robert fitzgerald, phd

Our chapter "Using social software to support digital learning communities in higher education" will be published in February 2009 in The Handbook of Research on Social Software and Developing Community Ontologies. This book examines the impact of new technologies and explores how social software and developing community ontologies are challenging the way we operate in a connected, distributed, and increasingly performative space.

From the Canberra Times (16 March 2008), an interview I did talking about social software in education with specific reference to students as co-designers and the importance of network literacy.

The March 2008 edition the Carrick Institute's, Carrick Communique, carries an article on our Digital Learning Communities project. The article covers some of the key findings that are emerging from our project. You can download the PDF document (4MB) here.

Stephen Barrass and I have just had our paper, Social Software: Piloting MyToons As A Digital Learning Community For Teaching New Media, accepted for Edmedia 2008 to be held in Vienna, Austria later this year. The abstract follows:

This paper describes a pilot project using the MyToons.com animation social networking site to teach a New Media unit at the University of Canberra in 2007. MyToons, modeled on MySpace and other popular social software sites, has additional characteristics that focus on the construction of social identity and peer networking. The location of MyToons in the public space beyond the classroom embeds the students in an authentic community of practice, with exemplars, technical support, and opportunities to network and showcase their creativity and productions. In this study we reflect on the process of integrating MyToons into the unit syllabus, and the results from an evaluation survey of the students. This analysis confirms the importance of usability and sociability for the creation of an online community of practice for peer learning.