This post discusses some of the lessons learned during a graduate course I taught at Teachers College, Columbia University. Social Software Affordances was offered during the Fall of 2005, and 13 graduate students from the Communication, Computing and Technology in Education (CCTE) program at TC enrolled in the course. The main goal of the course was for students to acquire proficiency in the use of blogs, wikis, RSS feeds and distributed classification systems while engaging in a critical analysis of the affordances of social software (what the software makes possible and what it impedes). The class also asked students to apply their newly acquired social software skills and knowledge to promote a social cause or project of their choosing. The dynamics and outcomes of the course are discussed below.
Syllabus for the course: specifies readings, schedule, course environments, etc.
The class will develop competency in the use of blogs, wikis, distributed classification systems, and RSS feeds.
The class will perform a state-of-the-art review of social software tools, applications, and theory, focusing on a critical assessment of the affordances of social software.
Class members will conduct an individual exercise on the potential of social software to effect change at a personal and social level.
A distributed classification system was used to aggregate and organize information.
RSS feeds were used to share that information with everyone in the class.
Individual blogs (each with its own RSS feed) were used to analyze and comment on the research and readings.
Together, the class addressed questions such as: What is ‘social’ about social software? How is the notion of community being redefined by social software? How is social agency shared between humans and code in social software? What are the social repercussions of unequal access to social software? Additionally, each student undertook a project which tackled the question of whether social software can be an effective tool for individual and social change.
Although all the class activities and tools functioned in conjunction, in the interest of organization I will discuss each one separately.
The distributed classification system referred to above consisted of using del.icio.us to bookmark items related to social software with the tag ‘ccte.’ The resulting (and ongoing) collection can be seen at http://del.icio.us/tag/ccte/ (add this RSS link to your aggregator to subscribe to the feed). All students were expected to contribute items throughout the semester. Students were also expected to subscribe to the RSS feed generated by del.icio.us as a way to keep track of all contributions. Class members then explored the items they were interested in and discussed them in their individual blogs, often in the context of the books assigned as course readings (listed in the syllabus).
But beyond the benefits of better information management, the real purpose of this exercise was to turn students into contributors, not mere recipients, of knowledge about social software. Each student became a researcher who could add something to our study of the topic (while at the same time build their own collection of resources tagged according to their individual classification schemes). Of course this required that I, as the instructor, be willing to give up the role of being the sole source of information. But in fact this was beneficial for me as well, as I became exposed to more research, resources and ideas than I could identify on my own. My interest and knowledge of the topic, in other words, was augmented by the contributions of my students.
For the first time, I really delved into the world of blogging, examining blogs of many types, reading ‘blogs of note’ and award winners. I really enjoyed the convoluted paths wound from one blog to the next by clicking on blog rolls. Eventually I started to get a feeling for how things worked. I explored the possibilities for add-ons for my blog. I added Sitemeter to measure traffic, included syndicated feeds from del.icio.us and feed digest, and customized the templates from each to match the look of my site… I started to get anonymous hits and comments on my blog. Even though there were not many, it was very exciting. I began to see the addictive nature of blogging, and the excitement of participating in a large, distributed conversation.
The blog also served as a journal of each student’s engagement with the readings. Instead of a fixed reading schedule, I experimented with letting students read and report on readings in the order that interested or made sense to them. My hope was that by reading a review of a book or chapter posted by one of their peers, students would be motivated to read that section as well (if it matched with their individual research interests at the moment). The motivation would be different than in the case of me telling students what to read, when. This strategy worked fairly well, although based on student feedback, I might supplement it with a ‘map’ of readings and topics to let students better determine what they should read if they are interested in a particular topic. I might also create wiki spaces in which to collect reviews and comments of the different readings, to provide a sense of synchronicity and continuity.
As far as other suggestions for improvements in the area of blogs, Alex Halavais suggested that students should tag their blog posts as well. I think this would help students recognize the connection between their own blog posts and emerging folksonomies, and I hope to implement this strategy in the next offering of the course.
While individual reflection was encouraged through blogging, I thought it was also important for students to synthesize their knowledge in a wiki project that they could author collectively. After some debate, students agreed to start a wiki to collect social software design patterns. Jonah Bossewitch, a student in the course, proposed that our efforts be combined with those of the Annenberg Center’s Social Software in the Academy Workshop. The resulting Design Patterns of Social Computing Wiki attempts to capture the essence of various problems in social software and illustrate best practices and good designs that have been employed to tackle them. We consider this a work in progress, and hope that other interested parties become involved in this ongoing project, which could be a useful resource for the research community.
I wanted the course to be more than just a review of social software and a theoretical discussion of its affordances. In my own work (c.f. Mejias, 2005, A Nomad’s Guide to Learning and Social Software), I argue that the true potential of social software lies in helping us figure out how to integrate our online and offline social experiences. Thus, social software must live up to its name by relating to the individual’s everyday social practices, and inculcate a desire to connect to the world as a whole, not just the parts that exist online. Furthermore, in order for software to be truly ‘social,’ it must help develop in the minority who has access to the technology a responsibility for converting its benefits into benefits for a larger part of society.
With this goal in mind, the class was asked to address the question of whether social software can be an effective tool for individual and social change. Each learner undertook an ‘issue entrepreneurship’ assignment (c.f. Agre, 2004, The Practical Republic), which involved identifying a social cause the student was interested in and using social software tools to attempt to make a meaningful contribution to the cause at three different levels: the personal, the local, and the global. Learners used their individual blogs to post updates on their progress, inviting comments from their peers. This was by far the most difficult project of the course, but perhaps in the long term the most rewarding as well. Students were informed that they would not be graded on whether they succeeded or failed in making a meaningful contribution to their cause, as long as they documented their experience and could discuss how social software contributed to their success or failure.
One advantage of blogging about their projects as they unfolded (as opposed to waiting until the end of the class to present them) was that students recognized that they were not the only ones encountering problems, and they were able to support and critique one another. One idea for improving this project is to include, as part of the readings for the course, a text on managing change (something like The Tipping Point, perhaps).
How is the notion of community being redefined by social software?
Can social software be an effective tool for individual and social change?
What aspects of our humanity stand to gain or suffer as a result of our use of and reliance on social software?
What are the social repercussions of unequal access to social software?
How is social agency shared between humans and code in social software?
I am looking forward to teaching this course again, after making some improvements based on student’s feedback.
The author wishes to thank the members of SSA05 for making this a great learning experience.
This entry was posted in collaboration and technology and tagged learning, social media on December 28, 2005 by ulises.
Now there is a book titled “Coming of Age: An Introduction to the NEW World Wide Web, 2nd ed.” whose editor is considering to include my paper in a chapter for publication as a free downloadable ebook as well as for sale to benefit the EFF. Could you please give me permission to continue having your work referenced in that book?