Google Buzz for Elearning

Google recently announced some changes on Buzz, and it received a lot of mixed reactions. However, one of the biggest issues that stood out was the idea that the said application can be used for the increasingly popular learning solution everyone knows as elearning. Derived from ‘electronic learning’, elearning is the innovation developed to combine technology and traditional learning in order to come up with an educative solution that boasts of efficiency, efficacy and convenience. It has evolved throughout the years, and in recent times, social media applications are being utilized in conjunction with the older, more recognized strategies. Buzz is a tool for social networking and messaging that was specifically designed to integrate Google’s program Gmail. Through it, users can share links, photos, status messages and comments, all of which can be organized into “conversations”. It currently integrates Picasa, Flickr, Google Reader, YouTube, Blogger and even  . Admittedly, it was created in an attempt to compete with top social networking and micro-blogging websites like Facebook and Twitter. Here are some of the identified ways Google Buzz can be used for effective technologically enhanced learning: Twitter and Facebook-like Conversations Since the conversations are asynchronous, it will be easier for students to follow. Unlike the tweets, messages are not limited to 140 characters.  Some educators believe that this type of online conversation can work well for web-based courses because users are capable of choosing who can see the conversation. This kind of control is ideal for an effective learning setup. Privacy for Conversations This is the feature that got the attention of educators. Setting conversations to private is made easy with Buzz. Users can simply click ‘private’ on the drop-down menu during the post’s setup. Groups Groups can be created, and this is a big benefit for teachers. Groups can be thought of as classrooms with specific students. The teacher can simply add anyone he or she wants to join a ‘class’. Media Sharing One of the important attributes that make elearning popular is the fact that it makes learning engaging through the use of various digital media such as pictures, audio, video and so on. With this application, users can insert text, links, photos and other media when they post content. Course Marketing According to the creator, public posts have the benefit of being indexed immediately and will show up in Google’s real-time search results. It is an ideal way to market new courses, information and news. It is necessary to consider great keywords and point out the URLs to the created courses. Social Feeds Feeds from Picasa, Flicker, Google Reader, YouTube, Blogger and Twitter can be added to the application. To use this application from, users are required to have Gmail accounts. When it is accessed via mobile devices and the user chose “permission to access locations”, it shows all contacts where the user is at that moment. In fact, it gives users the full address of the people near them. These are some of the drawbacks to this new technology. Safety concerns have become the major disadvantage in using Buzz for electronic learning. For more information about elearning , you can visit Intelladon.com website.

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