Connected Learning: An Agenda for Research and Design

Christie Barchenger

Ito, Mizuko, Kris Gutiérrez, Sonia Livingstone, Bill Penuel, Jean Rhodes, Katie Salen, Juliet Schor, Julian Sefton-Green, S. Craig Watkins. 2013. Irving, CA: Digital Media and Learning Research Hub.

"For today's youth, life without the Internet or cell phones is already unimaginable" (p. 41).

     Modern technology, with its potential for connecting people and bringing information to our fingertips, is omnipresent in nearly every sector of U.S. society.  Some have hailed the Internet and other 'recent' technology as a great equalizer of sorts, as advancements that will inherently narrow the gaps in access to information and opportunity that exist in our stratified society. Connected Learning argues otherwise, explaining that many conventiona, individual outcome-focused teaching methods, whether they use technology or not, reinforce systems of power, and that without an explicit focus on equity, leveraging modern technology in educational settings even further strengthens existing privilege and oppression. They put forward 'connected learning' an approach that can help leverage modern technology and that isspecifically focused on community building and equity.

    In the authors' words:

 " [Connected learning] advocates for broadened access to learning that is socially embedded, interest-driven, and oriented toward educational, economic, or political opportunity. Connected learning is realized when a young person is able to pursue a personal interest or passion with the support of friends and caring adults, and is in turn able to link this learning and interest to academic achievement, career success or civic engagement. This model is based on evidence that the most resilient, adaptive, and effective learning involves individual interest as well as social support to overcome adversity and provide recognition." (p.1)

    Connected learning is about building communities and "collective capacities" rather than on individual outcomes. This is an important distinction, the authors argue, because a lack of focus on collective outcomes tends to lead to educational approaches which "reinforce the advantage that  privileged already have" rather than disrupting systems of power and privilege by building capacity and capital within communities that include students from non-dominant culture backgrounds (p.8).

    By linking students' interests with in-person or virtual peer communities which have a shared purpose and can relate to academic, civic, and/or career goals, educators can support students in leveraging their current interests in a way that broadens and deepens the engagement a student has with an increasingly diverse set of topics and skills.

    For example, a middle school student, Clarissa, who is an aspiring writer, became involved in her cousin's Minecraft community and, through the support of a teacher, started a Minecraft club, began writing and staging virtual plays within the Minecraft world, shared her writing in academic classes, and pursued further support in a summer writing camp. In another case study, the Harry Potter Alliance is a worldwide community with local chapters which provide young people, such as self-described "super shy" Anna, a path into leadership and reasons for both collective learning about and taking collective civic action on issues such as fair trade, voter registration, disaster relief, and local community initiatives. In both of these examples, both virtual and in-person communities play an important role in the collective learning and growth of its members.

      These two examples share common contexts, properties and design principles. They also both leverage technology, though it is important to note that connected learning does not have to include the use of technology such as the Internet. It does, however, provides helpful design principles to leverage such technology in a deeper and more equitable way.

      The authors propose several different sets of design 'must-haves' for connected learning. In short, connected learning is situated in the 'overlap' between academic settings, interests, and peer culture. Communities should be centered on a shared purpose which includes producing and openly sharing work and ideas. These communities are set up along design principles which emphasis learning by doing (which includes opportunities to observe and 'borrow' from more experienced members) and constant challenge that creates a 'need to know' and 'need to share' in multiple different connected contexts.  Below is information that is further articulated in Table 1 (p.12)

  3 crucial contexts for learning

• Peer-supported
•  Interest-powered
• Academically-oriented, including civic engagement and career opportunity

 Core properties

• Production-centered
• Shared purpose
• Openly networked

 Design principles

• Everyone can participate
• Learning happens by doing
• Challenge is constant
• Everything is interconnected

 Summary

 Critical Reflection or Important Point

   This resonated with me as an educator and as a person who is sometimes more of a consumer than a 'producer' in the world of new media.

 "Although in principle, one might expect young people to do anything online, as fits their interests, in practice it appears that they climb a fairly predictable ‘ladder of opportunities’ as they become more skilled users (Livingstone and Helsper, 2007). This ‘ladder’, which parallels that conceived in the domain of civic engagement as a ‘ladder of participation’ (Hill and Tisdall, 1997), captures the finding that while many young people take the fairly basic steps (such as checking Wikipedia for schoolwork, watching clips on YouTube, or playing single-person games), fewer undertake the more complex, social, or creative activities that techno-optimists have hoped for them. The EU Kids Online project shows that most youth do not progress very far up this ladder of opportunities (Livingstone, Haddon, Görzig and Ólafsson, 2011), with only a minority creating, uploading or posting content or joining participatory communities (Livingstone et al., 2012; see also Lenhart and Madden, 2005). The emerging hypothesis that undergirds our approach is that the majority of young people need more supports to translate and connect their new media engagements toward more academic, civic, and production oriented activities."  (p.25) emphasis added

 Substantive Discussion Question

 In what ways might the communities developed in connected learning work in conjunction with or have tension with the already existing communities in students' lives (i.e. family, religious communities). What are the positive and negative implications for these different 'established' in-person communities in having students spend an extended amount of time/energy in developing relationships within virtual communities?