Collaborative knowledge-building (CKB) in online social networking settings is an area of concern among educators and researchers alike. The focus however, seems to be on how social networking sites mediate the process of CKB while neglecting the role of design in making such knowledge-building and collaboration a sustainable activity. The relative lack of attention to design, points to the need for methods to guide the development of CKB environments. Additionally, despite the increasing use and benefits of informal online learning approaches for professional development, many Caribbean educators are still not making effective use of this approach to their professional development. This thesis addresses these issues and contributes to work in the field of learning design in the social networking setting. This thesis therefore draws on a three-year designing for learning action research exploration in the Caribbean Educators Network (CEN) which aimed to establish possible benefits from a framework-driven approach, given that the development of informal online social networking environments are not traditionally driven by any particular theoretical or design frameworks. Using the research findings, guided by activity theory (Leont'ev 1978; Engeström 1987), group cognition (Stahl 2005; Stahl 2006), community of inquiry (Garrison et al 2001), I advanced a conceptualisation of a framework to mediate collaborative knowledge-building in the CEN. The framework is a focus on processes (what is done) and presences (the environment or condition) and is expressed along 4 themes: community presence, cognitive presence, moderating presence and 'artefactization' presence. In addition to the development of the mediating framework, the exploration also resulted in a meaningful experience and approach that revealed design for learning in the informal online social networking settings as a dynamic, living, messy, critical-reflective and participatory process of meaning-making.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:547904 |
| Date | January 2011 |
| Creators | Hill, LeRoy |
| Publisher | University of Nottingham |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Source | http://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/12356/ |
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