04.+Rationale

= Rationale =

//"Twitter is a new communication form. Until you use it, you can't quite get your head around it. After you use it, there isn't an easy way to explain it to others. Everyone must make the same journey to understand it."// ([|Kingston 2009])

By a cknowledging the difficulty of understanding Twitter as an educational/communication hub for those who have not yet used it, we will endeavour to describe the educational rationale for the **edutweet** community and how the design elements essentially sit within the broad framework of social constructivist learning theory. Within this framework, Twitter (and adjunct tools and applications) will be used to facilitate the exchange of ideas and resources within a community of adult educators and those involved in corporate training.

A learning community can be defined as “...any group of people, whether linked by geography or some other shared interest, which addresses the learning needs of its members through proactive partnerships” (Kearns, McDonald, Candy, Knights & Papadopoulos 1999, p. 61-62). Many online learning communities have no geographical links and are bound together by common interests and/or goals. All communities – physical and virtual – can benefit from leadership in some form and a degree of “governance” (even if it is self-governance) or some agreed rules or a code of conduct ([|Shea 1994]).

Online learning communities have very little in common with one-way instructional learning. Within online communities, the learning strategies employed must be designed to allow the learner to discover for themselves, construct knowledge through personal meaning-making, and apply the information learned in a variety of contexts (Tapscott 1998). The online learning community can provide a forum for informal and incidental learning within a group with shared interests and goals. The online community provide s opportunities for dialogue or conversation amongst geographically diverse groups with shared interests, and for educators that regard interaction amongst learners as a vital component of learning ; t he online community can provide a valuable teaching - or guiding - space. Online l earning communities can also provide the opportunity for individual reflection, guided by a moderator who poses questions or problems. The resulting reflection and action, or praxis (after Paulo Freire, 1970), is the outcome. Through praxis, online learning communities can provide the antithesis of what Freire called “banking education” in which the student is treated like an empty account into which the teacher deposits knowledge (Burstall 2000).

Through Twitter and the associated tools and channels (described in key features), knowledge and understanding will be shared and collaboratively co-constructed interactively through dialogues, blogs, discussion forums within specific Twibes and sub-groups to create a 'community of practice' (after Wenger 1999).

Asynchronous text-based communication on Twitter facilitates self-directed learning anywhere/anytime within a community context. Twitter is self-driven, non-authoritarian, fast, accessible and mobile - so lends itself to generating interest, discussion and ideas. The social networking aspect of Twitter effectively facilitates access to peers with similar learning interests and goals, but also to more knowledgeable users with expertise and resources on specific subjects. Moderators will be assigned to guide and scaffold interactions synergistically towards sustained reflection, critical discourse and ultimately deeper learning.

Most of the learning theory that is widely read was developed long before online learning communities came into being, and while those theories can generally be adapted and applied to this new context, some believe that a new theory is necessary to explain how learners learn in a networked world. Connectivist theory ([|Downes 2006,] [|Siemens 2004]) has recently been proposed as “the integration of principles explored by chaos, network, complexity and self-organisation theories" (Ally 2008).


 * edutweet’****s** style of community follows social constructivist theory which describes the learner as an active participant who interprets and processes the information they receive to form contextual knowledge, rather than passively imbibing information by rote-learning. For constructivist educators, the learner is at the centre of all activity, with the instructor in the role of advisor and facilitator – the “guide on the side”. This reflects Mezirow’s theory of transformational learning (1991) which uses both constructivism and cognitivism to describe learning as a process of “using a prior interpretation to construct a new or revised interpretation of the meaning of one’s experience in order to guide future action” (pp. 12). Thus, transformative learning is about the reflective transformation of the beliefs, attitudes, opinions and emotional reactions that make up an individual’s meaning scheme, in order to transform our perspective (Ally 2008). Following ideas from Anderson (2008), the implications of this kind of learning for **edutweet** are:


 * Keep learners active with interactive and meaningful activities, which bring about high-level processing to facilitate personal meaning making;
 * Com munity members are encouraged to apply their learning in practical ways, immediately, promoting higher-level learning;
 * Learners construct their own knowledge through guided discovery, taking part in existing discussions, initiating new ones and interacting student:student, facilitated by a guide who poses questions and problems and moderates, but does not control or play the role of arbitrator<span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 255);">;
 * The learning agenda is controlled by the community, and follows their needs and timeframes<span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 255);">;
 * Collaborative learning is encouraged, benefiting from the strengths and knowledge already present in the community<span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 255);">; <span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">and <span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">
 * Reflective practice is built-in, and community members are given choices as to where and with what they engage.

Social constructivism advocates learning by doing and discovering. Therefore it seemed natural for the designers of **edutweet** to use Twitter and associated tools and applications in order to enhance our understanding of how to use it in educational and community contexts.
 * Footnote:**

This prompted the members of our group who were not already "Tweeting" to start using Twitter, and we have successfully used it to share and direct each other to related resources. However, what is also interesting is how we are using it to share personal thoughts and information. This has certainly helped create a social presence (Redmond & Lock, p. 269) and to project emotionally as ‘real’ within the virtual world. As Redmond & Lock argue, novice learners need time to feel comfortable in communicating openly and expressing within text-based environments. Twitter users are encouraged to personalise their pages by adding profiles, pictures and adjusting design. This has certainly helped foster a sense of community amongst the **edutweet** group.