Description

Within the rapidly expanding field of educational technology/ learners and educators must confront a seemingly overwhelming selection of tools designed to deliver and facilitate both online and blended learning. Many of these tools assume that learning is configured and delivered in closed contexts/ through learning management systems (LMS). However/ while traditional "classroom" learning is by no means obsolete/ networked learning is in the ascendant. A foundational method in online and blended education/ as well as the most common means of informal and self-directed learning/ networked learning is rapidly becoming the dominant mode of teaching as well as learning. In Teaching Crowds/ Dron and Anderson introduce a new model for understanding and exploiting the pedagogical potential of Web-based technologies/ one that rests on connections — on networks and collectives — rather than on separations. Recognizing that online learning both demands and affords new models of teaching and learning/ the authors show how learners can engage with social media platforms to create an unbounded field of emergent connections. These connections empower learners/ allowing them to draw from one another's expertise to formulate and fulfill their own educational goals. In an increasingly networked world/ developing such skills will/ they argue/ better prepare students to become self-directed/ lifelong learners.