What do we mean by “social learning”? As stated in the article by John Seely Brown and Richard P. Adler, perhaps the simplest way to explain this concept is to note that social learning is based on the premise that our understanding
The article Minds on Fire, states that there is this Cartesian perspective, which assumes that knowledge is a kind
This can become a living or dynamic infrastructure—itself a reflective practicum. An example of such a practicum is
I will totally agree, that tools such as blogs, wikis, social networks, tagging systems, mashups, and content-sharing sites are examples of a new user-centric information infrastructure that emphasizes participation (e.g., creating, re-mixing)
All the above mentioned is a piece of information I found important for myself, that's why i included it in my blog post, and I will get back to it from time to time to reinforce learned information. In my opinion, and as it is stated in the above mentioned article, technologies and open resources are of huge importance in our life. However, I assume that all the technologies should be used with a great understanding of why they are used in TEFL classroom, and what we want to receive from our students. Teacher should prepare perfectly before implementing them into the classroom, develop tools for moderating and at the same time control, as well as motivating the students. Otherwise the resources can be used in a way, which will not benefit the learning process and will only grab time from the students learning timeframe.
of content is socially constructed through conversations about that content and through grounded interactions,
especially with others, around problems or actions. The focus is not so much on what we are learning but on how we are learning.
I can remember the times when i was fulfilling my first degree we often times used to work together on our homework assignments as it was easier for us to understand what is expected from us. Although we have never been assigned group projects, doing homework or working on lectures was more useful and motivating. Also it was fun as we spent time with peers and were not ashamed to ask questions which we couldn't ask the lecturer.
of substance and that pedagogy concerns the best way to transfer this substance from teachers to students. By contrast, instead of starting from the Cartesian premise of “I think, therefore I am,” and from the assumption that knowledge is something that is transferred to the student via various pedagogical strategies, the social view of learning
says, “We participate, therefore we are.” We need to construct shared, distributed, reflective practicums in which experiences are collected, vetted, clustered, commented on, and tried out in new contexts. One might call this “learning about learning,” a bootstrapping operation in which educators, along with students, are learning among and between themselves.
the online Teaching and Learning Commons (http://commons.carnegie foundation.org/) launched earlier this
year by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. The Commons is essentially an open version
of the Foundation’s Gallery of Teaching and Learning (http://gallery.carnegiefoundation.org/), which has been operating for the past nine years. The Gallery provides an online showcase for case studies of successful teaching and learning projects that have been supported by the Foundation, along with a set of web-based tools (the KEEP Toolkit) for creating these case studies (http://www.cfkeep.org). The Commons is an open forum where instructors at all levels (and from around the world) can post their own examples and can participate in an ongoing conversation about effective
teaching practices, as a means of supporting a process of “creating/using/re-mixing (or creating/sharing/using).”
over presentation, that encourages focused conversation and short briefs (often written in a less technical, public
vernacular) rather than traditional publication, and that facilitates innovative explorations, experimentations, and purposeful tinkerings that often form the basis of a situated understanding emerging from action, not passivity.
We now need a new approach to learning—one characterized by a demandpull rather than the traditional supply-push
mode of building up an inventory of knowledge in students’ heads. Demandpull learning shifts the focus to enabling
participation in flows of action, where the focus is both on “learning to be” through enculturation into a practice as well as on collateral learning. The demand-pull approach is based on providing students with access to rich (sometimes virtual) learning communities built around a practice. It is passion-based learning, motivated by the student either wanting to become a member of a particular community of practice or just wanting to learn about, make, or perform something.
However, reading such articles give me a path to think and develop some procedures and my own technologies for future career as a teacher.
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