Social Learning in the Classroom

Voicethreads are an excellent example of what Bandura was talking about when he said, "Learning would be exceedingly laborious, not to mention hazardous, if people had to rely solely on the effects of their own actions to inform them what to do” (Bandura, 1977). In exploring other voicethreads on the website, I observed so much creativity with students, teacher, and community working together to bring understanding and knowledge to the designated topic. "Individuals create meaning through their interactions with each other and with the environment they live in" (Kim, 2001).

Voicethreads would be an example of multimedia Pitler discusses in Chapter 7 on cooperative learning. Creating a VT requires many roles and responsibilities that can be accomplished through small group participation. Cooperative groups allow all students to take an active role in their understanding of the task at hand thus enabling their voice to come together in the community of voices that Bandura talks about in his theories of social learning.

Another example of connectivism that allows students to come together across the globe is through collaborative organizing. Web 2.0 tools or the "Read/Write Web" allows participants to "collaborate and share information online (Pitler, 149). Web based tools such as Delicous, Dropbox, Google Calendar and Documents, and wikis bring important information to once central storage area. Collaboration groups share information about any topic with the only requiring being a willing participants sharing their ideas, research, and data. These resources can be edited, enhanced, and changed by any participant within the group from any location at any time of the day, provided they have internet access. Many minds can come together to create a collaborative perspective of any curriculum topic.

Finally, communication software that allows classes to utilize instant messaging, video conferencing to share "real time" learning either through chatting or face-to-face conferencing. Programs such as Skype and TodaysMeet provide this powerful access to anyone anywhere in the world. Social networking and cooperative learning knows no limits through these powerful resources.

Examples of Skype in action in my classroom:


Warum Deutsch? from Colegio Goethe on Vimeo.
Our class meets other 4th Graders in Argentina.




Our class meets other 4th Graders in Hungary.


TodaysMeet: you have the capability to set up a private chat room for you students to discuss curriculum content. Invite epals, parents, and other teachers to join your converstion.

Delicious

Dropbox

My Wiki


My voicethread: http://voicethread.com/share/1548750/



In 4th Grade, students experience classifying the describing the three main types of clouds. While clouds are not new to students, learning to classify and describe them is. My class studied weather in August and September, but I wanted a way for my students to review clouds throughout the year. This voicethread creation seemed like a perfect way to present this curriculum content continuously throughout the months ahead. I can see my students producing their own cloud voicethreads to springboard off of my creation.

I have gained so many ideas and inspiration for future voicethreads by browsing through the library on the website. After creating my voicethread, here are other voicethreads on clouds:

http://voicethread.com/?#q+clouds.b124116
http://voicethread.com/?#q+clouds.b1037349.i5530054
http://voicethread.com/?#q+clouds.b168590.i898186
http://voicethread.com/?#q+clouds.b329149



References:

Bandura, A. (1977). Social Learning Theory. New York: General Learning Press.

Kim, B. (2001). Social Constructivism.. In M. Orey (Ed.), Emerging perspectives on learning, teaching, and technology. Retrieved November 30, 2010, 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.