[LINK] Visualization tool for student social networks

[Tom Worthington]

The Social Networks Adapting Pedagogical Practice (SNAPP) is a software 
tool from University of Wollongong which shows who talks to who in a 
student discussion forum. I tried it with the Moodle forums in my Green 
ICT course and, not surprisingly, it showed myself at the center of the 
network. The tool also works with BlackBoard /WebCT and operates via a 
Firefox, Safari or Internet Explorer web browser: 
<http://research.uow.edu.au/learningnetworks/seeing/snapp/>.

As it is the tool is interesting, but perhaps a little too sophisticated 
for the average teacher. I would prefer something which would give me a 
tabular summary, rather than an interactive 3D graphic. A simple table 
could tell you which are the students not engaging in discussion, the 
key information brokers, provide some learning community metrics, and 
some input for marking.

Also the security issues with the software are not clear. Is the data 
from the password protected course web site being transmitted to 
University of Wollongong, or is the processing being done locally on my 
computer?


-- 
Tom Worthington FACS CP HLM, TomW Communications Pty Ltd. t: 0419496150
PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia  http://www.tomw.net.au
Adjunct Senior Lecturer, School of Computer Science, The
Australian National University http://cs.anu.edu.au/courses/COMP7310/
Visiting Scientist, CSIRO ICT Centre: http://bit.ly/csiro_ict_canberra