Social and Connected Learning
George Siemens
Presented to: 
Empire State College
April 24, 2009
Cognitive Apprenticeship
Distributed Cognition
What is social learning?
Learning through:
Dialogue
Interaction
Engagement
Vygotsky: Learning as social development 
Lave & Wenger: situated learning
What happens in "social learning" that doesn't happen when learning alone??
Systemic impact...
Novices & Experts
What is known is less important than the capacity to know more
Distributed intelligence
"bring...tacit processes into the open, where students can observe, enact, and practice them with help from the teacher" (Collins, Brown, & Newman)
Bandura: "reciprocal determinism"
Pattern recognition
Weekly Newsletter: www.elearnspace.org
gsiemens@elearnspace.org
What role does online learning play?
How can learning technologies be effectively
utilized to blend distributed intelligence with
social learning theory?
Learning networks serve to:
Filter
Wayfind
Sensemake
Provide for extended learning
(beyond the course)
Self-efficacy
Personal agency
Adapt & respond to complexity