Creating Social Software-based learning environments has its pluses and minuses. Social software seems to be very popular with the under teenage crowd with dealing with communicating with friends and for the 21 – early thirty crowd it seems to be used more as a networking tool to catch up with friends.  Using environments like Facebook and Myspace to create a learning environment would be a challenge sense those tools are more person focused, it sort of reminds me of a public/semi-private virtual chat room where people post their business for all to see. It is difficult for me to see how tools such as those can be used to create a learning environment.  I think tools such as those would work possibly in a corporate environment as a get to know you coworkers/team members type tool, offering embedded tools for personality tests, strength and weaknesses tests etc.

It is easier for me to see a clearer application for tools such as flicker, blogs, and organizational tools such as del.icio.us. These tools offer a specific functional capabilities without it being tied to one specific purpose such as Facebook.