Around the world, digital technologies as well as social media have revolutionised education. They challenge the traditional approaches of classroom teaching-learning, and the way education is managed. However, while traditional 'classroom' learning is by no means obsolete, 'networked learning' is in the ascendant. A foundational method in online and blended education, as well as the most common means of informal and self-directed learning, the networked learning is rapidly becoming the dominant mode of teaching-learning process. In Teaching Crowds: Learning and Social Media, Jon Dron and Terry Anderson introduce a new model for understanding and exploiting the pedagogical potential of web-based technologies, one that rests on connections --- on networks and collectives --- rather than on separations. Recognising that online learning both demands and affords new models of teaching and learning, the authors show how learners can engage with social media platforms to create an unbounded field of emergent connections. These connections empower learners, allowing them to draw from one another's expertise to formulate and fulfil their own educational goals. In an increasingly networked world, developing such skills will, they argue, better prepare students to become self-directed, lifelong learners.
The book is divided into ten chapters. In the opening chapter On the Nature and Value of Social Software for Learning, the authors provide an overview of social software and present a list of ways that can be used by the learners, describing some of the potentially valuable functions and features that are available in these systems. The chapter is intended to establish a common understanding and vocabulary that provides a background to issues explored in greater depth throughout the rest of the book.
In the second chapter Social Learning Theories, the authors present a range of theories --- some mature, others still evolving --- that have developed in tandem with social learning technologies over the past few decades. They make considerable use of three-generation model of distance learning pedagogies, describing the shift from early behaviourist and cognitivist models to the era of social constructivism and then on to the emerging connectivist age of distance learning. Having laid the theoretical groundwork for social learning and teaching, in chapter 3 titled A Typology of Social Forms for Learning, the authors provide a framework for understanding the different ways in which people engage with one another in a learning situation. They introduce the model of social forms, which categorises three broad and overlapping modes of social engagement used for learning: groups, networks (or nets), and sets. Social media have, however, made it considerably easier to engage with people in other ways, notably through social networks (formed from direct connections between individuals) and social sets (loose communities defined by a particular interest, or by place, or by some other shared trait). As a result, the role of collective intelligence has become far more prominent than it was in pre-Internet times. Today, it is possible to learn not only from individuals but also from their collective behaviour and interactions. Â
In chapters 4 to 7, the authors delve into the details of how learning and teaching happens in groups, networks, sets, and collectives. They describe methods, tools, pedagogies, and approaches that are of value in each of these four modalities, as well as their distinguishing features and points of overlaps. The authors also examine their relationship to transactional distance and the kinds of freedoms they provide and demand.
In chapter 8 titled Stories From the Field, to illustrate how the model applies to specific learning contexts, the authors share some of their discoveries as users and developers of social systems for learning. By translating the abstract ideas and models presented in previous chapters into concrete form, this chapter illustrates how the messiness of real-life settings provokes complex, and sometimes unanticipated, responses and evolving, rather than predetermined, outcomes.
Throughout the book, the authors acknowledge many pitfalls and potential dangers associated with the use of social media for learning, ranging from loss of organisational control through to risks that pertain to the security, privacy, and comfort of individual users.
In chapter 9 Issues and Challenges in Educational Uses of Social Software, the writers accordingly examine the dark side of social software --- the ways in which it can undermine or even jeopardise, rather than deepen and extend, the experience of learning. They present a series of over-arching issues that warrant consideration by anyone who plans to use social software for learning. These include issues surrounding privacy, disclosure, and trust, cross-cultural dissonances, problems posed by the complexities of technology and by the digital divide, unpredictable systemic effects, and risks such as mob stupidity and filter bubbles. Where possible, the authors suggest ways of mitigating such risks.
In the concluding chapter The Shape of Things and of Things to Come, the authors identify current trends in learning, make some tentative predictions about what will happen next, and offer some wild speculations about what might happen if the world were a less complex place and there were fewer constraints on the effects and affordances of social systems on education. They head toward the end of this book with some observations and speculations that probably reveal as much about us and our philosophical stances as they do about the future. It is fair to say that many generations have felt their educational systems were failing them. Near the beginning of the twenty-first century, this is as true as ever. However, not to be deterred, the authors would like to suggest that there are some significant differences between the current era and earlier times, and that a significant number of them relate to the growth of cyberspace, both in terms of opportunities and threats.
An underlying theme of the book is that learning and teaching involve a complex interplay of technologies, pedagogies, organisational structures, social bonds, and individual needs, with many interdependencies and systemic consequences. Changing one part of a learning system is seldom fully beneficial if one fails to consider that each part in a system affects, and is affected by, all the other parts. If the whole is not carefully analysed and understood, changes can lead to unexpected, and often unwanted, outcomes. At the same time, as the authors demonstrate throughout the book, social media have enormous potential value for both formal and informal learning.
The writer is an independent researcher.
 smrayhanulislam@hotmail.com
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Teaching Crowds: Learning and Social Media
 by Jon Dron and Terry Anderson
Published by Athabasca University, Canada, September 2014 Pages: 370