Elizabeth Sillence. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking. June 2013, 16(6): 480-485. doi:10.1089/cyber.2013.1512. Published in Volume: 16 Issue 6: June 10, 2013 Published in Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking Advice has been defined as "opinions or counsel given by people who perceive themselves as knowledgeable, and/or who the advice seeker may think are credible, trustworthy and reliable," (pp. 519).11 This definition highlights the difficulties involved for both parties in managing the interaction. For the advice seeker, asking for advice is in a way undermining their identity as a competent person, playing down their own knowledge and abilities while the advice giver has to demonstrate they are worthy of offering advice. Advice givers also have to pay attention to the cues of the advice seeker. They have to be sensitive to their needs, even recognizing that advice is being sought. The way that the advice is presented is crucial as well if the giver is to succeed in passing on his or her way of thinking on the topic. The context may require that the advice giving is mitigated. Locher and Hoffman suggest that such mitigation occurs in the form of humor or through the use of lexical hedges such as "maybe" or "perhaps." While relatively little research has examined "peer" advice online, it does seem that the extent to which advice exchange is seen as an important or even defining aspect of a community varies between forums. In a study of an online support group for depression, Lamerichs found advice exchange was not seen as central to the community's functioning,5 while Kouper, in a recent study of an online motherhood forum, noted that offering and receiving advice was an important type of social interaction within that community.14 The structural and pragmatic features of the advice exchange process are one indicator of its value within the online community.

"In my teaching, I stress the importance of the creative process over the product, but the impact of how or when this shift in understanding takes place came into sharp focus only recently. In preparation for the final of my Studio Design{ course, I took my class to the study Room at the RISD Museum to view a portfolio of paper folding structures by the artist Tauba Auerbach. The Complex structural and color interactions in the portfolio make it a favorite to show[….] instead of witnessing surprised joy, I watched a roomful of heads and shoulders slump in desperation. I was startled to realize the little more than half-way through their first semester, my students were projecting themselves into this portfolio not with the passive eyes of spectators, but with the knowledge of makers. No longer just an end product to them, this portfolio now embodied hours of toil and experimentation, trial and error, measuring and calculating. Seeing it demonstrated to the students that if they wished to make successful work they needed to build up their creative muscles." Page 37

Woodfield, Kandy and Morrell, Gareth and Metzler, Katie and Blank, Grant and Salmons, Janet and Finnegan, Jerome and Lucraft, Mithu (2013) Blurring the Boundaries? New social media, new social research: Developing a network to explore the issues faced by researchers negotiating the new research landscape of online social media platforms. NCRM Working Paper. "On a practical level, some of our network members were struggling with the constant stream of social media data, finding it difficult to keep pace with their participants as they moved on in their conversations and discussions. Digital overwhelm might become counter-productive to reflective social science if researchers are not skilled at managing data flows. Similarly, gathering massive datasets requires a computing power outside of the grasp of many independent researchers or students. The increasing emphasis on 'big data' runs the risk of access to datasets being increasingly concentrated in the hands of a tiny minority of researchers and organisations. An alternative perspective sees this as an opportunity for researchers to come together in creative, cross-disciplinary collaborations, Either way, social researchers will need to find ways of convincing those who own social media sites about the merits of extending, or at least continuing, some freely accessible datasets. The politics of social media research will become an increasingly important agenda for social scientists to engage with. Despite the strengths that social media offer in terms of providing an accessible platform for some marginalised groups, other hard-to-reach populations like the elderly, the poor and those with limited literacy remain more difficult to reach online." Page 12

List of reflective questions about the educational experience to help students find themselves in the conscious role of student / partner in their education. >"Jane Pizzolato writes that "if students were self-authored, they would be more likely to choose majors that were appropriate and interesting to them, engage in critical thinking about their choices, and develop healthy relationships with diverse others" (2008, 19). Becoming self-authored requires transformational learning that helps students "learn to negotiate and act on [their] own purposes, values, feelings, and meanings rather than those [they] have uncritically assimilated from others" (Mezirow 2000, 8)."< Additional information http://www.liberalarts.wabash.edu/ And here: http://www.changemag.org/Archives/Back%20Issues/2013/March-April%202013/wabash_full.html

