All Annotations of Innovate: Future Learning Landscapes: Transforming Pedagogy through Social Software[Preview]

saved by9 people, first byCarla Arena on 2008-06-01, last byDan Rehman on 2008-06-26

• Web 2.0 has inspired intense and growing interest, particularly as wikis, weblogs (blogs), really simple syndication (RSS) feeds, social networking sites, tag-based folksonomies, and peer-to-peer media-sharing applications have gained traction in all sectors of the education industry (Allen 2004; Alexander 2006)
• Web 2.0 allows customization, personalization, and rich opportunities for networking and collaboration, all of which offer considerable potential for addressing the needs of today's diverse student body (Bryant 2006).
• In contrast to earlier e-learning approaches that simply replicated traditional models, the Web 2.0 movement with its associated array of social software tools offers opportunities to move away from the last century's highly centralized, industrial model of learning and toward individual learner empowerment through designs that focus on collaborative, networked interaction (Rogers et al. 2007; Sims 2006; Sheely 2006).
• In contrast to earlier e-learning approaches that simply replicated traditional models, the Web 2.0 movement with its associated array of social software tools offers opportunities to move away from the last century's highly centralized, industrial model of learning and toward individual learner empowerment through designs that focus on collaborative, networked interaction (Rogers et al. 2007; Sims 2006; Sheely 2006)
• new learning landscape, which we call Pedagogy 2.0
• socio-experiential learning
• individual learner empowerment
• Traditional approaches to teaching and learning are typically based on prepackaged learning materials, fixed deadlines, and assessment tasks and criteria defined by teachers. Such characteristics often continue to inform course design even when instructors employ online technologies such as learning management systems (Exhibit 1).
• The reality, however, is that today's students demand greater control of their own learning and the inclusion of technologies in ways that meet their needs and preferences (Prensky 2005)
• learning management systems (Exhibit 1).
• The reality, however, is that today's students demand greater control of their own learning and the inclusion of technologies in ways that meet their needs and preferences (Prensky 2005)
• Tools like blogs, wikis, media-sharing applications, and social networking sites can support and encourage informal conversation, dialogue, collaborative content generation, and knowledge sharing, giving learners access to a wide range of ideas and representations. Used appropriately, they promise to make truly learner-centered education a reality by promoting learner agency, autonomy, and engagement in social networks that straddle multiple real and virtual communities by reaching across physical, geographic, institutional, and organizational boundaries.
• Tools like blogs, wikis, media-sharing applications, and social networking sites
  can support and encourage informal conversation, dialogue, collaborative content
  generation, and knowledge sharing, giving learners access to a wide range of
  ideas and representations
• "I have always imagined the information space as something to which everyone has immediate and intuitive access, and not just to browse, but to create” (2000, 216). Social software tools make it easy to contribute ideas and content, placing the power of media creation and distribution into the hands of "the people formerly known as the audience" (Rosen 2006).
• Social software tools make it easy to contribute ideas and content, placing the power of media creation and distribution into the hands of "the people formerly known as the audience" (Rosen 2006).
• Social software tools can be effectively integrated into both face-to-face and online environments; the most promising settings for a pedagogy that capitalizes on the capabilities of these tools are fully online or blended so that students can engage with peers, instructors, and the community in creating and sharing ideas.
• the most promising settings for a pedagogy that capitalizes on the capabilities of these tools are fully online or blended so that students can engage with peers, instructors, and the community in creating and sharing ideas. In this model, some learners engage in creative authorship, producing and manipulating digital images and video clips, tagging them with chosen keywords, and making this content available to peers worldwide through Flickr, MySpace, and YouTube
• 
• Social software tools can be effectively integrated into both face-to-face and
  online environments
• Student-centered tasks designed by constructivist teachers reach toward this ideal, but they too often lack the dimension of real-world interactivity and community engagement that social software can contribute.
• Student-centered tasks designed by constructivist teachers reach toward this ideal, but they too often lack the dimension of real-world interactivity and community engagement that social software can contribute.

