Odysseus

What is Social Connectedness?

Connectedness has been described as the feeling of being “in touch” It describes a fundamental need of belonging and promotes social relationships. Connectedness is related to, but not identical with the concept of ‘social presence’—the awareness that others are present. Social presence conveys the impression of connectedness, but active contact with others is necessary for true connectedness.

What are technologies for social connectedness?

A lot of the so-called ‘web 2.0 tools’ support social connectedness, examples are twitter, skype, yackpack, parkbench, IM.

Social Connectedness in e-Learning

It has long been understood that social connectedness is vital to the learning process. Hence, study groups have long been an invaluable tool for the beleaguered student. These groups are often most successful if the participants have similar motivation and learning styles. Dropout rates in e-learning environments tend to be very high, most often due to diminishing motivation which is detected either or too late or not at all by tutors or facilitators. Recent research shows that appropriate communication options within an e-learning or blended learning scenario are crucial for successful learning experiences.

Enabling Social Connectedness in e-Learning

The project idea is based on current research on motivation in online learning, blended learning, and mappings between learning styles, multiple intelligences and social networking media. Depending on the motivational situation and the learner style the adaptable multimedia system recommends the use of suitable technology to connect the learner with colleagues or the tutor within an adaptive e-Learning environment.

Learners with a strength in the verbal-linguistic intelligence for example connect best using tools such as skype, yackpack or virtual learning environments, whereas learners with a strength in the logical-mathematical intelligence prefer asynchronous newsgroups or to structure information using social bookmarking sites such as del.icio.us and the auditory-musical type will prefer podcasting, audio-blogging and voice messaging to connect with their peers.

How it works

The project will roughly follow the Unified Process for software development.

1. System and software requirements can be elicited from an already existing literature review on the topics outlined above.
2. The elaboration phase describes in more detail the requirements and risks, and proposes a specific solution to the provision of social connectedness within an e-Learning system.
3. The iterative development of the module seeks to develop the solution and incorporate it into an existing adaptive e-Learning system. It allows for constant feedback and comparison with the requirements.
4. The work is documented in UML, applying the appropriate diagrams.

Requirements

Interest to work with learning technologies, to explore web 2.0 tools for AHA! or another adaptive hypermedia system, some programming experience and the interest to produce results that can be used within a bigger research project.

Expected Results

The expected result is a prototype or a scenario for the connectedness-module for an adaptive e-Learning system.