Tag: social network

Social Networking Fears Unwarranted

Summaries of a recent survey of students, parents, and educators concerning social networking have been appearing on educational blogs (e.g., 2 Cents Worth, TechBlorge). The reason the results of this survey interest these other bloggers and me is that the survey seems to indicate the response of schools to the assumed dangers of student social networking exaggerates the dangers as reported by students and parents.

The survey, titled “Creating and Connecting makes” (pdf available from National School Boards Association) three main points:

  • Use of social networking among age group is increasing (some data from present study contrasted with 2002) and students make a surprising amount of use to accomplish educational tasks on their own.
  • Safety issues and inappropriate experiences associated with social networking do exist, but are lower than many adults assume – especially educational officials.
  • Online experience may help students learn to deal with inappropriate experiences.

Those looking for recent statistics may find the report helpful. The survey data include:

  • reports of the frequency of social networking activities and changes since 2002
  • frequency of several categories of inappropriate and dangerous experiences
  • proportion of schools blocking or forbidding various types of online experience while in school.

I wish research of this type were more commonly funded to be conducted by researchers at educational institutions whose goal was to publish their data in peer reviewed goals. To gain full access to the data collected by Grunwald Associates it appears you must pay several thousand dollars. More information about the questions asked in the survey are available from the Grunwald Associates site. What I wish I had the opportunity to review are the details of the methodology. The published pdf describes the student sample as consisting of 1277 9-17 year olds who responded to an online survey. The Grunwald associates site describes a nationally representative sample of 1000 teens/children. An online survey could mean different things and many approaches would not really generate a representative sample of all youth.

To have the National School Boards association behind the position that schools are overreacting to the dangers of participatory web activities and missing out on activities that interest students seems a good thing.

P.S.

Andy Carvin’s post in response to this report.

Blogged with Flock

Loading

Facebook or MySpace

Newsweek’s Steven Levy offers an opinion on the decision of young people to invest time in Facebook or MySpace. His analysis cites to work of research Danah Boyd who claims there are predictable patterns that relate to social class. Facebook tends to be for the off to college types and MySpace is more common among those moving on from high school to work. As you might expect, her conclusion generated controversy and Levy includes his summary.

Loading

Is the party over?

I read a very brief piece in Technology and Learning (April) I had to check out. The short article summarized some Technorati data reported through valleywag showing that interest in blogging may have peaked. If you check out the technorati data, the key is not the number of blogs, but the number of active bloggers. It appears that numbers from Mar. 2006 and Mar. 2007 are similar. The number of active bloggers appears stalled at about 15 million.

I wonder if this is “real” or if some are now being pulled over to other forms of online expression that offer greater flexibility (e.g., social networking sites.).

Loading

Pew Report on Adolescent Use of Social Software

The Pew Internet and American Life has published findings from a new study (survey concluded in mid November) examining teen use of social networks.

  • 55% of adolescents who use the net are reported to have created online profiles (more females than males).
  • 2/3 of those with a profile limit access

Teens describe their interest in social networking sites as a way to stay in touch with friends.

The findings seem to indicate that users are at least aware of potential dangers (only 1% say they are unaware of who can view their profile).

Andy Carvin extracts more stats from this same source.

Blogged with Flock

Loading

Zotero

My occupation requires that I constantly review resources (journal articles, book chapters, sometimes web sites), create some meaningful personal account of these sources, and then store these accounts in a form that will be useful to me later. Sometimes later is next week when I attempt to integrate the results of a literature review in writing the Introduction to an article and sometimes later means 30 years later when I am attempting to locate an article I think I read in graduate school because that article may address an issue my younger colleagues now think is original. I have experimented with this challenge throughout my career – note cards, copies of xeroxed and highlighted articles stored in file cabinets, free form storage and search systems built in Hypercard, online social bookmarking systems, etc. I admit at this point that I spend far more time experimenting with such systems than I spend applying any given system to actual work. Total time expenditure considered, I would probably still be better off with a box of index cards and my file cabinets full of journal articles. However, I keep telling myself someone has to experiment to offer suggestions to others.

Recently, I have been exploring a free open source product called Zotero. Zotero is a Firefox extension developed at George Mason University. Zotero can function like social bookmarking sites that store a “snapshot” of a web site (something like FURL). Zotero can also save citations and notes for old school resources (articles, chapters and books). When possible, I now store the pdfs for the journal articles I read and annotate (see previous post describing YEP). Within Zotero, I can attach the files stored within YEP to Zotero citations. Zotero allows collections of citations to be created (perhaps temporarily) and then exported as a reference list (see image below).

The screen capture appearing below offers a glimpse of Zotero – this three pane system can be opened at the bottom of your browser window when needed.

Zotero image

I worry a bit about the complexity of this system. If I invest heavily in using it for real work, I am also going to have to consider carefully how I will backup the material I create. This is not one of those systems that stores resources on a remote server maintained by folks who back up religiously. This is a tool I would have to understand better and take responsibility for the maintenance issues.

The folks at Zotero have big plans for the future and intend to move their product from an interesting browser plugin to something with greater power. I am not ready to commit to this resource to the exclusion of others I use, but I would feel comfortable using this tool as I work on a future project. If you use Firefox, take a look and see what you think.

Blogged with Flock

Loading

Commercialization and Critical Mass

Imbee, a new “safe” social networking and blogging for 8-14 year olds, has just been announced. There is a cost for full service and I wonder how this will influence participation (there are free alternatives – e.g., blogmeister).

I would guess the success of such ventures depends on some type of “critical mass.”

  • Will your average 7th grader be interested if his/her friends don’t have the $30 per year to join?
  • How important is the “unknown audience” to bloggers? Perhaps knowing that the audience is restricted will reduce motivation to be an active participant.

I see that additional individuals can be added at a much reduced rate. Perhaps there is some way to enroll a class of paricipants if the class can raise the money.

I think critical mass is a crucial concept in the popularity of social networking. The challenge is how to achieve what adolescents accept as critical mass within a restricted environment. I do think it is great that investors are willing to offer some alternatives. The services likely warrant the price. Good luck.

Loading