from the Perspective of MICROBLOGGING

as a Provocative Sociolect in Virtual Space

INDICATORS

Gabriela Grosseck West University of Timisoara Romania

Carmen HOLOTESCU Politehnica University of Timisoara Manager Timsoft

eLSE Conference, Bucharest, 9-10 April 2009

AGENDA

Microblogging technology

Microblogging platforms

Twitter

Cirip.ro

Indicators in an online course

Conclusions

RSS/blogs-2004, podcast–2005, vlog–2006, video–2007, microblogging-2009

Web2.0 / social networks have great impact

in collaborative / social learning ( eLearning2.0 )

Microblogging is a collaborative technology, a new form of blogging, with brief text updates of 140 characters, via Web, SMS, email, IM or 3th party applications - RT interactions between users

photo: http://www.heikkironkko.com/images/yolehti_jaiku.jpg

The best known microblogging services

Most popular microblogging system

Robust, elegant and simple

More than 7 million users

Numerous mash-ups

Social Social networking networking

in 140 in 140 characterscharacters

twittertwitter

http://www.flickr.com/photos/44124372363@N01/2417123304/sizes/o

Twitter Educational uses:

Classroom community

Collaboration

Project Management

Assessing opinion

Conference / research

Virtual classroom

Learning experiences

Personal Learning Network

Reference services

Educational uses:•information and knowledge management

•courses enhancement

•delivering entire online courses

•collaborative projects in universities

•communities of practice

•ePortfolios.

Cirip.ro - a microblogging platform specially designed for education and business; launched in March, 2008, by Timsoft

Personal Learning Environments / Networks of users

Cirip.ro special features:

•public and private groups (courses, projects, events, different topics)

•multimedia objects embedding in notes:

images (flickr, tinypic), audio (deezer, vocaroo) and (live) video clips (youtube, dotsub, vimeo, seesmic, screencastle), presentations (slideshare, slideshow, capzles, voicethread, flowgram, photopeach, notaland) documents (pdf, doc,xls), live streaming

•feeds monitoring (from sites/blogs/social networks/search).

Users

GroupsFeeds

Networks

of

edu-Resources

PLE/PLN: users, groups, feeds

Interactions online, via ciripfox, ciripGadget, SMS, mobile, IM, (MMS), API, twitter2cirip, rss2cirip

Text messages, images, audio, video (live), presentations, files

Profile

cirip2twitter, widget, export notes,

Indicators:

Popularity

Influence

Coagulation index

Exposure index

Geographical distribution

Temporal distribution

Online social presence

Connections/comunication

PLE/PLN relevance

ePortfolio

Group news:

announcements

materials as LOM/SCORM objects

An online course about microblogging platforms

Investigations:

•integrate microblogging with other Web2.0 technologies

•microblogging platform as LMS

•course facilitation

•indicators

Course elements:

announcements

materials as LOM/SCORM objects

collaborative exercises

multimedia messages

built PLE / PLN

Collaborative exercises using different Web2.0 technologies:

•puzzle images/digital storytelling

flickr, CC

•del.icio.us collection

•video translation - writeboard, dotsub

•comments on voicethread

•tagcloud - wordle

•code of good practices on microblogs - writeboard

Conclusions:

•Facilitating an entire online course or a part of a course on such a platform requires specific facilitation skills, and collaborative technologies knowledge; indicators analysis - factor for improving

•Cirip.ro has facilities to deliver successful and qualitative online courses and to enhance courses; the communication, authoring, monitoring, statistical facilities make Cirip.ro a modern free LMS.

•Participants gain important digital and communication skills, build PLE / PLN, continue to collaborate in community