Social Software in Education
Northern Voice 2007 Panel

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The Question

My ‘Brief’ Answer

Which I will synopsize for the panel in my current pirate voice…

The Nexus

I’ve been talking about this constantly for years: without even bothering to go to Kurzweilian extremes or don my tin foil Singularitarian hat, educators are experiencing an important nexus of:

1. radically increasing bandwidth, processing, and storage capacity

2. changing student demographics because of access to that technology and their increasingly technologically mediated lives

3. advances in learning theory taking into practical account the social aspects of learning in a networked, distributed environment

One can approach this incrementally— which not only cooks the frog, but hasn’t done much for academia so far— or as a disruptive innovation creating a space for transformative change.

My title is “Disruptive Technologist” — you can probably guess on which side of the spectrum I fall…

Bandwidth, Processing, Storage

I probably don’t need to enlighten this group with the wisdom that Moore’s Law, the Storage Law and the Fiber Law continue unabated.

And although we feel it, I probably don’t need to remind you that the information ecology doubles at least every three years and is measured in terms of hundreds of exabytes…

Changing Student Worlds

Whether or not it makes sense to think of students in aggregate terms like Digital Immigrants/Digital Natives, NetGen, etc— or how much to do so— our students’ worlds are changing. We are all facing a technological acceleration, but it is the younger generation that grows up in this environment instead of learning about it from the outside. Generally speaking, those students and potential students are fish in the technological water which educators have generally experienced as a pool that we have only lately learned to swim in.

The emergence of a participatory culture, borne on the wave of participatory media, is the engine that drives everything.

Transformed Community Environment

Social software both as “traditionally” defined (wikis, blogs, etc) and expanded into the realms of participatory “Web 2.0″ applications (YouTube, del.icio.us, Flickr, etc) and immersive environments/metaverses (Second Life, Croquet, etc) create, collectively, a completely new environment for creating, fostering, and facilitating learning communities.

Learning is a social activity and has long been understood as such. But traditional educational environments provide little in the way of means to facilitate learning communities, and almost nothing to extend those communities beyond the bounds of the classroom.

Social software provides a means to create a learning community that can (ideally) both connect to the world of practice (and enthusiasts, prosumers, hobbyists) and extend into— and become a part of— students’ lives. The learning space can be— in part— a student’s own place, entrance to which we as educators are privileged to gain. This learning community can be intertwined with many other kinds of community and ultimately become a student-created Third Place in which the practice is being an active, lifelong learner and the artifacts of that learning are retained and built upon.

Connected Knowledge and Connectivism

Although much remains to be understood, and many studies and experiments have yet to be undertaken, new learning theories are emerging that explicitly take into account technological advances, highly connected environments, and the overwhelming influx of accessible information. Connected Knowledge and its newer counterpart Connectivism attempt to examine learning in this radical new frame… and it’s not an area without contention.

The important work to be done— and being done every day— is that of finding the balance of structured and ustructured, the facilitation techniques, and the moderation patterns that are part of participatory community learning in a world where much knowledge is stored in one’s personal network and the ability to navigate, assess, analyze, synthesize, and present (one’s information fluency quotient) are suddenly of paramount importance.

Problems, Thorns, the Knife’s Edge

You probably don’t want to get me started— and I’m not even particularly cranky about this subject! The question is about weaknesses and gaps, both of which crop up all over the place. Here’s a sampling:

• The information fluency necessary to be a part of the emerging participatory culture has the potential (numerically) dwarf the previous digital divide which was based on the much simpler (but not necessarily easy) problem of access.

• Even after many decades of study, it is hard to know what we mean when we talk about the all important aspect of critical thinking— which informs information fluency and new learning theories alike— much less teach it.

• Learning institutions are notoriously resistant to change, in part because of the inertia of some faculty within them. Disruption, Innovation, Flexibility, Academia. Now, sing it with me: three of these things belong together…

• Computers are stupid… humans less so. Reliance on technology has perils we here all know too well. There was a time when relying on the telephone was a losing proposition, but knowing things will change doesn’t completely salve the wounds inflicted by current problems.

• It’s difficult to separate fads and temps from the real and long lasting… whether we are talking about aspects of learning theory, or choosing applications and tools.

• Here be dragons… much of the waters are uncharted, and learning theory in particular is a constantly evolving process. It doesn’t work to throw away what has come before— but neither can we continue with blinders. The professional community of educators provide a lamp in this darkness, but its reach is limited and much progress must be made by individuals on their own.

• They don’t call it the cutting edge for nothing. It helps to develop a tough skin. You know the old story about sliding down a banister that turns into a razor blade?