Academic Networking
Social Networking in Schools September 21st, 2007Watch out Facebook and Myspace, there is a new network in town, www.linkgrade.com , and this time, academics is the focus. BORING, I thought. How is a site focused on school going to become popular, I mean most of the kids “addicted” to Facebook are on because they are doing everything they can to avoid any school-related activity. But I kept reading because this did sound like a pretty interesting site, and sure enough by the end I now think the ideas here are pretty innovative.
Students can go on linkgrade.com and “publish or receive notes from class, get to know others in their specific classes, or even rate their professors.” There is an application called whiteboard which is “an interactive chat room that allows students to talk with each other and draw diagrams if needed.” This is a whole new type of networking available to students, it is going to allow for new viewpoints to be opened up to each other when in the past some might have been too shy to give their, or too shy to ask. It will prove to be an entirely new form of a study guide, and the best part about it is it can be done while students are networking and getting to know one another like they do on Facebook and Myspace.
So what issues does this new site bring to education? Well, how much help is too much help? Right now the site is only available to college kids as Facebook was in its early stages, (likgrade.com was first launched on September 10, 2007. ) but as we have learned from the past, it is only a matter of time until high schools will have access as well. As for college kids, it might make it too easy to sleep through the 8:00 a.m. class if there are ten different sets of notes that they can get off the web. But what kind of problems would it pose to high schools if/when it is available to these students? Right away the teacher rating application stands out to me. How many problems haven’t there been where a student rants on about a teacher on their blog, calls him or her a name, and the student gets suspended or in some other kind of trouble. Sure rating teachers is fine in college, but if a student were to talk bad about a teacher in high school there might be some consequences, or at least some bitterness between the teacher and student. Also the sites layout almost seems to make it easy for a student to do minimal work, and come test time, could go to the notes posted online, and study. This is taking away from the classroom work, and would change the entire idea of notes and teacher-student relationship because instead of going to a teacher for help, the student will just jump online to linkgrade.com and go to the notes or talk with another student. Another problem I see with the note sharing and whiteboard is the fact of the possibility of a student being wrong. What happens when a student posts incorrect notes, another student copies then, studies for the test, and does poorly on the test. Whose fault is it; will there be issues between the two students?
Source: Brock Press (blog)
Author: Katie Siklosi
Title: Home-grown Internet network a powerful new tool for school
September 24th, 2007 at 12:41 pm
I have never heard of this linkgrade.com till I read this and I have a mixed pool of feelings about it too. On the pro-side, I agree that the note taking would be put to an online source where any student in that class/grade can access it. That is pretty nice for the people who did miss class and want some notes. But then how many good people out there that type up their notes everyday and make the readily available to others? Also I like the social network aspect of it. I don’t devote my life to facebook but it is nice to check in and see how my idiot friends are doing through their updates. BUT now the con-side. I agree that there would definately be a loss of teacher/student interaction. Why should I deal with the teacher when someone has posted all the notes for me? Why should I even take notes then? THAT defeats the entire point of school; take notes and learn. Also like you had mentioned what if some wisenhiemer posts wrong notes to mess with people. Then there is an overall credibility crisis of what is good and bad.
As kind of a final note, it would be a great way for two or more people to exchange notes provided they were crediable. I think it would be a good idea if used to what its potential is susposed to be.
September 26th, 2007 at 8:02 pm
Hey, my name is Adam Stirtan, and I’m actually the creator of linkGRADE. Glad to see some interest going around lately as we roll out the red carpet for this site.
I read your post and I wanted to address our focus. We are exclusively for the modern student of post secondary education. We have no plans of opening the doors to high school students. This was one of the thing we discussed early on, and actually re-iterated over very recently. We all don’t want that to happen, as we feel it would degrade form the overall professionalism of its users and content.
Also to address the fact that wrongful information can be posted. Well this is true, but we’re designing the “Virtual Classroom” as its being called internally as a hybrid of features. Of those included is our whiteboard, which we feel is truly innovative. It enables students inside a class to participate in new ways, for instance if clarification is needed if you’re sitting at the back of a 600 student lecture hall. No need to raise your hand over and over, simply ask the class as a whole and receive instant clarification. Inside the classroom we’re also developing a topic discussion board. The thing that sets it apart is the part that a student who starts a topic can flag it at any time to involve the professor of the class. From there they are notified they have been requested, and is able to quickly respond directly back to that topic of discussion, whether it be mobile through email or even by interacting directly on the site. Very shortly all these features will be online as we refine and perfect them.
We have already had professors contact us and volunteer some time to participating in the discussions and generally allocating time for it. Most professors believe it to be a great way to talk to the entire class as a whole, for example close to an assignment due date, where many students could be asking the same questions and having the same issues. It even works on very specific things abroad.
I hope this answers some questions. You can always email me if you have any more.
-Adam
September 26th, 2007 at 10:15 pm
Thank you both for taking the time to write your comments about our website, Linkgrade.com.
I wish to answer some of the questions you both have raised.
We are developing a ‘Classroom’ feature of the site. This is where professors come in through our educational community. Professors can post class material and interactively answer students questions for clarification on lectures. It allows students to communicate with teachers outside of class time so students and teachers alike are not affected by time constraints.
We have already received interest from a handful of professors who love the Classroom idea, and have volunteered to use the site with their students.
As far as the validity of posted notes goes, the whole ‘LinkGrade’ concept answers these questions. When a student receives notes, they are required to ‘Grade’ them. Over time, students who publicly post notes will earn a ‘linkgrade’, and users with low grades post low-quality notes, as voted by their peers. On the flip side, users with high linkgrades are known for high-quality notes. Users will also have the ability to search for people who have the notes, but have not posted them publicly, and then request them. So classmates who legitimately missed class can find students with the notes, and catch up.
I also want to respond directly to the following line, “it is only a matter of time until high schools will have access as well.” While this is a valid point when looking at the history of some well-known social networking sites, the entire paragraph following this line talks about the problems associated with high school students. I think this is a little unfair, as we do not think that LinkGrade currently works for high school education. We have developed for colleges and universities only, and plan to continue to develop for this educational level.
That being said, students of all ages can benefit from an educational community of peers and teachers.