How can the Internet and Educational Social Networks be Beneficial to University Students?

Through my research, I have stumbled upon many interesting websites I never knew existed. One of these includes “Classroom 2.0”, a website that combines education and networking together. I look at it as the “Facebook of Education” where people can not only communicate but learn from one another too. It is websites like these that find me thinking- “How will education change/be affected by such internet facilities?” This has inspired me to write a blog that focuses on Learning networks and Education networks to examine what affects they could have on students such as myself.

What is Classroom 2.0?

As stated on their website, “Classroom 2.0 is the social networking site for those interested in web 2.0 and collaborative technologies in education”. (Classroom 2.0. 2008)Like Facebook and other social networking websites, Classroom 2.0 allows users to create their own account which automatically allows them to build a profile page that displays a brief summary of their interests and characteristics. They can also write comments on their friends’ profile pages and join groups. The main difference is, everything is focused on education and learning, for instance instead of joining the “I love McDonalds Breakfast” group on Facebook, on Classroom 2.0 you can join the “Elementary 2.0 group” (a group especially created for Elementary school educators) or the “DigiSkills group” (a group for both teachers and students to learn digital skills). There is also a Classroom 2.0 blog which any member can write on.

How will this change or alter traditional Education and Learning?

Social networks such as Classroom 2.0 may not be the most popular websites on the internet and the chance that it will become as popular is very slim. However, I was using Classroom 2.0 as an example of how simple it can be to learn and teach other people through the internet and be part of a learning/education network. Students may not realize it, but the internet is a great advantage too us all when it comes to educating ourselves. We can use forums, write blogs, read each others blogs and we can even watch educational videos online. From my point of view, we no longer have to solely rely on our University texts or Lecturers for information when the internet is filled with extra information that may not have been covered in lectures of readings. If we didn’t completely understand a lecture or reading for example, we could to a quick search on Google and read a blog or wiki article to get a deeper under standing. I also find that reading other peoples blogs gives me a refreshing insight on things that I would not have thought of before. Other people would argue that blogs are not a good source of information however I believe that when it comes to general knowledge and opinions on certain topics, they are an excellent starting point for research. In that respects, University students can become a lot more independent in the way they learn by finding their own resources.
This definitely does not mean that I think my classmates and I will no longer need to go to University at all; we still need to learn from our lecturers and tutors to receive information and learn about unknown topics. The internet simply enables us to gain further understanding and knowledge.

How to become part of an online Education/Learning Network

Here is my concise step to step guide on how teachers or students can become part of an educational social network:

Step 1: Join a social networking website such as Facebook or Classroom 2.0. Trust me, its easy as pie and will only take a few minutes out of your day. Once you have completed creating your account, join some groups that relate to whatever you are studying or are interested in. Befriend people in those groups to build a network of contacts.

Step 2: Create your own blog and make it easily accessible for your network contacts to read (This can be done by adding a link on your profile page). Start writing about whatever you wish to write about.

Step 3: Read your network contacts’ blogs and don’t be scared to comment and give feedback, chances are people are doing the same to your blogs.

Step 4: Keep blogging, commenting and using your social networking account to continue to learn more and educate others.

That’s it, you’re done and as you can see I have written a very simple process. There are many different ways to join network communities but I could write a whole blog I would need to write an entire blog to outline all of them. Carolyn Foote’s article “Classroom 2.0 in Education, Guest Blogger” explains this further in her guest blog for “The Classroom 2.0 Blog”. I would recommend you look at her article if you are seeking further information on online communities and networks.

The KCB201 Social Learning Network

If I haven’t mentioned before, the reason I started writing this blog was for an assessment for my University subject named “Virtual Cultures”. I feel that I can not conclude this blog without pointing out that the “Virtual Cultures” assessments is a perfect example of an online learning and educational social network! By creating our own blogs and tagging them to our Del.icio.us page, we have made our blogs easily accessible for each other to access. Because we are all unique and have our own interests, we have all written blogs that reflect our insight on certain topics we have been learning about. For example, I wrote a blog that discussed how Citizen Photojournalism was a form of Produsage which no one else in my unit has written about (or at least I haven’t seen a blog that did). I have shared my personal insight on unit content with my peers by writing about them in my blog articles and they have done the same. We are all contributing to each others education by sharing our views on unit content. To me, it is exciting to know that students can now find information and gain knowledge from each other rather than only rely on University lecturers and texts.

Conclusion

To conclude, this optimistic blog on learning networks and education networks has explained the benefits these networking sites can have on both educators and students. By having these networks, users get to learn and contribute to each others learning. In regards to university education, learning networks follow a complete different format where students no longer have to rely only on lecture materials to learn.

References:

Classroom 2.0 Homepage. 2008. Classroom 2.0: http://www.classroom20.com/ (accessed 12/05/08)