“Actually, I Wanted to Learn”: Study-related knowledge exchange on social networking sites

Social media open up multiple options to add a new dimension to learning and knowledge processes. Particularly, social networking sites allow students to connect formal and informal learning settings. Students can find like-minded people and organize informal knowledge exchange for educational purposes. However, little is known about in which way students use social networking sites for informal learning and about characteristics of these students. In this paper, three studies examined the study-related knowledge exchange via StudiVZ, the German equivalent of Facebook. Results indicated that about one fifth of participants exchange study-related knowledge through StudiVZ and that these students are especially freshers seeking contact with other students and orientation. Consistent with previous research, it is shown that students use social networking sites mainly for social interaction and integration. However, results also imply that communication about social issues on social networking sites goes hand in hand with study-related knowledge exchange.     

Leading educational transformation in Asia: sustaining the knowledge society

This article explores the implications of the knowledge society for education and education systems. It focuses on how education systems in Asia are contributing to the development and sustainability of the knowledge society through creating powerful professional learning communities. The article explores how professional collaboration, at scale, is being used to generate social capital in order to promote educational transformation and improvement. The article draws upon a range of theoretical perspectives to examine how professional learning communities are contributing to educational improvement and the construction of new knowledge. The article concludes by arguing that disciplined, collective and inter-dependent learning is critical for the knowledge society to be sustained.     

The application of SECI model as a framework of knowledge creation in virtual learning Case study of IUST Virtual Classes

The research aims to define SECI model of knowledge creation (socialization, externalization, combination, and internalization) as a framework of Virtual class management which can lead to better online teaching–learning mechanisms as well as knowledge creation. It has used qualitative research methodology including researcher’s close observation and attendance in the online MBA classes of Iran University of Science and Technology for one academic semester as well as semi-structured interviews with the professional facilitators. The article has defined a practical SECI framework in which 4 phases of socialization, externalization, combination, internalization, and their required “ba” contexts are explained with regards to tasks and responsibilities of both students and facilitators.     

Situated cognition and learning environments: implications for teachers on- and offline in the new digital media age

John Seely Brown suggested that learning environments should be spaces in which all work is public, is subject to iterative critique by instructors and peers, and in which social interaction is primary. In such spaces, students and teachers engage in a situated cognition approach to teaching and learning where “cognitive accomplishments rely in part on structures and processes outside the individual”. Here we describe a qualitative analysis of a socially situated learning setting that aimed to develop children who can design, analyze, critique, and transform media, subjecting existing social media, their designs, and their peers’ designs to public and iterative critique. In this setting, adult mentors supported children’s self-expression, self-reflection, and skillbuilding through authentic, socially situated reading, writing, and discussion, and media production. Creating and leveraging such spaces is essential for preparing all children for successful experiences in the new knowledge economy in formal and informal educational settings.     

Computer Support for Knowledge-Building Communities

In this article we focus on educational ideas and enabling technology for knowledge-building discourse. The conceptual bases of computer-supported intentional learning environments (CSILE) come from research on intentional learning, process aspects of expertise, and discourse in knowledge-building communities. These bases combine to support the following propositions: Schools need to be restructured as communities in which the construction of knowledge is supported as a collective goal, and the role of educational technology should be to replace classroom discourse patterns with those having more immediate and natural extensions to knowledge-building communities outside school walls. CSILE is described as a means for refraining classroom discourse to support knowledge building in ways extensible to out-of-school knowledgeadvancing enterprises. Some of the most fundamental problems are logistic, and it is in solving these logistic problems that we see the greatest potential for educational technology.     

What keeps science spiralling? Unravelling the critical success factors of knowledge creation in university research

Based on Nonaka’s knowledge spiral, this paper examines how processes of knowledge creation contribute to success in academia. It presents the outcomes of an in-depth exploration of the workings of the knowledge spiral in a university research institute. The research shows the outstanding but undervalued importance of socialization processes. It also shows that, while research success is typically defined at the interplay of the individual, group and institutional levels, in the institute that was examined none of the four knowledge creation processes (socialization, externalization, combination and internalization) appears to run smoothly at the institutional level.     

