Today’s lecture

• General introduction

• A personal history of computer use and

social media

• Social media…

– How can we use them – how do we use them?

– … and in education?

• Social media…

– As a distractor

– As a learning tool: CSCL

• The future

Today’s literature

Reynol Junco In-class multitasking and academic performance.

Gerry Stahl, Timothy Koschmann, Dan Suthers

Computer-supported collaborative learning:

An historical perspective.

“May you live in interesting times”

Social media are us

• People Without Facebook Accounts

Are 'Suspicious.‘*

• Consider:

– Anders Breivik used MySpace, not

Facebook

– Aurora movie theater shooter used

Adultfriendfinder, not Facebook

– …

*http://activepolitic.com:82/News/2012-07-25c/Facebook_Abstainers_could_be_labeled_Suspicious.html

You have to be social… the correct way

“Is Facebook Making Us Lonely?“ Atlantic Magazine, May 2012

• The internet paradox

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/05/is-facebook-

making-us-lonely/308930/

Having few friends predicts early death as much as smoking or alcoholism

Holt-Lunstad J, Smith TB, Layton JB

(2010). Social Relationships and

Mortality Risk: A Meta-analytic

Review. PLoS Med 7(7): e1000316.

doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.1000316

About me

120, 169, 13, 141, 20, 3, 169, 29, 141, 21, 3, 88, 96,

169, 8, 141, 15, 144, 169, 27, 141, 15, 144, 76, 191, 234

Education in the year 2000 (as predicted in 1900)

1982198219821982

Computers are disappearing!

Computers are social tools

Computers are anti-social tools

The social internet:

Everything old is new again

• BBS

• Usenet

• Mailing lists

• IRC

• ICQ

Everything old is new again

IRC

Everything old is new again

ICQ

The web 2.0 years (2004-now?)

• Social media move to the web

• New tools for interaction

(lots of them)

• Social media use explodes

• Less anonymity

(ongoing process)

What are social media?

“An online toolbox of digital

materials that allow

collaboration, communication,

and learning, independent of

time and place”*

* Erno Mijland – Smihopedia (2012)

are now completely out of touch with today’s youthare now completely out of touch with today’s youthare now completely out of touch with today’s youthare now completely out of touch with today’s youth

say, young man…say, young man…say, young man…say, young man… it’s about time you returned this it’s about time you returned this it’s about time you returned this it’s about time you returned this facebook to the library!facebook to the library!facebook to the library!facebook to the library!

… and which ones would you use

in education?

… and how?

What can you actually do with

social media? • Publishing media – video, text

• Debate, discussion

• Extended and informal communication

• Knowledge construction

• Logistics (e.g. arranging a meeting)

• Crowd sourcing and crowd funding

• Games

The cloud

…what are its implications?

Social media: benefits in school

• Diversity of methods

– A giant toolbox

• Break down school walls

• Facilitate (co-)creation of materials

• Materials can be published for all the world to see

• The development process can be made transparent

Technology makes us

multitaskers

Do social media

interfere with performance?

People are bad at multitasking

‘Cognitive bottleneck’

The ‘digital generation’ has plenty of

opportunity to multitask… and does so

Negative correlation between time spent on

learning and results (e.g., GPA) Junco, R. (2012). In-class multitasking and academic performance. Computers in human behavior, 28, 2236-2243.

1

Do social media

interfere with performance?

This research:

1) how much ICT use during a lesson?

2) Relation ICT use and academic achievement

Self-reports (selection bias?)

Result: Facebook and texting ‘bad’?

Junco, R. (2012). In-class multitasking and academic performance. Computers in human behavior, 28, 2236-2243.

2

CSCL

Computer-supported

collaborative learning

Interaction is the key element:

collaboration and cooperation

Learning is not reducible to individual learning

It all started with collaborative writing and

textually-mediated discussion

Stahl, G., Koschmann, T., & Suthers, D. (2006). CSCL: An Historical Perspective. In R. K. Sawyer (Ed.). (2006). Cambridge Handbook

of the Learning Sciences. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

CSCL: historical and theoretical ties

Computer-aided instruction

Intelligent tutoring systems

LOGO

CSCL

Stahl, G., Koschmann, T., & Suthers, D. (2006). CSCL: An Historical Perspective. In R. K. Sawyer (Ed.). (2006). Cambridge Handbook

of the Learning Sciences. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Collaborative inquiry learning

Example: Co-lab

Lots of possibilities, lots of challenges

Main problem: marrying CS to CL

What does a teacher do here?

“Teachers will need to think about the way they will perform their job in the future, as coachmen needed to when cars and airplanes entered the scene. They had to make the transition from handling two reins to a dashboard full of instruments. The goal remained the same, getting people from A to B, but the way to achieve it changed radically.”

Sugata Mitra

Are teachers

necessary?

India

What’s next?

“Prediction is very difficult, especially about the future.”

Niels Bohr

MOOCs

Massive Open Online Course

Theoretical framework: ‘connectivism’

Conclusion

“The desert will rejoice and

flowers will bloom in the wasteland”

Isaiah, 35:1