Emergent Learning and Learning Ecologies in Web2+

Roy Williams, Dept. Mathematics, Univ. of Portsmouth

Regina Karousou, Independent Researcher

Jenny Mackness, Independent Educational Consultant

Low Teacher Control

High Teacher Control

High Learner Control

Low Learner Control

My institution / organisation is …

• Innovative and enthusiastic about web 2.0

• Cautious about adopting social networking tools.

• Slow to adopt these tools

• Resistant to adoption of these tools.

Starting point of the research

To explore …

* The conditions that enable self-organised, emergent learning

* Possible mechanisms for validating emergent learning

* Integrating emergent and prescriptive learning.

Emergent Learning is:

Self-organised learning within a network.

Case Studies: • Wikipedia: validation and self-correction

• Early years childhood education: beyond prescriptive

learning

• Massive Open Online Course: open, diverse, autonomous, connected. + Aggregation and harvesting.

• Masters Course: Self-organising curriculum

• Hole in the Wall: Self-motivating, self-organisation

Findings

• Emergent learning increasingly takes place, whether you like it or not.

• Teachers, managers need to rethink provision.

• Design by negative constraints – as open as possible.

• Balance openness and constraints.

• Needs continuous monitoring, response and recovery, weak-signal detection of outlier events, light touch response (but decisive if necessary).

• Dampening negative, supporting positive emergence.