The Design, Experience and Practice of Networked LearningEdited by: Vivien Hodgson, Maarten de Laat, David McConnell and Thomas RybergThis book brings together a wealth of new research that opens up the meaning of connectivity as embodied and promised in the term 'networked learning'. Chapters explore how contexts, groups and environments can be connected rather than just learners; how messy, unexpected and emergent connections can be made rather than structured and predefined ones; and how technology connects us to learning and each other, but also shapes our identity. These exciting new perspectives ask us to look again at what we are connecting and to revel in new and emergent possibilities arising from the interplay of social actors, contexts, technologies, and learning.Caroline Haythornthwaite, University of British ColumbiaDespite creating fundamentally new educational economics and greatly increasing access - teaching and learningin networks is a tricky business. These chapters illuminate the complex interactions amongst tools, pedagogy, educational institutions and personal net presences helping us design and redesign our own networks. In the process, they take (or extract) network theory from the practice of real teaching and learning contexts, making this collection an important contribution to Networked Learning.Terry Anderson, Athabasca UniversityWhat kinds of learning can social networking platforms really enable? Digging well beneath the hype, this book provides a timely, incisive analysis of why and how learning emerges (or fails to) in networked spaces. The editors do a fine job in guiding the reader through the rich array of theories and methods for tackling this question, and the diverse contexts in which networked learning is now being studied. This is a book for reflective practitioners as well as academics: the book's close attention to the political, pedagogical andorganisational complexity of effective practice, and the lived experience of educators and learners, helps explain why networked learning has such disruptive potential but equally, why it draws resistance from the establishment.Simon Buckingham Shum, The Open UniversityThe networked learning conference, a biannual institution since 1998, celebrates its 14th year in this volume. Here a range of studies, reflecting networked learning experiments across Europe and other global contexts , show important shifts away from a conservative tradition of e-learning¹ research and unpeel dilemmas of promoting learning as an elusive practice in virtual environments. The authors point towards important futures in online learning research, where notions of knowledge, connectivity and community¹ become increasingly elastic, and engagements slide across material and virtual domains in new practices whose emergence is increasingly difficult to apprehend.nd edition 2000), and E-Learning Groups and Communities (Maidenhead, SRHE/OU Press 2006) received enthusiastic acclaim. David has participated in a wide variety of internationally funded research projects concerned with e-community developments, intercultural Sino-UK pedagogy and networked collaborative learning. He was the founder and co-chair of the Networked Learning Conference series and is the co-editor of the Springer Book Series on Researching Networked Learning. David has held professorial posts at the universities of Sheffield, Open, Lancaster and Glasgow Caledonian, and is currently Associate Professor and Director of Programs in the Teaching and learning Centre, University of Canberra Australia.

Thomas Ryberg is Professor mso in the Department of Communication and Psychology at Aalborg University (AAU), Denmark. He is part of the research centre: E-learning lab - Center for User Driven Innovation, Learning and Design (www.ell.aau.dk). His primary research interests are within the fields of Networked Learning, Problem Based Learning (PBL), Computer Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL) and Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL). He is co-chair of the International Networked Learning Conference and member of the Aalborg PBL Academy Management Board. He has participated in European and international research projects and networks (EQUEL, Kaledioscope, COMBLE, PlaceMe, EATrain2), and in development projects in South East Asia and Latin America (VISCA, VO@NET, ELAC). In particular, he is interested in Problem Based Learning, and how new media and technologies transform our ways of thinking about and designing for Networked and Hybrid Learning.

Klappentext

The Design, Experience and Practice of Networked Learning Edited by: Vivien Hodgson, Maarten de Laat, David McConnell and Thomas Ryberg This book brings together a wealth of new research that opens up the meaning of connectivity as embodied and promised in the term 'networked learning'. Chapters explore how contexts, groups and environments can be connected rather than just learners; how messy, unexpected and emergent connections can be made rather than structured and predefined ones; and how technology connects us to learning and each other, but also shapes our identity. These exciting new perspectives ask us to look again at what we are connecting and to revel in new and emergent possibilities arising from the interplay of social actors, contexts, technologies, and learning. Caroline Haythornthwaite, University of British Columbia Despite creating fundamentally new educational economics and greatly increasing access - teaching and learningin networks is a tricky business. These chapters illuminate the complex interactions amongst tools, pedagogy, educational institutions and personal net presences - helping us design and redesign our own networks. In the process, they take (or extract) network theory from the practice of real teaching and learning contexts, making this collection an important contribution to Networked Learning. Terry Anderson, Athabasca University What kinds of learning can social networking platforms really enable? Digging well beneath the hype, this book provides a timely, incisive analysis of why and how learning emerges (or fails to) in networked spaces. The editors do a fine job in guiding the reader through the rich array of theories and methods for tackling this question, and the diverse contexts in which networked learning is now being studied. This is a book for reflective practitioners as well as academics: the book's close attention to the political, pedagogical andorganisational complexity of effective practice, and the lived experience of educators and learners, helps explain why networked learning has such disruptive potential - but equally, why it draws resistance from the establishment. Simon Buckingham Shum, The Open University The networked learning conference, a biannual institution since 1998, celebrates its 14th year in this volume. Here a range of studies, reflecting networked learning experiments across Europe and other global contexts , show important shifts away from a conservative tradition of e-learning¹ research and unpeel dilemmas of promoting learning as an elusive practice in virtual environments. The authors point towards important futures in online learning research, where notions of knowledge, connectivity and community¹ become increasingly elastic, and engagements slide across material and virtual domains in new practices whose emergence is increasingly difficult to apprehend. < Tara Fenwick - University of Stirling. The chapters in this volume explore new and innovative ways of thinking about the nature of networked learning and its pedagogical values and beliefs. They pose a challenge to us to reflect on what we thought networked learning was 15 year ago, where it is today and where it is likely to be headed. Each chapter brings a particular perspective to the themes of design, experience and practice of networked learning, the chosen focus of the book. The chapters in the book embrace a wide field of e…