Networked learners are we all

If we assume that learning is essentially constructive, cumulative, self-regulated, goal-oriented, situated, collaborative, and individually different, as De Corte (1996) assumes, then we have to change perspective from teacher-driven content consumption to student-centred content production, where students in a collaborative environment construct alternative content, created within their own context and in a web 2.0 environment. By using web 2.0 we can harness that learning. This will, in turn, have implications for assessing and learning. As McConnell (2006)has shown, one way to approach the problem is to include students from the beginning of the process. However, the starting point of novice is context dependant. Students are never novices as such; they are only newcomers within the frame of reference of the research community to which they aspire.

"We cannot claim to have sorted out once and for all what students need to be told if they are to make sense of topic X. No matter how much detailed research is done in the way the topic is conceptualised, the solution will not necessarily be found for new ways of putting it across. […] All we can definitely claim is that there are different ways of conceptualising the topic we want to teach. .. all we can definitely conclude is that teachers and students need to be aware that there are such differences and they must have the means to resolve them within the learning situation." (Laurillard 2002, p. 71)

Laurillard’s (2002) talk of fuzziness can be avoided using McConnell’s approach to including students in the whole learning process, including assessing them. Understanding the learning process through hermeneutic interpretation, we can make students and tutors aware of where they are situated. Where they are going would thus be part of the assessment process. Multiple interpretations, as well as harnessing the dialogic, reflective assessment process in which they are situated, thus becomes the starting point of how to understand their co-construction of new knowledge. Heidegger held that we are always part of the world we are trying to understand, and that we are not only epistemological spectators in the world but are also embedded in it. Gadamer maintained that interpretation is a question of understanding the world from the world itself, and not from the writings of others, in conjunction with your own understanding of the world, forming a melting of horizons. (Palmer, 1969) Knowledge changes and has “the dynamic of interpretative reading” (Ricoeur, 1976, p74), which makes the process of collaboration in a co-construction of knowledge extremely powerful as a means of understanding the world. By having an equal voice in the dialogue of what kind of learning and assessment should be used, the collective decides on the means of advancing the content-creation and co-construction of knowledge rather than just copying actions until performed automatically. By using web 2.0, students will, in a collaborative environment, construct alternative content, collaboratively create their own context in a constant dialogue with the past and the present, and create new knowledge. So changing the learning perspective from a teacher-driven content consumption to a student-driven content production, changes the focus from learning in order to becoming a member of a community to being a co-producer of that community.

References
De Corte, E (1996) Instructional Psychology: Overview. In: E. De Corte, & F.E. Weinert (Eds) International encyclopedia of developmental and instructional psychology. (pp. 33-43). Oxford, UK. Elsevier Science Ltd.
Laurillard, D, 2002. Rethinking University Teaching: A Conversational Framework for the Effective Use of Learning Technologies, 2nd edition London, Routledge/Falm
McConnell, D. (2006) E-Learning Groups and Communities. Maidenhead, SRHE/OU Press.
Palmer, R. (1969) Hermeneutics. Evanston: Nortwestern University Press
Ricoeur P. (1976). Interpretation theory: discourse and the surplus of meaning. TX, USA: Christian University Press.