This document discusses using online social spaces to flatten classroom walls and encourage meaningful conversations among students. It provides rationale for incorporating these tools in education by arguing they promote literacy skills for the 21st century like collaboration and reflection. Best practices include using wikis, blogs, and Google docs to build skills like critical thinking, communication, and self-regulation. Research supports that collaborative online environments improve learning outcomes like motivation and problem-solving.

1. PERSONAL DISPLAYS
OF CONNECTION
Flattening Classroom Walls for Meaningful Conversations
Sharon Peters
M.A Ed. Tech.
LEARN. (Québec)

2. Goals for Today’s Presentation
• A look at how students are connecting to each
other OUTSIDE the school walls
• A rationale for using these spaces in education
• Best practices
• Learning outcomes
• Research on the value of collaborative learning
spaces

3. Karl Fisch
at
NECC 2007
Did You Know 2.0?
Shift Happens
TeacherTube Link

4. The Web is Us/Using Us

5. The Web has become
our operating system

6. Grace
... on the topic of
backchanneling
iLike....
Matthew

7. Meg
Fictionpress - Simply Meg
ICT in Education - Music on the Internet
A Real Teen Talks about Blogging and
Social Spaces
Facebook

8. Nat
Runescape
YouTube for music videos

9. Whereas previous generations value loyalty, seniority,
security and authority, the NetGen’s norms reflect a desire
for creativity, social connectivity, fun, freedom, speed, and
diversity in their workplaces.
(Tapscott)

10. Shared online learning spaces provide opportunities
for students to quot;be human togetherquot; (Siemens)

14. Getting (and Keeping)
Connected
iGoogle - RSS feeds
Skype
Webcasting
Podcasts
Blogging
Twitter

15. Your Network is Your Filter. (Tapscott)
We learn from the company we keep. (Smith)

16. Rationale : LITERACY FOR THE 21ST
CENTURY
Literacy, simply put,
is about meaning-making
Quote taken from the Québec Education Program

17. To be literate, we must make meaning from
all the information that is
available to us - multi-modal information
audio
graphical
visual
tactile
symbolic/representational

18. Têtes à Claques

19. It’s all about AUDIENCE
Moist Continental
LCC Blogs

20. These tools offer
affordances
for students to making
meaning

21. Rationale - need for reflection
Taken from Québec Education Program

22. Taken from Québec Education Program

23. quot;From all of the work that we have done with other
students, I have learned how to look over other people's
work and let them edit my own.”

24. (Metacognitive skills
built)
“From working with other students, I also learned
how to be patient and not always want things to
happen at the exact moment I would like them
to, but rather wait and spend more time on
something to make it even better.quot;

26. Best Practices
• Wikis
• Blogs
• Google docs
• Google Presentation
• Rubrics

27. Outcomes: Skills Built
• Multiliteracies
• Self-Regulation/Metacognition
• Communication Styles
• Critical Thinking / Reflection
• Synthesis and Summary
• Info Literacy,Validation, Filtering
• Negotiation and Collaboration

28. Research
• Self-Regulated Learning / Metacognition (Ley
& Young, 2001, Hadwin & Winne, 1996,
Boekaerts, 2000)
• Collaborative knowledge construction
environments (Jonassen 1995, Scardamalia &
Bereiter, 1994) - computers no longer
support ONLY individualized instruction
• Improvement in motivation, learning and
problem-solving behaviour (Hoyles, Healy
and Pozzi, 1994)

29. Cool Tools & Online
Social Spaces
Wikis
Skype - Webcasting - Podcasting
Blogs
Google Docs
Content-Learning Management Systems
Personal Learning Environments
Full descriptions

30. Books of Influence
The World is Flat - 3rd ed. (Thomas Friedman)
Wikinomics - (Don Tapscott & Anthony Williams)
A Whole New Mind (Daniel Pink)
Knowing Knowledge (George Siemens)
Coming of Age: An Intro to the New WWW
(Terry Freedman, ed.)

31. Sharon Peters
LEARN
sharonpeters@gmail.com
mtl-peters.net/blog