robert fitzgerald, phd

From the Canberra Times (16 March 2008), an interview I did talking about social software in education with specific reference to students as co-designers and the importance of network literacy.

Stephen Barrass and I have just had our paper, Social Software: Piloting MyToons As A Digital Learning Community For Teaching New Media, accepted for Edmedia 2008 to be held in Vienna, Austria later this year. The abstract follows:

This paper describes a pilot project using the MyToons.com animation social networking site to teach a New Media unit at the University of Canberra in 2007. MyToons, modeled on MySpace and other popular social software sites, has additional characteristics that focus on the construction of social identity and peer networking. The location of MyToons in the public space beyond the classroom embeds the students in an authentic community of practice, with exemplars, technical support, and opportunities to network and showcase their creativity and productions. In this study we reflect on the process of integrating MyToons into the unit syllabus, and the results from an evaluation survey of the students. This analysis confirms the importance of usability and sociability for the creation of an online community of practice for peer learning.

Our social software survey is now available. We are asking academics and students from UC, QUT and RMIT to help us find out more about the ways they are using social software and web2.0 technologies. The link to the survey is: http://www.questionpro.com/akira/TakeSurvey?id=697518