An introduction to the potential of social networking sites in education
This paper reviews Social Networking Sites (SNS) that have become available via the Internet in the light of usability for teaching and learning. Membership rules relating to entries for some popular sites, such as “Facebook” and “MySpace” are reviewed. Characteristics of these sites are reviewed and then compared to evaluate the trust and privacy issues of shared information available to any given social group. Trust and privacy plays a critical role when SNS are used for the purpose of teaching and learning. Thus, the negative and positive aspects of SNS are reviewed in detail. This knowledge will form the basis to assist with regulating SNS for teaching and learning. Publication Details This conference paper was originally published as Griffith, S and Liyanage, L, An introduction to the potential of social networking sites in education, Proceedings of the Emerging Technologies Conference, University of Wollongong, 18-21 June 2008. This conference paper is available at Research Online: http://ro.uow.edu.au/etc08/9
Appropriating Online Social Networking (OSN) Activities for Higher Education: Two Malaysian Cases
Online social networking (OSN) activities are becoming more prevalent in higher education. The phenomenon can be observed in many higher learning institutions around the world. There are many ways of appropriating OSN for teaching and learning. OSN enables lecturers and students to publish and share knowledge quickly and easily. However there are also several challenges which include the limited skills in using social technologies among lecturers and students. This paper discusses the findings from two case studies conducted using an exploratory approach employing semi-structured interviews to gather lecturers’ perspectives on their appropriation and use of OSN. The findings demonstrate a range of approaches used as well as the benefits and challenges faced by the lecturers in appropriating social technologies for teaching and learning. The finding can be used as a guide for other lecturers and educational designers to improve the use of OSN activities in higher education.
Ancient Origin of the Modern Deep-Sea Fauna
The origin and possible antiquity of the spectacularly diverse modern deep-sea fauna has been debated since the beginning of deep-sea research in the mid-nineteenth century. Recent hypotheses, based on biogeographic patterns and molecular clock estimates, support a latest Mesozoic or early Cenozoic date for the origin of key groups of the present deep-sea fauna (echinoids, octopods). This relatively young age is consistent with hypotheses that argue for extensive extinction during Jurassic and Cretaceous Oceanic Anoxic Events (OAEs) and the mid-Cenozoic cooling of deep-water masses, implying repeated re-colonization by immigration of taxa from shallow-water habitats. Here we report on a well-preserved echinoderm assemblage from deep-sea (1000–1500 m paleodepth) sediments of the NE-Atlantic of Early Cretaceous age (114 Ma). The assemblage is strikingly similar to that of extant bathyal echinoderm communities in composition, including families and genera found exclusively in modern deep-sea habitats. A number of taxa found in the assemblage have no fossil record at shelf depths postdating the assemblage, which precludes the possibility of deep-sea recolonization from shallow habitats following episodic extinction at least for those groups. Our discovery provides the first key fossil evidence that a significant part of the modern deep-sea fauna is considerably older than previously assumed. As a consequence, most major paleoceanographic events had far less impact on the diversity of deep-sea faunas than has been implied. It also suggests that deep-sea biota are more resilient to extinction events than shallow-water forms, and that the unusual deep-sea environment, indeed, provides evolutionary stability which is very rarely punctuated on macroevolutionary time scales.