Reaching Out With Your Conference

Dave Warlick provides advice for organising social networking for conferences:

“I would love to see more education technology conferences adopt this sort of out-reach. Conferences have never been an integral part of the job for most classroom teachers — and with budget cuts already starting to snip their way across the fabric of our education institutions, fewer educators will likely be packing up and driving or flying to the city convention hotel for three days of shared learning and energy-generating friction.

It’s all the more reason why education conferences need to shine more, to radiate ideas rather than rattle them in a box.”

Author: Dave Warlick, 2cent Worth Blog, 20th April 2008

Full article available here.

Children flock to social networks

Almost half of children online use social network sites

More than a quarter of eight to 11-year-olds who are online in the UK have a profile on a social network, research shows.

Most sites, such as Bebo, MySpace and Facebook, set a minimum age of between 13 and 14 to create a profile but none actively enforce the age limit.

Ofcom’s survey of 5,000 adults and 3,000 children found 49% of those aged between eight and 17 have a profile.

Ofcom says parents need to keep an eye on what their children do online.

Wide usage

The Ofcom report looks into the impact of social networks on people’s lives in the UK as part of a wider media literacy campaign and surveyed 5,000 adults and more than 3,000 children.

Author: Darren Waters, BBC News, Technology, 2nd April 2008

Full article available here.

11 Suggestions for (Social) Networking Heaven – 11

11 – Light Versions (Split personality!)
Twitter is so popular because it is so Light! I mean, 140 characters, can work on cell phones (mostly ones here in the US, though.) However, as we look to link with people (and classrooms) in countries with little or no broadband access, we need to have easy ways for our (social) networking pages to connect to and from cell phones of all kinds.

Access in Africa
This first hit me during a recent discussion with Beth Kanter on Wow2. She is recently back from Cambodia where she was teaching 18-24 year old students about blogging. We need alternatives to make our content more concise, easy to read and the ability to pull residents of bandwidth-limited areas into our conversations.

Lemonade
Additionally, as I was listening to last week’s Digital Planet podcast from the BBC, I heard about the open cell phone standard entitled Lemonade which will make email access more readily available on even non-smart phones. So, why can’t we do the same thing with networking sites?

Author: Vicki Davis, TechLearning, 7th December 2007

Full article available here.

Canadian university faces off with digital generation

A Canadian university has instilled a culture of fear by threatening to expel a student for cheating because he set up an online study group on Facebook, critics said this week. Toronto’s Ryerson University threatened to expel first-year computer engineering student Chris Avenir last week, arguing that his study group on the Facebook networking site might encourage cheating.

Ryerson decided to lift the expulsion threat on Tuesday, but Avenir will get zero credits for the course work discussed on the Facebook forum last autumn, and the university has put a disciplinary notice on his record.

Canadian media analyst Jesse Hirsh said Ryerson’s actions send the wrong message to students, most of whom spend a lot of their time on the Internet.

Author: Reuters, cnet news.com, 20th March 2008

Full article available here.

11 Suggestions for (Social) Networking Heaven – 10

10) Identity Verification System
I would like to have an icon that says “identity verified” that you could get. They would have high standards of verification, like ssn, drivers license, etc. (Kind of like getting a Verisign ID) and then verify that your page is who you say you are. (Akin to the voluntary system being implemented in Second Life.)

So, if I went to a page of someone, I could see that it had been verified that that person is who they say they are. Then, we could teach people that if they don’t see such a sign, to know that it may or may not be that real person.

Online impersonations are a problem and there needs to be a way to combat it without limited freedom of speech, parody sites, etc. Some people just don’t know to have that instant skepticism and harm has come in some situations.

Author: Vicki Davis, TechLearning, 7th December 2007

[More to come soon.]

Full article available here.

11 Suggestions for (Social) Networking Heaven – 9

9) Name Notification System
When you create your “name” and location, I believe that if another person sets up a profile with the same name and location and other information, that you should be notified. This would help with impersonation and would get people to go ahead and get a myspace or facebook if only to “hold onto” and claim their identity.

Author: Vicki Davis, TechLearning, 7th December 2007

[More to come soon.]

Full article available here.

11 Suggestions for (Social) Networking Heaven – 8

8) Ratings system
Now, this may sound a little bit over the edge for some folks, but if someone is a known “spammer,” I don’t want to have to figure it out. If a person has never had a bad “report” of spam is important to me. So, I guess a “satisfaction rating” or something of the sort would be nice like they have on ebay. A non-pest rating? ;-)

While the “rating” of people’s habits might be over the edge, we should at least be able to do it with apps. Right now, the app writers have all of the power. If an app is unethical or has a problem (like Beacon), when I’m asked to install it, it should give me some “customer reviews” and star ratings like Amazon does. (Apps have fans, but not when you’re looking at the add screen.) Then, the best apps rise up and the not so great can be cast off like an old shoe.

Author: Vicki Davis, TechLearning, 7th December 2007

[More to come soon.]

Full article available here.

11 Suggestions for (Social) Networking Heaven – 7

7) Personalization

If you can’t customize your background and a little bit about your own page, then it is frustrating. Graphics may be taxing on the server (and hard on the eyes sometimes), however it would be nice to customize Facebook an itsy bitsy bit without having the garish look of many myspace pages. (I think Ning does a pretty good job of this. If you look at our global collaborative Flat Classroom Ning, you’ll see most students do customize their pages.)

My students came up with this one today when I talked to them about this post. That was their #1 complaint w/ facebook. And although they like myspace, it is easy to get “tacky” quickly they say.

And should I be able to customize the look of my page depending upon their connection type?

Author: Vicki Davis, TechLearning, 7th December 2007

[More to come soon.]

Full article available here.

11 Suggestions for (Social) Networking Heaven – 6

6) Level of access
I get frustrated with this one. Someone wants me to add them and I have to decide if they get to see the limited profile or the full information. And suppose I get closer, I don’t usually remember to “promote” them.

If (social) networks implemented connection types as proposed in item 1 above, then I’d like to say, “OK this person is a blog reader” and then automatically set the settings for what they see with me. This sounds like the same as #1 but its not.

Right now on facebook, you say two things 1) How you know a person and 2) What level of access do they have to your account, limited or full. For me, I’d like Question #1 to determine #2 and I want it to be the same for everyone so I can be consistent. I don’t want mistakes. My family’s safety depends on it.

Author: Vicki Davis, TechLearning, 7th December 2007

[More to come soon.]

Full article available here.

11 Suggestions for (Social) Networking Heaven – 5

5) Multi Purpose Contact and Activity Management

Many students say, I don’t know if I can use facebook at school b/c I’ll be distracted by my social life. So, perhaps I could log in and say,

“OK, right now I’m working. And when I’m working, I only want to see this sort of activity. Activity for my job, my network of professionals, and my intimate family.”

and then on the weekend

“OK, right now, I’m not working, I”m going to rock the house. I want to link up with my family and friends and forget that 9-5 work stuff!”

But, if its super urgent, perhaps certain types of people could “nudge” me.It is the mix of work and social that causes many of the problems that we have. I want to plan family vacations and encourage family members, however, if my sister his having a hard time and I leave her a message that “I hope things go better with that jerk of a boss” and she’s using her facebook for mostly work, then I’ve just made a mess for dear old sis!

I know that this will be hard, but goodness knows, it is what I and all of my students want to do! They want to talk with me about summer assignments but NOT about their Friday night plans.

It is about social networks.

Author: Vicki Davis, TechLearning, 7th December 2007

[More to come soon.]

Full article available here.