Facebook 2.0
Tracy Mitrano

Tracy Mitrano is the Director of Information Technology Policy and Computer Policy and Law Programs at Cornell University. Her article about the current state of Facebook and how higher education will be involved with it in the future has been published in the EDUCAUSE Review (volume 43, number 2).

Link: http://www.educause.edu/library/erm08210

7 Things You Should Know About Facebook

Information literacy—the ability to negotiate the opportunities and risks of the Internet age—is increasingly important. Facebook, a leading social networking site, highlights the information literacy challenges college students face. The site allows individuals to create profiles that include almost anything they want to post and dynamically links their information to others with similar information. While Facebook allows for easy, spontaneous networking, students may not recognize the potential consequences of submitting personal information to a public forum.

Link: http://www.educause.edu/node/156820

7 Things You Should Know About Facebook II

Since ELI’s first brief on Facebook, the social networking site originally developed for college and university students has become available to anyone. It now offers new ways of organizing social networks as well as extensive new features and access to other Web applications. Users can now manage online identities and engage other users much more easily. They also enjoy privacy policies that give them unprecedented control over how their personal information is handled on the site.

Link: http://www.educause.edu/node/156828

Let’s face it. You would live on Facebook if you could. Imagine a world where you could manage your entire life from Facebook – it’s not that far off! Right now, though, one thing missing is your academic life. You have to access a different system to get your course information and you don’t always know when something new has been posted or assigned, so it’s difficult for you to stay on top of your studies. We get it. That’s why Blackboard is offering Blackboard Sync™, an application that delivers course information and updates from Blackboard to you inside Facebook.

You can find out if you have a new assignment, grade, new forum posts, etc., without having to leave Facebook. Blackboard Sync also cross-references your courses’ Rosters with Facebook to make it easier to connect with your classmates through Facebook.

So go ahead and install Blackboard Sync and start getting course updates and connecting with classmates through Facebook right away.

Link: http://www.blackboardsync.com/
Link: http://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=27522527824

Future Learning Landscapes: Transforming Pedagogy through Social Software
Catherine McLoughlin and Mark J. W. Lee

Catherine McLoughlin and Mark J. W. Lee discuss the new pedagogical landscape made possible by the emergence of Web 2.0 social software, which allows users to become active contributors. Web 2.0 tools offer unparallelled opportunities for participation, productivity, and interaction. Through a discussion of emerging learning scenarios enabled by social software, McLoughlin and Lee posit that future learning environments must capitalize on the potential of Web 2.0 by combining social software tools with connectivist pedagogical models. The combination produces what the authors call Pedagogy 2.0, a model of learning in which learners are empowered to participate, learn, and create knowledge in ways that are personally meaningful and engaging.

“Pedagogy 2.0 is defined by:

• Content: Microunits that augment thinking and cognition by offering diverse perspectives and representations to learners and learner-generated resources that accrue from students creating, sharing, and revising ideas;
• Curriculum: Syllabi that are not fixed but dynamic, open to negotiation and learner input, consisting of bite-sized modules that are interdisciplinary in focus and that blend formal and informal learning;
• Communication: Open, peer-to-peer, multifaceted communication using multiple media types to achieve relevance and clarity;
• Process: Situated, reflective, integrated thinking processes that are iterative, dynamic, and performance and inquiry based;
• Resources: Multiple informal and formal sources that are rich in media and global in reach;
• Scaffolds: Support for students from a network of peers, teachers, experts, and communities; and
• Learning tasks: Authentic, personalized, learner-driven and learner-designed, experiential tasks that enable learners to create content.

With this learner-based, communal, media-rich, flexible approach, Pedagogy 2.0 uses social software tools to enable the development of dynamic communities of learning through connectivity, communication, and participation.”

Link: http://innovateonline.info/index.php?view=article&id=539&action=synopsis