How to Build a Social Mesh in Education
May 3, 2008
Many people in the education world are fascinated with the idea of online virtual learning communities to share best practices and increase collaboration. This is the main focus of great thinkers such as Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach and Will Richardson.
Marc Canter (my new favorite blogger) takes the idea of social networks, and abstracts it to a significantly improved conceptual framework. In a nutshell, Canter believes that open networks, open IDs, open standards, structured content, and open APIs are the best way to tie all of the networks and data together in a meaningful way.
He recently posted 10 blog posts describing his entire philosophy. Canter’s writing style is concise, opinionated, and visionary. I believe that any designer of social networks - particularly in the field of education - should use Canter’s advice when creating their networks.
The 10 sections of Canter’s posts are:
[1] - ID, Personas, Social Graphs and Groups
[2] - Persistent Ubiquitous Content
[3] - Structured Content (and shared servers filled with that stuff)
Canter even specifically mentions educational content in a social mesh:
Educational objects are also a way for intelligent folks to make money. Imagine encapsulating some course, tutorial, advice, guidelines, how-to-guide in an object which can get you PAID for your work and intellectual property! Educational objects would fit seamlessly into the open mesh and be compatible with many DIFFERENT People’s Marketplaces.
This comes at a particularly relevant time for a company such as SchoolNet, which is in the preliminary stages of creating an education “niche social network.”
Our digital age is moving in the direction of better organized content, open standards, and social networks. It is of paramount important that 21st century businesses, media, government, and education become plugged into these trends to maximize their relevance in the future.