Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
(Rogers et al., 2007), which acknowledges that communities that work coopera-
tively and share ideas are significantly more productive than individuals working
alone.
Web 2.0 technologies emphasize connectivity, active participation, and collabo-
ration in sharing and creating knowledge and ideas. Web 2.0 tools such as blogs,
wikis, social networks, tagging systems, and content-sharing sites exemplify the
new user-centric information infrastructure supporting these activities. Because web
2.0 technologies are designed to serve the social and networking needs of society
2.0, they differ from past technologies rooted in more traditional theories of learn-
ing. However, the philosophy behind the design of web 2.0 is well aligned with
such contemporary theories of learning as communities of practice, social construc-
tivism, situated learning, knowledge building, and collective intelligence. Research
in the learning sciences has traditionally situated itself in particular theory-driven
technology-based learning environments. How should learning science researchers
use web 2.0 technologies, such as blogs, wikis, and social bookmarking, to meet
educational and research purposes? How should web 2.0 technologies be used to
facilitate knowledge building? How can such theories of learning, particularly social
learning theories, support the learning in web 2.0? The following section discusses
several social learning theories and its connection with web 2.0 application.
Social Learning Theories Supporting Web 2.0
In general, two groups of theories support web 2.0 learning. One group focuses on
the cognitive or social-cognitive aspects of learning, such as thinking and reflection
and includes such theories as social constructivism, situated cognition, shared cogni-
tion, and distributed cognition. The other group focuses on the socio-cultural aspects
of learning, such as communication, participation, and interaction and includes com-
munities of practice, and social cultural and cultural historical theory. Knowledge
building has the advantage of combining and deepening the basic principles of both
groups of theories. This section introduces the two groups of theories and discusses
their connections with web 2.0.
Learning Through Thinking and Reflection
Social constructivism
holds that forms of knowledge, such as language, values,
rules, morality, and symbol systems, can only be acquired through interactions
with others (Piaget, 1926). In his later work on structuralism, Piaget (1970) argued
that humans are not born with essential structures of thought but rather construct
them through a long process of psychological development which includes both
maturation and interaction with the world. Inspired by Piaget's theory and find-
ings, Dosie and Mugny (1984) undertook a systemic empirical investigation of how
social interactions affect individual cognitive development. They found that indi-
vidual development and social interaction are interdependent. Children construct
