Paper on Social Learning

The paper on Social Networking and Learning in Higher Education proposes the following recommendations.

Abstract
Social networking has achieved widespread popularity and also inspired the use of similar approaches in education; along with the associated terms of “social learning”, “educational networking” and “collaborative learning”.  The authors’ initial research has shown that social learning technologies may be used to: unwittingly replace the repository type role of a VLE or other web hosting system; allow general purpose networking for various user groups; and provide an opportunity for collaborative learning.  However, questions exist over the purpose and scope of collaborative learning; and making it happen requires more effort than just providing the technology.  This paper discusses those challenges and opportunities, and provides recommendations.

Recommendations for Social Learning
Based on our work and research to date the following tentative ideas are proposed for stimulating effective social learning and collaboration amongst students:

1. Get the students to start with ice-breakers and ask them to introduce themselves to each other using the online system.

2. Use technologies that are simple, easy to use, widely accessible, and reliable.

3. Before starting, be clear what the purpose of the social learning platform is, and discuss this with the staff and students.

4. Make the platform relevant and useful, and show the benefits to its users.

5. Provide a real incentive for it to be visited and used, e.g.: host key information on the site, and set tasks that require use of the site.

6. Consider whether students should participate in social learning and collaboration all of the time, or just some of the time (e.g. just to develop collaborative learning skills).

7. Is social learning "the be all and end all"?  Some students don’t want to socialise (or can’t spare the time in their busy lives), and some prefer to study alone.

8. Do we always have to use a centralised platform?  Why can’t learners create their own personal learning environments that are linked together in some way, when the need arises (e.g. for collaborative projects)?  This allows learners to choose their own tools. 

9. When setting a group activity, clearly explain to the students what the objectives and outcomes are expected to be; and consider explaining how the group process should work and what the required roles may be (if you consider this will be helpful to the group).

10. Outlining processes and roles for groups may be useful initially, but experienced groups may be able to do this for themselves.

11. Critical mass: consider how many people need to be in a group to stimulate social learning and get good results.

12. To encourage greater social learning and collaboration a group assignment could include a marking system that explicitly assigns marks to:

a. the processes used within the group
b. the allocation of individual roles
c. group discussions
d. decision making
e. the quality of the work (e.g. research, validation and reporting)
f. the contributions made by individuals