Being a Learner Using Social Media in School: The Case of Space2cre8

The aim of this article is to gain knowledge about what it means to be a learner using social media in an educational setting. The article presents an ethnographic study of students in a multiethnic community in Oslo who participate in a social networking site called Space2cre8 (S28). In this article, we set out to explore the kind of space for learning that can be created in a lower secondary classroom by a social networking site. The article provides a detailed study of how two students made use of this social networking site as part of school activities, and it outlines two specific ways in which to be a learner using social media in school. The findings suggest that a social networking site such as S28 can provide different resources for different students with different learner identities, and might represent a space in which everyday knowledge and school knowledge merge to offer a hybrid space for learning.     

Sociocultural approaches to learning and development: A Vygotskian framework

Sociocultural approaches emphasize the interdependence of social and individual processes in the coconstruction of knowledge. This article uses three central tenets of a Vygotskian framework to examine the relation between learning and development: (a) social sources of individual development, (b) semiotic (signs and symbols, including language) mediation in human development, and (c) genetic (developmental) analysis. The role played by culture and language in human development is an essential aspect of the Vygotskian framework and provides an overarching theme for this article. The methodological foundation of this framework is examined, particularly as it contrasts with other perspectives on the process of internalization of social interaction in the construction of knowledge. The article concludes by surveying sociocultural research on and applications to classroom learning and teaching, particularly that which examines the role of collaboration.     

Getting looped in to the web: characterizing learning processes and educational responses

Through profiling and matching processes, technology provides individuals with information that becomes redundant to their previous beliefs, attitudes and preferences. The emergence of informational redundancies encouraged by some technologies is likely to influence the way knowledge is constructed by individuals in these settings. In this paper, we present a theoretical basis, rooted in cognitivist and socio-constructivist educational psychology, to characterize such knowledge-construction processes in informal settings. Learning processes in these environments are defined as cumulative: on the individual level, the most likely form of learning is through accretion of knowledge into previous schemata; on the social level, these environments foster learning through cumulative talk. We highlight the challenges that this might pose to education systems and suggest possible educational responses.     

Retrieval-Based Learning: A Perspective for Enhancing Meaningful Learning

Learning is often identified with the acquisition, encoding, or construction of new knowledge, while retrieval is often considered only a means of assessing knowledge, not a process that contributes to learning. Here, we make the case that retrieval is the key process for understanding and for promoting learning. We provide an overview of recent research showing that active retrieval enhances learning, and we highlight ways researchers have sought to extend research on active retrieval to meaningful learning—the learning of complex educational materials as assessed on measures of inference making and knowledge application. However, many students lack metacognitive awareness of the benefits of practicing active retrieval. We describe two approaches to addressing this problem: classroom quizzing and a computer-based learning program that guides students to practice retrieval. Retrieval processes must be considered in any analysis of learning, and incorporating retrieval into educational activities represents a powerful way to enhance learning.     

Tackling social inequality and exclusion in education: from human capital to capabilities

Both in the international context and in Flanders (the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium), research shows that many young people experience social exclusion in relation to education. However, research evidence concerning structural social inequality in education is predominantly underpinned by an outcome-based approach, since educational policies and practices are largely informed by a human capital model. Inspired by the theoretical insights of the Capability Approach, we aim to contribute to process-oriented knowledge about the ways in which educational and social welfare actors can support socially vulnerable young people in realising their capability for education rather than focusing on human capital. We draw upon a rich empirical basis of participatory biographical research with young people in the system of part-time vocational education and workplace learning, perceived as the residue of the educational cascade mechanism in Flanders and pertinently revealing problems of social exclusion and exit of young people.     

