Thoughts on Learning and Affordances of Social Media in terms of Supporting Learning | W4 Q1 | Forum

First, I’d like to talk a bit about my definition of learning. There is a wide spectrum of learning theories from behaviorist to cognitive perspectives and to sociocultural and ecological learning perspectives. I think all those variety of learning theories capture the essence of learning in some ways. For example, behaviorist approach still represents some of our learning and teaching practices in classrooms (such as giving extra credits to students to reinforce or reward their behaviors- even though it is not the best learning opportunity to provide for a learner). Besides, cognitive theory of learning stands for growth of conceptual understanding of knowledge (or acquiring knowledge) which also reflects our learning process. However, I believe that learning of a particular skill or knowledge also happens in particular social, historical, cultural and political context. In that way, I find sociocultural learning theories really meaningful in terms of capturing the essence of learning. For instance, as one of them, Engeström’s (1999) activity theory focuses on different learning contexts as a collective and situational process with participation in diverse communities of discourse. In other sociocultural perspectives, learning is unpacked through different developmental processes which occurs in different cultures and by using different resources to shape our identities during the learning process (as Rogoff, Nasir and Cooks suggested)

Second, the readings of this week, especially Greenhow, Robelia and Hughes (2009) piece, helped me to think further about how technology (especially Web 2.0 and social media) support learners during their learning process. Through the article, firstly I have a chance to think more on how social media channels have affordances to help learners while shaping and shifting their identities. Second, I think further about how these technological resources provide learners a situational and contextually meaningful diverse experiences. In that way, I kind of see the differences between how other learning theories explain the identity formation process and how it is explained in the field of educational technology (in terms of interdisciplinary lenses).

For this post, I’d like to choose and consider Twitter as one of the social media resources. I think, Twitter has potential affordances, such as providing a dynamic discussion environment for learners who can learn from each other and question each other’s ideas. It provides opportunities to share different learning resources and multi-modal texts (like videos, pictures) which promotes learner’s creativity. In that way, such social media sites support active participation for the learner and give agency for them in their learning process. It also helps them to create multiple identities as learners. Finally, it can mediate interaction between different social and cultural contexts (like learners who are connecting from local and international areas with different cultures, ethnicities, beliefs etc.).