The Hive – http://education.ex.ac.uk/thehive The Hive – is an online social and educational networking site hosted by the School of Education. If you are familiar with social networking sites like Face Book or MySpace then this concept will already be familiar. The Hive supports collaborative learning and networking as well as providing opportunities for reflection on your own learning. Collaboration with others is commonplace in our working lives or research projects most of the time and by learning collaboratively we can broaden our learning base, share resources, test assumptions and get feedback and support from others. When you first log on to the site using your University username and password – the site should recognise you and bring you in at what will become the homepage for your profile. The Hive will put you at the centre of your learning and the learning communities in which you participate and your profile is where you can create your own identity.

Your Profile You can describe your interests, background, experience and so forth. You can include a picture for your profile. There are options for how you configure access to your profile. The Hive isn’t searchable by the Internet – but the site is viewable by anyone who has been given the web address – so you can choose to limit your profile to those who are logged if you prefer – in which case it will only be those with university credentials and invited guests. You can also add a smaller image (or an icon if you prefer) for your site presence – this will provide others with a visual link to your identity in the Hive whenever you post a comment or message, and this is very helpful. From the ‘breadcrumb menu’ in your profile choose the link to ‘Change Site Picture’ There is a range of ‘tools’ that you can include, called Widgets, which will display recent activities of your choice on your entry page when ever you log in.

With your profile you have the following features – Comment Wall – where others in the Hive can post questions and short comments for you. Blog – where you can keep a running commentary or reflection on your learning, experiences and activities. You can add audio or video files to your blog as well as documents (use the Add File button in the compose screen). You can choose to make postings public or private and if public receive comments from other users. You will also be able to read other students blogs and contribute comments to them. (These can be viewed in either the layout of a forum or a blog). Note the option buttons and links along the top of the screen shot below – these and other options appear for each screen.

Files – you can add files – which can be shared/ made available to others if desired. Calendar options – you can keep a calendar of dates and activities of your own – and view calendar dates for any communities that you are a member of. Resources (RSS Feeds) – feeds from sites that you keep an eye on Messaging – you can message others (it sends an email to their University account (or email entered in their profile alerting them to a message in the Hive).

Join Communities – this option is available in the right hand column of most communities see tools below. These communities will be linked in the right hand column of your profile Create Communities – if there isn’t a community formed that meets your needs, you can create one and invite others to join (click ‘Your Network’ button and then on the ‘Owned communities’ link – and at the bottom of the page is an option to create your own.) Network/Add friends – you can invite other users ‘as friends’ so that you have quick links to their profiles Tools – top right corner Search To find a community or person in the Hive – the fastest route is to use the Search box. Typing in a likely key word should bring up all relevant links. Clicking on the link to a Community should bring you to the community profile page – where you can decide if it is a community you are interested in joining. If it is, clicking on the link in the right hand column ‘Join this community’ will make you a member. In your own profile you will see a list of communities that you have joined – and these act as links to them. Browse Will list all identities in the Hive and it is possible to quickly filter these by individuals or by communities. Tag Cloud Shows a page of all the key words used throughout the Hive and they are proportional in size in relation to their occurrence. Mark as interesting – a bit like bookmarking, if there is a discussion or blog that you want to follow there is a button at the bottom of the page that will flag in your ‘View your activity’ if any additions are made. Communities Communities are where individuals can join a common theme or interest. Each community has a similar set of features to those of an individual profile. These can be small working groups or larger cohorts. They can be closed and private or public and open for anyone to join. Community profile – describes the nature and focus of the community – this is created by the community ‘owner’ though other community members can update and edit it Resources – links to RSS feeds that may be appropriate Comment Wall – ideal for short postings Messaging – You can message all the members of a community Blog/Discussion – as with individual blogs – this space is where collective discussion and debate can take place. All postings can have comments added and can be viewed as a blog or as a forum. Audio and video clips can be included and files attached. Files – relevant files can be uploaded and shared with others in the community. Calendar – of community dates Links to other tools Wiki – a collaborative space for developing content Connect – synchronous web conferencing tool Course Materials – Virtual learning environment