From the Editors …
Welcome to the April 2012 issue of the Learning Technology newsletter on Social Networks
and Social Computing in Technology-Enhanced Learning.
Since the birth of social networks and social computing many investigations have been
conducted on how to utilize and use social networks and social computing efficiently for
different purposes. One of such purposes is education and many studies have been done on
using social networking/computing in the classroom and, in general, for enhancing education.
This includes the development of concepts, educational strategies, and applications of social
networks/computing in formal, informal and non-formal educational settings as well as their
evaluations, and case studies and exploratory studies on how learning can take place and be
facilitated in social networks and through social computing.
In this issue, we look into current research on social networks and social computing in
technology-enhanced learning and introduce research works on using new concepts, teaching
strategies and tools/technologies that support the use of social networks/computing to
enhance learning.
Hernández-Leo et al. present two social tools for educators which have been developed
through Spanish- and NSF-funded projects. Terantino discusses the potential benefits and
deterrents to using social media for education. Santana-Mancilla & García-Ruiz discuss
creation of a social TEL platform that supports the teaching process of a competence-based
learning approach using cloud computing for the School of Telematics of the University of
Colima. Hines & Jensen discuss the use of Pinterest as an online discussion forum in an
attempt to inspire discussion. Silva et al. propose an ontology-oriented architecture for
platform-independent multi-user choreographies. Choudhury et al. describe a novel
application that will use the audio, image and GPS information from our smart phone and
with the help of our clever input, turns it into more useful representation, either to be used as
a fun for our family or being a meaningful representation of our business activities. Finally,
Mavrommati & Fotaris describe a virtual design studio case study through deviantArt, an
online social platform for artists and designers, used as a learning environment in a Graphic
Design Course.
The issue also includes a section with regular articles (i.e. articles that are not related to the
special theme). Casany, Alier & Mayolpresent the Moodbile project which aims to enable
mobile learning applications to work together with the Moodle Learning Management
System. Moutushy, Rifat & Ferdous describe a location-based game ‘Guess or Locate’
especially for children as an effective, attractive, and real life learning solution for them.
Soualah-Alila, Nicolle & Gebers describe work under progress in combining semantic and
recommendation technologies for supporting mobile learning applications. Finally,
Dominguez & Peña propose a holistic model of the metacognitive activity through a systemic
approach.