Wednesday, May 09, 2012

Academia's Social World

It was only a matter of time before the popularity of social networking entered into the hallowed halls of academia and became known as Academic Social Networking (ASN). After all, Facebook did start on a college campus. So what is an ASN and is it beneficial?
An ASN or Academic Engagement Network (AEN) is an online environment that enables students and instructors to connect with each other across an academic institution. Whereas a social network may be grouped by friends and acquaintances, an ASN is formed on the basis of its respective institution. Whether it is a group on Facebook, or a more sophisticated platform such as GoingOn that mimics a typical college campus in an online format, the network is formed out of an academic need. Perhaps you need to communicate with your professor, or you want to ask one of your classmates how she prepared for her law exam. An ASN will enable you to do this and more.
ASNs or AENs are beneficial in that barriers to learning are often removed. For example, on the Q and A platform Piazza, students can ask questions anonymously, or just ask their instructor for help without other students knowing.
With GoingOn, you can take what would be a traditional bulletin board post in a student center and make it available for both on campus and distant ed students through its Personal Commons feature, which eliminates the need to be physically in one place to find out information.
To know which ASN is right for you, you will need to look at the needs of your institution, faculty and students. Here are some points to get you started.
If you have a Learning Management System (LMS), you may want an ASN that integrates with it. GoingOn and ConnectYard are two systems that will integrate with an LMS. Schoology is both an LMS and ASN, and is predominantly K-12 based with over 18,000 schools and districts as customers.
Piazza, Lore (formerly Coursekit), Facebook Groups for Schools and Google+ are all independent of any LMS, but provide social interactions by way of streams or video chats. These applications are free, easy to use, can be utilized at any time, and do not require any IT support.
Lore, for example, is designed to be used for individual courses and not as an LMS, but you could have each instructor at an institution adopt it if desired. It does offer LMS features such as Syllabus, Submissions and Gradebook.
Facebook Groups for Schools is similar to a Facebook group except you must have a .edu email address to join. You can also join a group like this without friending other people in the group. Groups will automatically be created based on campus communities such as majors, dorms and clubs. Content posted will be only visible to that group, not others. Facebook Groups for Schools is new and not yet available to all colleges.
Google+ utilizes circles with natural separations. You can have a circle for each course, club or housing area if desired. The streams feature content (unless it is made public) only specific to that circle. Meaning if I post an update for my psychology class circle, my communications circle will not see it. Google+ also features Google Hangouts which allow for video collaboration with up to 10 people. Google also just released the functionality to stream your hangout from YouTube so now you can expand your audience beyond ten people. You can also edit documents (through Google Docs) and have guest speakers interact with your group as well. You only need a Google account to use Google+, and you should have a computer with a webcam and speakers so you can take advantage of Google Hangouts and other features. Some ways Google Hangouts are being used across campuses are group projects, guest lecturers, board meetings for remote members and on campus job interviews.
Try some of these out and see how your faculty and students respond. You might find yourself using more than one of these tools. Remember that regardless of what you choose, the one thing that will remain constant is the ever changing landscape of learning.

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