Social networking

The educational technology and digital learning wiki
Jump to navigation Jump to search

Draft

Definition

Social networking is the practice of expanding the number of one's business and/or social contacts by making connections through individuals. (Whatis.com)

In educational technology, social networking refers to the professional or education/pedagogical use of social networking software.

One may distinguish two basic genres

  • Social linking platforms that mostly just promote links between entries describing persons (profiles). A well known platform for professionals is LinkedIn.
  • Social network sites: Platforms that let people create media-rich webpages and manage "friends" on the same platform and that can have various access to contents. The best known example is probably Facebook and pioneers were Frienster and MySpace. A variant of these are platforms to create networks, e.g Ning.

Social network sites

According to Danah Boyd, social network sites can be defined through three features: profiles, friends and comments.

Standards

  • FOAF, a RDF standard for linking people (for which various applications exist)
  • API standards to script platforms like Facebook and Ning (more details needed plus links to other web 2.0 standards)

Examples of social networking platforms

Examples of linking platforms

Examples of platforms to promote exchange

  • Ning social network platform. "Create Your Own Social Network for Anything". This is quite interesting, also more interested in web 2.0 standardization efforts than Facebook
  • Think.com
  • Facebook (not just homepages for the idle, it does have some interesting features and networks, including an API)
  • youfig

Examples of mashups built on top

  • unype is a location-based social application platform. It interfaces persons connected to various social software (facebook, Nin, twitter, etc.) via google earch in a chat.

Links

References

(missing)

  • Liccardi, I., Ounnas, A., Pau, R., Massey, E., Kinnunen, P., Lewthwaite, S., Midy, M., and Sarkar, C. 2007. The role of social networks in students' learning experiences. SIGCSE Bull. 39, 4 (Dec. 2007), 224-237. DOI= http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/1345375.1345442
  • Pei-Luen Patrick Rau, Qin Gao, Yinan Ding (in press), Relationship between the level of intimacy and lurking in online social network services, Computers in Human BehaviorIn Press, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2008.04.001.