December 18, 2007 – 10:37 am
In the first few days since the launch of me.edu.au a lot of people have established and joined Communities as shown in the partial view of the tag-cloud above. One of the busiest is Digital Storytelling. Most of the larger Communities have ten or more members but few have comments so far.
The two options for contributing - the whiteboard and links, are both scrolling displays and older entries are pushed off by new ones. One of the highest priorities for new functions in me.edu.au is space for Community members to be able to write text and link to resources. In the meantime Communities can provide their own space by links to wiki space or a blog were some or all members can contribute.
Of course, the other major function of me.edu is to make connections with people and to find out about them. So we hope the members add as much detail as they can to their Profile.
December 8, 2007 – 7:25 am
As we explore the test version of me.edu it is becoming clearer what me.edu is all about. (Another reminder that doing is more powerful than just thinking.)
The central theme is in the banner: What I’ve been doing. A good example of this at work is Mike Sefang’s me.edu. It feeds in a constant stream of observations and news. It could well be that me.edu’s initial major impact will be to stimulate members to spark up their blog because the feed coming in to me.edu will engage a new group of readers.
Another realisation is that ‘my’ feeds need to be mine, and that it is not appropriate to bring in news feeds and the like since these are labeled as ‘my’ input.
December 4, 2007 – 10:06 am
As me.edu progresses briskly towards launch in less than two weeks, we are conscious that this is a greenfields project, exploring unknown territory. We are not aware of a service quite like it, so we are very interested in user suggestions for the direction the service should take.
The explosive growth of social networking proves that at least among some groups of people, the basic activity of social networking is very appealing. However me.edu is aimed at professional networking which has a more defined purpose. As early adopters of me.edu build their profiles, join Interests, and contribute to Communities, they will inevitably start saying, “Where can I…” generating a demand for additional components. Please let us know what is missing.
Add a comment here or email feedback me_edu_feedback@edna.edu.au
November 27, 2007 – 7:24 pm
On Thursday the 6th of December the uat test me.edu.au environment will be updated with a range of fixes. Between the 7th of December and 13th December there will be testing occurring. All going well we expect this release to go live on the weekend of the 15th of December – more information will be distributed once final testing has occurred. If you have not had a chance to come in to me.edu.au you are welcome over this time and if you have and want to see some of the changes you are also welcome. Note: information previously entered will still be there however when the beta system goes live your information entered will be lost as this is only a test environment.
How to sneak-a-peek at the beta release 1?
- Go to the test environment at: http://me-uat.edna.edu.au/
- Are you an edna member?
- If already an edna registered member, enter your current edna username and password. You will be prompted to update two fields within the registration system – a profile name, this will be your own url for me.edu.au, and then a general privacy setting
- If not an edna member, Click register and complete the registration form with as much detail as possible.
- Your own profile homepage should then open
- Now you can update your profile and add information
- You can also find colleagues that already are a part of the test system
Note: this is a test environment and anything you do here will not go live – so do not spend too much time adding profile details. Also this testing site will be used for demonstrations so don’t share or make public anything you don’t want anyone else to see.
A short introduction video is available here via Jing which explains the basic features of the first release of me.edu.
Login with your usual edna login and you will be taken to your own space. Please add a photo and a few details about yourself and join some of the communities. Feedback, suggestions, comments, faults to me_edu_feedback@edna.edu.au please.
November 12, 2007 – 8:25 pm
The myedna professional networking service is on schedule for launch on Nov 27th
as me.edu.au. The first release will allow early users to build a detailed personal profile, indicate their professional interests, and link to colleagues who have similar interests. Release 2 will give users file space to share resources and develop more communication links with their me.edu.au ‘colleagues’. This new service under the edna banner will be complemented by edna Groups and edna Links, which will feed directly into me.edu.au.
October 10, 2007 – 12:30 pm
The formal specifications for the first release of myedna have been signed off, and it is planned that initial user testing will begin late October, with a wider launch late in November in time for a significant birthday that is occurring at education.au.
Subscribers to this blog will be invited to join the initial testing and the first step is to establish one’s Profile. This can be done over time as members provide more details about their professional interests. New members will be asked to indicate their Interests and as more people join, the Interests will be a prime means of finding ‘Colleagues’ with similar interests. As Profiles and the number of members expand, the benefits of social networking for professional purposes will start to bear fruit.
