Terry Anderson :: Weblog :: Educational Social Overlay Networks:

Very interesting article by Terry Anderson.

"Educational social software can be used effectively to create a type of overlay network to enhance the more formal institutional network consisting of student support , library, tuition, registration and other institutionalized services. An overlay network is a term from computer science that describes a virtual and often semantically based indexing system that rides on top of physical network."

Seems to me this is important. I have been worrying about how we get from here to there. Here is the ubiquitous institutionally controlled VLE. There is the student controlled Personal Learning Environment. How do we persuade institutions to let go of their grip? And, possibly more problematic, how do we persuade learners to take control of their own learning?

The idea of an overlay network may be the social or pedagogic bridge between the two.

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