JOSÉ MOTALAB ORATÓRIO DE EDUCAÇÃO A DISTÂNCIA

[LEAD]UNIVERSIDADE ABERTA

EDEN OPENCLASSROOM PORTO 2009

Social software: learning and socializing in networks

What I’going to talk about

1. What has changed in the ways we socialize and learn?

2. Why is social software important?

3. Why should school be part of this?

2

2/15

Forms of Socialization

Forms of socialization have been changing due to technology.

Little Boxes to

Glocalization to

Networked Individualism

(Barry Wellman, 2001)

3

3/15

Little Boxes

Little Boxes - densely-knit, linking people door-to-door (neighborhood);- encapsulation in homogeneous groups;- hierarchical- structured

4

4/15

Glocalization

Glocalization - sparsely knit but with clusters;- both local and global;- other neighborhoods, cities, places in the world;- place-to-place connectivity.

5

5/15

Networked Individualism

Networked Individualism

- sparsely-knit; - linking individuals

with little regard to space;

- person-to-person.

“The person has become the portal” (Barry Wellman, 2001)

6

6/15

Educational Technology

EducationBeyond the acquisition of

knowledge and information - resources and skills for

lifelong learning

Technologyresources and communities for learning, collaborating and building knowledge.

Educational Technology

7

7/15

How we learn today

reading a book or browsing the Web asking a friend or an expert experimenting and drawing conclusions gathering a group to achieve something observing others exploring new territories talking to other people writing and making diagrams, drawings, movies,

music, multimedia inventing new things and ideas comparing different ideas and experiences asking why? how? In what other way?

(Jay Lemke, 2002)

8

8/15

Dialogue & Interaction

Involvement with other people, through

dialogue interaction with the ways in which they

translated their thoughts and perspectives into diverse media.

From this point of view, learning is a rich, diversified process of encounters and experiences

9

9/15

Social software

Tools that support and facilitate communication and interaction in a social context

BlogsWikisTwitterDiscussion forumsSocial bookmarking (Delicious, Diigo)RSS aggregators (Google Reader, Bloglines)Media sharing (Youtube, Flikr, Slideshare) Virtual worlds (Second Life)

“Software that supports group interaction” (Clay Shirky, 2003)

10

10/15

Social and cultural changes

Digital technologies new approaches to learning and social interaction

Creativity – consumers becoming producers (prosumers)

Attention – Continuous partial attention; always on connectivity (Linda Stone, 2005)

Identity – consumption and production of digital media; real identity virtual identity

(Martin Owen et al., 2006)

11

11/15

C-Learning: learning with others

From e-learning to c-learning

Community Communicative

Collaborative Collaborative

Learning is based on a social processImage source: Alec Couros (2006)

12

12/15

Technologies and learning

Old methods with new tools

True motivation is to question the pedagogical principles underlying the educational models

Evolution from learning about to learning to be

Learning as (endless) becoming (Ulises Mejias,

2005).

Impact of social software on Pedagogy

desire to connect to the world as a whole, not just the social parts online

13

13/15

Bridging online & offline experience

False dichotomy between physical and virtual world (cyberspace)

Many connections and ties often operate in both dimensions

We communicate using the online or offline medium that is available and most adequate at the moment

14

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School and digital literacy

open up; be connectedmore permeable to the flow of interactionsbecome an important part of the global

discourse

thoughtful planning strong awareness of privacy and security of

studentstraining of teachers and IT staffinvolvement of school agents, parents and

community

15

15/15

e-mail: josecmota@gmail.com

Twitter: http://twitter.com/josemota