Revising the Framework of Knowledge Ecologies

This chapter describes the Web of social software tools with its inhabitants as an evolving and ecological environment, discussing and elaborating the connectivist framework coined by George Siemens in his book Knowing Knowledge. This new perspective to ecological learning in social software environments resides on the ideas of Gibson’s and his followers approach to ecological psychology, the rising theory of embodied simulation and Lotman’s theory of cultural semiosis. In the empirical part of the chapter, we focus on the methods of investigating how social software systems become accommodated with their users forming learning spaces. Analysis discusses such ecologically defined spaces for individual and collaborative learning.

Web 2.0 and Collaborative Learning in Higher Education

The dissemination of university knowledge has been traditionally based on lectures to students organised in homogenous groups. The advantages of this method are that it can give a unified vision of content, guaranteeing equal access to knowledge for all students. The 21st century university must combine its learning and teaching methods and incorporate different strategies and educative resources, as well as seeking to advance individual learning and promote collaborative work. The relevance of Web 2.0 is clear in this university learning context as it enables collaborative work to be carried out using ICT. In this chapter, we will deal with the different possible uses of social software in university teaching. We will show that the proper use of Web 2.0 tools can favour collaborative learning and promote new ways of teaching and learning.

Publishing with Friends

London South Bank University; London South Bank University, UK

Social Software as Tools for Pedagogical Transformation

The main agents of change in the present era can be posited as globalization and the diffusion and uptake of technologies that have given rise to a knowledge-based, networked society. The latest evolution of the Internet, Web 2.0, is resulting in significant transformations in terms of how we live, work, and communicate. In the higher education arena, the drive towards self-organizing communities and collaboration through social networking applications has triggered widespread debate on the purpose of education, with a growing emphasis on the need not only to facilitate the acquisition of knowledge and information, but also to cultivate in students the skills and digital literacies necessary to engage with social and technological change. In this chapter, the authors discuss the affordances of Web 2.0 and social software tools, and provide examples of current conceptualizations and metaphors of learning that leverage these affordances to support learner choice, autonomy, and agency in the creation of ideas and knowledge artifacts. An innovative learning paradigm is proposed that the authors call Pedagogy 2.0, based on the key elements of personalization, participation, and productivity. Finally, the authors argue for a more holistic and evidence-based approach to research and evaluation of Web 2.0-based learning programs and initiatives that supports the development and sharing of best practices across academic disciplines, institutions, and countries.

Metacognition on the Educational Social Software

In recent years, we have witnessed an information revolution. This revolution has been characterised by widespread access to the Internet and by the emergence of information which has been generated by end-users–the so-called user-generated content. The information thus generated has been supported by Web 2.0 applications or social software. These changes in the information society have had an important impact in education, with more and more adults enrolling on life-long learning programs; moreover, the availability of distance learning courses has grown in line with this increase in demand. In this emergent educational paradigm, the new 2.0 technology context implies new competencies for learners. These competencies include literacy in information and communication technology (ICT), learning autonomy, self-regulation and metacognition, while at the same time expanding the opportunities for metacognitive development. We will consider in this chapter these two perspectives of the 2.0 context; on the one hand, the new requirements provided by the environment and, on the other hand, the new learning opportunities which this environment brings.

Analysis of Interactions through a Web Annotation Tool in a Pre-University Mathematics Online Course

employed as a collaborative tool or as a medium of artistic or social criticism, has been introduced in a mathematics course for online pre-engineering students. The objective of this innovation is to integrate the communication and the subject’s contents and to check whether a better level of communication between students and professors improves the acquisition of basic mathematical competencies. As a result of this study, we put forward a model for the analysis of the online interaction, as well as a classification of students in relation to the use of the communication tool.

The e-Tutor in Learning 2.0 Scenarios

With this contribution, we briefly explain how both the e-Tutor role and competencies have changed since the beginning of the debate about this essential e-Learning human resource. Until now, what set of professional functions were requested to be a good e-Tutor? What training policies must be identified to give an answer to the needs of e-Tutors for them to be able to interact effectively in e-Learning scenarios oriented to sharing knowledge and social networking?

Learning Together with the Interactive White Board

Interactive whiteboards (IWB) are the latest technology trend in schools and businesses. The purpose of this chapter is to discuss how social software and IWB technology promotes active engagement and interactive content delivery. Using IWB technology users are able to interact, collaborate, and evaluate. To implement the IWB effectively, there are numerous issues to address: professional development, interactivity, feedback, collaboration, and the future of the IWB.

Use of Social Software in Education

In this chapter, numerous educational activities are presented for instructors in order to address each type of multiple intelligences. Most probably, these educational activities are those which are already being experienced by many instructors. The key point here is that although students are exposed to many educational activities, instructors generally don’t have any idea or rather don’t consider the learning outcomes in terms of multiple intelligences. In general, assessment activities are based only on the chunk of knowledge that the student gains after any particular activity. In fact, instructors should deal with the effects and improvements in students other than just the knowledge, after engagement in educational activities. Thus, instructors should base their instructional plans on a theoretical basis, especially when integrating technology into their courses. Hence, the development and changing activities and other tasks of social software according to the multiple intelligences that underline individual differences were discussed briefly in this chapter.

ScreenPLAY

This chapter explores the various facets of screenPLAY, an interactive video intervention for at-risk teens, which presents social skills in a medium that is both familiar and motivating to this age group. The chapter begins with a discussion of the pedagogical ideas that motivated the creation of screen- PLAY, from the necessity to move away from a skill-driven to a content-driven social-skill intervention, to promoting learning from experience, and then to the importance of clarifying learning objectives. In addition to the adoption of a constructivist perspective, a case is made for including cognitive and linguistic concomitants with social skill acquisition. A description is provided of how these additional two variables relate to behavior and the way they are integrated in the structure of the intervention. A cognitive skill is embedded in each of the eleven templates used to present content. Video clips displaying vignettes employing student actors are analyzed in a context that requires users to record their responses, thoughts, and observations in audio or text files that are uploaded to be accessed later by other users. The anonymity of both users and actors is protected, first, by the provision of an avatar to represent the user, and then, by having the video clips transformed into a comic book look. The technical details of the construction of this digital platform are provided, as well as a dialectic analyzing how the obstacles, encountered along the way, ultimately contributed to the overall innovative functionality. Future directions are examined in the context of screenPLAY’s modular structure that allows the addition of content and functionality.