Readings:
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- Chapter 7: "Supporting Collaborative Knowledge Construction With Web 2.0 Technologies," by Slotta and Najafi, in Emerging Technologies for the Classroom: A Learning Sciences Perspective.
- Chapter 9: "Like, Comment, Share: Collaboration and Civic Engagement Within Social Network Sites" by Greenhow and Lee, in Emerging Technologies for the Classroom: A Learning Sciences Perspective.
- Choose one of the following, based on your interest, to review perspectives on Web 2.0 or social media technologies as mediators of learning communities. The articles describe various conceptions of learning communities, Web 2.0 projects, or example projects. An excerpt or abstract is provided for each article:
- Dede, C. (2004). Distributed-Learning Communities as a Model for Educating Teachers. In R. Ferdig et al. (Eds.), Proceedings of Society for Information Technology & Teacher Education International Conference 2004 (pp. 3–12). Chesapeake, VA: AACE.
Abstract: Emerging devices, tools, media, and virtual environments offer opportunities for creating new types of learning communities for students and teachers. The defining quality of a learning community is that there is a culture of learning, in which everyone is involved in a collective effort of understanding. Transformational learning of 21st century skills requires a strategy of infusing learning communities throughout students' lives, orchestrating the contributions of many knowledge sources embedded in real world settings outside of schools—but with teachers still in a central role as facilitators and interpreters. Such distributed-learning communities have many implications for teacher education, induction, and professional development. To accomplish major changes in teacher preparation, induction, and professional development, we must "walk our talk." If we believe that teaching should move towards educational models such as distributed-learning communities, then we should base its initiatives on similar processes, so that the medium of change reinforces the methods.
- Brown, J. S., & Adler, R. P. (2008). Minds on Fire: Open education, the long tail, and learning 2.0. Educause Review, (Jan-Feb), p. 17–32
Excerpt: The latest evolution of the Internet, the so-called Web 2.0, has blurred the line between producers and consumers of content and has shifted attention from access to information toward access to other people. New kinds of online resources—such as social networking sites, blogs, wikis, and virtual communities—have allowed people with common interests to meet, share ideas, and collaborate in innovative ways. Indeed, the Web 2.0 is creating a new kind of participatory medium that is ideal for supporting multiple modes of learning.
- Lewis, S., Pea, R., & Rosen, J. (2010). Beyond participation to co-creation of meaning: Mobile social media in generative learning communities. Social Science Information, 49 (3), pp. 1–19. doi: 10.1177/0539018410370726 (article available in course Library Reserves.)
Abstract: Digital social media is dramatically changing the social landscape and the ways in which we understand "participation." As youth embraces these dynamic yet highly scripted forms of mediated social interaction, educators have struggled to find ways to harness these new participatory forms to support learning. This article considers the interactive structures and frameworks that underlie much of "Web 2.0" participatory media, and proposes that theories of social learning and action could greatly inform the design of participatory media applications to support learning. We propose engaging the potential of mediated social interaction to foster "generative learning communities" and describe an informal learning social media application under development known as "Mobltz"—embracing concepts of "mobile media blitz" with the intentional emphasis on the syllable "mob." The application is an attempt to bring guidance from what social science knows about learning and human development to craft interactional affordances based on sharing of meaning and experiences.
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