Web 2.0: Facebook, Ning, and Your Learning Management System
What is Web 2.0? It is characterized by “social software.” What is social software? It enhances the creation of learning communities. Learning communities are groups of people that get together to learn something from each other. Learning communities help affective learning.
When considering whether or not to link your content management system to a Web 2.0 program like Facebook or Ning, it is important to find out if your institution has a policy regarding linking offsite, or a privacy statement.
Before introducing a learning community to your students, give them an introductory survey. Have students used the internet before? Do they have an internet connection? Do they have a Facebook account? How experienced are they? Some students are totally ignorant of internet safety and give out sensitive information. Give students some proctoring to prevent that.
One of the newest social software is Ning. Ning is a user-friendly Web 2.0, and can easily be set up as a learning community for your class. Visit http://www.ning.com/.
FREE MULTIMEDIA SOFTWARE
http://www.ikeepbookmarks.com/, Account: freemultimedia. Leave password blank and click Login. WOW!
Using RSS to Improve Student Performance
RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication. This workshop was about how to get students signed up for RSS feeds to receive scholarly information.
There are several ways RSS feeds can be used in your classes. You can ask students to pick an article from the feed for class discussion. Students can also include articles from RSS feeds as a source in a research paper.
There are a few applications that allow students to access these feeds. Start with Google reader: reader.Google.com. You’ll need to open up a free gmail account if you don’t already have one. In a separate page, log in to your institution’s library and go to Databases A-Z. Choose Academic Search Premier, for example. On the upper toolbar choose “Publications.” Once you have located the journal of choice, click on the orange RSS feed icon, which appears to the left of the name of the publication. When you open the icon you will see a URL for the Syndication Feed. Right click and copy the URL. Go back to your Google Reader page. Click on “Add Subscription" and paste the URL inside. Click Add, and the feed will appear on the left and you will see individual articles to the right. Then post the feed in Blackboard by posting the feed URL. They will have to click “Yes” to subscribe. Students will then have to go to Blackboard to access the feed.
Michelle
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