在线协作学习中的集体责任与个体生成角色

文章结合社会网络分析法、内容分析法和统计分析法,通过实证研究分析了在线协作学习中集体责任和个体生成角色的发展动态,及其对知识建构过程的协同促进作用。研究结果表明,在线协作学习过程中,集体责任的三个特征(参与意识、协同交互、均衡发展)与个体生成角色(探究引申、知识促进、知识整合、探究管理)的分布形态之间存在相互促进、动态演进的复杂关系,且两者共同影响协作对话本质。探讨在线协作学习中集体责任与个体生成角色之间的关系,有助于创设在线协作学习环境,并为知识建构提供策略性参考。     

Identity formation in educational settings: A critical focus for education in the 21st century

There is growing recognition that identity formation must become an important focus in education. Particularly in the 21st century, when modes of knowledge construction and accessibility to different types of knowledge are rapidly increasing and diversifying, academic learning cannot be divorced from students’ development of values, goals, social roles, and worldviews. The articles in this special issue present a diverse collection of research on students’ identity formation in educational settings. Yet, despite the diversity in perspectives, educational contexts, samples, and research and analytic methods, all of the articles highlight the role of the educational context in identity formation processes. We begin this introduction with a brief review of the increasing attention to identity formation in education. We follow with synopses of each of the articles in this special issue.     

基于SECI模型的知识型员工激励机制研究

知识型员工对组织的生存与发展发挥着至关重要的作用,这种作用的发挥离不开知识的转化与分享。在研究知识型员工的内涵及主要特点的基础上,分析了知识型员工的主要需求,根据实行知识管理过程的SECI模型即知识转化的四种模式社会化、外在化、组合化、内在化,提出了有效激励知识型员工分享知识增强组织竞争力的对策,包括建立学习型组织、鼓励员工形成模仿和实践的习惯、促进员工知识的外部化、建立良好的知识分享机制、对知识的分享实行奖励、重视激励的针对性和灵活性、注重成就激励情感激励以及文化激励等方面。     

Collaboration, creativity and the co-construction of oral and written texts

In this paper we explore how primary school children ‘learn to collaborate’ and ‘collaborate to learn’ on creative writing projects by using diverse cultural artefacts—including oracy, literacy and ICT. We begin by reviewing some key sociocultural concepts which serve as a theoretical framework for the research reported. Secondly, we describe the context in which the children talked and worked together to create their projects. This context is a ‘learning community’ developed as part of an innovative educational programme with the aim of promoting the social construction of knowledge among all participants. We then present microgenetic analyses of the quality of the interaction and dialogues taking place as peers worked together on their projects, and how these collaborative processes and uses of the mediational artefacts were taken up by the children. In order to exemplify these processes, our analyses centre on a selection of examples of dialogues, texts and multimedia products of stories created by groups of fourth grade (9-10 years old) children. Overall, the work reveals the dynamic functioning in educational settings of some central sociocultural concepts. These include: co-construction; intertextuality and intercontextuality amongst oracy, literacy and uses of ICT; collaborative creativity; development of dialogical and text production strategies and appropriation of diverse cultural artefacts for knowledge construction.     

大规模协作支持的 在线学习集体智慧生成路径研究

在线学习环境中,大规模群体通过深度交互,充分交织个体智慧,能生成具有重要价值的集体智慧。然而,在大规模协作实际运行中,群体协作和群体知识建构效果不佳,导致个体智慧孤立,集体智慧形成的基础薄弱。构建在线学习集体智慧生成路径(OCIG):以个体智慧为起点,在媒介供给、组织策略和社交互动的支持下,能实现个体参与群体协作,最终生成集体智慧。并依此设计大规模协作方案,进行实践与分析,结果表明:适切的媒介功能,为集体智慧生成提供技术保障;多样的组织结构,转变集体智慧生成方向;提供逐级的互动支架,能够提升集体智慧层次。     

