Rethinking Teaching & Learning in a Networked Reality

Dr. Alec CourosECS 100

Who is this guy?

My Blog, My Hub

Photo Sharing

Video Sharing

Social Network Services

Content Sharing

Copyleft

“Web 2.0 tools that might allow academics to reflect and reimagine what they do as scholars. Such tools might positively affect -- even transform - research,

teaching, and services responsibilities - only if scholars choose to build serious academic lives online,

presenting semi-public selves and becoming invested in and connected to the work of their peers and

students.” (Greenhow, Robella, & Hughes, 2009)

social networks & media

• redefine communities, friends, citizenship, identity, presence, privacy, publics, geography.

• enable learning, communication, sharing, connections, collaboration, community.

• networks form around shared interests & objects.

Social Networks

A Connected Reality

Old World Networks

Mario Couros

Mediated Reality

Twitter in 60 Seconds

Each technology creates a new environment.

The old environment becomes content for

the new environment.

The effects of mediacome from their form

not their content.

The Way We Were

David Wiley(Brigham Young University)

@opencontent

Then vs Now

Analog Digital

Tethered Mobile

Isolated Connected

Generic Personal

Consumption Creating

Closed Open

David Wiley(Brigham Young University)

@opencontent

Education vs Everyday

Analog Digital

Tethered Mobile

Isolated Connected

Generic Personal

Consumption Creating

Closed Open

Rise of the PLN

trust

easy trust

humankind is mostly good

View on Society?

“Some of the comments on Youtube make you weep for the future of humanity, just for the spelling alone, never mind the obscenity and naked hatred.”

(Lev Grossman)@leverus

@zittrain• Technical infrastructure of

the web.

• Wikipedia’s content & form

• ‘Hitchhiking’ exists through Internet-facilitated kindness, collaboration, & sharing.

The Web as Random Acts of Kindness (TED Talk)

• Inspired by McLuhan’s “We shape our tools and thereafter our tools shape us.”

• Youtube & other social media mitigate “connection without constraint”. In many cases this leaves to “tremendously deep communities”.

The Machine is (Changing) Us(Personal Democracy Forum)

@mwesch

Heroes for our Mediated Culture

“The invention of the alphabet and the resulting intensification of the visual sense in the communication process gave sight priority over hearing, but the effect was so powerful that it went beyond communication

through language to reshape literate society’s conception and use of space.” (Gordon re: Mcluhan)

educators and trust

via @mcleod

via @shareski

i can haz internetz

@smartinez

learners and trust

Teens are not connecting in the ways we fear. But, we need to pay attention to:

•Properties: persistence, replicability, searchability, scalability, (de)locatability.

•Dynamics: invisible audiences, collapsed contexts, blurring of public & private spaces

Living & Learning with Social Media(Penn State address)

@zephoria

“Kyle Doyle is not going to work today, f*** it,

I’m still trashed SICKIE WOO.”

“Cisco just offered me a job! Now I have to weigh the utility of a fatty paycheck against the daily commute to San Jose and

hating the work.”

• Scottish teen who participates in my open, online grad course.

• Creative, motivated, independent, connected, respectful, cognizant and intentional in managing his digital identity.

Bassman_Sean(Scotland)

@bassman_sean

in practice

Grade One - Expert Visits

@kathycassidy

Grade Five - Choir on Youtube

Grade Six - Global Connections

@zbpipe

Grade Seven/Eight - Class Branding

@glassbeed

Beaver Country Day School - mashUp

EC&I 831 -Non-Credit

pay attention to ...

Access

Ubiquity

Real Time Web

RT Search

RT Collaboration

RT Streaming

Social Reading

Trusted Groups

New Roles for Educators

Professional Identities

Professional Development Gone Wild!

Private Public

Closed Open

Thinning Walls

• The future of learning is open, connected, & social.

• Learning networks redefine how knowledge is created, distributed & controlled.

• Meaningful learning can be fostered through informal learning networks.

The Big Ideas

web: couros.catwitter: courosagoogle: couros

alec.couros@uregina.ca

Don’t limit a child to your own learning, for he was born

in another time. ~Tagore