One of my goals for the Educational Technology program is to learn how to develop a humanistic element to technology when the virtual environment can sometimes feel cold and impersonal. In keeping with this line of thinking, I have elected to investigate sociable media.

Sunday, November 21, 2004

Social Software

Circles, a social sharing platform by Lycos, creates groups of contacts, photo sharing, discussion boards, group invitations and the ability to conduct polls (near & dear to cadre x's heart.) What's nice about this website is that it provides an overview of what's available, most social software sites require a sign in.


Trillian Pro 2.01, is a communication tool where IM uses text, graphics and streaming video. It provides video and audio chat and has a "time travel" feature where you can pause, rewind, fast-forward and record live video and audio sessions. This website provides an overview of its features.

Friday, November 19, 2004

Robin Good - What Communication Experts Need to Know

At first, I didn't get the joke (Robin Good - Robin Hood) too much reading I guess!!
But this is a great website that comes out of Italy, it has tons of articles regarding technology, book and product reviews. For the purposes of my blog, check out the section entitled "Social Networking."

Robin Good - Communication Experts

Sunday, November 07, 2004

e-Learning Centre

I found a really interesting website out of London called the "e-Learning Centre." There are articles that discuss social networking and some of the social software that people are using to stay connected. A lot of it, as the title implies, has to do with how people keep in touch with each other socially using technology. Though I don't see why some of these resources couldn't be transferred to the classroom. This article does highlight some of the social software being used by a number of universities.

One article to read is "We Learning: Social Software and E-Learning, Part II"
By Eva Kaplan-Leiserson
Summary of Article:

Early e-learning traded technology for human interaction. Now, the personal element is being added back in. New social software tools borrowed from business and the younger generations combine tech and touch for the best of all possible worlds (including virtual ones).

The article covers open source tools, wikis, social network analysis tools, proximity tools and virtual worlds with links to view some of programs listed in the article. Notice this article is "Social Software and E-Learning PART II) well there is a link to Part I, which is a good read as well.

Use this link to go to e-Learning Centre, once there under "library" then "trends & technology" scroll down until you see the title of the article or...

click here to go directly to the article.