“Does it end?”

So what did I learn or what was reinforced? A loose-knit online learning community can scale to many participants and remain effective. Only a small percentage ~10% of members will be active. Wikis need to be extremely focused on real tasks/projects in order to be adopted. If facilitators can seed good questions and provide feedback, then conversations can flourish. Use a very gentle hand in controlling the learners and some will become highly participative. Design for after the course, using tools like social bookmarks, so that artifacts can be used for reference or performance support. Create the role of “synthesizer”. I found it quite helpful when Tony and Michele summarized the previous week’s activities. Keep the structure loose enough so that it can grow or change according to the needs of the community

It seeks to determine how a teacher can scaffold a networked learning approach while providing a foundation on which students take more control of the learning process.

Emerging web applications offer unique opportunities to customise the learning environment for individual learners

In the past, learning environments were immediately associated with a physical location

however, the concept is increasingly expanded to include online learning, virtual schools, and blended opportunities that combine traditional with digital options

Traditional, lecture-based classrooms are designed as passive learning environments in which the teacher conveys knowledge and the student responds (Chen, 2009). Imagine the potential frustration that self-regulated learning holds for students who are quite comfortably accustomed to specific teacher directions with finite expectations.

learner motivation

Personal learning suggests learner autonomy and increased self regulation

self-directed.

they are also required to take an active role in the learning process by making decisions

Teachers, on the other hand, are challenged to provide an appropriate balance between structure and learner autonomy in order to facilitate self-directed, personalised learning

Such a scenario further presents challenges to traditional forms of assessment

The role of a teacher within a student-centered approach to instruction is that of a facilitator or coach

He or she supports the students in their search and supply of relevant material, coordinates the students' presentations of individual milestones of their projects, moderates discussions, consults in all kinds of problem-solving and seeking for solutions, lectures on topics that are selected in plenary discussions with the students and conforms to the curriculum"

The purpose of this test case is to introduce a model for the student construction of personal learning environments that balances teacher control with increased student autonomy

a level of structure is required to scaffold the learning process

Networked learning refers specifically to "learning in which information communication technology is used to promote connections: between one learner and other learners, between learners and tutors, between a learning community and its learning resources"

Networked learning is manifested in personal learning environments (PLEs), or "systems that help learners take control of and manage their own learning"

a model of the networked teacher that represents an educator's professional personal learning environment (PLE)

Figure 1: The Networked Teacher (Couros, 2008) It is a model through which teachers begin to build professional connections to support teaching practice

The Networked Student Model adapts Couros' vision for teacher professional development in a format that is applicable to the K-12 student. It includes four primary categories, each with many components evident in the networked teacher version (Figure 2).

he networked student follows a constructivist approach to learning. He or she constructs knowledge based on experiences and social interactions

Constructivism encourages "greater participation by students in their appropriation of scholarly knowledge"

Technology supports this appropriation as a collection of tools that promote knowledge construction,

Networked Student Model.

Students use RSS and social bookmarking to organise information and build upon prior knowledge with the goal of completing a task or meeting a learning objective. Social media, or web-based applications designed for the purpose of interacting with others online, promote conversations. Blogs are an example of a vehicle through which students can reflect on the learning process. The sub-parts coexist to support a constructive learning experience. The student's personal learning environment pulls them all together.

Siemens (2008) associates the concept of connectivism with networked learning

in the networked learning environment, blogging is a key component of the personal learning environment through which students respond to and collect the opinions of others. Students identify blogs that target a specific unit of study, and they have the option to respond with opinions of their own.

In a traditional classroom setting, the teacher has primary control over the content.

Networked learning gives students the ability and the control to connect with subject matter experts in virtually any field.

The skill to identify valid content and expertise,

The connection to humans is an essential part of the learning process. That connection expands to include access to resources and creative artifacts.

design of the teacher-facilitated, student-created personal learning environment

The teacher was a facilitator in the process helping the student scaffold network learning and manage the content as it became more complex.

Construction of a personal learning environment does not necessarily facilitate comprehension or deep understanding

The networked student model is one of inquiry, or the process of "exploring problems, asking questions, making discoveries, achieving new understanding and fulfilling personal curiosity"

In guided inquiry, the teacher provides the problem and directs the students to the materials for investigation

The teacher is necessary to help the students navigate the breadth of content, apply the tools properly, and offer support in the form of digital literacy skills and subject matter expertise. Yet the teacher may not be the only expert in the learning process.

The test case for this model took place at a K-12 independent school in the southeastern United States. Fifteen students participated during a nine-week term as part of a contemporary issues research project. The contemporary issues course was unique to the school in its delivery. It was the first time a blended format had been offered. Students attended class three days face to face and two days online. Course assignments and discussions were organised using Moodle,

For the networked student project, each student selected a contemporary issue or topic for which he or she had a strong interest

Passion for a topic was one means of motivation

assessment of each student's ability to synthesise the research

The networked student test

It addresses the problem of determining the level of structure needed to facilitate networked learning while providing a foundation for greater student control over a personal learning environment

to collect student perceptions of the learning experience relative to their autonomy and comfort with the networked learning format

two key considerations when introducing the Networked Student Model. The first was student familiarity with web applications used to build the personal learning environment.

