SOCIAL SOFTWARE IN EDUCATIONAL CONTEXTS: BENEFITS AND LIMITS
Giustina IADECOLA ∗
Nicolò A. PIAVE ∗ ∗
Abstract: Social software have not a precise definition about which literature is still debating, but their
function has several benefits in educational context: the use of interactivity and the rich availability of
media tools present in a social software allow e-teachers to engage better their students, so that elearners can benefit more freedom and experiment a stronger sense of responsibility for their learning
path. Through social software it is possible to transform a collective learning experience in a personal
learning discovery in which meeting other people represents a sort of new element, able to enrich every
single experience and promote the sense of negotiating, re-interpreting, rebuilding knowledge. Through
social software it is possible even to keep constructivist border within the virtual classroom: the
personal discovery can be discussed and make collective through the e-learning platform, and through
paradoxically another kind of social software such as a collective blog or forum or wiki. So social
software can assure great benefits to e-learning experiences, provided that teachers and students are
conscious of their limits. Limits are roughly similar to web’s one, in terms of cognitive overload, in
terms of scarce abilities in computer science and in web navigation, in terms of media education
background. In particular, the ignorance of the sense of the educational paradigm on which are used
social software can led to misunderstanding and poor results. This paper deals about benefits and
limits within classical e-learning experiences.
I.
INTRODUCTION: SOCIAL SOFTWARE AS TRANSVERSE EDUCATIONAL
TOOLS
This paper deals with the use of social software as educational tool within a constructivist
approach for online learning: although social software are considered as future e-learning platform for
their versatility and features which allow students’ discover in informal educational context, this paper
tries firstly to analyze the benefits they have in a formal educational path and, in a second moment the
advantage they can assure as tools that promote integration between formal and informal approach for
e-learning. Then limits will be evidenced.
Social software are so defined in Wikipedia:
“Social software is normally defined as a range of web-based software programs.
The programs allow users to interact and share data with other users […] Others
suggest that the term social software is best used not to refer to a single type of
software, but rather to the use of two or more modes of computer-mediated
communication that result in "community formation". In this view, people form
online communities by combining one-to-one (e.g., email and instant messaging),
one-to-many (Web pages and blogs), and many-to-many (wikis) communication
modes” (en.wikipedia.org, 2008).
The last development of educational technologies lead to think at learning as both a personal
and collective experience: in fact every single model, except the “content and support” one, implies at
least a part of interaction with colleagues and a part of individual activity. Cooperative learning (which
characterizes the wrap around approach) and the collaborative learning (which interprets the integrated
model of little online learning group) promote the use of social tools in order to involve all e-learners
in building a common knowledge through meanings negotiation and peer-to-peer facing (Calvani,
2005). Collective activity is finalized to a common knowledge, which is reinterpreted and acquired by
each e-learner in a personal way: this happens when the learning experience is at the end and each
member of the virtual classroom wants not to lost the built knowledge and desires to continue the
experience at an higher level of negotiation and understanding, promoting the birth of a community of
practices (Wenger, 1998). There is an objective need of making own the common knowledge base and
comparing it every day, in own workplace, in order to update it and debate about it among pairs. In
this sense collective knowledge is the base for a personal knowledge, filtered and validated by a
common learning experience made under the control of competent people (e-teacher and e-tutor)..
Social software answer both formal and informal needs according to the modality with which
the learning path is structured: it is, in fact, the model applied by teacher/tutor online which
determines the nature of educative tools involved in the learning experience. According to this way of
analyzing e-learning tools, it is possible to consider improperly even rapid e-learning tools as a kind of
social software, because of the social way of using them (Piave N. A., Rapid e-Learning, as an
informal educational tool for advanced students, 2008). In this sense social software, as the web itself,
have a double value: first, as dynamic repository of media resources that can be used by students for
their researches in a formal constructivist approach (Carletti & Varani, 2007; Varani & Carletti, 2005;
Piave, a cura di, 2008); second, as educational independent platform to use as content producer and to
share multimedia artifacts with other people, among which own colleagues, in a blended setting which
integrates formal and informal approach and favorites the collective discussion about personal
multimedia artifacts.
Social software are useful both personal and collective knowledge creation, sharing and
updating because:
a) as mere repository, it makes available many resources a teacher can take for his students and
makes also possible to create and prepare learning paths which allow student’s research on the Web
within particular binaries. This approach promotes constructivist approach and educational formal
settings which allow collective knowledge creation prevailing (wrap around and collaborative
models);
b) as complete educational platform, student can use it in an autonomous way and can be
stimulated in content producing and sharing. This approach, instead, promotes the personal knowledge
creation and, in a second moment, its negotiation with the classroom or other colleagues, in a way
partially compatible with the connectivist model (Siemens, 2006).
The double value of social software makes them ideal for a possible tentative of melting
formal and informal approach to online learning.
SOCIAL SOFTWARE AS A BRIDGE TOWARDS A BLENDED
EDUCATIONAL SETTING: BENEFITS
II.
