I was lucky enough to be a team member in two education research projects proposed to the Carrick Institute in the last application round. One, with my friend and colleague Donna Lee Brien and a host of other colleagues, will work on developing a network of creative writing postgraduates, and I'll post more about it here soon as the project develops. The other, led by Robert Fitzgerald from the University of Canberra, has now been officially announced - here is our press release:

Social Software in Higher Education

Canberra - 24 August 2006

In the complexity of competing study, work and social demands university students face many challenges to their effective participation in, and engagement with, the university environment. The fragmentation of their time is often associated with a decreased on-campus presence. As a result, students have fewer opportunities to engage with their peers in the discourse that explores, interrogates and provides a social ground for their in-class learning.

Academics from the University of Canberra will work with their colleagues at Queensland University of Technology and Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology on a new project designed to investigate the application of social software to support peer learning in higher education.

The Project received $100 000 from the Carrick Institute for Learning and Teaching in Higher Education under their Competitive Grants Program. This program is designed to support research, development and innovation related to the enhancement of learning and teaching in higher education, particularly in relation to the role of new technologies.

Social software refers to emerging set of internet-based technologies that allow users to form interest-based communities for the purposes of communication and collaboration. Also referred to as Web2.0 technologies, these systems allow users to actively share, categorise, annotate, and collaborate, drawing on local and global networks and communities.

In broad terms the Project is designed to promote and advance student-centred approaches to learning and teaching in universities by using social software to foster the development of digital learning communities. These communities will help students exchange ideas and resources while also providing a space in which they can create new ways of connecting with each other.

This Project is founded on the assumption that social interaction is fundamental to the pursuit of high quality thinking and learning outcomes. It addresses this problem by examining how simple and robust information and communications technologies (ICT) can afford new opportunities to promote social interaction, build social networks and enhance student's university "presence".

The Project team comprises from UC: Robert Fitzgerald (Education), John Campbell (Information Systems), Stephen Barass (Creative Communication), Mitchell Whitelaw (Creative Communication), Sam Hinton (Creative Communication), Yoni Ryan (CELTS) with collaborators Axel Bruns from QUT and Adrian Miles from RMIT.

Contact:

Dr Robert Fitzgerald
Research Fellow
Learning Communities Research Area
University of Canberra

+61 2 62012658 (w)
+61 418406531 (c)

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