Second Edition (2012) available from Routledge Preface This book is about the learning theories that provide the foundation for the design and development of open-ended learning environments (defined in Chap. 1). During the 1990s, we have witnessed a convergence of learning theories never before encountered. These contemporary learning theories are based on substantively different ontologies and epistemologies than were traditional objectivist foundations for instructional design. This book is intended to provide an introduction to the theoretical foundations for these new learning environments for instructional designers, curriculum specialists, mathematics and science educators, learning psychologists, and anyone else interested in the theoretical state of the art. Edited April 8/14 by Scott J. Dropped the chapter list and replaced with a sample from the section on self-directed learners: Self-Directed Learning and Self-Regulation Theory Chapter 11 Learning Communities: Theoretical Foundations for Making Connections Janette R. Hill "As indicated throughout this chapter, learning is "strongly influenced by setting, social interaction, and individual beliefs, knowledge, and attitudes" (Dierking, 1991, p.4). This is particularly important to keep in mind while turning attention to the individual within the learning community. While there is often a focus on the collective that is the learning community, individuals are the foundation that enable the community to form. Two theories can help guide our understanding of how to support learners within the context of a learning community: self-regulated and self-directed learning. Self-regulation encompasses a variety of individual characteristics, including self-efficacy, motivation and metacognitive skills. Each characteristic has been studied to various extents (see, for example, Lim & Kim, 2003; Oliver & Shaw, 2003; Song & Hill, 2009), with the majority of the studies indicating that all

Deals with the reality of distributing quality education to most of the people in the world. "DRIVERS OF CHANGE IN THE WAY WE TEACH AND LEARN The increasing recognition the world over of the central role that post- secondary education plays in social and economic success has resulted in many drivers for change, including the following which have been identified by Bates: 1) An increasing demand for college and university places 2) Changing demographics (more older and part-time students) and more learner diversity (broader intellectual, language and cultural ranges) 3) Growing numbers of students at ease with new technologies and social media who are demanding the same sort of flexibility and access from post-secondary education that they already enjoy in their daily business and social interactions. 4) Pressures on institutions to be more open and accountable 5) Recognition of society's needs for skilled knowledge-based workers and the associated focus on learning outcomes indicating the extent to which graduates have such requisite skills as critical thinking, problem-solving, communication, independent learning, and the ability to work in a variety of contexts, to work in teams and to navigate cultural differences. 6) Research evidence of the effectiveness of more interactive approaches to learning that engage students more intensively 7) The continuing evolution of Web-based technologies which make knowledge much more accessible and bring learners together without the constraint of time or place..."

Found this paper useful for clarification of what makes good scaffolding. My original intro to the subject focused on the notion of threshold concepts which can reside too far into an expert domain for getting students engaged. Definition: "adult controlling those elements of the task that are essentially beyond the learner's capacity, thus permitting him to concentrate upon and complete only those elements that are within his range of competence" Do not defeat learning by going too far out into the unfamiliar. "Scaffolding is no longer restricted to interactions between individuals-artifacts, resources, and environments themselves are also being used as scaffolds." "...six types of support that an adult can provide: recruiting the child's interest, reducing the degrees of freedom by simplifying the task, maintaining direction, highlighting the critical task features, controlling frustration, and demonstrating ideal solution paths." "Central to successful scaffolding is the notion of a shared understanding of the goal of the activity. Although some elements of the activity may be beyond what the child could accomplish in working alone, intersubjectivity (Rogoff, 1990; Wertsch, 1985), or a shared understanding of the activity, is considered critical. Intersubjectivity is attained when the adult and child collaboratively redefine the task so that there is combined ownership of the task and the child shares an understanding of the goal that he or she needs to accomplish."