Slides from a keynote I gave at the McGraw Hill Teaching & Learning conference held at UOIT in Oshawa, Ontario, November, 2009.

1. Harnessing the Power
of Social Networks
in Teaching & Learning
Dr. Alec Couros
University of Regina
November 2009

2. Who is this guy?

4. “Web 2.0 tools that might allow academics to reflect
and reimagine what they do as scholars. Such tools
might positively affect -- even transform - research,
teaching, and services responsibilities - only if scholars
choose to build serious academic lives online,
presenting semi-public selves and becoming invested in
and connected to the work of their peers and
students.” (Greenhow, Robella, & Hughes, 2009)

5. My Blog, My Hub

6. Photo Sharing

7. Video Sharing

8. Social Network Services

9. Content Sharing

10. Copyleft

11. Open Teaching

13. knowledge

14. Key Questions
• what is k?
• how is k acquired?
• how do we know what
we know?
• why do we know what
we know?
• what do humans know?
• who controls k?
• how is k controlled?

15. Knowledge

16. Changes in Edtech
Group growth
Individual growth
Objectivism
Cognitivism
Constructivism
(Leinonen) (Schwier) Social Learning

17. David Wiley
(Brigham Young University)
Then vs Now
Analog Digital
Tethered Mobile
Isolated Connected
Generic Personal
Consumption Creating
@opencontent
Closed Open

18. David Wiley
(Brigham Young University)
Education vs Everyday
Analog Digital
Tethered Mobile
Isolated Connected
Generic Personal
Consumption Creating
@opencontent
Closed Open

20. Forms of Openness
open education
free software
open source software
open educational resources
open content
open access publication
open access courses open teaching
open accreditation

21. open content, access,
publication, accreditation
Available Knowledge
how we view learning -
institutional & informal

22. Power & Control

23. Power & Control

24. Social Tools

25. social networks & media

26. Social Networks
• redefine communities,
friends, citizenship,
identity, presence, privacy,
publics, geography.
• enable learning,
communication, sharing,
connections, collaboration,
community.
• networks form around
shared interests & objects.

27. A Connected Reality

28. Old World Networks

29. Mario Couros

30. Mediated Reality

32. Twitter in 60 Seconds

33. Each technology
creates a new
environment.
The old environment
becomes content for
the new environment.
The effects of media
come from their form
not their content.

34. Access

35. Ubiquity

36. Real Time Web

37. RT Search

38. RT Collaboration

39. RT Streaming

40. Social Reading

41. Trusted Groups

42. The Way We Were

43. Rise of the PLN

44. @jonmott

45. @jonmott

46. designing for openness

47. If you build it ...

48. Non-Credit Students

49. Social Affordance

50. Distributed Conversations

51. Culture of Sharing

52. Global Classroom

53. Invisible Colleges

54. PD Gone Wild!

55. Professional Identities

56. New Roles for Educators

57. Thinning Walls
Private Public
Closed Open

59. Trust
(human kind is mostly good)

60. View on Society?

66. “Some of the comments on
Youtube make you weep for the
future of humanity, just for the
spelling alone, never mind the
obscenity and naked hatred.”
@leverus
(Lev Grossman)

68. The Machine is (Changing) Us
(Personal Democracy Forum)
• Inspired by McLuhan’s “We shape
our tools and thereafter our tools
shape us.”
• Youtube & other social media
mitigate “connection without
constraint”. In many cases this
leaves to “tremendously deep
communities”.
@mwesch

69. Heroes for our Mediated Culture

70. via @mcleod

71. @smartinez

72. Living & Learning with Social Media
(Penn State address)
Teens are not connecting in the
ways we fear. But, we need to
pay attention to:
•Properties: persistence,
replicability, searchability,
scalability, (de)locatability.
•Dynamics: invisible audiences,
@zephoria
collapsed contexts, blurring of
public & private spaces

73. “Kyle Doyle is not going
to work today, f*** it,
I’m still trashed
SICKIE WOO.”
“Cisco just offered me a job!
Now I have to weigh the utility
of a fatty paycheck against the
daily commute to San Jose and
hating the work.”

75. Bassman_Sean
(Scotland)
• Scottish teen who
participates in my open,
online grad course.
• Creative, motivated,
independent, connected,
respectful, cognizant and
intentional in managing
his digital identity.
@bassman_sean

76. In Practice

77. Grade One - Expert Visits
@kathycassidy

78. Grade Five - Choir on Youtube

79. Grade Six - Global Connections
@zbpipe

80. Grade Seven/Eight - Class Branding
@glassbeed

81. Beaver Country Day School - mashUp

82. University History - Twitter

83. Virtual Office Hours

85. “I was able to go out and learn
throughout the entire week,
the entire year, and I’m still
learning with everyone.”
“The best part of the course
is that it’s not ending. With
the connections we’ve built,
it never has to end.”

86. “The course ... has been the most profound pd experience
I’ve ever had. It forced me to critique & review my
practice. I never knew how important social networks
were. Now, I couldn’t be a teacher without being
connected. It’s drastically changed my view of education.”

87. The Big Ideas
• The future of learning is open,
connected, & social.
• Learning networks redefine
how knowledge is created,
distributed & controlled.
• Meaningful learning is fostered
through distributed networks
based on trust.

88. Don’t limit a child to your
own learning, for he was born
in another time. ~Tagore
web: couros.ca
twitter: courosa
google: couros
alec.couros@uregina.ca