Download - Social media & learning
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Social media and learning on the cloud
Dr John Hannon
La Trobe University, Melbourne 17 September 2012
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Social media are: “web- and mobile-based technologies which are used to turn communication into interactive dialogue among organizations, communities, and individuals.
“… allow the creation and exchange of user-generated content
“… Social Media are social software which mediate human communication.” (Wikipedia)
The cloud: a bank of machines in a warehouse
Where is social media?
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a radical transformation of the modes of production of interaction, communication, and dissemination, collectively referred to as Web 2.0, which makes emergent behaviour possible at an unprecedented scale, pace, and breadth of participation.(Williams et al. 2012: 44)
Is social media radical?But learning has always “turned communication into interactive dialogue …”
Industrial revolution traditional modes of learning
Information revolution “learning-directed technologies”
SCALEEMERGENCE
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Social networking & social learning are separate domains
Tensions from the e-learning literature #1
Most students embrace the digitalised world of social networking…, although this does not necessarily transfer to learning. (Williams et al. 2012: 40)
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… social networking offers only a truncated capacity to foster disagreement and debate because dominant programmes and models primarily foster conviviality and ‘liking’. (Friesen & Lowe 2012: 184)
Tensions from the e-learning literature #2Different models of networking: the social as commercial vs educational
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Institutional responses to social media in universities
frame as a technology issue - try to contain social media
frame as a learning issue - eg. harness informal learning experiences and link to formal structures of learning
Tensions from the e-learning literature #3
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Shift focus:1. From “hijacking” social media to “digital literacies”:
How can universities respond to social media?
That is, on practices of knowledge generation and learning among students
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Shift focus:1. From “hijacking” social media to “digital literacies”2. From containment of learning environments to mobilities
of learning
That is, crossing institutional boundaries eg. experiential learning such as fieldwork via geo-located knowledge development (Ravenscroft et al. 2012)
How can universities respond to social media?
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Shift focus:• From “hijacking” social media to “digital literacies”• From containment of learning environments to
mobilities of learning
• From software training to staff development for user-generated knowledge and collaborative, emergent learning
How can universities respond to social media?
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Core institutional infrastructure (LMS/VLE)
Moodle, AdobeConnect, PLE via Mahara
Package/bundle of tools not provided by institution, but maybe facilitated and semi-supported, eg. open source systems
Wordpress, Skype
Student initiated social software and non-institutionalised tools for working together on learning – collaboration, groupwork, filesharing
Use of lifestyle technologies
dropbox, google docs, google hangout, google groups
facebook,flickr
1. Institutional to learner-centred
Examples of social media for learning
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FuturesLearning ecologies rather than learning systems
Ellis & Goodyear (2010): learning ecologies bring a focus on the relationships between the elements that comprise the system under study, rather than their differences
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FuturesManaging learning as ecologies
Framework for emergent learning and learning ecologiesWilliams, R., Karousou, R. & Mackness, J. (2011).
Prescriptive learningsystems
Emergent learningsystems
Predictable complicated
Complexadaptive
Prospective
control
Retrospectivecoherence
Hierarchy, institutional control
Centrally determined for users, replicated for scale at high cost
Collaboration, self-organisation
Open & distributed, created by users
Modes of
learning Domains of application
Types of knowledge
Modes of production
Organisation
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Futures
learner-generated content peer review & co-construction learning communities of student/staff/practitionersexperiential learning & assessment (crossing institutional boundaries) knowledge generation via placements, (virtual) exchangesopen education resources
Adapted from Lee, M., & McLoughlin, C. (eds.) (2010). Web 2.0-Based E-Learning
Flexible learning understood as opening uppossibilities that extend into social and professional worlds of learners
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• Bradford, G., Kehrwald, B. & Dinmore, S. (2011). A framework for evaluating online learning in an ecology of sustainable innovation. In G. Williams, P. Statham, N. Brown & B. Cleland (Eds.), Changing Demands, Changing Directions. Proceedings ascilite Hobart 2011. (pp.162-167). http://www.ascilite.org.au/conferences/hobart11/procs/Bradford-concise.pdf
• Collins A., & Halverson R. (2010). The second educational revolution: Rethinking education in the age of technology. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 26, 18-27.
• Falconer, I. 2011, Literacy in the Digital University. Seminar Four April 8th Lancaster University. http://www.open.ac.uk/researchprojects/lidu/p3_4.shtml
• Friesen, N. and Lowe, S. (2012). The questionable promise of social media for education: connective learning and the commercial imperative . Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 28, 183–194
• Lea, M. & Jones, S. (2011): Digital literacies in higher education: exploring textual and technological practice, Studies in Higher Education, 36:4, 377-393
• McLoughlin, C., & Lee, M. (2010). Pedagogy 2.0: Critical Challenges and Responses to Web 2.0 and Social Software in Tertiary Teaching. In M. Lee & C. McLoughlin (Eds.), Web 2.0-Based E-Learning: Applying Social Informatics for Tertiary Teaching (pp. 43-69). Hershey, Pennsylvania: IGI Global.
• Ravenscroft, A. Warburton, S., Hatzipanagos, S. & Conole, G. (2012). Designing and evaluating social media for learning: shaping social networking into social learning? Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 28, 177–182
• Williams, R., Karousou, R. & Mackness, J. (2011). Emergent Learning and Learning Ecologies in Web 2.0. International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning 12 (3), March
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