• Pedagogy 2.0: Teaching and Learning for the Knowledge Age

  In striving to achieve these goals, educators need to revisit their conceptualization of teaching and learning

• 
• The challenge is to enable self-direction, knowledge building, and learner
  control by offering flexible options for students to engage in learning that is
  authentic and relevant to their needs and to those of the networked society
  while still providing necessary structure and scaffolding.
• 
• Connectivism describes learning as a process of creating a network of personal knowledge, a view that is congruent with the ways in which people engage in socialization and interaction in the Web 2.0 world—a world that links minds, communities, and ideas while promoting personalization, collaboration, and creativity leading to knowledge creation. Such processes lead to an interdependence of ideas, individuals, communities, and information networks, all supported by technology;

• Pedagogy 2.0 is defined by:

  • Content: Microunits that augment thinking and cognition by offering diverse perspectives and representations to learners and learner-generated resources that accrue from students creating, sharing, and revising ideas;
  • Curriculum: Syllabi that are not fixed but dynamic, open to negotiation and learner input, consisting of bite-sized modules that are interdisciplinary in focus and that blend formal and informal learning;
  • Communication: Open, peer-to-peer, multifaceted communication using multiple media types to achieve relevance and clarity;
  • Process: Situated, reflective, integrated thinking processes that are iterative, dynamic, and performance and inquiry based;
  • Resources: Multiple informal and formal sources that are rich in media and global in reach;
  • Scaffolds: Support for students from a network of peers, teachers, experts, and communities; and
  • Learning tasks: Authentic, personalized, learner-driven and learner-designed, experiential tasks that enable learners to create content.

• Pedagogy 2.0 is defined by:

  • Content: Microunits that augment thinking and cognition by offering diverse perspectives and representations to learners and learner-generated resources that accrue from students creating, sharing, and revising ideas;
  • Curriculum: Syllabi that are not fixed but dynamic, open to negotiation and learner input, consisting of bite-sized modules that are interdisciplinary in focus and that blend formal and informal learning;
  • Communication: Open, peer-to-peer, multifaceted communication using multiple media types to achieve relevance and clarity;
  • Process: Situated, reflective, integrated thinking processes that are iterative, dynamic, and performance and inquiry based;
  • Resources: Multiple informal and formal sources that are rich in media and global in reach;
  • Scaffolds: Support for students from a network of peers, teachers, experts, and communities; and
  • Learning tasks: Authentic, personalized, learner-driven and learner-designed, experiential tasks that enable learners to create content.
• Connectivism
  describes learning as a process of creating a network of personal knowledge
• a world that links minds, communities, and ideas while promoting
  personalization, collaboration, and creativity leading to knowledge creation

• Pedagogy 2.0 is defined by:

  
  
  
  
  • Content: Microunits
    that augment thinking and cognition by
    offering diverse perspectives and representations to learners and
    learner-generated resources that accrue from students creating, sharing, and
    revising ideas;
    
  • Curriculum: Syllabi that are not fixed
    but dynamic, open to negotiation and learner input, consisting of bite-sized
    modules that are interdisciplinary in focus and that blend formal and informal
    learning;
    
  • Communication: Open, peer-to-peer,
    multifaceted communication using multiple media types to achieve relevance and
    clarity;
    
  • Process: Situated, reflective, integrated thinking
    processes that are iterative, dynamic, and performance and inquiry based;
    
  • Resources: Multiple informal and formal
    sources that are rich in media and global in reach;
    
  • Scaffolds: Support for students from a
    network of peers, teachers, experts, and communities; and
    
  • Learning tasks: Authentic, personalized,
    learner-driven and learner-designed, experiential tasks that enable learners to
    create content.
• (Exhibit 3). These exemplars illustrate how the principles of Pedagogy 2.0 can be applied in face-to-face classroom settings as well as in fully online, supplemented, and blended e-learning environments.
• 
• Pedagogy 2.0 adds a further dimension to student-centered approaches by
  increasing the level of collaboration with experts and peer groups and by
  connecting students to an emerging global network or "architecture of
  participation" that transcends the walls of the institution
• Not all student-generated content, even if creative or innovative, will be valid and reliable. Instructors implementing Pedagogy 2.0 principles will need to work collaboratively with learners to review, edit, and apply quality assurance mechanisms to student work
• Instructors implementing Pedagogy 2.0 principles will need to work collaboratively with learners to review, edit, and apply quality assurance mechanisms to student work while also drawing on input from the wider community outside the classroom or institution (making use of the "wisdom of crowds” [Surowiecki 2004]).