Second, considerably more structure was required since this was the first time each student embarked on the Networked Student Model.

The teacher gauged the level of structure depending upon the student's motivation, comfort with technology, and interest in the topic.

Patterns for networked learning

The learning environment slowly shifted from the classroom to online.

Google is used repeatedly because signing up for one account gave students access to a number of useful learning tools.

The level of structure is adjusted based on the prior experience of individual students.

Student activitylevel of structure

Personal learning environment toolset

a new tool was introduced each day over two weeks.

personal web page aggregators

iGoogle, PageFlakes, NetVibes, and Symbaloo

Personal web page compiles learning tools

There were four components of the assessment process for this test case of the Networked Student Model: (1) Ongoing performance assessment in the form of weekly assignments to facilitate the construction and maintenance of the personal learning environment, (2) rubric-based assessment of the personal learning environment at the end of the project, (3) written essay, and (4) multimedia synthesis of topic content.

Identify ten reliable resources and post to social bookmarking account. At least three new resources should be added each week. Subscribe and respond to at least 3 new blogs each week. Follow these blogs and news alerts using the reader. Subscribe to and listen to at least two podcasts (if available). Respectfully contact and request a video conference from a subject matter expert recognised in the field. Maintain daily notes and highlight resources as needed in digital notebook. Post at least a one-paragraph reflection in personal blog each day.

At the end of the project, the personal learning environment was assessed with a rubric that encompassed each of the items listed above.

The student's ability to synthesise the research was further evaluated with a reflective essay.

The personal blog provided an opportunity for regular reflection during the course of the project.

Students were instructed to articulate what was learned about the selected topic and why others should care or be concerned.

As part of a final exam, the students were required to access the final projects of their classmates and reflect on what they learned from this exposure

to give the students an additional opportunity to share and learn from each other.

Creativity is considered a key 21st century skil

A number of emerging web applications support the academic creative process

Students in this project used web tools to combine text, video, audio, and photographs to teach the research topics to others. The final multimedia project was posted or embedded on the student's personal wiki page.

The student-selected topics of study included

Video conferences were conducted with

All students participated in the video conferences and identified subject matter expertise as a key element of a personal learning environment.

Four key areas were targeted to assess the success of the project and determine whether an effective balance between teacher control and student autonomy was achieved:

Creation of the personal learning environment as a replacement for a traditional textbook

Student use of technology to complete projects was identified as important because the students had little prior exposure to technology as a learning tool.

Time management and workload were tangible measures of comparison from the student's perspective and indicated his or her ability to self regulate the learning process.

Student perception of whether he or she felt equipped to study other topics in this format with less teacher intervention provided some indication as to whether greater student autonomy was achieved

change is required in two vast and interwoven domains

First we need to toss out the old industrial model of pedagogy (how learning is accomplished) and replace it with a new model called collaborative learning. Second we need an entirely new modus operandi for how

(the content of higher education) are created.

Collaborative Learning: Reinventing Pedagogy

In the industrial model of student mass production, the teacher is the broadcaster

"In collaborative classrooms, the lecturing/listening/note-taking process may not disappear entirely, but it lives alongside other processes that are based in students' discussion and active work with the course material."

Collaborative learning has as its main feature a structure that allows for student talk

With technology, it is now possible to embrace new collaboration models that change the paradigm

This is not about distance learning

Rather, this represents a change in the relationship between students and teachers in the learning process.

Collaborative Learning Is Social Learning.

we need to focus not on what we are learning but on how we are learning

instead of starting from the Cartesian premise of 'I think, therefore I am,' . . . the social view of learning says, 'We participate, therefore we are.'"

the web provides powerful new tools and environments for collaborative learning

from wikis to virtual worlds like Second Life

However, the web enables social learning in other ways as well.

Collaborative Learning Embraces Discovery.

"The scandal of education is that every time you teach something, you deprive a [student] of the pleasure and benefit of discovery."14

Students need to integrate new information with the information they already have — to "construct" new knowledge structures and meaning.

Today, every college and university student has at his or her fingertips the most powerful tool for discovery, for constructing knowledge, and for learning.

the web

the web

seeing the web as a threat to the old order, universities should embrace its potential and take discovery learning to the next step

Rather

Collaborative Learning Is Student-Focused and Self-Paced.

the education model has to change to suit this generation of students. Smart but impatient, today's students like to collaborate, and they reject one-way lectures

"They want to learn, but they want to learn only what they have to learn, and they want to learn it in a style that is best for them."15

Collaborative Knowledge Production: Opening Up the University

The university needs to open up, embrace collaborative knowledge production, and break down the walls that exist among institutions of higher education and between those institutions and the rest of the world

To do so, universities require deep structural changes

in the open-access movement, we are seeing the early emergence of a meta-university

The Internet and the Web will provide the communication infrastructure, and the open-access movement and its derivatives will provide much of the knowledge and information infrastructure."

