Our project title – SocialLearn – focuses attention on social learning, but our remit is wider. From the start, SocialLearn has faced the challenge of aligning current thinking on good pedagogy with the use of Web 2.0 technologies.

There is a continuing tension between social learning, with learners freely ranging the Internet and constructing meaning together, and institutional provision of selected high-quality resources and individual assessment.

I’m currently looking back at SocialLearn’s work over the past year – not only in terms of how it supports learning, but also in terms of the principles articulated at the start. These are currently available in various articles and blogs, and I am linking them together here in order to support evaluation of what we have done so far, and development of what we will do in the future.

Two years ago, Martin Weller identified six principles of SocialLearn (the hyperlinks are mine):

These articulated the underpinnings of the project, connecting it with the underpinnings and origins of The Open University, where SocialLearn is based.

Following a series of workshops and discussions, Gráinne Conole set out the proposed learning principles of SocialLearn in her blog and, in a related article, articulated how these would be linked to characteristics of learning, specifically: thinking & reflection, conversation & interaction, experience & interactivity and evidence & demonstration.

  • Supports a range of pedagogies and styles
  • Formalises the informal; informalises the formal
  • Is built on relationships between people
  • Harnesses the net
  • Aggregates learning events, resources and opportunities
  • Provides structures and scaffolds for the learning process
  • Uses metaphors and simple approaches to impart pedagogy
  • Encourages a range of participation
  • Provides evidence via range of informal and formal assessment mechanisms
  • Provides lifelong support across different learning goals
  • Provides access to expertise
  • Supports collaborative elements
  • Helps surface incidental learning
  • Wraps learning around an individual’s interests
  • Enables learner control and learner responsibility
  • Allows users to build reputation within the system
  • Encourages legitimate peripheral participation
  • Encourages learning through observation
  • Supports different subject areas and styles
  • Encourages mentorship

Over the next weeks, I shall be investigating how these sets of principles have influenced the development of SocialLearn.