• Boettcher (2006) maintains that the key benefit of learner-generated content lies in the processes of creation, knowledge construction, and sharing as opposed to the end product itself:

  A small portion of student performance content—if it is new knowledge—will be useful to keep. Most of the student performance content will be generated, then used, and will become stored in places that will never again see the light of day. Yet . . . it is still important to understand that the role of this student content in learning is critical. The textbook content is the external body of knowledge; the student performance content is the content that shapes and molds the learner's unique knowledge structures. (¶2, emphasis added)

• A small portion of student performance content—if it is new knowledge—will be useful to keep. Most of the student performance content will be generated, then used, and will become stored in places that will never again see the light of day. Yet . . . it is still important to understand that the role of this student content in learning is critical.
• This understanding of student-generated content is also consistent with the constructivist view that acknowledges the learner as the chief architect of knowledge building. From this perspective, learners build or negotiate meaning for a concept by being exposed to, analyzing, and critiquing multiple perspectives and by interpreting these perspectives in one or more observed or experienced contexts. In so doing, learners generate their own personal rules and knowledge structures, using them to make sense of their experiences and refining them through interaction and dialogue with others.
• Other divides are evident. For example, the social networking site Facebook is now the most heavily trafficked Web site in the United States with over 8 million university students connected across academic communities and institutions worldwide. The majority of Facebook participants are students, and teachers may not feel welcome in these communities. Moreover, recent research has shown that many students perceive teaching staff who use Facebook as lacking credibility as they may present different self-images online than they do in face-to-face situations (Mazer, Murphy, and Simonds 2007). Further, students may perceive instructors' attempts to coopt such social technologies for educational purposes as intrusions into their space. Innovative teachers who wish to adopt social software tools must do so with these attitudes in mind.
• The majority of Facebook participants are students, and teachers may not feel welcome in these communities. Moreover, recent research has shown that many students perceive teaching staff who use Facebook as lacking credibility as they may present different self-images online than they do in face-to-face situations (Mazer, Murphy, and Simonds 2007). Further, students may perceive instructors' attempts to coopt such social technologies for educational purposes as intrusions into their space. Innovative teachers who wish to adopt social software tools must do so with these attitudes in mind.
• he majority of Facebook participants are students, and teachers may not feel welcome in these communities. Moreover, recent research has shown that many students perceive teaching staff who use Facebook as lacking credibility as they may present different self-images online than they do in face-to-face situations (Mazer, Murphy, and Simonds 2007). Further, students may perceive instructors' attempts to coopt such social technologies for educational purposes as intrusions into their space. Innovative teachers who wish to adopt social software tools must do so with these attitudes in mind.
• "students want to be able to take content from other people. They want to mix it, in new creative ways—to produce it, to publish it, and to distribute it" (60). Such practices raise questions about originality versus academic integrity and give rise to concerns about copyright, ownership, and intellectual property.
• "students want to be able to take content from other people. They want to mix it, in new creative ways—to produce it, to publish it, and to distribute it"
• Furthermore, although the advent of Web 2.0 and the open-content movement significantly increase the volume of information available to students, many higher education students lack the competencies necessary to navigate and use the overabundance of information available, including the skills required to locate quality sources and assess them for objectivity, reliability, and currency
• many higher education students lack the competencies necessary to navigate and use the overabundance of information available, including the skills required to locate quality sources and assess them for objectivity, reliability, and currency
• In combination with appropriate learning strategies, Pedagogy 2.0 can assist students in developing such critical thinking and metacognitive skills (Sener 2007; McLoughlin, Lee, and Chan 2006).
• We envision that social technologies coupled with a paradigm of learning focused on knowledge creation and community participation offer the potential for radical and transformational shifts in teaching and learning practices, allowing learners to access peers, experts, and the wider community in ways that enable reflective, self-directed learning.
• teacher to be a "guide on the side" as opposed to a "sage on the stage
• We believe that the concept of Pedagogy 2.0, inspired and underpinned by the knowledge-creation metaphor of learning and the theory of connectivism, signals a movement away from a teacher-centric pedagogy to one emphasizing learner-directed activity and content creation. This is of key significance in a postsecondary education climate where there is likely to be continued blending and merging of informal and formal learning, where the value of textbooks and prescribed content is already being questioned (Fink 2005), and where the open-source and open-content movements, exemplified by projects like MIT's OpenCourseWare and MERLOT, are finally being recognized, supported, and accepted (Beshears 2005).
• . By capitalizing on personalization, participation, and content creation, existing and future Pedagogy 2.0 practices can result in educational experiences that are productive, engaging, and community based and that extend the learning landscape far beyond the boundaries of classrooms and educational institutions.

• on 2008-09-12 Jkintero
  Microunits