Questions from the course outline

I was playing around with GOOGLE DOCS one evening and decided to answer the questions form the course outline. I just thought that I would post them on my blog also.

· what is social software and what is ‘social’ about it?

Social software is normally defined as a range of web-based software programs. The software allows users to interact and share data with other users. This computer-mediated communicationMySpace and Facebook, media sites like Flickr and YouTube, and commercial sites like Amazon and eBay. Many of these applications share characteristics like open APIs, service oriented design, and the ability to upload data and media. The more specific term collaborative software applies to cooperative information sharing systems, and is usually narrowly applied to the software that enables collaborative work functions. Distinctions among usage of the terms "social", "trusted", and "collaborative" are in the applications or uses, not the tools themselves, although there are some tools that are only rarely used for work collaboration. There are many benefits to social software. It improves the accessibility of information, increases collaboration, improves work flow, and frees up your time to focus on creating. In order for software to be truly social,it must help develop in the minority who has access to the technology a responsibility for converting its benefits into a far larger part of society (Ulises Mejias).
has become very popular with social sites like

· how are teaching and learning being redefined by social software?

Social software prepares students to participate in networks where knowledge is collectively constructed and shared. It engages students in learning to learn by having them assume some of the responsibility for integrating and maintaining the social software systems that allow learning to happen. Second, it promotes the benefits of working cooperatively with tools that facilitate the collection and organization of knowledge while at the same time demonstrating that the diversity of individual research interests enhances learning for all. And last, it helps students develop practical research skills that they need in a world where knowledge construction and distribution make increasing use of online information networks. In short, social software allows students to participate in allocated research communities that extend spatially beyond their classroom and school, temporally beyond a particular class session or term, and technologically beyond the tools and resources that the school makes available to the students.

· what are the essential components of a web-based “Personal Learning Environment”?

A personal learning environment can best be described as a web-based space for collecting and displaying your links to all those sites where you're learning, teaching, researching and reflecting takes place. It's a bit like publishing your bookmarked websites for others to see. Its main purpose is to serve as a dashboard for your daily practices on the web, and some people refer to this as a 'mash-up' of links, services and artifacts. A personal learning environment can provide a framework for your learning and teaching experiences, your achievements and a range of life-based learning events. It is one way of organizing the many places you go to on the web, and the many tools you use to plan, schedule, remind, record and reflect your computer based activities. One of the best functions of a PLE is its portability. You can be anywhere and using any computer and link directly to your own organized space.

· what general principles can we identify for using and evaluating social software?

Types of software application enabling communication, interaction and collaboration transcendent of time and space are ever expanding (e.g., blogs, wikis, Flickr, del.icio.us, Skype, Flashmeeting). Users of these emergent tools are varied with a diversity of goals and needs. All these factors render the task of evaluating social software extremely challenging. The high incompatibility between group activities and usability lab environments calls forth field and longer-term evaluation as well as adaptation of existing usability evaluation methods and metrics to cover most aspects of collaborative experience. Relationships between fuzzy quality attributes associated with group interactions/user experience (e.g. trust, social presence, awareness, fun, attractiveness and cohesiveness) and conventional usability metrics need to be defined and refined. We face a number of challenges to identify and develop valid usability evaluation techniques and metrics specifically suited for social software.