When transitioning a traditional face-to-face class into an online format there are several Web 2.0 tools that can be used to enhance the experience. These tools often have a social directive to help people come together in the often-isolating experience of using a personal computer. Tools such as Twitter, Facebook, Google Drive, Voicethread, and Pollshare are used in both physical and virtual classrooms to improve collaboration, participation, and critical reflection on the part of the students. In a virtual environment these tools can become even more essential as the distance between instructor and students can cause lags in communication that can make it difficult to fully engage in the course. This article explores in depth the use of the social network Yammer to foster student participation.

From posting polls and gaining instantaneous feedback on instruction, to updating the course content with current media, Yammer was used extensively in an undergraduate level course at Pennsylvania State University. The goal of the course—"World Technologies and Learning"—is to critically examine various case studies of eLearning environment from a systemic perspective and Yammer was also implemented to manage an important component of the course: An asynchronous debate on the neutrality of technology. The debate format did not translate well into the online environment; Yammer bridged that gap. Previously, the debate took place on the course management system, which features a relatively static web page making it impossible for a lot of user modifiability or instant communication.for more plz read at following links

Regards

http://elearnmag.acm.org/featured.cfm?aid=2517042

http://www.emergingedtech.com/2014/04/5-ways-yammer-is-improving-communication-connections-and-learning-in-our-schools/

When transitioning a traditional face-to-face class into an online format there are several Web 2.0 tools that can be used to enhance the experience. These tools often have a social directive to help people come together in the often-isolating experience of using a personal computer. Tools such as Twitter, Facebook, Google Drive, Voicethread, and Pollshare are used in both physical and virtual classrooms to improve collaboration, participation, and critical reflection on the part of the students. In a virtual environment these tools can become even more essential as the distance between instructor and students can cause lags in communication that can make it difficult to fully engage in the course. This article explores in depth the use of the social network Yammer to foster student participation.

From posting polls and gaining instantaneous feedback on instruction, to updating the course content with current media, Yammer was used extensively in an undergraduate level course at Pennsylvania State University. The goal of the course—"World Technologies and Learning"—is to critically examine various case studies of eLearning environment from a systemic perspective and Yammer was also implemented to manage an important component of the course: An asynchronous debate on the neutrality of technology. The debate format did not translate well into the online environment; Yammer bridged that gap. Previously, the debate took place on the course management system, which features a relatively static web page making it impossible for a lot of user modifiability or instant communication.for more plz read at following links

Regards

http://elearnmag.acm.org/featured.cfm?aid=2517042

http://www.emergingedtech.com/2014/04/5-ways-yammer-is-improving-communication-connections-and-learning-in-our-schools/

That answer was super helpful. Appreciate the quick response Ali A R Aldallal.

Heulwen Sweet'

While I am not researching Yammer; Liberty University does use Yammer and I have a Yammer account.

I hope that may be of some assistance to you!

Debbie

Our institution uses it - I am not sure how widely it is used and I personally do not use it myself. I would imagine it would be a good way for students to communicate with one another, catering to the "instant contact" and "texting" mentality common among our students today.

Interestingly, my institution - Griffith University - uses it so that members can share interesting higher education and technology enabled learning initiatives, research, innovation and developments. Members find this very useful, as members are respectfully sharing new ideas to keep us up to date on what other institutions, etc are doing.

Hi, Heulwen.

May I suggest you to use Moodle Platform in your school?

Moodle is free to use and it is very intuitive since it looks like a common website. With this platform you can create not just one but many instances for synchronous and asynchronous communication channels.

For example, each classroom can have its own chat (sync.) and its own forum (async.). You may also create lessons, quizzes, surveys, etc.

Moodle also has some analytical tools that can help you evaluate the performance of students.

Problem: you don't need to do an "installation" of Yammer for your school, but you'll have to install Moodle somewhere for your school (this may require a computer server in the school and a reasonable up/down internet link).

Cheers!

Tarcisio.

Hi Heulwen, a bit late though, but maybe it's still interesting for you.

I was involved in a project called MIT-MUT, which aimed at supporting girls in IT and entrepreneurship. We used yammer as communication platform at school. More info here: http://www.mitmut.at/mit-mut-english-information/

The students really liked yammer and follow-up projects are planned :) 

Students being creative with Yammer

I am a firm believer, if you give a student the right tools, their  creative side will show through.   Recently we have seen this through our schools social network – Yammer in the recent months, proving the value of communication in the school.   Yammer itself was probably a bit of a gamble in the school market, my previous school did not see the value in it, however at Wymondham they took the risk. Russell Boulton was aware of what Enterprise Social meant and how we could manage any risk. So Yammer was born in January 2014.

Initially usage was limited to our Sixth Formers. However word soon got round ‘socially’ and numbers started to pick up. Then our IT teaching staff started to investigate is use and started teaching e-safety through it, things like:

• how to setup your profile
• what information do you want to make public
• what posts are applicable

This has been rolled out to different year groups during the year, with some students ‘getting ahead of the game’ before hand! Some of our Wymondham High O Team leaders interviewed some students about ‘life before and life after’ we moved to Office 365 & Yammer.

What I found interesting is the need to communicate,  we are a big school (well in my eyes we are) and the ability for students to communicate with teachers without having to spend a lunchtime looking for them has been a real plus.  The students in the video talk about being able to communicate with teachers – its important to them.

