This month the Online Course Development Team is sharing “the wealth of knowledge” available on the web. Each week during the month of June, we’ll highlight an online article that we found worthy of discussion, particularly interesting or profound. Okay… maybe not profound, but definitely interesting!
As you already know, collaboration is a big part of how we do business across Performance Learning Systems. While we may find collaboration an integral part of what we do, the same is not necessarily true in education in general or in classrooms, online and face-to-face.
A recent article on Campus Technology’s website looks at the potential and pedagogical shift needed to utilize Social Networking as a collaborative tool for education. Social Networking: Learning Theory in Action The author (Ruth Reynard) looks at the challenges and opportunities social networking tools present to us as educators. How can we maximize the collaboration, creativity, and networking benefits for our students and the learning process? What challenges do the use of these environments pose from an instructional design perspective?
As with all digital environments, to integrate these spaces into a legitimate and beneficial learning environment requires innovation on the part of the instructor. Therefore, instructors are challenged to model the same skills they are looking for in their students. While maintaining a conventional flow in the learning process of passive reception, pre-determined levels of interaction, regulated outcomes of information exchange and production, new knowledge will never be achieved. If, however, instructors realize the dynamic potential of digital networking environments to engage students at a higher level of collaboration and creativity and those skills are also valued in terms of grades, then the current tools can be integrated successfully in context of learning.
In what ways can you envision using social networking with students? What challenges exist in your situation? What benefits? Whatever your position or current situation, it is interesting and worth further investigation and thought! Didn’t I tell you this month would be interesting?! Enjoy!
Ruth Reynard, “Social Networking: Learning Theory in Action,” Campus Technology, 5/28/2008, http://www.campustechnology.com/article.aspx?aid=63319
[...] Sharing the Wealth [...]