http://jay.tc.columbia.edu/critter/view/htdocs/main.php

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Here is a short abstract of my talk:

Social Media is changing the way we learn and offers potential for the design of innovative learning environments. But how can we use these technologies to improve learning and design learning environments? This research shows some insights of a three-year school project using social media in learning environments and offers an innovative research approach producing theory and solutions to problems of educational practice for a change in education.

Here you can find the paper abstract.

Concerning feedback, I would like to highlight two noteworthy discussions.

Firstly, the difference between didactics and instruction(al) (design) in the German and Anglo/American context. Some literature argues and this is aligned with my observations, that the term “didactics“ is rarely used in the Anglo/American educational scientific and practical context. The reason for this is that the term has a more or less negative connotation in the sense that it describes a very teacher driven approach combined with a moralizing aspect. In contrary, the term instruction or instructional design (German: Instruktion) is used in the German educational discussion in a similar way and describes a very teacher oriented way of education, which also could be described as a form of indoctrination. “Didactic” in the German context has a very long tradition and is mostly seen as the general theory and practice of teaching and learning and is discussed in various didactical models. My implication of this discussion is that it could be useful for future talks to clarify the difference shortly before using the terms.

Secondly, a high school teacher was surprised about my findings, that a few school children in my study argued that they wanted to be taught in a traditional setting and teachers should tell them what to do. I argued shortly, that this can be interpreted in the way, that the effort is mostly less to be a passive recipient of information in traditional classroom settings but also the learning effects are not as high as in self-directed, problem oriented and design-based didactical approaches. My implication of this discussion is that I will try to finish my research project as soon as possible to deliver the interpretations of various findings.

In retrospect, I really enjoyed the presentations at the conference and the informal discussions during the coffee breaks and lunch.