Social Bookmarking for education
Social Bookmarking is an important aspect of Web 2.0 that allows communities of practice to be formed and for them to thrive. Subject experts often store their own 'favourites' or 'bookmarks' (websites) online, so the various sites discussed in the documents below become useful starting points for research - by teachers or students.
As communities of practice develop, so does the power of your chosen site. The interaction becomes social by means of comments you or others make about the usefulness (or otherwise) of a particular bookmark.
Creating Interactive content using Xerte
Xerte is an open source, free and fully-featured e-learning development environment for creating rich interactivity. Elearning materials can be authored quickly and easily using browser-based tools, with no programming required. Xerte Online Toolkits is aimed at content authors, who will assemble content using simple wizards. Content authors can easily collaborate on projects.
Created by the University of Nottingham and highly recommended by the JISC TechDis for creating interactive and accessible e-learning content. Designing content with audio, video, images, gap fills, drag-and-drop functionality, hotspot interactions, multiple choice etc is really easy. You can upload created content to your VLE or simply email out for others to enjoy. Xerte can be used to design pedagogically sound e-learning content and its ease of use encourages creative participation by learners. The online Moodle course provides an overview of Xerte as well as access to handouts, onscreen tutorials, videos and support forums.
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Creative Commons License
Creating Interactive Learning and Social Media by Syed Munib Hadi is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported license.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available from Syed Munib Hadi.
Although a lot of work is being undertaken on use of social media in through out the World but the Southeast of England is also playing it's part through some really innovative and intuitive approaches to use of social learning.
The technology being most widely used to engage learners through Social media is the Mahara Social Networking E-Portfolio system. Ursula Bailey from Sparsholt College is utilising Social networking using Mahara as a form of group assessment for her veterinary students. It has not only allowed learners to submit resources like Audio, Video, Images and a whole range of Web 2.0 features as basis of their assessment but also allowed Ursula the ability to assess the Social learning taking place which has always been Achilles heel for tutors.
Southampton Solent University is another Southeast learning provider who have been championing the use of Social media using Mahara not only as a form of social networking for learners but also a tool for their online Portfolio. Some of the resources they have developed to make learners aware of these tools have been used by other learning providers from across the globe.
The use of social media is not limited to large colleges and Universities only, Oakleigh Training who are a small Work based learning provider are using Mahara and a plethora of free online Web2.0 tools to engage their unique but dispersed group of learners. They are also utilising free Google tools like Plus, Calendar and Email to improve their business efficiency and in process of using tools like Google Latitude to ensure the safety of their employees.
Social Media for learning
Educationalist for long have been aware of the impact of Social learning. Albert Bandura was so right in proclaiming that “Most human behaviour is learned observationally through modelling: from observing others, one forms an idea of how new behaviours are performed, and on later occasions this coded information serves as a guide for action.”
What has changed though over the last decade is that Online Social Media have proliferated at an incredible rate, and increasingly students and educators expect to be able to utilise these for Teaching and Learning as a norm. Social Networks are probably the most preeminent Social Media of the age, with Facebook alone claiming 800 active million users and a staggering 900 million objects that users can interact with. You Tube ranks as the third most visited web site, with market share of 43% and 14 billion videos viewed per month. The advent of more and more social learning tools like Twitter, Go0gle Plus, Latitude, Linked in and so on with their own unique features has provided plethora of opportunities for learning. Yet very often Educational Professionals and learners are not fully availed of the pedagogic implications and possibilities of these technologies, and are concurrently frequently misinformed about the potential risks and opportunities of utilising these conduits.
Using Audio Video to enhance Learning
In this multimedia content creation course you will be exploring how to use audio and video to enhance teaching and learning. The course is aimed at teachers and trainers who have little or no experience of using audio and video in their teaching practice. However, the course also provides lots of ideas and examples that may be of interest to the more experienced practitioner. The audio and video sections on this Moodle-based course are independent of each other, allowing users to choose the most appropriate; audio, video or both.
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Twitter for education
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This course contains everything you wanted to know about Twitter but were afraid to ask. The wide range of topics covered includes: uses of Twitter; how to create a Twitter account and understand privacy options; how to read a tweet; how to follow people and why; using the #HashTag; using Twitter for conducting surveys; additional Twitter tools; and desktop Twitter clients.
Blogs & Wikis for education
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This course examines a wide variety of Blogs and Wikis are being utilised as tools for learning and teaching, including their development, alternatives beyond the obvious, case studies, staff development, staying safe online and references for further reading.
Augmented Reality Course
Augmented Reality (AR) is not a new concept; it has been around in one form or another for the past 10 years. However, the development of smart phones has catapulted AR into the news recently and led to the release of a large number of applications that have changed the way in which we look at the world. This course provides an introduction to AR, looks at some of the most recent developments, and highlights some of the ways in which it might be used in teaching and learning. It is intended for those who want a non-technical overview of AR and its use in education.
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