3. SOME PEDAGOGICAL NOTIONS FOR LEARNING WEB LITERACY

3.1 INTRODUCTION

As the conceptual framework of web literacy has now been introduced it is time to turn towards the concept of learning. Salmon (2002a) uses a metaphor of a planet when she presents different scenarios to on-line learning. Each planet has its own premises on "assessment, research, teaching philosophies and learning technologies". Salmon's planets introduce different possibilities the educators can adopt, that is, various forms of social practices of on-line learning that are based on various theories and pedagogies. Netro can be regarded as a planet that builds on a number of theories on learning, certain pedagogical thinking and social practices. The goal of this chapter is to describe these pedagogical premises of Netro, in other words, to introduce the ground pedagogy on which the learning space Netro is built. In other words, we answer the question of how the learning space Netro supports the learner to cope with the medium, that is, how to learn web literacy on the web.

In this chapter we will first elaborate on the concept of autonomy as a goal of all learning in knowledge society (see eg. Little 1991, van Lier 1996, Benson and Voller 1997, Benson 2001, Bereiter 2002). Then we will side-track from the socio-constructive path and turn our focus on the individual learner and on the cognitive-constructive processes through which learner's metacognition can develop (see eg. Wenden 1998, Tynjälä 1999). We will then introduce the socio constructive core concepts of meaning making as collaborative knowledge construction (see eg. Scardamalia and Bereiter 1994, 1999, Tynjälä 1999) and discuss the learners' new roles in this process (Lave and Wenger 1991). As an example of practice to which Netro's pedagogical premises are parallel, we will briefly introduce one approach to teaching literacy, the Pedagogy of Multiliteracies (The New London Group 2000). And because our aim is not only on the concept of web literacy but also on learning web literacy on the web, the role of technology needs to be explored. Our focus is naturally on how the web can facilitate collaborative knowledge building processes (Scardamalia and Bereiter 1994, 1999, Beatty 2003), and on the changing roles of learners and teachers in web-based learning (see eg. Warschauer 1999, Taalas, Kuure and Saarenkunnas 2000).

We will conclude this chapter of learning related issues by clarifying how this theoretical framework of learning is present in Netro, the web based learning space we created to facilitate web literacy.