Building Community: Social Networking Development and

Implementation

Dr. Richard LariviereStacey Fox

Simran Sethi07.27.08

What is Social Networking?

Social Networking

• Show video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6a_KF7TYKVc

Social Networking. . .

• Connotes complex relationships between members of social systems at all scales, from interpersonal to international

• In digital media, represents connection of individuals linked together by common interests and relationships

• Includes internet message boards, social bookmarking tools, as well as peer-to-peers sites

How is Social Networking Used?

• Flickr: upload and share images• del.icio.us: store and tag bookmarks• LinkedIn: create and maintain professional contacts • digg: vote and comment on news • Facebook: connect with friends• Twitter: broadly disseminate short messages• Network for Good: link small non-profits to a broader

audience• Second Life: develop virtual communities • Wiki: collectively collaborate on materials

How Do Students Use Social Networks?

• As an extension of perpetual mobile connectivity. . .

• Students btw/18-24 visit social networking sites for 6.5 hours/ week

• 85% visit sites to check up on friends• Students claim to have 111 friends across online

profiles• 61% say interacting with people have never met

Harris Interactive, 2006

Digital Media Consumption

How Do Educators Use Social Networks?

• Creating and sharing resource libraries of electronic information

• Fostering collaborative learning• Building unbounded learning communities• Giving and receiving formative feedback • Fostering content management abilities• Bringing virtual lecturers into the classroom• Connecting learning to world beyond campus

What is Facebook?

Facebook. . .• Founded by Harvard College dropout Mark

Zuckerberg• Consists of 47,000 college, high school, employee,

and regional networks• Handles 600 million searches and over 30 billion

page views a month• Is the 6th most-trafficked site in the United States• Is growing 3% week over week, measured by

number of users

Who Uses Facebook?

Facebook Demo

• http://www.facebook.com

Facebook Applications for Students

• Books iRead: Share & comment on books• DoResearch4me: Gather information using

thesis statement• Flashcards: Create flash cards to help study on

Facebook• JSTOR Search: Find full text research articles on

Facebook• Study Groups: Collaborate on group projects

Facebook Applications for Students

• Get Homework Help: Connect with tutors and other students that can help you with assignments

• SwapRoll: Trade textbooks• Notecentric: Take notes inside of Facebook

and share with classmates• Class Notes: Find scanned notes for classes on

Facebook

Facebook Applications for Educators

• BookTag: Share and loan books out to students, plus create study quizzes

• Webinaria Screencast Recorder: Record and share video with students

• Mathematical Formulas: Distribute formulae and solutions

• SlideShare: Create slideshow presentations to send to students via Facebook

• Blackboard Sync: Private application that gives feeds of students’ Blackboard pages

MySpace

What is a Blog?

A Blog. . .• Is a personal diary. A daily pulpit. A collaborative space.

A political soapbox. A breaking-news outlet. A collection of links. Your own private thoughts. Memos to the world.

• Your blog is whatever you want it to be. There are millions of them, in all shapes and sizes, and there are no real rules.

• In simple terms, a blog is a web site, where you write stuff on an ongoing basis. New stuff shows up at the top, so your visitors can read what's new. Then they comment on it or link to it or email you. Or not. Blogger.com

The Alternatives. . .

Blogging in the Classroom• Increases exposure to ongoing educational

opportunities outside of the classroom• Builds professional development networks• Enhances exposure of academic portfolio • Increases communication between students,

teacher, and those in cyberspace• Provides transparency, allowing students to see

what other students are thinking• Promotes digital literacy

How to Build a Blog

• http://mediaenvironment.wordpress.com/• http://socialnetworking101.wordpress.com/• Demo of building a blog on wordpress

What is Microblogging?

Microblogging. . .

• Text messaging in under 200 characters: non-stop, instant communication anywhere, anytime

• Featured on websites, emails, cell phones, and other social networking outlets like FaceBook & My Space

• Quick way to disseminate small bits of information to a designated group

• Technology used by ESPN, New York Times, Barack Obama, & Borat

Barack Obama Tweets. . .

