Introducing disruptive technologies for learning: Personal Webpublishing and Weblogs

Personal Webpublishing practices such as Weblog authoring have become increasingly popular for publication and collaboration on the Web. The ease of content publication and processing afforded by these systems allows individuals to transcend traditional authoritarian modes of learning to establish powerful modes of self-organized, collaborative learning. The changes wrought by these systems are already impacting many areas, and they are potentially very powerful for establishing truly “personal” support for individual and collaborative learning inside and outside of formal institutions. Empirical reports of research and design in this area are still rare, especially in the context of formal education settings. In this session, we intend to present empirical data on integrating personal Webpublishing into formal learning settings, as well as perspectives on applying and evaluating dynamics and characteristics of self-organizing learning networks among Weblog authors.