Facebook is the Fastest-Growing Social Network

Very interesting post on TechCrunch based on Comscore data that show the growth rate of Facebook and other social networks. Facebook being the winner in this race.

What about Learning? If we want to reach learners where they are we need to, of course, know where they are and also start developing to these platforms.  Real learning in social media goes beyond delivering learning content on Facebook, it is about promoting user-generated content and sharing. Interaction amongst learners is a key factor in how learning takes place and these social networks offer great tools to mediate this interaction and make it easy. Netgeners or “Millenials” grow used to this type of technology (although I think the research on Millenials is debatable because I think the characteristics attributed have to do more with attitude and opportunity of exposure to technology than a matter of age and the year an individual is born) I do think we need to consider a shift in eLearning based on the new expectations people have regarding receiving, processing, creating and sharing content. Social networks offer a great insight into how people expect to interact with one another, providing a great approach to Constructivist learning…

 

Sell Your Old iPhone and Get Paid Enough to Buy the iPhone 2.0

As highlighted on TechCrunch and other technology blogs, some companies are buying or helping you sell your old iPhone. Not so surprisingly, you can almost make as much money as necessary to buy the new iPhone model coming out July 11. Why? Well, as TechCrunch explains in this post, the market for the old version of iPhone that is more compatible with service providers other than At&T will still crave for the old version of the iPhone which doesn’t offer the 3G connection (which is, by the way more expensive than Edge, the one you have right now).

So, get ready to sell the old one and upgrade to the new iPhone 3G without losing much money. An let’s explore this upgraded platform to create learning applications!

Flipswap

Venjuvo

Matt – Building a Web Application in 32 Hours

I have to admit that,typos aside, TechCrunch remains one of my favorite sources of information on technology, especially Web technologies. I suppose that unmerciful deadlines and the increasing speed of publication everyone ends up committing some spelling mistakes (I have noticed this especially in academic press). Well, let’s not get into that. TechCrunch and other tech blogs are still a good source of information if you want to stay informed on the latest technologies that can impact you somehow.

All of us that are involved with Instructional Design somehow (instructional designers, teachers, programmer, learners) can benefit from adopting or developing emerging technologies. At least playing with it…

Personal conversations with Thiagi, an expert in training and instructional design, reinforced even more my belief in quick but “quality” development.

Here is the most recent post from Ryan Carson, when invited to post on TechCrunch.com. In this post he discusses the process he and his colleagues from Carsonified Design underwent to design, develop and implement a simple Web application called Matt (a multi-account Twitter Tweeter) in 32 hours. The original post has valuable tips for quick application development such as:

1. The best boost you can give you or your team is to provide the time to be creative. Turning off your phones and email and just focusing on something new and exciting will do wonders for your energy level.
2. It could generate some amazing buzz around you and your company or products.
3. You’ll come back to your current projects with a new perspective and renewed energy.
4. It will push your team to learn new skills. For example, Will, our head of sponsor relationships, spent the whole week doing PR – something new for him.

Can we apply these principles (and others which Ryan’s team experimented with) when developing learning technologies and applications? Have you had a similar experience Let’s share it here.

PS.: you can find a video tour of “Matt” on their main page. If you look for “Matt Carsonified” on Youtube, you will find some videos they created throughout their “Matt 1 week”.

Social Games Even on Consoles – Learning Opportunities?

I’ve realized that I add questions as titles to my posts very often. Maybe because I am not sure exactly what I am saying is like what everyone else is saying, perhaps because I want this blog to be more of a dialog. A social interaction…

This is what has occurred to me lately: game developers want their gaming experiences to be social ones. More and more you see game website like MiniClip, one of my favorites, creating social networks around their already fun products. 

What does adding social networking features around games offer? Well, first of all, it is my belief and some of my findings that the Net Generation (yes I have been reading a lot about this subject lately) … well, the Net Generation is a generation that enjoys social interaction, doing things in groups. So, adding features that let them network with friends and play with people they know allows them to “share the joy” of playing the game, challenging their friends. Yahoo, for instance, has been offering online multiplayer games for a long time on their games pages (I love the pool game, by the way). The difference here is that many developers are improving the networking capabilities, allowing the players to, for example, have customized avatars, email friends, challenge friends to certain games, share those games on Facebook, embed them on blogs, etc., all from the main website once they log in.

Something intriguing is that  having “amazing” graphics doesn’t really matter that much because players enjoy the games and the social interaction. It is an era in which people value more the social the the actual “lone wolf” immersion of the first generations Playstation games.

The interesting thing is that this idea of social gaming is spreading to game consoles too. The Nintendo Wii is a great example of that. Players can add their friends’ Wiis to their and actual email addresses to their address books and message them from the Wii console itself (no need for a CD or anything, this is built into the Console itself). Users can share their Wii numbers and Miis (Wii avatars) with people they know and play games together. They can also share their Wii information with people they don’t know through an unnofficial website called ShareMiis (this exemplifies how much people want to connect with one another). Players can also play “guessing” the most popular answers to polls on the “Everyone Votes” channel (players can also submit their own ideas for questions to be asked on a regional or world level).

Why am I going on and on about social games? Because this trend has to tell us something about learning also. Knowing how people want to interact should also tell us a lot about how people want to learn. In the end, learning is a game (with scores, motivation, outcomes, rules, and all those items Marc Prensky always mentions as defining a game), the difference is how fun and motivating we want to make that game. 

People want to socialize, they want to interact. That is how learning should be. We (educators, instructional designers) have a lot to learn from the gaming industry… a lot to learn.

UPDATE>>

from TechCrunch:

“Social games are not just multiplayer games. In social games, existing social relationships add context and motivation to the gameplay. Social games are more fun to play with people you know than with anonymous strangers. Examples of social games include Friends for Sale*, where you had better buy your girlfriend back from that guy who has been hitting on her at the gym,(fluff) Friends, where if your BFF feeds your pet, you are compelled to reciprocate, and Power Challenge, where you can’t let your team’s loss to your fraternity brother’s team go unavenged.

Even single player games can become social when the right infrastructure for community and social interaction are built around them, including high score leaderboards, achievement badges, challenges and simple message boards, as Kongregate, Addicting Games, MiniClip andMindJolt are demonstrating.”

Update: Come2Play released for white label casual gaming networks.