Universities Use Social Learning Platforms to Boost Collective Intelligence

Social learning tools are re-engineering the way students are thinking and learning, and contributing to the creation of a collective intelligence where ideas are derived and new concepts are shared, fostering a sense of innovation and optimism in academic circles.

“A growing number of universities will increasingly be using these tools to collaborate and contribute towards the collective intelligence,” said Mr David Santandreu, Senior Education Development Officer at Education Development Office of the City University of Hong Kong (CityU). 

Tools such as wikis and blogs have already broadened universities’ use of collaborative technologies, transforming the scope of a traditional learning management system from an information- and resource-based repository to a world where students are driving their own learning and taking greater responsibility for it.

“These tools have changed the way students learn, shifting the focus from memorization and regurgitation to using the information to construct one’s own thoughts, understanding and creativity,” said Professor John Hedberg, Head of Macquarie University’s Department of Education.

By adding collaborative technologies to their pedagogical toolboxes in efforts to encourage group work and nurture creativity, instructors are, in ever growing numbers, turning the concept of learning on its head and engaging students in a manner unimaginable just a decade earlier.

Professor Hedberg highlights some of the more advanced collaborative technologies such as portals like Voicethread and Xtranormal, and the use of creative digital storytelling, which are reshaping the learning environment.

www.voicethread.com is a collaborative multimedia slideshow that holds images, documents and videos, and allows people to navigate the pages and leave their comments via voice, text, audio or video file. Its doodling function meanwhile enables users to post comments on specific video segments, showing a user’s thoughts in action.

“The class, for example, can work around one visual starting point while simultaneously facilitating multiple users’ comments and contributions,” noted Professor Hedberg.

Though not at first obvious in terms of how it can benefit classroom learning, www.xtranormal.com, a revolutionary approach to animation-making that transforms scripts into movies. Thanks to a host of pre-made characters, it has been put to good learning use. For example, it can demonstrate how a chemistry experiment ought to be done in a lively manner.

“These tools can extend students’ skill sets, by broadening their ability to communicate. Where they may once have had to use hand signs to help convey a point, students can now draw on these additional new tools to help express themselves,” added Professor Hedberg.

Meanwhile, digital storytelling has become an overwhelmingly popular tool, helping place facts into context, and to develop a deeper and more enduring understanding of the subject. For students, the process of crafting a digital story also hones a wealth of important life skills including communication, collaboration, creativity, visual and sound literacy as well as project management skills.

At the Singapore Management University, creative digital storytelling is used as a supplementary resource in teaching accounting courses to undergraduates. It is used to illustrate real life scenarios, connecting up the dots between theory and case studies.

With the prevalence of PDAs, PCs and mobile phones reshaping the social connections between students and their instructors, it has been students themselves who have driven much of the shift towards social learning platforms.

“Generation Y wants to connect, collaborate and share their ideas and life,” said Mr Santandreu, adding that explains why products in the market or those in development are tailored to the personalization and acceleration of the pace of learning.

“People also generally do better if they are learning by doing rather than just passive listening,” he noted.

With the plethora of new technologies now being rolled out at a storming rate, the immediate issue for instructors lies in tackling how to keep abreast of the latest technological developments, and identifying tools that best meet the objective of the curriculum.

For institutions, the end game is about striking that delicate balance between cost and effectiveness, a hot topic on many university administrators’ agendas.

“The debate boils down to weighing up the pros and cons between using open source and proprietary products,” said Professor Hedberg. He pointed out the disadvantages of using open source products can be attributed to the absence of technological support to help modify the product, and facilitate its integration into the university wide computer system.