The emerging meta-university, built on the power and ubiquity of the Web and launched by the open courseware movement, will give teachers and learners everywhere the ability to access and share teaching materials, scholarly publications, scientific works in progress, teleoperation of experiments, and worldwide collaborations, thereby achieving economic efficiencies and raising the quality of education through a noble and global endeavor."17

For universities to succeed, we believe they need to cooperate to launch what we call the Global Network for Higher Learning

This network would have five stages or levels:

Level 1: Course Content Exchange

colleges and universities post their educational materials online, putting into the commons what would have traditionally been viewed as cherished and closely held intellectual property. MIT pioneered the concept with its OpenCourseWare initiative (http://ocw.mit.edu), and today more than 200 institutions of higher learning have followed suit.

Consider what a change this offers to a typical professor's life

Level 2: Course Content Collaboration

What higher education desperately needs is a social network — a Facebook for faculty.

Sharing materials is an important first step. But the course materials available freely online could also be constructed as a platform for users to collaborate and share experiences with the materials. As the Global Network for Higher Learning gains momentum, the volume of material being posted will become overwhelming, comprising not only text but also lecture notes, assignments, exams, videos, podcasts, and so on.

But it shouldn't be a standalone application; it should be integral to the Global Network for Higher Learning.

A little effort can yield large returns. For example

Level 3: Course Content Co-Innovation

the Wikimedia Foundation organized Wikiversity

The next level in the Global Network for Higher Learning goes beyond sharing and collaborating on course content to actually co-creating content. Professors can co-innovate new teaching material based on work already available and can then make this newly synthesized content available to the world.

For the ultimate course, teachers need more than course materials, of course. They need course software enabling students to interact with the content, supporting small group discussions, facilitating testing, and so on. Such software can be developed using the tried-and-true techniques and tools of the open-source software movement.

Sakai

Sakai.

Level 4: Knowledge Co-Creation

In the next level of the Global Network for Higher Learning, scholars move beyond course materials and collaborate to co-create all subject-matter-appropriate knowledge.

Knowledge from university-based research should be a public good.

Universities and academics need to embrace the Global Network for Higher Learning as the platform for collaboration in research, creation, communication, and exploitation of new knowledge. With the Global Network for Higher Learning, the current problems of academic journals would go away.

The traditional peer-reviewed academic journals would adopt a much more dynamic online process.

Level 5: Collaborative Learning Connection

How can we network the world's higher education institutions to go beyond the production of knowledge to the consumption of that knowledge by learners?

The 21st-century university will be a network and an ecosystem — not a tower — and educators need to get going on the partnerships to make this work for students.

Reinvention or Atrophy

he combination of the Internet, the new generation of learners, the demands of the global knowledge economy, and the shock of the current economic crisis is creating a perfect storm for universities, and the storm warnings are everywhere.

As the model of pedagogy is challenged, inevitably the revenue model of universities will be too.

Many will argue: "But what about credentials?

Others will argue: "What about the campus experience?

If institutions want to survive the arrival of free, university-level education online, they need to change the way professors and students interact on campus.

How, then, can universities reinvent themselves, rather than atrophy? What are the steps to be taken?

Adopt Collaborative Learning As the Core Model of Pedagogy.

Professors who want to remain relevant will have to abandon the traditional lecture and start listening to and conversing with students — shifting from a broadcast style to an interactive one

Professors should encourage students to discover for themselves and to engage in critical thinking instead of simply memorizing the professor's store of information. Finally, professors need to tailor the style of education to their students' individual learning styles.

The Internet and the new digital platforms for learning are critical to all of this, especially given the high student-faculty ratio in many universities.

Collaboratively Produce Higher Education Content and Knowledge by Launching the Global Network for Higher Learning.

Right now, universities around the world are embracing level one — course content exchange — of the Global Network for Higher Learning. But they need to move further in the next four levels.

Content should be multimedia — not just text. Content should be networked and hyperlinked bits — not atoms. Moreover, interactive courseware — not separate "books" — should be used to present this content to students, constituting a platform for every subject, across disciplines, among institutions, and around the world.

Build New Revenue and Collaboration Models between Higher Education Institutions to Break Down the Silos between Them.

we will need to build a collaborative revenue model and a new structure of transfer pricing.

Change Incentive Systems to Reward Teaching, Not Just Research.

If universities are to become institutions whose primary goal is the learning by students, not faculty, then the incentive systems will need to change. Tenure should be granted for teaching excellence and not just for a publishing record.

How can this be done?

Build the Infrastructure for 21st-Century Higher Education.

a new kind of infrastructure is required to realize the University 2.0.

The world needs a "Digital Marshall Plan."

Where is the University 2.0?

A powerful force to change the university is the students.

The Industrial Age model of education is hard to change. New paradigms cause dislocation, disruption, confusion, uncertainty. They are nearly always received with coolness or hostility. Vested interests fight change. And leaders of old paradigms are often the last to embrace the new.

Changing the model of pedagogy and the model of knowledge production is crucial for the survival of the university

Global Network for Higher Learning