A SOCIAL AND COLLABORATIVE LEARNING ENVIRONMENT FOR K-6

J. Simes, jsimoes@ispgaya.pt Instituto Superior Politcnico Gaya (PORTUGAL) A. Aguiar, ademar.aguiar@fe.up.pt Faculdade de Engenharia da Universidade do Porto (PORTUGAL)

A Social and Collaborative Learning Environment for K-6

the world is changing

http://www.facebook.com/notes/facebook-engineering/visualizing-friendships/

10% of the world population (600 M) has an account!

A Social and Collaborative Learning Environment for K-6

Wikipedia
       

Massive knowledge creation by global collaboration

A Social and Collaborative Learning Environment for K-6

One work week is uploaded every minute

A Social and Collaborative Learning Environment for K-6

Knowledge workers
A Social and Collaborative Learning Environment for K-6

Collabora0on & Teamwork

A Social and Collaborative Learning Environment for K-6

Collec0ve knowledge
A Social and Collaborative Learning Environment for K-6

Digital natives

A Social and Collaborative Learning Environment for K-6

1 INTRODUCTION 2 CHALLENGES IN THE TEACHING OF DIGITAL NATIVES 3 LEARNING IN THE WEB 2.0 ERA 4 NEW COLLABORATIVE LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS FOR ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS 5 SCHOOOOOLS.COM: FROM A VISION TO A PRODUCT 6 CONCLUSIONS

A Social and Collaborative Learning Environment for K-6

1 INTRODUCTION
Children and teens today grow up immersed in a myriad of digital devices, thinking and processing information in a radically dierent way from their predecessors they are digital natives. Digital natives need new ways of learning that are more interactive, participative and individualized. These new ways of learning must support co-creation, collaboration, and sharing of a variety of contents, combining traditional and new digital media With the Web 2.0, users are active producers and consumers at the same time.

A Social and Collaborative Learning Environment for K-6

1 INTRODUCTION
In this work, we present schoooools.com (a.k.a in Portugal as escolinhas.pt), a new collaborative and social learning environment. Schoooools.com is being developed to be a very simple personal learning environment targeted to schools and students from 6 up to 12 years old (K-6). Students, parents and teachers may communicate and collaborate in this learning environment.

A Social and Collaborative Learning Environment for K-6

2 CHALLENGES IN THE TEACHING OF DIGITAL NATIVES

High Exposure to New Media Teaching with Technology

They prefer to process information in a nonlinear way They are constant gamers They are good in visual communication They have an excellent ability to context switch They have a great ability for digital literacy They are motivated differently
from Understanding the Digital Natives, 25th July 2010

Digital natives

A Social and Collaborative Learning Environment for K-6

A SOCIAL AND COLLABORATIVE LEARNING ENVIRONMENT FOR K-6

3 LEARNING IN THE WEB 2.0 ERA

ICT

New trends posed by the Internet and Web 2.0

Blogs Wikis Social Networks Content Sharing

Collaborative Filtering

LMS PLE

Not initially designed to be used by children and young people

A strong social component

A Social and Collaborative Learning Environment for K-6

A SOCIAL AND COLLABORATIVE LEARNING ENVIRONMENT FOR K-6

4 NEW COLLABORATIVE LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS FOR ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS Co-creativity

Guiding Principles

Search functionalities, creation, communication and collaboration

Technology supporting pedagogy

Learning in network

A Social and Collaborative Learning Environment for K-6

5 SCHOOOOOLS.COM: FROM A VISION TO A PRODUCT

Personal Learning Environment (PLE) interoperable with traditional LMS, supporting both knowledge ows teachers <-> students Wiki-based, to be simple, easy to use, open, organic, collaborative, fun, Web Social, Web 2.0..3.0: email, blogs, wikis, chat, social networks, web semntica, social bookmarking, Collaborative editors: text, drawings, cartoons, newspapers, music, radio, video, movies, TV, games, ... Simplicity, usability, accessibility, security, privacy.

A Social and Collaborative Learning Environment for K-6

Schoooools.com provides ocial school web spaces to support collaboration, communication and sharing of schools contents and activities between students, parents and teachers.

Educative

A collaborative space to use in classroom, at home, everywhere, for educational purposes An appealing space to use also in leisure time, to learn by playing, chatting, etc. An engaging space to promote collaboration, and socialization.

Entertainment

Social

A Social and Collaborative Learning Environment for K-6

Social features
private social networks collaborative editors sharing private blogs

pictures & photos

calendars

messages

chat

content publishing

class plans

student information

file sharing

school portal

parents portal

LMS integration

3rd party tools integration

A Social and Collaborative Learning Environment for K-6

A Social and Collaborative Learning Environment for K-6

Everybody is in touch

Parents

Students

Educators

A Social and Collaborative Learning Environment for K-6

 respecting the privacy of real social circles!

School
Family

Classroom

A Social and Collaborative Learning Environment for K-6

Students

Free creation of texts, drawings, stories, documents, etc. Maintaining and sharing a multimedia digital portfolio Develop a personal prole Safely communicate with colleagues, parents, educators Learn by playing with selected educative games and activities

A Social and Collaborative Learning Environment for K-6

Parents

Supervision and monitoring of student activity Browse and archiving of students digital portfolio Patrolling of sensible students actions Communicate with students and teachers and core family

A Social and Collaborative Learning Environment for K-6

Teachers

Dene assignments, projects for students Review, evaluate and show students work Communicate with colleagues, parents, students Share knowledge and experience with other teachers

A Social and Collaborative Learning Environment for K-6

School Administrators

Manage digital schools activities Manage schools web portal Publishing publicly students and teachers activities Communicate with all in the school community

A Social and Collaborative Learning Environment for K-6

Key design principles

To support simple and eective use of ICT by the schools community, inside or outside the school. To be a natural complement to all other ICT resources: computers, internet access, interactive whiteboards, digital contents, etc. To allow progressive development of e-skills, from the basic to more advanced, or new ones: collaborative editors, ..., email, blogs, wikis, chat, private social networks. To support the communication, collaboration, sharing, anchored on the real school privacy rules. To promote the school-as-a-community model, informal learning, social learning, creativity and innovation, thus helping reduce the digital divide.
A Social and Collaborative Learning Environment for K-6

Partners/Supporters

creative economy
A Social and Collaborative Learning Environment for K-6

since 2007...

escolinhas.net

prototypes all schools of Porto

R&D project Creative schools

Jan.2011-Dec.2012

Free Premium

Start-Up Chile partnering for internationalization

national release

USA Chile Brazil Scandinavia Canada Spain UK

A Social and Collaborative Learning Environment for K-6

6 CONCLUSIONS
schoooools.com: a platform developed exclusively for its target audience (children from 6 to 12 years); The platform represents a suitable and safe environment that includes the social tools of Web 2.0; Usability, simplicity, security, accessibility and privacy are the main issues; The platform features allow the co-creativity, search functionalities, creation, communication and collaboration; The physical, real, school, has a key role in the use of the platform; Parents and other elements of the school community are actively involved; The platform promotes both formal and informal learning.

A Social and Collaborative Learning Environment for K-6

A Social and Collaborative Learning Environment for K-6

Software Educativo, Lda

A Social and Collaborative Learning Environment for K-6