Designing Learning in Social Online Learning Environments

The widespread use of social media challenges educators to reflect about their pedagogical potential in promoting both informal and formal learning. A brief review of the literature points to the major pitfalls on a social level of learning management systems and on the strengths of social media in promoting information exchange and interaction. This chapter shows how social networks can be integrated in formal learning through a learning design approach. A connectivist process-oriented pedagogical model, comprising dimensions and levels of interactions, is proposed to guide the design of learning activities in terms of interactions throughout the domain, technology, and community dimensions. Using Edmodo as an example of a Social Online Learning Environment, templates are used to design a domain-oriented instructional experience, a collaborative learning activity and a contributory learning activity. Besides the experiential component, each of these activities includes a metacognitive component to promote a reflective attitude and the necessary personal and collective metacognitive skills when using online learning environments.