Changing Conditions for Networked Learning? A Critical View on Social Technologies as a Springboard to Unfold the Opportunities and Potentials

In this talk I should like to initially take a critical look at popular ideas and discourses related to web 2.0, social technologies and learning. I argue that many of the pedagogical ideals particularly associated with web 2.0 have a longer history and background, which is often forgotten in describing the novel pedagogical potentials of these new technologies and practices (e.g. in debates around virtual learning environments versus personal learning environment). Likewise, I shall briefly discuss the notions of ‘digital natives’ or ‘the net generation’ from a critical perspective, as these generational labels are at times used as rhetorical levers to support call for educational change or adoption of new technologies. However, this critical perspective merely serves as a backdrop to the talk, and as a springboard to identify what I believe are genuinely novel opportunities and potentials of social technologies. I argue that we are seeing the emergence of new architectures and scales of participation, collaboration and networking e.g. through interesting formations of learning networks at different levels of scale, for different purposes and often bridging boundaries such as formal/informal (flash activites or event driven streams of information and activities (such as conference events or global protests)). Likewise, we can observe that novel types of collaboration and participation seem to be emerging or solidifying (such as Wikipedia or collectively and dynamically produced online bibliographies). However, my argument would be that we have not yet developed a sufficient conceptual, theoretical and methodological vocabulary to understand these activities.