Community + Web 2.0 = Learning

In a recently published article in the April 2008 Sloan-C View Patricia McGee, Associate Professor of Instructional Technology at The University of Texas at San Antonio focuses on Community + Web 2.0 = Learning. Professor McGee poses, “The question really becomes: How can we facilitate the natural formation of community regardless of the technology available to us?

Here is my reply ….We, humans, are social, gregarious beings. We love to talk with others, seek information from others to solve problems, and learn new things that excite and motivate us to create, innovate and invent. We have evolved and progressed over time, but always find a way to meet that basic human need for social gathering. What also has evolved over time is how we gather together.

Remember when gathering around the water cooler was a means to connect socially with people in your office and learn inadvertently from coworkers? I do, but most of the ‘Net Generation doesn’t. They have grown up digitally with some type of technology at their fingertips. Today ‘s Digital Natives connect with others differently than the digital immigrants, preferring social networks like Second Life, MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter. Connecting and meeting virtually now is common place to Digital Natives who text friends to find where or when to meet or go online to a friend’s MySpace page to see what the friend has been doing lately. Learning is social. People now gather information from others through online social networks, and inadvertently learn about many new things. Information that was once gathered around the water cooler is now gained through a cell phone, mobile device, or computer.

People are already beginning to wonder what will be the next MySpace or Facebook tool that we, being 'social beings', embrace to connect with others? Whatever the tool, it will need to be easy-to-use, integrate with the devices that are already in the hands of the Digital Natives - something they are already familiar with- that will send them to the next dimension where they will continue to learn from others, but in a new way. The device itself will be the platform for new social networking software that allows for social interaction just like discussion forums, listservs, and email allowed us to exchange information, keep in touch, and learn en-route.

Technology's innovative tools provide a new means to do something people have always done- learn from others in a community of practice and from communities they choose to join. We are social creatures, gregarious in nature. It’s not really about the way in which we interact- online or face-to-face, but about meeting our need to be social. The technology serves as the tool that allows us to meet around the water cooler in IM, Facebook or Second Life and learn from others. It provides the opportunity for social learning.

Educators, on the other hand, need to be knowledgeable of these tools and use them in learning situations to reach the Digital Natives with their tools of choice. An educator’s job is to help student on their path to lifelong learning. Whether we use SMS texting, Twitter, Meebo, Second Life to connect students doesn’t matter, but providing an option for “the water cooler” is important for the students entering into a community of practice and for their continued learning within the community. Technology will continue to evolve and student’s ‘tech-a-tuitive-ness’ will rapidly increase in response. But the students’ need to be social and learn from others will persist. They will just do it through different mediums. Educators need to keep abreast of the new innovative communication and social networking tools and see how they can utilize them with their students. Learning doesn't take place in a vacuum, but through interactions with others.

Over the years ‘techies’ flocked to the James Bond 007 movies to see what new far-fetched technology gadgets Sean Connery would use. The gadgets helped him connect to others and allowed him to brave new worlds. The openness of the Web 2.0 provides the environment ripe for innovation of new technologies even more 'far-fetched' than Bonds. It’s just a matter of time till someone reaches over to try something, find it exciting, and then connects to others in their social network to share what they found. We will just have to wait.

But in the meantime, educators should utilize these new tools in the context of their curriculum and embed them into their course design through interactive learning activities that keep students engaged, connected, interacting, and learning socially.