The Design of Cloudworks

The Design of Cloudworks



Abstract

This paper describes the new social networking site, Cloudworks, which aims to provide the dynamic environment for finding, sharing and discussing learning and teaching ideas and designs. The paper begins by discussing mismatch between potential application of technologies in education and their actual use in practice. It considers some of reasons for this and suggests ways in which this gap might be addressed. It goes on to outline vision behind development of Cloudworks, phases of development and findings to date. It then contextualises this work theoretically drawing in particular on notion of 'social objects' and the framework for sociality. The paper concludes with the discussion of implications of this work and future research plans.

Table of Content

INTRODUCTION4

NEW PATTERNS OF USER BEHAVIOUR - WEB 2.0 PHENOMENON7

UNIVERSITY LEARNING DESIGN INITIATIVE9

METHODOLOGY11

CLOUDWORKS PHASE ONE: DESIGN12

Design decision 1.1 cloud metaphor14

Design decision 1.2 initial content population of site15

Design decision 1.3 include social features16

Design decision 1.4 tagging within categories17

Design decision 1.5 low barriers to entry18

Design decision 1.6 no private content18

Design decision 1.7 user Profiles19

Design decision 1.8 Cloud types19

CLOUDWORKS PHASE TWO: DESIGN23

Design decision 2.1 amalgamate cloud types24

Design decision 2.2. increase social features25

Design decision 2.3 cloudscapes25

Design decision 2.4 following functionality27

Design decision 2.5 my Cloudstream29

CLOUDWORKS PHASE THREE: DESIGN29

Design decision 3.1 add RSS feeds29

Design decision 3.2 integrate streams from Web 2.0 sites30

Design decision 3.3 merges tag categories30

Design decision 3.4 make home page more visual31

CLOUDWORKS FUTURE DEVELOPMENT32

THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES33

CONCLUSIONS35

REFERENCES37

The Design of Cloudworks

Introduction

New technologies offer the multitude of opportunities for creation of innovative, engaging and pedagogically effective learning opportunities, however use of technologies within education to date has been limited and has to the large extent replicated face-to-face practice in an online context (see Andrews, 2007 R. Andrews and Haythornthwaite, The Sage handbook of e-learning research. E-learning research handbook, Sage, London (2007).Andrews and Haythornthwaite (2007) and Conole and Oliver (2007) for recent edited collections on e-learning research, also Friesen (2009) and Swan (2003) on 'no significant difference' debate). There is little evidence of truly innovative approaches, which utilise unique affordances these technologies offer.

The problem is twofold. Firstly, majority of teachers are unaware of what these new technologies can do and lack skills needed to design learning activities that use these technologies effectively. They want illustrative examples of what technologies can do in different educational contexts, but do not know how to find these examples or even when they do find them they are unable to deconstruct examples and apply to their own context. Secondly, effective use of new technologies requires the radical rethink of core learning and teaching design process; the shift from design as an internalised, implicit and individually crafted process to one that is externalised, explicit and shareable with others. This requires the clearer articulation of design process, better representations to communicate it and the more critically reflective approach as to how effective resultant design is.

This mismatch (Conole, 2008) between potential application of technologies in an educational context and actual use in practice has the long history and is well documented in literature (see for ...