Netlearning and Learning through Networks

Traditional non-computerized learning environments are typically founded on an understanding of learning as acquiring silence for an effective individual learning process. Recently, it has also been reported that the high expectations for the impact of computer-based technology on educational practice have not been realized. This paper sets out to challenge both the assumptions made about the requirements for effective learning environments by pointing in the direction of social creative learning processes, as well as the technologies for effective and creative learning processes by redirecting the focus from what has been labeled “traditional computer-based learning environments” towards user-driven learning networks. Thus, this paper proposes the concept of netlearning as a general label for the traditional use of computer-based learning environments as education tools and then, it suggests the concept of learning through networks as a challenging concept for addressing user-driven technologies that support social, collaborative and creative learning processes in, via, or outside typical educational settings. The paper is inspired by recent research into the interaction society and the Scandinavian tradition in system development that always have highlighted the importance of user-driven processes, users as creative social individuals, and a perspective on users as creative contributors to both the form, and content of new interaction technologies. The paper ends with a presentation of a participatory design project in which children developed their own computer-based tools for editing film and I present this technology followed by a discussion on user-driven design of learning technologies in which the technology is not just a container for something else, but instead, novel technologies as a tool that directly enable the children to do new things, i.e. to collectively learn through their computer-supported social network.