Gender:– CaféMom; MothersClick; Sister Woman (female friends)

• Occupation:– ModelsHotel; FanLib (fiction writers); AdGabber; TheFeng.org (financial

services executives); MilitarySpot (military families); Sermo (doctors and physicians)

• Business and careers:– ConnectBuzz; Doostang; Execunet; Netshare; Ryze; Viadeo; Xing

• Interests:– TradeKing (investors); StreetCred (hip hop); IndiePublic (art and

design); PeerTrainer (health and wellbeing)

* Source: Paul Gibler, Wisconsin Technology Network

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Learning opportunities from organisational SNSs

• An opportunity to create an internal network for sharing information and expertise:– Share information within an

organisation’s own walls– Efficient way to mine for in-

house expertise (“expert finding”)

– Reduce the time spent mailing docs and e-mailing comments

– Encourage employees, alumni, students, interns, new hires, retired staff, other stakeholders to interact with each other

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Public SNSs for informal learning (in industry)

• Figures estimate that 75-80% of learning is done informally, and with 40-50% of employees accessing information and knowledge from social media sites, Web 2.0 is potentially responsible for a large proportion of this informal learning (up to 30-40%):– “More than 40 percent of business users consume social

networking applications like blogs, intranets and RSS [really simple syndication] feeds more than three times a week.”

– “More than 30 percent of respondents read information in wikis, social networks, discussion boards and videoconferences / IMs more than three times a week.”

– “More than 20 percent of respondents contribute to blogs, intranets, social networks, discussion boards, video conferencing and tagging [social media sites] more than three times a week.”

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Elgg, social networking software for education

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Creating your own SNS

Which method is best for you?

1. Create a social network via a web interface, hosted on someone else’s site (e.g., ning.com)

2. Install off-the-shelf social networking software on your own server

3. Install a content management system and customise the SN modules / themes yourself

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Online games

• Then first-person shooter games became popular during the 1990s (with corresponding multiplayer versions):– Doom– Quake– Half-Life

• Followed by MMOGs (massively multiplayer online games) and MMORPGs (MMO role playing games) from the late 1990s to date:– Everquest– World of Warcraft

• Virtual worlds:– Second Life

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Unreal-powered EduFrag for chemistry education

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The Second Life virtual world

• Freely downloadable virtual world for Windows and Mac

• A social networking service combined with “metaverse”

• 3 million registered accounts as of 28 January 2007

• First occurrence of 30,000 concurrent residents on 1 February 2007

• Probably around 150,000 active users (high “churn rate”)

• Linden Lab making some SL software (viewer) open source

• Virtual riot between French National Front and anti-racist SL residents in January 2007

• Concerts from Duran Duran, Suzanne Vega and others

• Companies, organisations (Unitarians) all setting up shop• $1 US = 250 Linden dollars

• Unofficial John Edwards presence

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Outside Trinity College Dublin

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Doug Engelbart event in first and second lives

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An issue with the Social Web

Need interesting objects to draw you back to keep on using social networking services

* Source: Jyri Engestrom, “Object-Centered Sociality”, Reboot 7

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Many social networking services can be boring…

* Source: Jyri Engestrom, “Object-Centered Sociality”, Reboot 7

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Object-centred sociality can provide meaning

• Users connected via a common object, e.g., their job, university, hobbies, a date…

• “Another tradition of theorizing offers an explanation of why Russell linked out, and why so many YASNS ultimately fail.”

• “According to this theory, people don’t just connect to each other. They connect through a shared object.”

* Source: Jyri Engestrom, “Why Some Social Networks Work…”

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Object-centred sociality can provide meaning (2)

• “When a service fails to offer the users a way to create new objects of sociality, they turn the connecting itself into an object [LinkedIn].”

• “Good services allow people to create social objects that add value.”– Flickr = photos– del.icio.us = bookmarks– Blogs = discussion posts

* Source: Jyri Engestrom, “Why Some Social Networks Work…”

57…can connect us to other people

Everything we make and do…

• Video annotations• Chats• Photos• Micro-blogs• OSN profiles• Bookmarks

…

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Questions and answers

?