Data on the Facebook Discussion

Compete.com Analyzes How Facebook Users Spend Their Time

Some interesting data to follow-up our discussion on Facebook from Compete.com via Tim OReilly. The bulk of the activity is coming from surfing profiles or engaging in applications that have been developed for the platform.

It will be interesting to look at the specific activity behind the applications and monitor if that component gains in popularity over time. Meaning, once you establish you social network will your attention shift to "doing" something, like determining if someone is HotorNot or maybe asking you teacher to clarify the homework assignment. Or will is the primary goal just being social?

Just Joined Pownce

I just got onto Pownce a new social networking site. If you want/need an invite leave a comment here and I'll send out a few. So far it looks pretty slick. The interface is clean and it has a few more options then twitter. I know some argue that the beauty of Twitter is it's simplicty.

After a play around awhile, maybe I will come back and post more.

Social Networks as a Mashup

Embedded Video

So this is a great video showing some powerful technology connected to a social networking site. In this case, the software is analyzing images from Flickr and making an actual visual (or virtual/physical) representation of a real structure. The video has been passed around the web and is really worth checking out. However, the underlying connection or mash-up, of the social network data and the software's ability to interpret that data is what is very interesting.

Imagine applying the same concept to a learning situation. Your facebook or (social network of your choice) data and your learning management system data learning content support system or even your personal learning environment (PLE) (if that is what you want to call it).

Once you have a "goal" or even a topic of interest, the system could begin to search the social network for all activity that is happening around that topic and begin to analyze the activity. That activity would mostly like lead to connections of conversations through blogs, images through Flickr or more structured like slideshare, videos through YouTube or Viddler. So the data collected would include a

1. community of people interested in the activity
2. conversations around the activity and
3. related content to the activity.

The learning support system would need to analyze this network and the included data and make some data-driven assumptions about the relationships and context of the information. Then based on that analysis the content (or any relative information embedded within the network) could be presented to the learner in a learner-friendly environment.

Hopefully, more on this later.

A collection of Resources for Informal Learning.

Jay Cross and friends are having an unWorkshop. It looks really interesting. One of the goals of the identified on the website is to "Understand the role of blogs, wikis, podcasts, tags, RSS in learning." So I decide to pull together a collection of web-based resources around the topic of informal learning. They are located on LearningFlow, under the goal with the same name.

My thoughts on the subject:

blogs: Just as back in 1993 we saw a model emerge with tools like Hypercard, blogging technologies can serve multiple roles in the learning process. It can allow learners to create and clarify their knowledge or understanding of knowledge in a very constructive model. Another role of blogging could be to allow for an expert to document their understanding of information and publishing for easy access by novices. When we were developing hypermedia environments in the early 1990s we used this "cognitive apprenticeship" approach. But the amount of effort required to capture the media was incredible compared to today's, click and publish world.

wikis: The simple technology of an openly editable html page has become a powerful tool to capture the knowledge of the masses or "crowds". The simplicity of the approach has allowed for complete new ways of thinking about keeping information up-to-date and accurate. To imagine that an encyclopedia could be constantly updated is really amazing. Bonus: My example of using a wiki in a K-12 education environment, look for a scientific concept not yet in wikipedia, allow the students to craft the language and contribute the results online.

Podcasts: I have talked a lot about podcasts in the past. On a personal level they have been truly transformational in the way that I get information for my job. I know this won't fit everyone, but by having IT Conversations, PodTech.net, and TWIT available for my commute, I have turned brain-numbing traditional radio time into a time for me to improve my understanding of technologies.

Tags: I think of tags as a kind of glue that can keep the "stuff" or information that you are searching for, publishing, or creating together across the web. By tagging a piece of content, you are making that information discoverable over the web.

and finally....

RSS: Really Simple Syndication or Rich Site Summary, your choice. This simple standard, based on XML allows you to syndicate content to any aggregator that is connected to the internet. My favorite aggregator? Google Reader.