Just finished reading the first chapter of a book called The E-Learning and Social Networking Handbook.

One thing I really appreciated about the chapter was how the editors (Mason and Rennie) view the potential of web 2.0 to improve education in the ideas behind these new tools and services. These ideas of user generated content, network effects of mass participation, openness and low barriers to entry can be applied to traditional education axioms like student engagement, interaction in learning, and student ownership and management of learning.

They also correctly identify that the hype that follows the emergence of new technologies assumes a smooth transition between entertainment and education [1]. We know that this transition is not smooth, and we repeatedly fall short of our expectations, most recently in the expectations surrounding the widespread deployment of computers and giving them internet connectivity.

Can education happen through the network effect? One of the editors, Robin Mason, teaches at The Open University (a distance learning university funded by the UK) which has over 180,000 students taking courses from all over the world. Can the value of your education be increased by the number of additional students attending your university, or enrolled in your course? The editors are saying yes: "I store my knowledge in my friends". They'd like to see a shift toward a view of learning as building connections with communities and participating to actively create meaning and pursue one's own learning. Siemens (2004) coined this connectivism, contrasting the traditional empty vessel models of cognitivism and behaviorism.

I was glad to see they cited one of our professors at the I School here at Berkeley, Paul Duguid. He and John Brown wrote that access to information does not equate knowledge, and their study found that technology can enhance instruction but cannot replace the insights gained from the interaction between the mentor and the struggling apprentice.

They countered with the technological deterministic argument from Johnson and Johnson (2004): that educators need to use the tools that are common in the social context of the day, because they are determining the way people learn. When it comes to issues of motivation, collaborative work and shared community spaces seem to excite learners today. Why not use the tools that make that possible (and easy)?

A study that was new to me is the 2005 Kvavik and Caruso survey of students about IT use in their classes. Students identified faculty expertise as the most important part of their learning, and most wanted moderate amounts of IT use, with fewer wanted either extreme use or little to no use.

[1] Reminded me of this Thomas Edison quote: “I believe that the motion picture is destined to revolutionize our educational system and that in a few years it will supplant largely, if not entirely, the use of textbooks” 1922