Cyberlearning:Community portal

From Cyberlearning

Topic Areas

We invite you to help write pages for the cyberlearning topic areas listed below. Our aim is to develop definitions that are strong enough to show the direction of the field but open enough to allow for innovation (see Defining Cyberlearning, below). If you have expertise in any of these areas and would like to be involved in editing these pages, please email cyberlearning-info@sri.com to request a wiki account.

AI Applications in Education Computational Thinking Deeply Digital Texts Educational Data Mining Games and Virtual Worlds Mobile Learning

Peer Production Simulations Social Media Virtual Communities for Learning Visualization Cyber Workforce Development Task Force Report

The Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL) project is also defining key TEL topics

Defining Cyberlearning

Existing definitions of cyberlearning are broad; for example, “learning that is mediated by networked computing and communications technologies” (NSF Task Force on Cyberlearning, 2008, p. 10). A related, more expansive definition of a vision is

Cyberlearning offers new learning and educational approaches via networked computing and communication technologies, and the possibility of redistributing learning experiences over time and space. Our scope incorporates the entire range of learning experiences over the course of a lifetime—not only formal education, not only in classes, but throughout the waking hours. (Bransford, Vye, Stevens et al., 2006)

Our understanding and starting point for the definitions of Cyberlearning topics in this Wiki include:

• A focus on the process of learning and the participation of learners
• Attentive to emerging forms and capabilities of technology for learning, while seeing learning as social and cultural and as something that people do together
• Oriented to the process of learning across the different settings of everyday life and learners’ needs to connect what they do in school, home, and community settings
• Concerned with systems that join learners, technologies, content, and context together in ways that democratize access to advanced STEM knowledge and accelerate learners’ progress along learning progressions toward deep disciplinary understandings

To learn more about previous work in the Cyberlearning field, see the Cyberlearning Foundational Work.

References

Bransford, J. D., Vye, N., Stevens, R., Kuhl, P., Schwarz, D., Bell, P., Meltzoff, A., Barron, B., Pea, R. D., Reeves, B., Roschelle, J. & Sabelli, N. (2006). Learning theories and education: Toward a decade of synergy. In Alexander, P. & Winne, P. (Eds.), Handbook of Education Psychology. Mahwah, N.J., Erlbaum: 209-244.

Previous work includes:

NSF Cyberinfrastructure Council (2007). Cyberinfrastructure Vision for 21st Century Discovery. Arlington, VA: NSF. [1]

NSF Task Force on CyberLearning (2008). Fostering learning in the networked world: The cyberlearning opportunity and challenge. Washington, DC: NSF. [2]

U.S Department of Education (2010). National Education Technology Plan 2010: Transforming American Education: Learning Powered by Technology. Washington DC: U.S Department of Education Office of Technology. [3]