What is social learning? The Laureate Educational DVD explains the theory as, “students actively engage in constructing artifacts and conversing with others” (2009). Social learning is also explained by Dr. Michael Orey as,” individuals engaged in social activities” (2001). In my course of study this week at Walden University, I examined several technologically based leaning strategies that further students social learning. Please see the list below for how these strategies support the social learning theory.
Facebook – Face book is a social networking site where students can meet and share Ideas. It is generally used for personal social networking. However, with the business world going global it is important that students learn to incorporate this kind of communication into their lives, the good thing is that most students are already involved with this kind of site.
Webquest – This is a wonderful site that supports social learning by offering pre-prepared well organized collaborative learning projects that span a myriad of subjects, I even found one for choir. The site also allows teachers and student to develop their own Webquest and share them with a larger community on the internet.
Google Docs – Google Docs is an efficient way to collaborate on documents. A document can be centrally located on the site and then many people can go to the site to read and or edit the document. It’s a great tool for social learning.
Edublogs – This site supports social learning by opening up a forum for sharing thoughts and opinions on the internet. It has great controls which allow host to monitor and or reject comments left on their blog. You can also post links to your favorite sites or even upload daily podcasts to make your site more appealing and useful to others.
Voicethread – This is also a great tool to for social learning. Pictures and verbal illustrations can be placed on the website, and then others can view your pictures and leave verbal, text or video comments about your pictures. The resulting projects make wonderful artifact for classroom uses and assessment. Check out my new voicethread at, http://voicethread.com/share/525956/
Social learning, it’s the wave of the future!
References:
Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (2008). Program eight. Social Learning Theories [Motion picture]. Bridging learning theory, instruction and technology. Baltimore: Author.
Orey, M.(Ed.). (2001). Emerging perspectives on learning, teaching, and technology. Retrieved from http://projects.coe.uga.edu/epltt/
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Bonnie,
ReplyDeleteGreat Post! How is the voice?
Facebook is a very popular social networking tool. Many employers will ask if the applicant has a Facebook or My Space account and request to look at it. The applicant is judged on technical aspects of his page and also the content. We need to inform and instruct they should create 2 one for their private life and one for their professional life.
Webquest and Google Docs are powerful collaboration tools, and are used in my classroom.
Another Application I use for my students' quizzes and tests is Google Forms. My student take the test online and are very simple to correct.
I am excited about teaching my students Voice Threads.
Thanks, for the comment Joy. I have read a few articles about Facebook being looked at by prospective employers. The article usually are warning people to be very careful with their web-life, so as not to leave a dirty trail of personal indiscretions, band language and distasteful pictures, that possible employers could find inappropriate. That was a good idea to keep one private.
ReplyDeleteI am going to check out Google forms, thanks for the hint! Look at us, we are social learning in practice!