EduCamp Colombia: Social networked learning for teacher training

Diego Ernesto Leal Fonseca

doi:10.19173/irrodl.v12i3.884

Abstract

This paper describes a learning experience called EduCamp, which was launched by the Ministry of Education of Colombia in 2007, based on emerging concepts such as e-Learning 2.0, connectivism, and personal learning environments. An EduCamp proposes an unstructured collective learning experience, which intends to make palpable the possibilities of social software tools in learning and interaction processes while demonstrating face-to-face organizational forms that reflect social networked learning ideas. The experience opens new perspectives for the design of technology training workshops and for the development of lifelong learning experiences.

Highlights

If you imagine a workshop on the use of information technology aimed at teachers or anyone else, a recurring image will be that of computers arranged in rows, all facing the same direction, with a facilitator at the front indicating to participants the steps they are to take
It can be argued that such a spatial disposition reflects a logic of scarcity and information transmission that lies behind the way we think about many of our physical spaces and educational activities, including workshops for the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs)
Emerging opportunities made possible by new technologies have, so far, changed very little about the technology training programs offered to teachers

Summary

Introduction

If you imagine a workshop on the use of information technology aimed at teachers or anyone else, a recurring image will be that of computers arranged in rows, all facing the same direction, with a facilitator at the front indicating to participants the steps they are to take. Benavides and Pedró (2007) go beyond this observation to conclude that in Iberoamerica there is nothing to indicate that ICT use has achieved “a revolution in pedagogical models, which still do not embody the paradigm required by a knowledge society.” These observations were the starting point for a series of experiences developed by the Office for the Promotion of Higher Education at the Ministry of Education of Colombia, aimed at exploring opportunities and alternative scenarios for helping higher education teachers to discover new ways of using ICT in their practice. During the second semester of 2007, a series of workshops on the use of social software tools was designed and implemented These workshops, called EduCamps, modeled a face-to-face social networked learning space in which several emerging concepts (such as e-Learning 2.0 and personal learning environments, or PLEs) were brought into play. This experience suggests that, for some teachers, a change in their perception about technology use can be achieved through activities that confront their deepest convictions about what it means to learn and teach, allowing them to discover themselves as apprentices in a continuous process and as members of a larger community to which they can turn for answers

Background

A Word on Physical Space

Discussion

Was the time available enough for the activities proposed?