iLibris

Social Media in Virtual Learning Environments

“There are no natives here…you should never feel stupid in this environment, because we are all stupid in this environment, it’s all new to all of us”

~ Michael Wesch

Michael Wesch’s video A Portal to Media Literacy and Howard Rheingold’s video on the Social Media Classroom seemed to answer many of the questions I was left with last week. Both videos introduce different learning management systems or virtual learning environments that support digital literacy, or what some call, 21st century new media skills.

Rheingold’s Social Media Classroom and Collaboratory is a kind of Drupal-based virtual learning environment that includes a variety of social media tools such as forums, blogs, commenting, wikis, chat, social bookmarking, RSS, microblogging, widgets, and video commenting all in an effort “to afford a more student-centric, constructivist, collaborative, inquiry-oriented learning.” According to the website, the SMCC helps “engage students in actively constructing knowledge together about issues that matter to them, rather than passively absorbing it from texts, lectures, and discussions.” Wesch’s Netvibes Digital Ethnography personal learning environment offers similar affordances as the SMCC but is centered much more around course content. Rheingold’s SMCC is a great all-purpose social media platform, that can offer a foundation from which instructors can build and tailor their course content.

However, what struck me about Wesch’s system was the way in he structured the course content. Rather than pointing students to resources with the expectation that they will process the material and regurgitate it in another form, Wesch structured the course around open research questions that students had to answer collaboratively. Wesch is also known for his use of game structures in his course in order to introduce students to important questions, ideas, topics, and issues that are relevant to anthropology. Granted Wesch’s courses are for undergraduate learners, however his pedagogical methods are noteworthy. According to Wesch, teachers have three important avenues with which they are able to create meaning or significance for learners:

1. Semantic Meaning: Find a grand narrative to provide relevance and context for learning, i.e. What are the big questions? What is the epistemological context?
2. Personal Meaning: Create a learning environment that values and leverages the learners themselves, i.e. Work together to create learning. Ask how can you unlock creativity and critical thinking?
3. Do both in a way the realizes and leverages the existing media environment and thus allows students to realize and leverage the existing media environment, i.e. push students beyond media literacy so that students can start leverage the media for themselves

To relate this to the quote above, what I really appreciate and admire about both Wesch and Rheingold is that they don’t make assumptions about students. Rather, they recognize that young students may have engaged with social media in very superficial and non-critical ways, if they use social media tools at all. Rather, they recognize that in order to become viable participants, digital denizens, or employees in the growing knowledge economy, students need to be equipped with digital literacy skills. As creativity, collaboration, and participation are essential for new media participatory cultures, both Wesch and Rheingold offer potential aggregated platforms that can support these learning activities.