Current State of The Art
Social software is evident in commercial and open source services, software and packages. Examples include:
1. reviewing and recommender functions, such as in the e-commerce site, Amazon
2. 'free' but commercial social network services, such as Facebook and Bebo through their basic functionality and add-on applications
3. commercially licensed software, such as commercial virtual learning environments, that contain elements of support for social interaction e.g. Blackboard, and specific packages such as First Class for communication and collaboration, and Elluminate for online 'live' classrooms
4. open source software packages that may be free-standing tools, such as forums, or virtual learning environments (also called learning management systems), the most notable of which is Moodle . Open Source Development projects may have educational support communities or networks associated with them, for example Moodle and Eduspaces (that sprang from the elgg OSS community).
Educators will be looking for appropriate software that can support the three key activities from our definition of social software: conversational interaction between individuals and groups; social feedback where groups rate the contributions of members; and social networks where the links between individuals and groups are made visible.
Read more about this topic: Social Software In Education
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