Social Networking and OER

A Discussion about Social Networking and OER

Phillip Williams: One Economy Corporation

Larry Cooperman: UC Irvine

Jeffrey Levick: Yale University

Sally Johnstone: Winona State University

Susan Yuen: the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching

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Social Networking and OER: Trying to find a way to incorporate existing social networking sites into their sites ...creating social communities. Looking to incorporate existing social networking sites such as Myspace and Facebook. OER should have a socail netwroking aspect. Taking it out of their hands removes the school from liability. Also,they suggest having the ability to share ownership with other universities..to monitor spam and innapropriate material. Its about building a network. An education that meets the needs of the 21st century, leveraging the existing systems. A way to strengthen the existing education system. Gives people the flexibility to move in whatever direction they need in education...find local tutors, mentors... Create a seamless and flexible system in education. that everyone says needs to exist but doesnt already exist.

Looking to give students the ability to customize their needs through their computer.

Global learning networks that wrap around individual institutions.  

Trying to grow individual nodes until they can benefit and connect together.
One idea would be to form communities around each school subject. Groups could spawn into other groups. The benefit is the mix of diversity. Real value in being able to tap into something  bigger. Students can be motivaed by being part of a larger global network.

Looking at ways to make their sites more interactive. No time or resources to moderate networking aspects...too much to handle and too much liability. Trying to find a balance. They want to provide a constructive interactive environment.

Phillip Williams:
Researching socaial networking sites to understands trends, and find out what media sites people are using. Media sites are where there is the most activity. Beingable to have a blog provides limited communication but doesnt allow to expand. We need to leverage their relationships...it's a marketable audience...create a professional profile. Need to expand the network and reach people unaware of what is out there. The point is bringing people to the site through leveraging information that they will want or need. In attracting users, you have the ability to expand and create relationships.

Larry Cooperman:
Social networking allows for both informal teaching and learning. Trying to create a global community around education... creating a much more nimble education system. Creating an environment that students can explore.


Jeffrey Levick:
One concern that impacts Yale is the liability of social networking on a home site. Using an outside site transfers the liability to the bigger site. Saving the school the costs of moderating the site.


Sally Johnstone:
What would bring people to the networking site? How does it fit into my goals? The concept is competing for people's time, without a payoff. The idea of some kind of incentive seems necessary.