Results of U. of Minnesota Study on Educational Benefits of Social Networking
Posted on June 25, 2008 by David Gray
I want you to meet Mr. Bora Zivkovic, but first, this news:
On June 21st, Science Daily published this item about the University of Minnesota’s study to determine if social networking technologies provided any educational benefits. In case you don’t have time to read the report, the researchers concluded social networking is making a positive difference: “What we found was that students using social networking sites are actually practicing the kinds of 21st century skills we want them to develop to be successful today,” said Christine Greenhow, a learning technologies researcher in the university’s College of Education and Human Development and principal investigator of the study.
I think we knew that, but it is always good to have it confirmed, right? Meanwhile, I have a secondary agenda in bringing this news to light. I found out about it from an individual named Bora Zivkovic. In another life, at a previous time in history, I would never have ‘met’ this person. His scientific specialty is chronobiology (circadian rhythms and photoperiodism), with additional interests in comparative physiology, animal behavior and evolution. Photoperiodism? Online he goes by the name ‘Coturnix.’ His blog is called, “A Blog Around The Clock.” By day he is the Online Community Manager at PLoS-ONE (Public Library of Science).
It was on his blog that I first saw this mention of the Minnesota study, about which he writes, “This should be interesting to all of us, be it people who study capabilities of online education or people who study teen online behavior.” He’s right about that. But equally interesting is how Mr. Zivkovic got from Belgrade in 1991 to America, got to North Carolina State University, got his MS degree, got his U.S. citizenship, got married, and has established a family. You can read about it on his blog.
For me, this is a more or less classic example of how online communications and communities and individuals have changed what we know, who we know, how we stay informed, and why the sources of information today include so many more voices, like that of Mr. Zivkovic, that we otherwise would never have had the pleasure of hearing.
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