Social Software: new chances for education

Interdisciplinary symposium on collaborative educational and supportive technologies for Semantic Web for pedagogues, e-didactics, e-trainers and researchers in Salzburg on 23-24 May 2006.

"Social skills" through "social software"
Teaching, learning and training of social competencies through innovative web technologies

Social competency refers to the ability of a person to communicate in a co-operative and creative way with others. Appropriate information and communication technologies, so-called "social software", can support school children, students and knowledge workers in strengthening their competencies in knowledge acquisition, reflecting on their social skills and developing sustained problem solving strategies.

Symposium organisation
The conference was organised by Salzburg Research Forschungsgesellschaft and St. Virgil, Salzburg. It was supported by the Austrian Federal Ministry for Education, Science and Culture (bm:bwk), Verein Neue Medien in der Lehre Austria and the Austrian Computer Society (OCG).

Focus of the symposium
Keynote speakers John Erpenbeck (an expert in competency accounting, GER), Helen Barrett (the founder of ePortfolios, USA), Lee Bryant (CEO of a leading social software company, UK) and other experts presented the state-of-the-art in research, discussed the relevance of social software technologies and presented their experiences in social software applications and projects. Practical workshops demonstrated various web tools and critically reflect on their potential usage and benefits.

Download the Tagungsband