The principal feature of social software, very appreciated by users, is the search engine that
they often include: the content organization, which can depend on users’ or software’s internal
preferences, facilities the information retrieval and a social participation to knowledge, making it
simple to manage, modify, enrich.
Social software in a constructivist approach can be used as an activity guided by teacher, for
example, on the basis of Salmon’s model of e-tutoring (Piave, 2008). It is enough to build a collection
of activities, with precise learning goals, specified dates and times, what arguments and software on
the web e-learners had to use and implement an evaluation system based on the expected goals.
Among previewed activities it is possible also to transform the orthodox constructivist approach to
learning (Varisco, 2002) into a more flexible approach, which embraces informal activities and
personal learning: although the Virtual Learning Environment remains as border, after a necessary
presentation of course’s methodology to the classroom, activities can preview student’s personal
discovery through specific social software, without the help of e-tutor, in order to find videos, slides,
e-books and other resources about a specific theme.
In respect to the constructivist perspective, e-teacher can:
- assign a personal task to student, finalized to the production of a multimedia content, fruit of his
personal view of the theme;
- assign a collective final task to classroom, finalized to the discussion of every single multimedia
production, through a forum or other tools, evidencing the points of difference and the points of
similarity and stimulating students to create a collective knowledge, starting from their personal one,
in order to promote social dynamics which can lead to the creation of collective content which
embraces the various points of view discussed.
This approach:
- is constructivist based, because it puts at the center of the methodology a collective discussion about
personal artifacts, granting the intervention of e-teacher/e-tutor in order to validate or confute personal
knowledge evidenced; it also helps students to compare each other in content production and in the
discussion about the proposed theme; it promotes a critical view of contents available on the Web and
helps students to apply a personal filter to the information bombardment they receive when they are
online; it leads to the creation of a collective knowledge thanks to the final discussion about personal
artifacts;
- embraces informal approach to knowledge, because it lets students start their research about the
proposed theme, according to their personal preferences, putting them in the difficulty of analyzing,
filtering and choosing which materials had to be used and promotes in e-learners the ability of selfcontent production, starting from resources they found and choose.
So, social software can be used also as tools able to pave the way to informal approach, which is not
necessarily in contrast with the constructivist approach: to do this, it is important to assure student’s
understanding about the blended setting and the different applied methodology and to be clear about
goals, tools, times and modality of net-surfing. It is evident that this blended setting is more indicated
for adult learners than other categories, because of a necessary capacity of filtering and avoiding
information overload, and the lack of e-tutor during the phase of resources discovering.
Such as rapid e-learning tools, also social software can be an ideal bridge to informal learning
approaches, and can encourage students’ interest and sensitivity to media education principles, owing
to the important task of self-content creating, in which they are called spontaneously to imitate already
existent materials. This particular activity is able to stimulate a personal analysis of multimedia
contents, and the curiosity about techniques adopted to make it more interesting to people and more
effective for learning purposes. Analysis and techniques that can be examined and compared through a
common discussion in the virtual classroom at the light of instructional design principles.
It is strategically important to define the pedagogical model in which social software will be applied,
because, as Rowntree’s learning curve evidences (Rowntree, 1995), the lack of access to resources
(which stands, in our opinion, for “effective understanding of applied educational paradigm”) and in
particular ignorance about how learning experience had to be conducted (Piave & Iadecola, 2006) and
the lack of clear reference parameters for students, can lead to very scarce results.
III.
SOCIAL SOFTWARE AS
EDUCATIONAL SETTING: LIMITS
A
BRIDGE
TOWARDS
Most of the social software’s known limits can be summarized in three risks:
A
BLENDED
- risk of cognitive overload. The search engine included into many social software facilitates the
information retrieval, but, at the same time, through the keywords logic, allows many kinds of links
among available resources, stimulating continuously users in research. The excess of availability can
create confusion or an endless research. It is important to implement the use of social software, after a
precise educational intervention about the ability of information filtering for students;
- risk of unfiltered information. Other aspect of information excess is the variety of resources which
makes difficult an easy choice for coherence with the request sent to the search engine. In some cases
social tagging tried to give an answer to this problem, but currently is still the users’ experience and
ability to assure a correct filtering of information.
- risk of invalidated information. As in the case of Wikipedia, distributed knowledge is both an
advantage and a disadvantage, owing to the lack of control or because of the objective difficulty in
monitoring the dependability of available content, that is obviously created, modified and shared by
common users and not by scientists or people suitably told to do these operations. Information
retrieval for education purpose had to be accompanied by tools useful in validating information and
IV.
CONCLUSION
Social software are merely media, extraordinary media that e-teachers can use in different
ways: in a pure formal or in an integrated formal/informal approach which can show off all the
potentiality of these software for learning purposes. It is necessary to build a coherent model, that,
starting from formal one, introduces some modifications compatible with an informal view of
learning, such as self-content production to play before a collective discussion about personal
discovery and artifacts made. So, social software can really become a bridge towards informal
approach to didactics, provided that students are able and well informed about blended setting of their
learning experience.
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Studio e-LearningONE
University of Macerata