Creating Authentic Learning Through Online Personal Learning Networks

As educators face challenges in creating and cultivating authentic learning experiences in online education, a new paradigm for peer-to-peer learning has emerged: personal learning networks (PLNs). This article outlines autoethnographic research conducted in summer 2019, in which six participants from distinct virtual PLNs reflected on the benefits of PLNs as a model of peer-to-peer learning, how their experiences within PLNs aligned with Rule's themes of authentic learning and ways PLNs can be incorporated into online programming to create deep, authentic learning environments. The study findings align with the core principles of authentic learning: (a) real-world scenarios, (b) inquiry and thinking skills, (c) discourse with the community, and (d) empowerment. The study makes a strong case for the incorporation of PLNs into traditional online programming as a means to create unique and authentic learning experiences.

Cultivating Meaningful Personal Learning Networks in an Era of Multimodal and Globalized Music Learning and Education

A continual ebb and flow of technological progressions provide diverse contexts in which music learning, participation, and education can occur. Youth are deeply immersed within a culture of globalized and multimodal knowledge-sharing, through which music learning occurs within formal, nonformal, and informal contexts, both in the physical and online worlds. These interconnected environments provide learners with a diverse collection of tools and resources that enable them to take charge of their own musical learning. Further, they can connect and share with other learners, educators, and experts through their own digitally mediated personal learning networks (PLNs). In these PLNs, extensive repertoires of formal music education combined with informal music learning practices that provide self-directed forums for musical experiences can enable music learners to flourish and adapt to globalized and diverse contexts. Learners cultivate, in their own personally relevant ways, networks of musical knowledge by drawing on the resources and tools available both on- and offline. By examining PLNs supported by multimodal social media resources as well as online forums for sharing and exploring music knowledge, this chapter presents practical examples and applications to inform music educators and classroom practices.

eutagogoy Extended: A Conceptual Framework to Support Informal, Self-Determined Lifelong Learning for Older Adults

This paper reviews and then extends the concept of heutagogy, making a case for why and how it provides a theoretical and practical framework for understanding and facilitating informal, self-determined older adults’ online lifelong learning activities and processes. This discussion is situated within a unique research context, namely, older adults’ (retirees) use of online personal learning networks (oPLNs) to support their informal lifelong learning goals. From our analysis, there is evidence to substantiate the claim that heutogogical principles were manifest within an “ecology” of informal online learning.

Online Personal Learning Networks for Older Adults: Impacts on Social and Mental Well-Being

This study investigated retired older adults (age 55+) who use the Internet to facilitate their informal, self-directed learning by creating and maintaining their online personal learning networks (oPLNs), and how such use impacts their personal, social, and mental well-being. Guiding this examination were particular research questions that specifically queried the perceived value of their oPLNs to activate and self-direct their informal learning. The web-conferencing tool WebEx was used to conduct four synchronous online focus groups allowing a total of 15 voluntary, geographically dispersed participants from across Canada to share their experiences and insights. A thematic analysis of the focus group transcripts revealed themes informing how oPLNs facilitated their informal learning goals and influenced participants’ personal valuing of their online activity. As a component of results from the larger research study (Morrison, Litchenwald, & Krystkowiak, 2020; Morrison, Litchewald, & Tang, 2020; Morrison & McCutcheon, 2019) , the findings presented, drawn from the online focus group qualitative data, indicated positive perceived valuing of their informal learning via their oPLNs as well as indications of favorable social and mental well-being outcomes. Interpretive speculation is provided regarding how these informal online learning experiences and oPLNs in particular, may point to a favorable impact on similar retired older adults’ personal, social, and mental well-being.

Podcasts for Nonformal Learning: Using Social Media for Creating Personal Learning Environments, Personal Learning Networks

The use of second-generation web technology (WEB2) in education is emphasising the role of social media as educational sources. Researchers that are analysing personal learning environments (Schaffert, Kalz, 2009; Dabbagh, Kitsantas, 2012), personal learning networks (Couros, 2010) suggest the importance of social media, although this emphasis is attributed to the collaborative interaction of learners. To comprehensively assess the potential of podcasts as social media in the creation of personal learning environments, personal learning networks, the research described in this article does not restrict the definition of podcasts as the potential of collaboration provided by social media. In this article, attention is directed towards the potential of podcasts in the creation of personal learning environment and personal learning networks. By using integrated information behaviour module analysis to determine if the students of Lithuanian higher education institutions value the potential of informal learning provided by podcasts. To determine if these technologies are used for the formation of personal learning environments, personal learning networks, a discussion group research was conducted. During the research the analysis of participant podcast usage showed there is interaction between media content used for recreation and media content used for formal and informal learning. This means that the participants of the research use podcasts to create personal learning environments. On the other hand, this interaction is minimal, created only by the learners and reasoned by the search of educational podcasts. The analysis of the experiences of the discussion participants revealed that the collaborative interaction between learners involved in the research in searching, sharing and using podcasts in the process of learning is not intensive, it is typically fragmented. This allows to point out that the communities that use podcasts for informal learning are not forming. This shows that the potential of podcasts in creating a learning network is not fulfilled, and that podcasts don’t inspire participatory learning.

Older Adults’ Use of Online Personal Learning Networks to Construct Communities of Learning

This study investigated how retired older adults (age 55+) use the Internet and social media tools to facilitate their informal, self-directed learning by creating and maintaining online personal learning networks (oPLNs). The research examined what information and communication technologies (ICT) participants included in their oPLNs and how they used these oPLNs to activate and self-direct their informal learning. Employing the web-conferencing tool WebEx, four online focus groups and four one-to-one audio interviews were conducted allowing for a total of 15 voluntary, geographically-dispersed participants from across Canada to synchronously interact and exchange their experiences and insights regarding their oPLNs. Using a thematic analysis method, the discussion transcripts generated were analyzed to examine learning contexts, strategies to manage learning, motivation to learn and achievement of learning goals, as well as to discover emergent themes. It was clear from our findings that oPLNs provided a virtual "learning community" that supported informal, self-directed learning via learner participation and interaction opportunities fostered by ICT-based tools and processes.

Networked individualism and learning in organizations

Purpose This paper aims to investigate the extent professionals from the vocational sector are networked individuals. The authors explore how professionals use their personal networks to engage in a wide variety of learning activities and examine what social mechanisms influence professionals’ agency to form personal informal learning networks. Design/methodology/approach This study applied a mixed-method approach to data collection. Social network data were gathered among school professionals working in the vocational sector. Ego-network analysis was performed. A total of 24 in-depth, semi-structured, qualitative interviews were analyzed. Findings This study found that networked individualism is not represented to its full potential in the vocational sector. However, it is important to form informal learning ties with different stakeholders because all types of informal learning ties serve different learning purposes. The extent to which social mechanisms (i.e. proximity, trust, level of expertise and homophily) influence professionals’ agency to form informal learning ties differs depending on the stakeholder with whom the informal learning ties are formed. Research limitations/implications This study excludes the investigation of social mechanisms that shape learning through more impersonal virtual learning resources, such as social media or expert forums. Moreover, the authors only included individual- and dyadic-level social mechanisms. Practical implications By investigating the social mechanisms that shape informal learning ties, this study provides insights how professionals can be stimulated to build rich personal learning networks in the vocational sector. Originality/value The authors extend earlier research with in-depth information on the different types of learning activities professionals engage in in their personal learning networks with different stakeholders. The ego-network perspective reveals how different social mechanisms influence professionals’ agency to shape informal learning networks with different stakeholders.