Teaching Crowds: Learning and Social Media

by Jon Dron, Terry Anderson

Overview

In Teaching Crowds, Jon Dron and Terry Anderson introduce a new model for understanding and exploiting the pedagogical potential of Web-based technologies, one that rests on connections — on networks and collectives — rather than on separations. Recognizing that online learning both demands and affords new models of teaching and learning, the authors show how learners can engage with social media platforms to create an unbounded field of emergent connections. These connections empower learners, allowing them to draw from one another’s expertise to formulate and fulfill their own educational goals. In an increasingly networked world, developing such skills will, they argue, better prepare students to become self-directed, lifelong learners

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781927356807
Publisher:	Athabasca University Press
Publication date:	12/04/2014
Series:	Issues in Distance Education Series
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	450
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.80(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Jon Dron is associate professor in the School of Computing and Information Systems and a member of the Technology-Enhanced Knowledge Research Institute at Athabasca University and is the author of Control and Constraint in E-Learning: Choosing When to Choose. Terry Anderson is professor and researcher in the Technology-Enhanced Knowledge Research Institute at Athabasca University and is the editor of The Theory and Practice of Online Learning.

Table of Contents

List of Figures and Tables ix

Preface xi

Chapter 1 On the Nature and Value of Social Software for Learning 3

Chapter 2 Social Learning Theories 35

Chapter 3 A Typology of Social Forms for Learning 71

Chapter 4 Learning in Groups 93

Chapter 5 Learning in Networks 131

Chapter 6 Learning in Sets 165

Chapter 7 Learning with Collectives 199

Chapter 8 Stories From the Field 237

Chapter 9 Issues and Challenges in Educational Uses of Social Software 275

Chapter 10 The Shape of Things and of Things to Conic 299

References 327

Index 349