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CONTENTS
1. Introduction
2. Why learning networks?
3. Where are the building blocks for new learning networks?
4. The choices for the formal education system
5. Building learning networks
Conclusion
Other useful resources
Acknowledgements:
This report was informed by a series of three seminars hosted by Futurelab in 2006. Sincere thanks must go to all the attendees and presenters for their excellent input and for making each event successful. Our thanks also to those who formed the working group who gave their time and energy to help crystalise some of the key issues and elements that inform this report. They were: Eileen Devonshire, Steve Thompson, Peter Humphries, Martin Hughes, Wendy Knightley, Sarah Godfrey, Amanda Black, Michelle Selinger, Kim Thomas and Dan Sutch. Though this publication grew out of the seminar
series, it should not be taken to represent the views of the participants and working group, and any errors and omissions remain our own.
1. INTRODUCTION
What should the educational landscape of the future look like? What types of institutions, spaces and places for learning should we see develop? Where, and with whom, should learning happen? Our argument in this paper is that, if we are interested in achieving a fully personalised education system
designed around the needs, interests and aspirations of each learner, then we need to challenge a number of fundamental assumptions which have historically underpinned the organisation of education:
- First, we need to challenge the assumption that expertise and knowledge reside only within the walls of the educational institution, and to ask instead, what might be gained from tapping into the resources that exist in the wider community and within the networks that people are already connected to?
- Second, we need to challenge the assumption that ‘learning’ and ‘schooling’ are different words for the same thing, and to ask instead what different approaches to and models of learning are also in evidence today in people’s work and leisure lives?
- Third, we need to challenge the assumption that the most ‘equitable’ education systems are those which offer a one-size-fits-all approach, and instead examine how the recognition of learners’ diverse voices and experiences can enhance inclusion, aspiration and achievement through the creation of personalised educational trajectories.
- Finally, as digital resources increasingly offer opportunities for networked, collaborative and distributed learning and interaction, we need to challenge the assumption that the easiest and most costeffective approach to organising learning is within the walls of the school.
In this paper, we argue that we need to move away from the institutionalised logic of the school as factory, to the network logic of the learning community. Indeed, we need to move beyond the concept of ‘extended schools’ - whereby schools extend the range of services they provide – towards a notion of
extending learning, whereby learning institutions rethink the possibilities around what can be learnt, where learning can happen and who is involved in the learning process. What this paper implies is that it will not be possible to personalise education whilst maintaining a conception of learning as
happening only in certain places, under certain assessment regimes and involving certain people. Instead, we suggest that rather than continuing to build a system based upon the ‘megastructures’ of schools, universities and a national curriculum, we need to move to a system organised through more
porous and flexible learning networks that link homes, communities and multiple sites of learning.
2. WHY LEARNING NETWORKS
Why learning networks? Because social, technical and leisure life is increasingly organised around networks
The metaphor (and reality) of the network has come to be seen as epitomising the social, economic and technological changes of the last 30 years. Castells1, for example, argues that the network is now the fundamental underpinning structure of social organisation – and that it is in and through networks – both real and virtual - that life is lived in the 21st century. This perspective is also advocated by social commentators such as Demos2, who argue that networks are the “most important organisational form of our time”, and that, by harnessing what they describe as ‘network logic’, the ways we view the world and the tools we use for navigating and understanding it, will change significantly. The ability to understand how to join and build these networks, the tools for doing so and the purpose, intention, rules and protocols that regulate use and communications, therefore, become increasingly important skills. This concept of the ‘network society’ calls into question what it means to be ‘educated’ today – what new skills, what new ways of working and learning, what new knowledge and skills will be required to operate in and through these networks? It requires us to ask whether our current education system, premised not upon networks but upon individualised acquisition of content and skills, is likely to support the development of the competencies needed to flourish in such environments3?
Why learning networks? Because learning, in most sites, is already about networks, collaboration and connection
Educational and social research is increasingly making a case for a new understanding of learning processes that acknowledges their often networked, collaborative and connected properties. For example, the importance of the social and cultural ‘situatedness’ of learning and the power of collaboration and communication in developing meaningful experiences are recognised by many psychologists and researchers4. Such researchers argue that connection and collaboration play important and complex roles in learning processes and knowledge acquisition. For example, they argue that:
- higher order functions arise through social interactions
- knowledge is socially constructed between learners and experts, not simply ‘acquired’ or ‘delivered’
- learning is understood to be more powerful when actively scaffolded by expert others
- progress is greater when learning focuses upon collaborative rather than independent problem solving5.
1Castells, M (2004). Why networks matter: afterword. In Demos (2004). Network Logic: Who Governs in an Interconnected World. Edited by McCarthy, H, Miller, P and Skidmore, P. Demos. London.
2Demos (2004). ibid. This is a collection of essays looking at the notion of and issues
relating to networks in modern society.
3See for example: ‘The New Work Order’, Gee, Hull and Lankshear, for a discussion of work in ‘the network society’. An analysis that not only identifies the economic and technical factors shaping such change, but also identifies the potential such changes have for reproducing social inequalities.
4See for example:
Wertsch, JV (1998). Mind as Action. New York: Oxford University Press
Tharp, RG and Gallimore, R (1988). Rousing Minds to Life: Teaching, Learning, and Schooling in Social Context. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press
Scardamalia, M and Bereiter, C (1994). Computer support for knowledge-building communities. The Journal of the Learning Sciences, 3 (3) 1994, 265-283
Scardamalia, M (2002). Collective cognitive responsibility for the advancement of knowledge. In B Smith (ed) Liberal Education in a Knowledge Society (pp67-98). Chicago: Open Court
John-Steiner, V (1997). Notebooks of the Mind: Explorations of Thinking. Oxford University Press
5Vygotsky used the term ‘Zone of Proximal Development’ (ZPD) to describe the distance
between learners’ actual developmental levels through independent problem solving and the potential level of development that could occur through collaborative problem solving. See: Vygotsky, LS (1978). Mind and Society: The Development of Higher Mental Processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press
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