Springer Social Media Tools and Platforms in Learning Environments

This volume covers original research work on the use of social computing and related technologies in education, including the emerging applications of Web 2.0 as an educational platform, and examines the associated privacy, risk, security, and policy issues. From the Back Cover Online social media have transformed the face of human interaction in the 21st century. Wikis, blogs, online groups and forums, podcasts, virtual worlds, and social tagging are but a few of the applications enabling innovative behaviors that support acquisition, access, manipulation, retrieval, and visualization of information. It is, therefore, no surprise that educational practitioners and theorists have begun to explore how social media can be harnessed to describe and implement new paradigms for communication, learning, and education. The editors’ goal in publishing this book was to identify original research on the application of online social media and related technologies in education as well as emerging applications in Web technologies that could provide and shape future educational platforms. The selected contributions deal with questions such as how social media can truly enrich and enhance learning and teaching experiences in ways not otherwise possible; how learning can be integrated in a distributed and ubiquitous social computing environment; or what theories, paradigms, and models are applicable for the support of social computing in education. Researchers in education or educational software will find interesting and sometimes provocative chapters on paradigms and methodologies, virtual and mobile learning spaces, and assessment and social factors. Practitioners in these fields will benefit from an additional section devoted to case studies and first experience reports. About the Author Bebo White Bebo White is a Departmental Associate (Emeritus) at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, the U.S. national laboratory for high-energy physics and basic energy science at Stanford University. Working as a computational physicist, he first became involved with the emerging Web technology while on sabbatical at CERN in 1989. Upon his return he was part of the team that established the first American Web site at SLAC (the fifth site in the world). Ever since, his academic research interests have evolved in parallel with Web technology.He is often considered to be the "first American Webmaster" and one of the founders of the discipline of Web Engineering. In addition to his work at SLAC, he also holds faculty appointments at several other institutions, is involved with a number of major conferences series, and is a frequent conference speaker. He is the author (or co-author) of nine books, and over 100 papers and journal articles. His current research interests are Web Science, Social Media in Education, and Cloud Computing. However, given the opportunity, he will talk mercilessly about high-energy physics, jug band music and wine. Irwin King Irwin King is Professor at the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, The Chinese University of Hong Kong.  Currently, he is on leave to work with AT&T Labs Research in San Francisco.  He is also a Visiting Professor at the School of Information, University of California at Berkeley. As one of the leading experts in Social Computing, Irwin's research interests include machine learning, social computing, web intelligence, data mining, and multimedia information processing.  In these research areas, he has over 220 technical publications in top international journals and conferences. In addition, he has contributed over 20 book chapters and edited volumes.  He also has over 30 research and applied grants. One notable patented system he has developed is the VeriGuide System, which detects similar sentences to promote academic integrity, honesty, and quality. Irwin the Book Series Editor for “Social Media and Social Computing” with Taylor and Francis