social networks and networking to support etwinning teachers
DESCRIPTION
About eTwinning social networks and how they can support teachers.TRANSCRIPT
Social networks and
networking to support
eTwinning teachers
Riina VuorikariEuropean Schoolnet
Topics
•Social networks
• Participation - digital traces
• What are social networks?
• How do social networks look in eTwinning?
• What do social networks tell us?
• Social networks and eTwinning Ambassadors
by Stiphy
“Social”
makes
trails
visible..
and
shows
where to
do go
Digital traces
• Making your profle available on eTwinning
• Creating links to other people, projects, tellinig that you like it,
etc
• Creating also links to what happen outside of eTwinning
platform:
• your pictures on Flickr, your blog posts, your website, etc
Participation inequality
• J.Nilsen (2006) Participation inequality: Encouraging More Users to
contribute
•
Power law of participation in digital communities
Power law of participation for eTwinning?
signing up in the portal
project participation and sharing experiences
Social network
•..is a social structure made of nodesnodes and tiesties
• Nodes are actors in the network, e.g. teachers, schools,
countries
• Ties are relationships between actors, e.g. friendship,
professional tie, eTwinning projects
• Can be presented as a chart that shows the structure of
relations
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_network
Visualising social ties and networks
• makes the ties between eTwinning members, projects and
schools visible
• helps fnding interesting groups of like-minded people and
projects
• but, also helps making the social network better connected!
nodes
ties, something I declare explicitly
Social networks - be aware!
• a digital representation of a social network can hardly ever
accurately show all the connections of a rich real life situation,
like here today
• Yet, it can be useful!
eTwinning as a social network?
•What are the nodes and what are the ties?
•For example:
• schools or teachers can be the nodes
• projects done together can be the ties
nodes
ties
eTwinning as a social network
•Visualisation includes data from Summer 2008
• Number of teachers: 45 212
• Number of projects: 8 035 o
• Number of countries: 30
What type of information do social networks reveal?
tightly connected nodes in the central
isolated groups interacting mostly amongst themselves
“singletons” with no connection, least central
What more?
closeness: the shortest distances between each individual and every other person in the network
Reach: the degree any member of a network can reach other members of the network
Betweenness: Degree an individual lies between other individuals in the network: an intermediary; liaisons; bridges
eTwinning Ambassadors
•What can the eTwinning network do for you?
•What can you do for the eTwinning network?
•
eTwinning Ambassadors
• Your relationships and ties with other eTwinning members are
important!
• Your “power” within the network comes from the degree to which
your are at the center of many relationships
• The "the strength of weak ties” - open networks, with many weak
ties and social connections, are more likely to introduce new ideas new ideas
and opportunities to membersand opportunities to members!
•Be aware of “cliques” where each member knows more or less what
the other members knew
“Power” places for Ambassadors
eTwinning Groups
• Groups are places for eTwinning teacher who share a concern or
a passion for something they do and learn how to do it better as
they interact (regularly).
• CALL FOR MEMBERS: Pilot period for 3 Groups in October
• Group School leaders: http://www.etwinning.net/schoolleaders
• Group MST: http://www.etwinning.net/mstgroup
• Group Creativity: http://www.etwinning.net/creativity
More about how to social network using Web 2.0
in the workshop!thanks! for your attention
social networks user communities
discover people and projectsquestions?
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