Social Media for the Social Sciences
This blog supports the ALISS Web 2.0 workshop at the University of Bristol.
Specifically the session on Social Media for the Social Sciences, by Paul Ayres, from Intute: Social Sciences who also produce the Intute Virtual Training Suite, a set of tutorials covering Internet research skills.
The slides from the presentation are available online and are also below:
It includes sections on
The links to all the websites mentioned in the presentation are available via Delicious.
Exercises
The exercises are intended to let you get to grips with the various tools mentioned in the presentation. It is assumed that you will have access to a web-based email account to register for some of these services.
- There is one exercise per service
- Plus an advanced exercise for each
- And a blog related exercise for each
- You can start to add to your blog by following the rest of the exercises
… or you are welcome to explore the links available through this blog.
Twitter – what is it?
- Asks what are you up to right now?
- Limited to just 140 characters
- Like the status update feature on Facebook – and that’s all
- Follow people you know, those you don’t, organisations, publications
- Part blog, part social networking site, and part IM tool
Twitter in Plain English
… more Twitter related links from Delicious.
Twitter – an example
Intute: Economics on Twitter features blog posts and new Internet resources on Economics
Also follow other organisations / publication such as Times Higher, the Economist, HM Treasury, the FT and individual academics and individual academics
Twitter – possible uses
- Pointers to online resources based around a course
- Student reminders about deadlines
- Breaking down barriers and getting to know others over this “virtual water cooler”
- Keeping up to date for you and students
- Instant lecture feedback – are you Twittering about this presentation?
- 7 things you should know about Twitter by EDUCAUSE looks at this further
- The Intute Twitter 500 some suggestions on educational use of Twitter
Exercise
- Go to Twitter at http://twitter.com/ and register for an account
- Add your first Tweet (short message of 140 characters)
- Use the tag alissweb2 in your Tweet
- Under Find People – try searching for Intute
- Follow one of the Intute channels such as the Intute: Economics channel
Advanced
Go to the Twitter Search page at: http://search.twitter.com/advanced
Try a search term and filter the latest Tweets to those that contain links
Blog
Add your Twitter feed or one of the Intute Twitter feeds to your blog
Blogs
Blogs – what are they
- Online diary style website
- Quick and easy web publishing
- Offer instant communication
- Regularly updated
- Require little technical knowledge
- A social / networking activity
- Links to other online resources
- Try the Guide to Using Blogs in Economics
Blogs in Plain English
… or sample some blog related links from Delicious.
Blogs – potential uses – teaching and learning
- Replacing standard class web pages
- Professor-written blogs which cover interesting developments that relate to the theme of the course
- Organization of in-class discussion
- Organization of intensive seminars where students have to provide weekly summaries of the readings
- Requiring students to write their own blogs as part of their grade
From Henry Farrell contributor at Crooked Timber
Blogs – more potential uses
- Writing up as you go along
- Floating new or embryonic ideas
- Dissemination of research results
- Disseminate news and service updates
- Take advantage of the “invisible college” of fellow academics
- Engaging with the public to find out what they want
- Sidestepping the mainstream media for publicity
- Great potential for reflection See Julie Hughes 2006 ALT-C paper
Exercise
- Register for an account at http://wordpress.com/
- Add a new blog post http://support.wordpress.com/posts/
- Write a few lines on how you could use blogs
- On the right hand side of the Edit Post screen, add the tag alissweb2
- Publish your post
Advanced
Chat with one of your neighbours, find out the web address of their blog and leave a comment on their blog post or on this blog at http://alissweb2.wordpress.com
Note
All of the other exercises have an optional blog related element – you can start to add to your blog by following the rest of the exercises
Audio / Podcasting
What is a podcast?
My definition of a podcast is …
- Audio – videos are more likely to be learning objects and vlogging does not need RSS
- Regular – one audio file does not constitute a podcast, must have a sense of regularity
- Syndicated via RSS – otherwise it’s an online audio file that has been possible for years
… other viewpoints are available
Podcasting in Plain English
Podcasting in Higher Education
Podcasting for Pedagogic Purposes is a UK HEA initiative which aims to explore the use of podcasts in higher education
Podcasting for Learning in Universities is a book detailing a range of case studies on the use of podcasts and provides a model for developing effective podcasts – much of this work grew oput of the IMPALA project
VOX Talks are from the Centre for Economic Policy Research and feature interviews with academic economists talking about their work
Potential uses of podcasting
- Distance learning / self-paced learning
- Advanced or supplementary material
- Choice depending on learning style
- Promotion of research
- Topical updates related to lecture material
- Replace the lecture
- Student assessment and feedback
- Collecting data in the field
More podcasting tips
A Bakers Dozen of Practical Podcasting Tips – less theory, more practice
Podcasting and Audio in the Social Sciences – overview of key audio resources
My Podcasting Life … or the Reverse Obama Effect – lessons from various podcasting experiments
Podcasts links from Delicious – with an emphasis on podcasting in HE
Exercise
- Go to Intute: Social Sciences http://www.intute.ac.uk/socialsciences/
- Search for podcast* and filter your results by subject – try Education
- Explore some of the recommended sites and try to find a podcast to listen to
Advanced
Go to the Podcasting for Learning in Universities book support website at: http://www.atimod.com/podcasting/
Click on the Podcasting Model link and explore this podcasting model
Blog
Create a new blog post and link to an mp3 file by typing
Open square bracket
Type the word audio
Leave a space
URL of an audio file ending in .mp3
Close square bracket
… but all on one line
More details are available from the WordPress.com Audio support page.
YouTube / online video
What is YouTube?
- Number one video sharing site on the Internet, top 10 of all Internet sites
- Approx. 40% share of online video market – if it’s not on YouTube, it doesn’t exist?
- Ten of millions of videos are watched each and every day
- Vast majority of videos are “user generated content” – made by people like you and me
Is YouTube educational?
YouTube launched YouTube EDU last week to collect together videos from Universities, but does it bring together all the educational content that may be on YouTube?
You may wish to compare and contrast the experiences of these two American academics.
Alex Juhasz has also written up her experiences of Teaching on YouTube.
Michael Wesch has also provided An Anthropological Introduction to YouTube.
YouTube for Fun and Education – some issues on the YouTube community and some related Delicious links.
Life beyond YouTube
- Academic Earth lectures from Universities – mainly US, but one to keep an eye on
- TED conference of videos from inspiring speakers
- Open Culture great filter for educational video content
- Intute: Social Sciences search for YouTube covers various YouTubechannels
Online video – possible uses
- Distance learning
- Supplementary lectures (e.g. research skills, presentation skills)
- Contextualising an issue, e.g. old news footage
- Perspectives for students to examine critically (news coverage, activist videos, TED lectures)
- Screen capture (e.g. demonstrating software)
- Short humour items to break up a long lecture
- Student video assignment?
Exercise
- Go to YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/
- Search for heaescalate and you should find a video called There to Care
- Repeat the above for the search term vision of students today
- Repeat the above for the search term commoncraft – to get to some great videos that explain Social Media websites
Advanced
Register for an account at http://www.youtube.com/ and rate a video, leave a comment on it or add it as a Favourite
Blog
Create a new blog post and embed a YouTube video in the body of the blog post
Follow the instructions from WordPress.com on embedding YouTube videos.
… and the video will be automatically added to your post
