(photo by Elgg Social Networking)

The highlight of Chapter 1 of Elgg Social Neworking is a concise features list - What can Elgg Do?

• Blogging
• File repositories for individauls and communities
• Podcast support
• Full access controls
• Supports tagging
• User Profiles
• Full RSS support
• RSS aggregator
• Create Communities
• Collaborative community blogs
• Create friends' networks
• Import content
• Publish to blog
• Thorough pricacy controls
• Multilingual
• Branding/Customization
• OpenID
• Import/export friends with FOAF

In addition to introducting the features, Chapter 1 covers the basics of social networking as a foundation for understanding Elgg. However, this is probably not how most of our educational users come to Elgg. My observation of educational users is that Elgg's first role is as a simple ePortfolio, then to support blogging for reflection. 

I wonder if Elgg's roots as a social networking tool may encourage more collaboration between students then other ePortfolio tools. 

If you would like to try Elgg, integrated with Moodle our demo site is www.solutiongrove.net