If you are interested in all education.au bloggs, you can subscribe with this feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/EducationauBloggers
August 22, 2007 – 12:13 pm
myedna will will be firmly embedded in the growing world of Web 2.0 - that nebulous collection of tools that allow users to contribute on the web. A remarkably popular tour of Web 2.0 is The Machine is Us/ing Us, a video on YouTube that has had nearly 4 million views since January 07. The author is Professor Wesch of Kansas State University. The 4.5 minute video tells the story of how the web is developing in a highly graphic way. It delivers the message most effectively because the pace and movement in the video represents how the active user is at the heart of web 2.0 developments. The machine is us pun in the title neatly sums it up.
myedna will bringing together the I, me, and us among educators in Australia.
The accompanying text on Prof. Wesch’s web page shows how he was as amazed as anyone that his audience of millions came into being.
myedna is a forthcoming social networking site for educators across Australia. It will be a space for educators to establish their professional identity online and to make connections with other educators. It will be added to the edna service in early 2008. The releases will be in stages [a phased approach].
The requirements of the first release of the project are complete and development has started. A basic current roadmap of releases is included below. It gives users and the project team an understanding of what is being delivered and what is planned for delivery in the future.
What next?
We will be going into further scoping and development of the myedna system, release 1.
Then we will pre-release the system to interested users for testing later this year with a production system in place by 2008.
We will keep you updated on how you can get involved by joining in on the user testing and be one of the first to use this exciting new social networking system.
Your advice is needed
We are currently working on the user interface of the new system and possible layouts. We are really interested to hear from users about what good web 2.0 websites you have used and navigated around. Let us know what you liked. For example –
- do you like the elgg system that has different categories of information and you click on the tabs that you are interested in? Or
- do you like your personal view to be different to what the public/your friends see?
Please use the Comments link below to comment or question any aspect of this update, and give any views you have about the interface questions above.
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Roadmap for myedna
Release 1: Features include:
- Myprofile - my professional identity - interests and experiences
- Simple search - finding people with common interests
- MyColleagues – the group of people I keep track of
- MyNetwork – a sub-group of colleagues
- Minifeed - incoming feed of selected colleagues’ activities
- edna groups and lists – edna groups and lists I belong to
- Security/privacy – building a safe and secure online space for Australian educators
Release 2: Features include:
- Social bookmarking
- Edna-links
- Personal file space
- Content / myresources
- Mynetwork tools such as wiki/blog
- calendar
Release 3: Features include
- Feed stitcher
- Search - edna and resources
- Mobile technologies
- Themes
- Activity reporting: for the users and for administration
There is evidence in the success of edna Groups to indicate that educators want to talk to each other online. Groups now has 1,000 groups with 14,000 people as members. edna Groups was started in 2005 and is growing rapidly as more people realise that the medium is a very effective way for people not physically together to stay in touch. You can find Groups at: http://www.groups.edna.edu.au
Common sense tells us that learning is enhanced by social activity, which is the basic idea underlying the use of Web 2.0 tools. But is there educational theory to support it? Of the three dominant theories, one strongly emphasises the importance of social interaction.
The theory of Social Constructivism is well established. Vygotsky is considered the father of the concept. As the Wikipedia says in its excellent entry,
“Where Piaget argued that people should create their own version of the truth, Vygotsky added the importance of discussing this version of truth with others, in order to, through the process of mediation, get to a higher order of truth that has also been socially tested (Derry 1999)”
Another relatively brief and valuable description form Berkley Graduate program points out that Vygotsky disagreed with Piaget and others to argue that social interaction is essential to learning.
The Berkley site provides an excellent grid that contrasts the three main learning theories: Behaviourism, Cognitive Constructivism and Social Constructivism. It points out that the Social Constructivist theory holds that motivation is both intrinsic - reward from within, and extrinsic - gained from interacting with others. I would suggest that Social Constructivism is the theory of learning most commonly held by educators today.
It would be nice to see how Vygotsky would evaluate Web 2.0 tools. I suspect that he would be very excited by them. We are all aware that the normal classroom is not an ideal social environment for learning, with about 30 or so students required to remain silent or at least to take it in turns to talk for much of the school day. Talking with a small group of friends or colleagues, or better still, doing a task with them, is an excellent way to learn, but when this is not practical, doing the talking over the internet is a powerful substitute. And when the colleagues live a long way apart, is a better option.
