Delphi Study on Social Media and E-Learning

Overview

Research in e-learning, as a variant of traditional instructional design research that has been conducted over the past decades, has a relatively well-established pool of extant studies and the resultant theory. Social network sites, and social media tools in general, while possessing many of the characteristics of the existing and well-researched field of computer-mediated communication, present a relatively new field of inquiry. The body of research that combines both e-learning and social media tools is even more limited than either of its constituent parts. As a result, a method that enables open and relatively unrestricted inquiry into a field of study that has an existing pool of experts but limited published research is beneficial to the body of work in the field.

Doctoral Consultancy Proposal 2008-2009

Author’s Note: This entry is written as part of a consultancy proposal for my doctoral program. I am in the habit of posting my schoolwork to the web whenever I can so that I can get input from others about my thoughts and ideas. I ended up writing the proposal in a more blog-like style than academic style. I think it works.

Introduction

Social media is a collective term used to describe the emergent web technologies that focus on massive user content creation and interaction. The term can span technologies from social networking sites such as Facebook and Myspace to microblogging sites like Twitter and Jaiku.  Social media is a new development that combines concepts from many disciplines, including marketing and public relations, writing and composition, computer science, and network analysis.

Some reflections on accessibility and social networking sites

So, I have looked at three social networking sites from the perspective of accessibility, and here are some thoughts:

First, I wish I were more familiar with the screenreading software so I could come to these sites from the perspective of a veteran user of screenreading programs; perhaps there is some trick I could have picked up on that would have prevented some of the problems I encountered.

My primary recommendation–and this goes for almost all websites–is that they not use iframes. Iframes never seem to render properly. When you use iframes, you are basically jamming two pages of content into one window, then hoping that the software picks the right one to read.