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Knowledge Based Organization 2008 International Conference
SERIOUS FUN IN EDUCATION:USING MICROBLOGGING
drd. Carmen Holotescu
1
, dr. Gabriela Grosseck
2
1
Technical University,Timisoara, Romania,cami@timsoft.ro
2
Abstract
Microblogging is the Web2.0 technology with one of the most important impact in education in the last couple of years. On a microblogging platform,the users can send and receive messages via the web, SMS, instant messaging clients, and by third party applications. The most known platform is Twitter.The authors introduce a Romanian microblogging platform especiallydesigned for education, called Cirip, trying to provide arguments for using thismicroblogging platforms in education, underlining both the advantages and (possible) bad points. Some concrete examples are presented, in which the platform is used for delivering entire online courses, for courses enhancement, for communities of practice, and as an eportfolio.
Keywords: microblogging, cirip, online course, education, e-learning
1. Introduction
Cirip.rois a microblogging platform launched this year onMarch, implemented byTimsoft, a company specialized in e-learningand mobile applications, under the first author's coordination. The platform already has many educational uses, for information andknowledge management, for courses enhancement, for collaborative projects in universities, for communities of practice, or as aneportfolio [7] [8].Between June 4-18, 2008, the authors developed and moderatedan online course, in a private group. It is a world premiere, the firstonline course developed and run entirely on a microblogging platform.
2. The purpose of the course
Knowledge Based Organization 2008 International Conference
The aim of this course was to find out if microblogging can beintegrate in the lifelong learning / teaching / collaboration / business / blogging. The topics addressed were: microblogging platforms,Twitter facilities, Cirip facilities, uses in education, uses in business,uses in blogs promotion etc.We wanted to investigate:
if a microblogging platform, in particular cirip.ro, can be usedas a Learning Management System (LMS), and if it has theneeded facilities to run an online course;
how to integrate microblogging with other Web2.0technologies;
what are the differences between facilitating an online courseon such a platform and one in a classic LMS.
3. Platform facilities and group
The course was hosted and run in the private groupcursmb
of the microblogging platform cirip.ro.A group has a special section for announcements (
Group News
) -another original element of the platform, where the moderators can post notes and useful materials for the group activities (figure 1).The authors have published in the announcements both notes onthe proposed activities and course resources (mainly tutorials oncourse topics, with a variety of multimedia elements).The discussions on the proposed themes were realized throughmessages sent by the participants in the group space. Messages can besent / monitored online (web site or CiripFox – a Firefox extension) or as: SMS ( it’s simply to track the group messages via mobile phone);instant messages; e-mail (daily notices with followed messages,answers, new followers or news are received by those who activatethis option); it is also possible to send e-mail messages on cirip.ro,including in groups.
1
Knowledge Based Organization 2008 International Conference
Other valuable options are the facilities to send live video / audiomessages and to integrate multimedia objects in the notes, these becoming part of the information / communication flow (eg. audioclips saved on a server or vocaroo, audio clips from e-ok.ro, triluliluor deezer; flickr or tinypic images, youTube, seesmic or dotsubvideos; slideshare, voicethread or flowgram presentations; pdf, docsor spreadsheet files etc. [1]).Besides discussions and debates conducted by the wide range of messages we carried out a series of collaborative exercises, which will be presented in the next section.
4. Participation in discussions
Although initially 50 people have registered, 40 of them haveactively participated. The participants were mainly educational actors(students, teachers, developers, librarians etc.). They appear in themembers section of the group. For each member, the total number of
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