Kingston University London

Third-party social media and Web 2.0 services

There are now hundreds, if not thousands, of free Web 2.0 services but here's our pick of those that we believe have a role to play in HE:

• Social networking sites
• Microblogging
• Start pages
• Social bookmarking
• Image sharing
• Video sharing
• Presentation sharing

 

Social networking sites

Facebook

There's currently much interest in the use of third-party social networking sites (SNSs) to support student learning and the development of learning communities. SNSs enable the sharing of resources and incorporate a range of communication tools, both synchronous (eg instant messaging or chat) and asynchronous ('walls' and discussion boards).

Facebook is currently the dominant SNS used by many, if not most, of our undergraduate and postgraduate students. We have run a number of successful pilots on its uses to support a range of University activities and have published a short guidance document (PDF) for staff interested in exploring Facebook's potential in HE.

 

Microblogging

Twitter

Twitter is a web-based social-networking and micro-blogging service that enables you to post short updates to your personal stream or timeline. Think of Twitter as combining elements of Facebook status updates, instant messaging, text messaging and email. Twitter is a great way to keep in touch with what others are doing or thinking and to create small communities. As part of a LearnHigher-funded project, we have produced range of Twitter quick sheets with advice and summaries of its use in HE:

• Twitter: an introduction (PDF)
• A glossary of key Twitter terms (PDF)
• Creating your Twitter account (PDF)
• Following people on Twitter (PDF)
• Better ways of viewing and posting tweets (PDF)
• Twitter and employability (PDF)
• Case studies of practice (PDF)

 

Start pages

Pageflakes

Start pages are a kind of customisable homepage organised into tabs to which you can add blogs, notes, to-do lists, calendars, favourite web sites, news feeds etc. Although the start page and tabs you create are private, you can selectively invite other users to edit them and you can create a 'pagecast' in which you make a tab publicly accessible.

 

Social bookmarking

Delicious

With Delicious you can create a space for your favourite websites that are accessible regardless of the computer you're working on. You can add tags (keywords) and comments to your bookmarks to allow for easy retrieval. You can also share with your bookmarks with others or use other people's bookmarks to add to your resources.

 

Image sharing

Flickr.com

Flickr has been around for some years now but remains one of the most accessible photo sharing sites. You can upload your images, tag them and organise them into folders. Users to can comment on uploaded pictures and can form their own groups or networks.

 

Video sharing

YouTube

YouTube made an early name for itself as the definitive video hosting site. Uploading your videos is easy – a number of file formats are acceptable including wmv, .avi, .mov, mpeg and .mp4 – which are then converted to Adobe Flash Video format. Videos can be tagged for ease of search and are easily embedded into blog posts. YouTube users can add comments to videos.

 

Presentation sharing

Slideshare

Known as the 'YouTube for PowerPoint', Slideshare allows you to upload and convert PowerPoint and other types of presentations. Your files are then converted into a Flash-based presentation in its own web page. One interesting new feature lets you add and synchronise audio commentary to your presentation. Users can add comments via a YouTube-like interface. You can link to your presentations from Blackboard or embed them in a blog post.