snowblog ctnet city copyright © gal springman 2010 all rights reserved. project report by gal...

SnowBlog CTnet city

Copyright © Gal Springman 2010 All rights reserved.

Project report by Gal Springman

Parallel Session 12

The Promising Potential of Collaborative Learning Via the

Internet

MIT LINC 2010 conference


Welcome to

SnowBlog CTnet city

An upgraded version of previous SnowBlog

series of implementations

SnowBlog CTnet city

a web-based gated social environment of learners ,

designed to simulate and model

real-life modern educational environments ,

characterized by

the challenging diversity

and the need for integration.

Copyright © Gal Springman 2010

All rights reserved.

SnowBlog CTnet city

"System builders for the Technology-Enabled Education...share a genius for

integrating heterogeneous components – physical, human and organizational - in a goal-oriented system“ ( Prof. Thomas P. Hughes, 2001)

"What have we learned and what shall we ask next"?

)Prof. Sonia Livingstone at the first annual digital media and learning conference , February 2010, USCD, California(


SnowBlog CTnet city

What have we learned from SnowBlog and SnowBlog CTnetcity projects?

• Three-fold complex structure• Systems thinking• Emegent pedagogy• Planning and managing the educational system


SnowBlog CTnet city

Understanding that technology-enabled education is built of a three-fold complex structure of interrelated and interdependent components :

Technological

Social

Personal


SnowBlog CTnet city

Adopting systems thinking .

Successful technology-enabled education for all depends on a comprehensive approach. Emphasizing some parts (usually the technological ones), rather than the whole, has caused poor achievements, reflected in

international tests and in ROI of governmental and social responsibility investments.


SnowBlog CTnet city

Realizing that as part of the peer to peer and peer-tutor dynamics inside its basic unit of practice, technology-enabling education system cannot be fully structured,

planned or predicted .

In nowadays diverse learning environments we should embrace emergent pedagogy: facilitated by technology, producing new ideas from collaborating genetically and culturally different participants – better helping them acquire 21st century skills, thinking habits and

dispositions.


SnowBlog CTnet city

Learning the art and science of planning and managing the new complex educational system ( its technological, social and personal interweaved variables) - integrating it into the current mainstream

education .


SnowBlog CTnet cityMy journey into technology – enabled education system

My discovery journey into the unknown territory of technology-enabled education system began from "bottom up" field work trying to facilitate interpersonal empathic collaborative interactions among youth belonging to different social and cultural communities, across individual gaps and divides .

Along the way I discovered the interdependent interrelated building blocks of the entire system. The next slide is a graphic display of the main benchmarks in my journey. It turned to be a closed system, where the way to empathic interpersonal interaction, my starting point, and the way to technology-enabled education, follow the same trajectory .


SnowBlog CTnet city

Empathic interpersonal interactions among learners from diverse backgrounds emerge from intercultural and interdisciplinary peer collaboration, facilitated in web-based tutor- mediated peer-assisted environments, that foster higher order & critical thinking, creativity and innovation, helping nurture personal dispositions that enable empowering affective and cognitive preconditions in order to acquire the necessary literacies related to ICT, Social technologies & Participatory Culture technologies.



SnowBlog CTnet cityEmpathic

interpersonal collaborative

Intercultural, interdisciplnarypeer collaboration

Cognitive apprenticeship, mentoring in a web-based environment

Participants’ personal dispositions

Higher order & critical thinking creativity & innovation

Enabling technologies & literacies

Year: 2003Beginning of intercultural projectsParticipants: Jewish students from Tel Aviv& Muslim students from Jaffa


SnowBlog CTnet cityYear: 2007InternationalcollaborationParticipants: Jewish, Muslim & Christian students from the Middle East, Finland

Serbia &


Year: 2010AcademicinternationalimplementationParticipants: Jewish, Muslim & Christian students and their teachers, from the Middle East, USA, Ukraine & China


Encourages to take part in changing the environment


M. an American participant: “I think a lot can be done to improve my community. One way in which I can contribute is to help the children in the area. I have come across an opportunity recently to help tutor students whose parents can not afford to pay for a tutor. These " children are struggling in school and want to do better, but do not "know where to ask for help.

C. An American student: “I contribute to my city through my work, landscaping. I plant trees and gardens and year after year see "them flourish.

O. a Chinese participant: “I think if we behave more politely, warm heartedly and kindly, the city around us will be more environmentally ".friendly

SnowBlog CTnet city


Socializing

Creative

Our Dark Urban Narratives heroine

Fun

SnowBlog CTnet city

In the current Snowblog CT net city project we hosted participants from diverse backgrounds:

PhD students from the Chinese Academy of Sciences ,

MA students in education from Newburgh, New York, University students from two universities in Ukraine,

Muslim & Jewish students from The Middle East .

While portraying a wide array of gaps, divides and differences, participants have been navigated to the safe

port of mutually empowering collaboration.


SnowBlog CTnet city"What shall we ask next"?

Going back to Prof. Sonia Livingstone’s question, we ask the following:

a. How to implement SnowBlog CTnetcity, or similar projects, on a larger-scale

in order to gain:

1 (an empirical research based data and better understanding regarding technology-enabled education systems .

2 (trained local tutors, graduating from SnowBlog CTnetcity workshops, to help build self-sustaining local centers, especially among underprivileged students.

b. How to integrate SnowBlog CTnetcity, or similar projects, into mainstream education systems, which are still the main locus for k-16 students .


Thank you for your interest!

Gal SpringmanLanguage connections

[email protected]

m

Photos are taken by Snowblog CTnetcity participants and

tutors


SnowBlog CTnet city

snowblog ctnet city copyright © gal springman 2010 all rights reserved. project report by gal...

Documents

enabled education system

technology enabled education

conference slide

gal springman parallel

snowblog ctnetcity projects

new complex educational

goaloriented system

learning conference