Hi Angel, Carlos and Kathleen,
El 17/08/10 20:56, kharness@illinois.edu escribió:
Angel, Thanks for introducing this topic. And also, thanks for the link to invisible learning.
The question is how to use all those avenues of informal learning in a environment such as schools. Schools are structured but still can hold informal learning and kinds of learning that tests do not do a particularly good job of capturing. Perhaps there is still hope that schools can be and will be reformed. I strongly favor public education and think there are many benefits to society of value far beyond the content of textbooks. School is just starting here and my reading has more to do with class lists and schedules but I look forward to more of this discussion. Regards, Kathleen
One of the important theories I have found some years ago and that have informed my educative practice is the theory of communities of practice (Wenger et al). Salomon and others in Distributed Cognition, says that Classroom could be a "simulation" of a community of practice. I have a small presentation in the context of digital habitats to empower communities of practice that connect classroom and outside. You can see them (in Spanish) here:
http://holonica.net/home/Edumatica/gestinfo/habitats-digitales.pdf/view
http://prezi.com/7sp0ejyi7lpw/nomadas-digitales-aprendizaje-y-la-cultura-alt...
One of the nice things about communities of practice as a social theory of learning is that it helps to make visible the invisible and so it can help to close the gap between institutions and the rest of the world.
Cheers,
Offray