Social Networking Technologies

       This week when I started to research emerging technologies for social networking, I was amazed at the number of new ones that has cropped up.  Though Facebook and Twitter seem to be the leaders in this social connection field, there are several new ones that are starting to make a difference in the field of education.  In this blog post, I will introduce two that, in my mind, will serve well the adult educators and adult learners communities. The best part is, they are both free!

Student Circle Network (http://studencircle.net)

       The first one is called Student Circle Network (SCN) and was started in 2010 by a young Nigerian, Gossy Ukanwoke, who has been called the Mark Zuckerberg of Nigeria. The website boasts that “while Zuckerberg’s Facebook thrives on status updates and casual stalking of exes, Ukanwoke’s social network enables students to answer each others’ questions, brainstorm together and learn from its vast resources” (http://studentscircle.net/live/).

       In his blog post, Ukanwoke tells why he set out to set up the network.  He says he “was hoping to build a network that will cater for the needs of students globally and not just in one particular region” (http://studentscircle.net/about/articles/91#more-91). This network that he conceptualized in his North Cyprus university dormitory, with no budget for advertising or marketing, has in just one year gained great recognition in the world of education.  I found information in their blog that SCN won the Best Non-Video Free Courses: Education-Portal.com’s People’s Choice Award Winner beating high profile websites such as Wikiversity and OER Blue in the Category. (Posted on May 12, 2013)

       This social networking platform for educators and students purports to connect students, schools and teachers by providing 10,000 OpenCoureWare course resources, and 15 study groups for students to schedule study sessions.  The setup is similar to Facebook’s networking features and also provides information to students about university, scholarship and internship offers and information.  Students connect to share ideas, learn in a social Q & A environment (http://studentscircle.net/live/). 

       This technology is going to be a great resource for adult learners because this is a site where they can ask questions when in doubt and get answers form their peers or like-minded people.  Also, this is a site that can provide the support that an adult learner needs when learning can be a chore in the technology enabled world.

Diigo (http://diigo.com)

       The next emerging technology that shows tremendous promise for adult education is the social bookmarking website Diigo (Digest of Internet Information Groups and Other stuff). Diigo was conceived by Wade Ren and Maggie Tsai in Reno, Nevada as a social annotation service (http://diigo.appappeal.com/).  According to Kay Cantwell, Diigo provides a free, efficient and a reliable way to save and organize favorite websites, online articles, blog posts, images and other media found online.

       This site, in my mind, is one that all educators and learners should have, to organize the information they gather from their research online.  I created an account (it was very easy to set up one) and already I have saved several sites that I will get back to when I have more time or when I need to refer to something later. I also have set up the Diigolet on my web browser toolbar and I just use the bookmark icon to add and archive information.  The information you save can be private or it can be shared.  Also, we can connect to people who have the same interests through the communities that collaborate through this bookmarking site.  The user can leave notes for others to see and make further comments.  This way a dialog can be started within the community through the usage of “sticky notes”.  Using keywords, the user can search the entire communities for matches and Richardson says, “It’s like someone else doing research for you” (Richardson, 2007). 

       When I searched “emerging technologies for education” in the Diigo communities, I was amazed at the sites that appeared 20 in a page and I had to stop searching after I reached 100!  Each site that shows up also shows the number of people who have bookmarked it.  I also obtained the names of communities that were interested in the same topic and also related communities and other suggested topics were also visible.  Another thing that is utterly cool is that each link that has been saved also gives credit to the first person to save it and the date it was saved. 

       Diigo will be a great resource to my adult learners as they can research information quickly online and save it to use later or add their own tags to collaborate with the community.  The number of people who have saved it also provides the validity on how important the resource was.  In this information overloaded world, one site that gives many resources without doing all the research can be an awesome asset!

       I will recommend that all my adult learners obtain a Diigo account and do at least some of their research through Diigo.  Also, through this platform, I can form a group for my students and assign them assignments to research, share and collaborate.  The Teachers Console imbedded in the program will give me the ability to follow and moderate the online learning.

       Social networking technologies if used carefully and correctly will  certainly enhance adult learning in this increasingly interconnected world.

References:

Cantwell, K. (2011). 12 Reasons Teachers Should Use Diigo.  Retrieved from:    http://resourcelinkbce.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/12-reasons-     booklet.pdf

Richardson, W. (2010). Blogs, wikis, podcasts, and other powerful web tools    for classrooms (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

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