Networked Learning: experience the educational power

of the network and the participatory culture of the web

Honor Moorman Internship and Service Learning Coordinator

The International School of the AmericasSan Antonio, Texas

“As new technologies shape literacies, they bring opportunities for teachers at all levels to foster

reading and writing in more diverse and participatory contexts.”

“A Changing World for Literacy Teachers” 21st-Century Literacies: A Policy Research Brief

National Council of Teachers of English, 2007

National Council of Teachers of English21st Century Literacies

What are these new technologies & how are they shaping literacies?

“The read/write web changes everything” ~Will Richardson

“Web 2.0 is an umbrella term that is used to refer to a new era of Web-enabled

applications that are built around user-generated or user-manipulated content, such as wikis, blogs, podcasts, and social

networking sites.”

Pew Internet and American Life Project “Research on Web 2.0”

Web 2.0 Tools “Prosumers”

A Brief History of Web 2.0

• Blogs• Wikis• Social Networking• Resources for further information:

– “7 Things You Should Know About . . . ” from Educause Learning Initiative

– Links to School Bloggers– Examples of Educational Wikis

Social Networking in Plain EnglishCommon Craft Video

“Participatory culture shifts the focus of literacy from one of

individual expression to community involvement.”

Confronting the Challenge of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century

Henry Jenkins, et alMacArthur Foundation, 2006

“Literacy encompasses reading, writing, and a variety of social and intellectual

practices that call upon the voice as well as the eye and hand. It also extends to

new media—including non-digitized multimedia, digitized multimedia, and

hypertext or hypermedia.”

Adolescent Literacy: A Policy Research BriefNational Council of Teachers of English, 2007

“Literacy has always been a collection of cultural and communicative practices shared

among members of particular groups. As society and technology change, so does

literacy. Because technology has increased the intensity and complexity of literate

environments, the 21st century demands that a literate person possess a wide range of

abilities and competencies, many literacies.”

Adolescent Literacy: A Policy Research BriefNational Council of Teachers of English, 2007

“Literacy has always been a collection of cultural and communicative practices shared

among members of particular groups. As society and technology change, so does literacy. Because technology has increased

the intensity and complexity of literate environments, the 21st century demands that

a literate person possess a wide range of abilities and competencies, many literacies.”

NCTE Framework for 21st Century Curriculum and Assessmentadopted Nov. 19, 2008

“These literacies—from reading online newspapers to participating in virtual

classrooms—are multiple, dynamic, and malleable. As in the past, they are

inextricably linked with particular histories, life possibilities, and social trajectories of

individuals and groups.”

NCTE Framework for 21st Century Curriculum and Assessmentadopted Nov. 19, 2008

New Literacy Skills Needed in a Participatory Culture

• Play• Performance• Simulation• Appropriation• Multitasking• Distributed Cognition

• Collective Intelligence• Judgment• Transmedia Navigation• Networking• Negotiation

8 Roles and Responsibilities that will create the new middle class

• Collaborators and orchestrators

• Synthesizers• Explainers• Leveragers

• Adapters• Green People• Personalizers• Localizers

Thomas Friedman, The World is Flat, chapter 6

Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future

• Agricultural Age (farmers) • Industrial Age (factory workers) • Information Age (knowledge workers) • Conceptual Age (creators and empathizers)

“A Whole New Mind reveals the six essential aptitudes on which professional success and personal fulfillment now depend . . .”

Daniel Pink, A Whole New Mind

Daniel Pink’s “Six Senses”

• Design - Moving beyond function to engage the sense. • Story - Narrative added to products and services - not just

argument. Best of the six senses. • Symphony - Adding invention and big picture thinking (not

just detail focus). • Empathy - Going beyond logic and engaging emotion and

intuition. • Play - Bringing humor and light-heartedness to business and

products. • Meaning - Immaterial feelings and values of products.

Daniel Pink, A Whole New Mind

How I Discovered Ning

• “Did You Know”/“Did You Know 2.0” ~Karl Fisch and Scott McCloud

• Exponential change, technological innovation, globalization, mass collaboration

• “The Machine is Us/ing Us” ~Michael Wesch• “There’s a blog born every half second”

~Candace Lombardi, CNET.com, Aug. 7, 2006

~Did You Know? 2.0 by Karl Fisch and Scott McLeod

How I Discovered Ning, cont.

• My impetus to begin blogging• Need to read other blogs• Ed Tech Bloggers’ Blogrolls• Edublog Awards• Classroom 2.0 - “the social network for those

interested in Web 2.0 and collaborative technologies in education”

Ning Social Networks

• “the aggregation of a set of web tools for building connections, community, and content” ~Steve Hargadon, Classroom 2.0

• Blogging – you have to publish to an empty room for a while before you get noticed

• Social network – you have a built-in audience and interactive community

The Wisdom of Crowds

2 Reasons to Incorporate Social Networking in Education

#1 – The world is doing it71% of students with online access use social

networking tools on a weekly basis

#2 – It’s pedagogically soundAggregation of tools that together provide for

collaboration and learning

Popular Social Networking Activities

Why is social networking important to education?

• Profile page (portfolio)• Forum (discussion)• Photo/video/audio (content repositories)• Friending (personal learning network)• Groups (ad hock learning teams)

Steve Hargadon, “Build Your Own Social Network or Community,” National Educational Computing Conference, July 2009

Choose Your Own Adventure

• Join the Asia Society ISSN Ning• Get familiar with the features and tools• Choose one (or more) of the following:

– Read about social networking in education (follow links provided in my blog post)

– Explore existing examples of educational social networks education (see links in my blog post)

– Create your own Ning

• Share the learning, Q & A