Tuesday, July 05, 2005
Social Software Series: Intro
I'm planning a series of posts on different social software and how I use and what potential I see it having for education. I invite you to submit your uses at any time and suggest other software, other uses. That's the great thing about social software: it allows for audience participation!
First, I thought some definitions were in order. Going to one of my favorite demonstrations of social software, the Wikipedia, one finds the definition of social software as follows:
A simpler definition might be simply, as Shirky also says, "software that lets people connect." A very thorough history of the evolving of social software can be found on Life with Alacrity. Allen traces the roots of social software back as far as the 40s with ideas of as yet to be conceived computer devices, through the internet and beyond. It's a good way to start thinking about social software. Another great article on social software is Shirky's "Social Software and the Politics of Groups." Shirky considers there the social aspects of the software--how our social dynamics and group behavior affect how we interact with the software and how that software is developed.
Just as there are lots of different ways of interacting with people in the "real" world, there are just as many ways to interact with people online. Think about, for example, sharing your vacation or wedding photos with friends and family. Pre-internet, you might have hauled around a big album or packets of pictures and sat next to your friends or family and leafed through the album and explained each one. Or perhaps, you had slides. Now, I don't want to begrudge anyone their right to show off their photos, but sometimes, you just don't want to interact with people in this way and you'd like to view the pictures on your own time at your own pace without their running commentary. A tool like Flickr allows for that. And there are many more examples.
And just because the word "social" is in the name doesn't mean that the uses of this type of software is strictly for fun and social activity, although that's certainly part of its appeal. For example, I am writing in a blog right now, software that is considered "social" and it is fun, but I'm writing for work. I'm sharing my thoughts and pertinent information with my constituent community and beyond, something I might do via a newsletter or email. Because it's fun, I'm more likely to actually write something. I might share information that someone at another university finds useful (and if my logs are correct, they do). Someone here at Bryn Mawr might read it and decide to call and ask about something that's a tangent to a post I've written here. When things are fun to use, people use them and find ways to make them useful.
Another aspect of social software is the idea of emergence. And the way I view this in two ways. One is something that Shirky mentions in his "Politics of Groups" article above. That is, the software is often developed for one thing, but ends up being used for something slightly different. Uses of the software emerge as people use it, and if it's open source, hack it, to suit their purposes. Perhaps more importantly, groups and connections emerge through use of social software. An example might be my personal blog. I began a blog, then I began reading other academeic blogs and linking to them. The writers of those blogs discovered my links, started reading my blog and linking to me. Eventually, I became part of an interconnected community of academics and former academics. These connections evolved. And new ones are being created all the time.
Over the next few days, I'll explain how to use some of the social software tools I use and how you might use them in teaching and research or how you might have your students make use of them for their own work.
social software, higher education
First, I thought some definitions were in order. Going to one of my favorite demonstrations of social software, the Wikipedia, one finds the definition of social software as follows:
Social software lets people rendezvous, connect or collaborate by use of a computer network. The term came into more common usage in 2002, largely credited to Clay Shirky who organized a "Social Software Summit" in November of that year. Shirky defines social software as "stuff that gets spammed."
A simpler definition might be simply, as Shirky also says, "software that lets people connect." A very thorough history of the evolving of social software can be found on Life with Alacrity. Allen traces the roots of social software back as far as the 40s with ideas of as yet to be conceived computer devices, through the internet and beyond. It's a good way to start thinking about social software. Another great article on social software is Shirky's "Social Software and the Politics of Groups." Shirky considers there the social aspects of the software--how our social dynamics and group behavior affect how we interact with the software and how that software is developed.
Just as there are lots of different ways of interacting with people in the "real" world, there are just as many ways to interact with people online. Think about, for example, sharing your vacation or wedding photos with friends and family. Pre-internet, you might have hauled around a big album or packets of pictures and sat next to your friends or family and leafed through the album and explained each one. Or perhaps, you had slides. Now, I don't want to begrudge anyone their right to show off their photos, but sometimes, you just don't want to interact with people in this way and you'd like to view the pictures on your own time at your own pace without their running commentary. A tool like Flickr allows for that. And there are many more examples.
And just because the word "social" is in the name doesn't mean that the uses of this type of software is strictly for fun and social activity, although that's certainly part of its appeal. For example, I am writing in a blog right now, software that is considered "social" and it is fun, but I'm writing for work. I'm sharing my thoughts and pertinent information with my constituent community and beyond, something I might do via a newsletter or email. Because it's fun, I'm more likely to actually write something. I might share information that someone at another university finds useful (and if my logs are correct, they do). Someone here at Bryn Mawr might read it and decide to call and ask about something that's a tangent to a post I've written here. When things are fun to use, people use them and find ways to make them useful.
Another aspect of social software is the idea of emergence. And the way I view this in two ways. One is something that Shirky mentions in his "Politics of Groups" article above. That is, the software is often developed for one thing, but ends up being used for something slightly different. Uses of the software emerge as people use it, and if it's open source, hack it, to suit their purposes. Perhaps more importantly, groups and connections emerge through use of social software. An example might be my personal blog. I began a blog, then I began reading other academeic blogs and linking to them. The writers of those blogs discovered my links, started reading my blog and linking to me. Eventually, I became part of an interconnected community of academics and former academics. These connections evolved. And new ones are being created all the time.
Over the next few days, I'll explain how to use some of the social software tools I use and how you might use them in teaching and research or how you might have your students make use of them for their own work.
social software, higher education
