Social Learning in Practice

The social learning theories presented in this course have an intriguing premise that humans construct reality. As Kukla (2000) states, “Members of society together invent the properties of the world” (as cited in Orey, 2001). It’s the quintessential puzzle of the tree falling in the forest. If no one heard it fall, did the tree exist? That puzzle always made me puzzled. Initially, in our reading, I had to stop and think about the nature of reality. I’m still kicking this around, but I felt more comfortable with the constructivist’s assumptions about knowledge and learning. Knowledge is a product of the collective human mind and learning occurs when human minds interact. Essentially, we learn best when we “hang out” together. That sounds great to me because I am convinced that using technology through collaborative learning is the most effective way to educate our young people for the challenges that await them tomorrow. In his book The World is Flat (2005), Friedman recognized that “we are living in a time when learning and innovation are increasingly global. To be prepared for the fast-paced, virtual workplace that they will inherit, today’s students need to learn and produce cooperatively” (as cited in Pitler, Hubbell, Kuhn, & Malenoski, 2007, p.139). Well, constructivists and other social learning theorists would certainly agree with him.

Technology has become intricately laced into our current and future reality, and if we accept the views of the above scholars, our students will best learn about their “new world” through cooperative or collaborative teamwork. The structure of Web 2.0 facilitates collaborative learning with blogs, wikis, document sharing, and multimedia projects through the use of Web resources, to name a few technological tools. As a result, knowledge will become public property for us to share and access when needed. I have heard the proclamation that those that lived from the late 1800’s to see the first man on the moon witnessed unparalleled industrial and technological advances. What will they say about our generation? What will we witness in the future?

Friedman,T.L. (2005). The world is flat: A brief history of the twenty-first century. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux.

Kukla, A. (2000). Social Constructivism and the Philosophy of Science. New York: Routledge.

Orey, M.(Ed.). (2001). Emerging perspectives on learning, teaching, and technology. Retrieved from http://projects.coe.uga.edu/epltt/

Pitler, H., Hubbell, E., Kuhn, M., & Malenoski, K. (2007). Using technology with classroom instruction that works. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.