The dramatic growth of the Internet and especially using it as a tool seemed to really occur after I had completed much of my own traditional schooling. As a result, I found my mind being stretched through the readings this week, Minds on fire and Learning, working, & playing in the digital age. Shifting my own thinking of the role of a teacher to a facilitator has not come naturally, yet moving into my role as an online teacher over the past two years has helped in this process as my students must take on more responsibility for their own learning and I am there to provide them with resources, answer questions, and guide their learning process. The Web certainly has been a significant resource and platform for me to be a facilitator of my students’ learning but not to the extent that this week’s readings shared. For me, it has been an informational resource but not a medium for social construction of knowledge. According to Brown in Learning, working, & playing in the digital age, “the Web becomes not only an informational and social resource but it could also become a learning medium where understandings are socially constructed and shared” (1999).
I love Brown’s discussion of “learning to learn” and how this occurs naturally when one participates in a community of practice. Brown’s example of tech reps at Xerox who learned more through collaboration and a community of learners than through individual training really stuck out to me (1999). Learning occurs when we really have the opportunity to interact with others around knowledge, especially those with varying levels of expertise. The example in Minds on fire of university students who participated in small study groups demonstrated higher levels of achievement than those who did not also resonated with me because this is something that I could facilitate in my own classrooms (Brown & Adler, 2008). Both of the readings this week discussed the role of the Internet in making the line between consuming and producing knowledge more fluid in how it enables open access to resources and high-quality tools as well as how it supports such communities of learners. According to Brown, the Web is key for knowledge sharing because it makes it easier for experts to interact with knowledge consumers and its potential for how far it can reach is limitless.
The role of the learner and facilitator in such a learning community differs from a traditional learning environment in that the learner is also able to contribute to the learning experience rather than just receive information, as in a traditional environment. A facilitator’s role is to encourage and motivate students to share their knowledge and experience in order to grow the community mind, not just the individual mind. I also see a facilitator focusing more on learning at the level of the whole group rather than of the individual. In Minds on fire, the ideas of social learning and learning to be were discussed. I found these ideas important in shaping my own way of thinking about how to design learning environments, especially the idea that “We participate, therefore we are” (Brown & Adler, 2008). If understanding is socially constructed and the process of how one learns is more important than what one learns, then how can I create the opportunities for social construction in my own classrooms? This means that I need to provide the place and time, either physically or virtually, for students to take on the roles of both learner and teacher and to interact with scholars and other students in a field. This requires a significant shift in thinking as a teacher from the mindset that I need to impart my knowledge onto my students to a mindset that my students need to learn from one another via participation and from other experts. The Web provides abundant resources in order to support this mindset and method of learning. I hope to continue to learn practical ways to implement these tools in order to establish effective learning communities in my virtual classes.
References
Brown, J.S. (1999). Learning, working, & playing in the digital age. Retrieved from http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/sci_edu/seelybrown/
Brown, J.S. & Adler, R.P. (2008). Minds on fire: Open education, the long tail, and learning 2.0. EDUCAUSE Review. 43(1), 16-32. Retrieved from https://er.educause.edu/articles/2008/1/minds-on-fire-open-education-the-long-tail-and-learning-20