I finally found the research to substantiate what we are all doing with our wikis, blogs, podcasts (RSS feed), elluminate, CAB conferences, and email. We are all a part of an internet revolution called Social Software. All information and communication technologies (ICTs) can be used as a springboard into new forms of study and research, preparing participants to work in groups where knowledge is collectively constructed and shared. Educators find this type of learning beneficial since it has ties to problem-based learning (Watson 2002; De Vry and Watson 2003). First, participants engaging in social software take on the responsibility of maintaining and learning from what they are doing. Second, by working cooperatively with interative software tools, students still have to demonstrate their individuality through their own research and comprehension of the knowledge. They then share their new knowledge with the collective (constructivist theory). Third, it engages participants in online research skills that they will increasingly need to develop and facilitate in a 21st century environment. In short, social software builds schools and district departments without walls. Allows children and adults to build extended research communities, and takes technology beyond the tools and resources available at one particular location and temporarily creates learning communities on the web.
www.pewinternet.org/PDF/r/148/report_display.asp
www.innovateonline.info/index.php?view=article&id=260&action=article
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"All information and communication technologies (ICTs) can be used as a springboard into new forms of study and research..."
This also sounds like the message behind the work of Marshall McLuhan (Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man, in 1964)
<$BlogItemCreate$> McLuhan is used mainly in marketing and public relations. The message stays the same, but the medium changes. For example if you were to market podcasts as a family friendly tool on radio and in newspapers (1) radio campaign would rely heavily on voice-overs and music (2) newspaper would rely heavily on print and maybe use of color. Social Software is not a marketing tool. Social software is about constructing new knowledge out of a collective just like we are doing now with our comments to a post on a blog.
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