Beyond Formal: Using Social Media to Develop Personal Learning Environments (PLEs) and...

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Maha Al-Freih, Nada Dabbagh, Anastasia Kitsantas, and Helen Fake George Mason University Fairfax, VA USA

description

Paper presented 20th Annual Online Learning Consortium International Conference, Lake Buena Vista, Florida

Transcript of Beyond Formal: Using Social Media to Develop Personal Learning Environments (PLEs) and...

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PLEs

Institutional Learning Platforms

• LMS

• Adaptive Systems

Social Media/Web 2.0 Tools

• Openness

• Wisdom of the crowd

• User-generated content

• Networking

• Personal experiences

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Tools, communities, and services that constitute

the individual educational platforms learners use to

direct their own learning and pursue educational

goals

EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative (ELI) (2009)

http://www.educause.edu/

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PLEs are

built

bottom up

by

the student

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SELF-REGULATED

LEARNING: 21ST CENTURY SKILLS:

• Goal setting

• Self-monitoring • Self-evaluating • Use of task

strategies

• Help seeking • Time planning and

management

• Learning to learn

• Metacognition

• Ways of thinking

• Ways of working

• Tools for thinking

• Tools for working

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Follow up on a quantitative study (N=87)

To understand the experience of selected

participants’ use of social media while

developing a PLE and whether they used SRL

skills in the process.

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Case Study

Data Sources

• Interviews

Participants selection and Recruitment

• Information-rich cases (N=11)

• Email was sent out

• N=5

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Participants Gender Age OccupationYears of

experience

1 Male 26-35 Didn’t specify 6-10

2 Male 26-35Instructional

Designer/Faculty6-10

3 Female 46-55

Instructional

Designer/PhD

Candidate

21-25

4 Female 36-45Other didn’t

specify6-10

5 Female 36-45Program

Manager5 or less

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“Currently completing Sloan-C certification in

Administrative Practices. Have used a

combination of nearly all tools listed”

“I attended a conference that used multiple

technologies to enhance the learning and

participation experience”

“Participated in the Change11 MOOC Course

length has been almost a year now.

Technologies that I used included blogging,

Facebook Group, Bb Collaborate, and RSS”

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Do you keep track of your progress while

working on the PLE? _____Please explain.

Do you evaluate the quality of your PLE?

_____Please explain.

Do you think your PLE was successful? Why or

why not? Please explain.

What do you need to do to improve your PLE?

In your experience, what are the

benefits/disadvantages of using these social

media tools for your learning and development?

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A hybrid method of thematic analysis

incorporating both a data-driven inductive

approach and a deductive a priori template of

codes (Fereday & Muir-Cochrane, 2006).

Fereday, J., & Muir-Cochrane, E. (2006). Demonstrating rigor using thematic analysis: A

hybrid approach of inductive and deductive coding and theme development. International Journal of

Qualitative Methods, 5.

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SRL Processes

Goal Setting

PD

Connection

Task Strategies

Context/Task dependent

Social vs. Individual

tasks

Motivation

Intrinsic vs. extrinsic

Self

Monitoring

Intentional vs. unintentional

Self Evaluation

Tools vs. people

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Inductive Themes

Barriers/Challenges

Privacy concerns

Safety concerns

Digital Identity and Presence

Lurking vs. active

participation

Learning curve

(Growth)

Context

Formal vs. informal

Social vs. professional

Public vs. Private

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PLE development experience of the selected participants in this study revealed that social media specifically supported the following self regulated learning processes: • goal setting, task strategies, motivation, self-

monitoring, self-evaluation• help-seeking and time management were not

explicitly supported • these results slightly differ from the previous

study in which participants (N=87) perceived self-evaluation and time management as being less supported

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More importantly, the results of this study revealed important themes related to how social media impacts self regulated learning processes in PLE developmentMore research is also needed to examine what type of guidance and pedagogical interventions are needed to support formal PLE development and ensure authentic and purposeful use of social media for learning.

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Thank you!

[email protected]