Measuring the demand for agricultural information

Abstract

Networked learning aims to foster students’ knowledge construction processes as well as the quality of knowledge construction. In this respect, it is crucial to be able to analyse both aspects of networked learning. Based on theories on networked learning and the empirical work of relevant authors in this domain, two coding schemes are presented to analyse the nature of learning processes and the quality of knowledge construction in networked learning. The coding schemes were used to analyse the learning processes and learning results of students in an MSc course on land use planning at Wageningen University in which networked learning played an important role. The inter-rater reliability of both instruments appeared to be satisfactory. The relation between the two coding schemes is discussed and recommendations for future research and educational practice are formulated.     

Peer relations in peer learning

Over the last decades, much research on peer learning practices has been conducted. Quantitative, experimental designs focusing on problems of cause and effect dominate. Consequently, effects on achievement are well documented, as is the influence of different conditions on the effect rate. In spite of the general acknowledgment of the importance of peer learning and a large amount of research on collective learning practices, questions regarding the quality of peer interaction, and how peer relations influence learning, are not well elaborated. This paper complements the discussion on effect focusing on the processes of interaction between peers, and relates these to theoretical perspectives on learning as fundamentally social. Inspired by meta-ethnography an integrative analysis across seven qualitative studies was accomplished. The approach enabled an investigation of peer interactions in different educational settings. The analysis elaborates on how instructional designs and students’ relational knowledge mediate interaction in peer learning. The paper further discusses the potential of approaches synthesising qualitative studies as a tool in qualitative research.     

Cooperative learning: a methodological innovation in teacher training / El aprendizaje cooperativo: una innovación metodológica en la formación del profesorado

Cooperative learning is an important methodological strategy to develop students’ general competencies. In this paper, we show an educational innovation experience of cooperative learning developed as part of the ‘Educational contexts and processes’ subject of the Speciality in Technology and Industrial Processes of the Master’s Degree in Secondary Education Teaching at the University of Valencia, during the 2011–12 academic year. The innovation experience becomes ‘meta-experience’ since it allows students to reflect on their own knowledge in building the learning process. The overall objective of this experience is to develop attitudes and skills for cooperative learning in future secondary education teachers. To this end, we designed the activity ‘Short Film’ that employs cooperative learning as a methodological strategy to foster learning and media literacy. The experience gave students the opportunity to reflect, discuss and be involved in their learning process. Furthermore, the academic results were excellent and students valued the educational innovation in a positive way.     

Science education for sustainability, epistemological reflections and educational practices: from natural sciences to trans-disciplinarity

In this three-part article we seek to establish connections between the emerging framework of sustainability science and the methodological basis of research and practice in science education in order to bring forth knowledge and competences for sustainability. The first and second parts deal with the implications of taking a sustainability view in relation to knowledge processes. The complexity, uncertainty and urgency of global environmental problems challenge the foundations of reductionist Western science. Within such debate, the proposal of sustainability science advocates for inter-disciplinary and inter-paradigmatic collaboration and it includes the requirements of post-normal science proposing a respectful dialogue between experts and non-experts in the construction of new scientific knowledge. Such a change of epistemology is rooted into participation, deliberation and the gathering of extended-facts where cultural framings and values are the hard components in the face of soft facts. A reflection on language and communication processes is thus the focus of knowledge practices and educational approaches aimed at sustainability. Language contains the roots of conceptual thinking (including scientific knowledge) and each culture and society are defined and limited by the language that is used to describe and act upon the world. Within a scenario of sustainability, a discussion of scientific language is in order to retrace the connections between language and culture, and to promote a holistic view based on pluralism and dialogue. Drawing on the linguistic reflection, the third part gives examples of teaching and learning situations involving prospective science teachers in action-research contexts: these activities are set out to promote linguistic integration and to introduce reflexive process into science learning. Discussion will focus on the methodological features of a learning process that is akin to a communal and emancipatory research process within a sustainability scenario.