Social networks and

networking to support

eTwinning teachers

Riina VuorikariEuropean Schoolnet

riina.vuorikari@eun.org

Topics

•Social networks

• Participation - digital traces

• What are social networks?

• How do social networks look in eTwinning?

• What do social networks tell us?

• Social networks and eTwinning Ambassadors

by Stiphy

“Social”

makes

trails

visible.

.

and

shows

where to

do go

Digital traces

• Making your profile available on

eTwinning

• Creating links to other people, projects,

tellinig that you like it, etc

• Creating also links to what happen outside of

eTwinning platform:

• your pictures on Flickr, your blog posts,

your website, etc

Participation inequality

• J.Nilsen (2006) Participation inequality: Encouraging More Users to contribute

•

Power law of participation in

digital communities

Power law of participation for

eTwinning?

signing up in the portal

project participation and sharing experiences

Social network

•..is a social structure made of nodesnodes and tiesties

• Nodes are actors in the network, e.g. teachers,

schools, countries

• Ties are relationships between actors, e.g.

friendship, professional tie, eTwinning projects

• Can be presented as a chart that shows the structure

of relations

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/

Social_network

Visualising social ties and networks

• makes the ties between eTwinning members, projects and

schools visible

• helps finding interesting groups of like-minded people

and

projects

• but, also helps making the social network better

connected!

nodes

ties, something I declare explicitly

Social networks - be aware!

• a digital representation of a social network

can hardly ever accurately show all the

connections of a rich real life situation,

like here today

• Yet, it can be useful!

eTwinning as a social network?

•What are the nodes and what are the

ties?

•For example:

• schools or teachers can be the nodes

• projects done together can be the ties

nodes

ties

eTwinning as a social network

•Visualisation includes data from Summer

2008

• Number of teachers: 45 212

• Number of projects: 8 035 o

• Number of countries: 30

What type of information do social

networks reveal?

tightly connected nodes in the central

isolated groups interacting mostly amongst themselves

“singletons” with no connection, least

central

What more?

closeness: the shortest distances between each individual and every other person in the network

Reach: the degree any member of a network can reach other members of the network

Betweenness: Degree an individual lies between other

individuals in the network: an intermediary; liaisons; bridges

eTwinning Ambassadors

•What can the eTwinning network do for you?

•What can you do for the eTwinning network?

•

eTwinning Ambassadors

• Your relationships and ties with other eTwinning

members are important!

• Your “power” within the network comes from the degree

to which your are at the center of many relationships

• The "the strength of weak ties” - open networks, with

many weak ties and social connections, are more likely

to introduce new ideas and opportunities to membersnew ideas and opportunities to members!

•Be aware of “cliques” where each member knows more or

less what the other members knew

“Power” places for Ambassadors

eTwinning Groups

• Groups are places for eTwinning teacher who share a

concern or a passion for something they do and learn

how to do it better as they interact (regularly).

• CALL FOR MEMBERS: Pilot period for 3 Groups in

October

• Group School leaders: http://www.etwinning.net/schoolleaders

• Group MST: http://www.etwinning.net/mstgroup

• Group Creativity: http://www.etwinning.net/creativity

More about how to social network using Web 2.0 in the workshop!

thanks! for your attentionsocial networks user communities

discover people and projectsquestions?

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