3. SOME PEDAGOGICAL NOTIONS FOR LEARNING WEB LITERACY

3.3 LEARNING WEB LITARCY AS MEANING MAKING

In the above, we have focused on the individual's learning through a cognitive-constructive approach to learning. It has been the mind of the individual that needs to be developed and the practices for developing it focus on the individual. However, within the socio-constructive approach it is a generally accepted premise that we are active members of the social systems in which we live, continuously building and rebuilding our representations of the world in connection with that surrounding world (Vygotsky 1978, Tynjälä 1999). This more social perspective on learning as meaning making takes us to an approach which can be said to prepare us for the life in the knowledge society.

Scardamalia and Bereiter (1994, 1999) ask a significant question of what kind of experience prepares us for the life in the knowledge society. By changing the focus from learning to experience Scardamalia and Bereiter shift the focus from the mind to the lived-in-world. This way it has become natural to them to examine the social practices that already exist in the world. Research teams strive to produce new knowledge and are seen as valuable source of insight to real life meaning making processes. As a result of such reasoning the answer to the question is that it is the experience in a knowledge building organisation that prepares us for the life in a knowledge society.

As we now move on to discuss some theoretical approaches on learning as meaning making we need to distinguish learning from knowledge building, the goal of which is to produce knowledge. In the context of language learning Krashen (see eg. 1981) separates learning from acquisition, on the basis of whether the learning is a conscious process that takes place in formal settings or whether language is acquired without conscious effort in authentic contexts. The distinction between learning and knowledge building is somewhat different, for the focus is not on whether there is conscious cognitive processing taking place. Producing new knowledge does not need to be separated from learning. It can be understood as a prerequisite, a social goal, which is an active process of collaboration. In other words, while engaging in the social practices of the surrounding world the individual minds develop through the cognitive processes described in the previous chapter.

In the following, we will introduce an approach, collaborative knowledge building (Scardamalia and Bereiter 1994, 1999, Bereiter 2002), and discuss the aspects of collaboration and knowledge building community in more detail. We will also elaborate on the changing roles of learners and teachers as participants, from new-comers to old-timers, in social practices in the lived-in-world (Lave and Wenger 1991). Before actually focusing on the pedagogical principles of our learning space we will introduce the role of technology as a vehicle for meaning making, and also present the pedagogy of Multiliteracies (Cope and Kalantzis 2000) and how the framework it offers can be used when teaching web literacy, in other words, how it is applied in the learning space Netro.