Is All This Hyper-Connectivity Really Necessary?

"In the same way mobiles are a necessity, in five years time being hyper-connected will become a necessity to be an active participant in the social world."

Jyri Engestrom

Founder, Jaiku

What are Virtual Realities?

What is Second Life?

Educational Opportunities In-World

• http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2370947641

• Second Life demo

The Future of Social Media

• Fox fill in: Mogulus, YouTube, Skype• http://www.newcommreview.com/?p=554

Blogging 2.0

Resources

• http://socialnetworking101.wordpress.com/• http://www.pbs.org/mediashift/• http://web20teach.blogspot.com/2007/08/

twitter-tweets-for-higher-education.html• http://blog.podagogy.com/?p=169• http://chronicle.com/wiredcampus/

Questions?

The Digital Divide: “It’s a Rarity to Find Somewhat Who Isn’t on the

Internet. . .”

http://youtube.com/watch?v=fMl4B5S6wP0

What is the Digital Divide?

• Divide btw/ those with access to new technologies & those without

• Shuns trend of democratizing information because access limited

• Impacts economics, education, culture...

Who’s Online? Who’s Not?• 3/ 4 Americans have Internet access (Nielsen)• 2/ 5 have Broadband (Nielsen)• About 45% of African-Americans use Internet regularly,

compared with 59% of Caucasians (Pew)• Nearly 90% of people earning $100K or more are online; 33%

of those earning less than $10K are online (Pew)• Less than 50% of rural Americans are online, compared to

more than 60% of urban counterparts (Pew)• 92% of people with college education or advanced degree use

Internet, 62% of people with high school education use Internet, & 38% of people without high school education use Internet

• 17% of those 65 and older have used Internet (BBC)

Bridging the Divide• Businesses: Creating services & technologies for low-

access communities (BOP)• Non-profits: Teaching tech literacy, literacy in

general, supporting larger life infrastructure• Government: Expanding shared facilities (internet

kiosks, community centers)• Individuals:– MIT's Nicholas Negroponte ($100 windup laptop)– Indian Researcher Sugata Mitra (Hole in the Wall)

http://www.globalvision.org/sample/videos/quicktime/how/aftermath.mov

Net Neutrality

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9jHOn0EW8U

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BB2Xnu9xQVU

Net Neutrality: What is It?• Internet a commons - all websites pay same for

access to Internet• Net neutrality legislation maintains equal access to

information & requires Internet providers to keep access level

• Protects consumer's right to use any equipment, content, application or service on non-discriminatory basis w/o interference from network

• Provider network's only job to move data — not choose which data to privilege with higher quality service

Net Neutrality: Who Wants to End It?

• Major telecom companies (Comcast, Verizon, AT & T, Time Warner) want to tax websites or charge for enhanced speeds so sites will have to pay higher fee to load faster than other sites

• Telecoms maintain creating Internet “express lanes” will enable faster downloads of music, movies, etc. & alleviate online congestion

• Also say if tech companies pay for future upgrades needed to deal with increased web traffic, won't have to raise consumer rates to offset costs

Net Neutrality OpponentsWe have to make sure they don't sit on our network and chew up our

capacity. We need to pay for the pipe.

Ivan Seidenberg, CEO, Verizon

Now what they would like to do is use my pipes free, but I ain't going to let them do that because we have spent this capital and we have to have a return on it. So there's going to have to be some mechanism for these people who use these pipes to pay for the portion they're using. Why should they be allowed to use my pipes?

Ed Whitacre, CEO, AT&T

http://www.weownthenet.org/

Why Do We Need It?

Pricing tiers could:• Stifle innovation (Why would iTunes innovate if could

afford to be in express lane?)• Limit access to bloggers, small businesses, non-profits,

YouTube, iTunes, political sites, any outlet couldn’t afford telecom fees

• Reduce democratic participation & free speech online if individuals also subject to fees

• Result in double-dipping: being charged for access to Internet & access to sites