Hi everybody,
I'm Ville from Finland. I work as a project manager in a university's education technology department. I have a project going on about integrating social media tools and Moodle in teacher education.
Do you have any experience in the matter?
What social media tools have you used alongside Moodle in higher education?
Thx in advance!
BR,
Ville
Hi Ville
There's a useful list of social media applications on wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_media. Many of these can either be embedded in moodle or have plug-ins.
Jeff
Thx Jeff! That's a comprehensive list indeed.
I am also lookin for comments about which some tools actually provide added value to online teaching along with Moodle. Any experiences?
Hi Ville
No, I find that moodle has so many built-in social media elements, that it's not so necessary to look for additional tools.
The key things I go outside moodle for for added value are:
By no means a comprehensive list, but add-ons that have proved useful and popular with users.
Jeff
I've been playing around with Elgg (http://www.elgg.org/) recently. I think it covers most of the functionality of Twitter and Facebook quite well and can integrate to some extent with Moodle, although it wouldn't work with existing Moodle users (Elgg can create Moodle users but not vice-versa). It's especially designed for learning and easy to install.
I haven't got any students on mine at the moment but you can see it in default mode here: http://elgg.matbury.com/
I hope this helps!
Elgg seems pretty useful. Does it require lot of coding?
I might give this a try also
Hi Jeff,
That's a good point. I have always considered Moodle to be a bit clumsy when it comes to social aspects, but it seems that I'm mistaken.
Thx for that list. I'm taking it straight to my things-to-try list.
Ville
Hi Jeff, hi Ville,
Thanks for sharing the list. It's pretty good and includes lots of open source and more ethical alternatives.
There's some ethical and legal issues that warrant some serious consideration before using or advocating 3rd party social networking services: http://blog.matbury.com/2011/12/11/a-thorny-issue-protecting-teachers-and-learners-right-to-privacy/
Thankfully, there are plenty of safer alternatives. You might find this helpful: http://blog.matbury.com/2012/01/08/safe-social-networking-alternatives/
Hi Matt
Thanks for making me aware of your thorny issue blog. You make some important points there. You immediately got me searching for 'digital citizenship programs' of which there are quite a few.
Jeff
Hi Matt,
That's good stuff, thx! For many those issues are a bit of a grey area and decisions are made without better knowledge. I'm gonna send those links to some of our teachers
Ville