Of course we have teachers who embrace the idea and are happy to utilise Yammer to its upmost. For example MFL teacher Kay Southgate has been a leading light on using Yammer and OneNote in the classroom with her Year 7 classes.  Kay’s group on Yammer can only post in French (that’s the rules), but there are some superb conversations happening all the time.  Of course the social media term of a ‘Like’ has almost replaced the traditional team point system from the past!

So students enjoy using the technology, and it proves a complete benefit in finding out what goes on in a school the size of ours. The next step however surprised me also. We started seeing students create different groups such as My Poetry, My Drawings, Your Creations and a story-writing group where students began to showcase there work to others in this social showcase that they now had. This was not run by teachers but by students and have become very popular, remember this isn’t homework its just children being creative and being able to do so by having the right toolset to achieve those goals.

So here is a great example in the Story writing group, taken a few days ago.   This group has been started by a group of Year 7 students and now has a healthy membership and as you can see Yammer has enabled the students to feedback and evaluate others work.  These are fairly early days but shows the potential of an Enterprise Social network in school as a tool for students to self evaluate the work of others !

Yammer initially to me was all about improving communication using mobile devices as the end point, and this has certainly been the case for us, as you can see.  These are our stats from the Yammer dashboard for the past 30 days.  Social, as a form of communication is certainly the chosen method for students.  As a school its dawning that Yammer is the quickest method of communicating to students !

https://kevsait.wordpress.com/2015/02/13/students-being-creative-with-yammer/

5 Ways Yammer is Being Used in Schools

So let’s check out some different ways that Yammer is being used in today’s classrooms!

1-Communication Simplified with Yammer

Yammer allows faculty, staff and students to easily communicate across barriers, including those that can be hard to breach with the typical means of communication, like phone calls, e-mails, etc.. By posting questions and creating polls, teachers can also keep in touch with the students and get a better sense of their expectations. Click hereto listen to an NMSU instructor explaining a rich use of Yammer in the context of online teaching (jump to 1:00 to get to the Yammer-specific part of the dialogue).

2-Yammer Creates a Great Environment for Debating

Debating can be a wonderful way to explore a topic. By encouraging students to actively participate in a discussion and develop respect for points of view different than their own, we can facilitate thought and learning on so many levels. Yammer is a tool specifically designed to promote collaboration of various kinds, and, since it’s similar to other social networks, students learn to use it very fast – a fact that allows instructors to focus on the content of the debate (rather than on technical issues). To see a great detailed example, read the account of Victoria Raish on the introduction and use of Yammer in classroom debates.

3-Yammer Helps in Keeping Students Up to Date

In order to communicate better with their students, instructors can create private class groups, where they’re able not only to post relevant information and feature course updates, but also to upload useful content and schedule events, such as office hours or due dates set for assignments.Yammer can be used for posting real-time homework as well, creating a collaborative research space that will keep the students involved and informed. Phil Andersson of Deliotte Australia posted a comment about using Yammer in their training programs, saying: “Using Yammer allowed participants to connect prior to arriving on the actual day. A great tool to begin networking as soon as possible.”

4-Yammer Helps to Save Time

Using its multiple functionalities that foster communication and collaboration, Yammer can help in cutting down on the number of traditional or synchronous online meetings you need to communicate effectively. This can let you use actual meeting time more effectively as all participants are well informed and have other business covered already.Managing large projects that involve plenty of people is usually time-consuming and Yammer helps to reduce the time and effort spent on coordination and material sharing. To see what the tool’s most important benefits are, according to its users, check this survey of 10,000 Yammer users that reveal its benefits for various environments, professional and educational alike.

5-Yammer Offers New Networking Opportunities

With Yammer, students, who would otherwise be unable to contact each other, get a chance to communicate. Full-time and part-time students can make valuable cross-program connections and establish a wider network that can include the previous alumni in topic-driven conversations. Creating those connections is useful not only for the purpose of exploring various topics, but also for facilitating peer-to-peer support and creating a strong sense of community. To see what the actual students think of using Yammer, check this entertaining video of Pepperdine MBA students’ viewpoints on Yammer.

http://www.emergingedtech.com/2014/04/5-ways-yammer-is-improving-communication-connections-and-learning-in-our-schools/

Yammer – so what is it and why use in school?

Yammer is an online discussion/collaboration tool which provides schools with a secure online environment where all pupils in a class can ask questions of their peers, where they can seek answers and help each other, bounce ideas around and deepen their own understanding of what they are learning in class. It is available to all users of Office 365 for Education, meaning all Glow users, pupils and staff, have access to this tool. And it can be accessed by signing in online in a browser or using a mobile device app.

Yammer provides an ideal tool through which learners can learn about the use of social media, in a protected environment, where the pupils can be guided to model behaviours for use in an online discussion tool, which will apply to any social media tool pupils may meet outwith their schooling. So if a teacher is looking to help pupils learn about safe sharing, and what not to share online, being supportive and respectful of views of others, and a place for pupils to engage in deepening their understanding through questioning and responding to others, then Yammer provides a great environment for a school.

https://blogs.glowscotland.org.uk/fa/ICTFalkirkPrimaries/learners-engaging-with-their-learning-with-yammer/