Curso sobre redes sociales

A través de Smart Mobs, he llegado a un genial planteamiento de curso sobre redes sociales en la Universidad de Berkeley con un tratamiento estelar de lo que ofrecen las nuevas tecnologías de comunicación, con diversas actividades y material de referencia en torno a:

• Social Networks, online and offline, as organizations
• Social Software: Culture and Genre

El curso persigue estos dos objetivos:

• Social scientists have begun to use the concept of social networks to analyze the way that computer networks are changing the basic structure and dynamics of organizations. Our objective is to understand social networks both as a theory and as a social science research methodology.
• As a method, the question is how to define and explore social networks operationally. Thus a second objective is to introduce two of the basic social science techniques for analyzing the social dimensions of computer networks: surveys and participant observation

Abordan una serie de temas a cual más interesante:

• Social capital & social networks
• The strength of weak ties
• Small worlds/six degrees
• Play and Games
• Presentation of Self: Online and Offline
• Presentation of Self: Part 2. Online Dating
• Blogs, Bloggers, Blogging
• Political and Social Action
• The Network Organization: A New Model of the Professions

Cuando explican el enfoque y responden a la pregunta de por qué de esta forma, dicen: Pedagogically, the opportunity to reflect, write, share and get feedback from your peers is one of the best ways to learn. Rather than simply writing formalized papers for the professor, we are going to encourage an environment where everyone comments on each other’s thoughts. We are very interested in thinking of this class as a social network that can make a contribution to the social network community.

Parece que todo el planteamiento del curso está soportado en una serie de blogs que deben mantener los alumnos. En este sentido, este enfoque de las redes sociales es genial.

Technorati tags | social network