Executive SummaryThis article discusses the development of the online spaces that were used to create a learning framework: a student-centred framework that combined face-to-face teaching with online social and participatory media. The author, as part of her Doctoral research study, used action research as a mechanism for continual improvement as she redesigned many curriculum projects for her thirteen Middle Years' classes, over an eighteen-month period. This article discusses part of this research study and specifically documents:1. the complexity found within the tools and spaces of the selected social software, and 2. the continual review, through the action research cycle, in building the student-centred learning framework, and the consequent implications these had on the learning design.The study uses a theoretical framework that values students as active participants in the learning process and sets up an environment where students can provide supportive feedback, and even assessment, to their peers. Through the open nature of social and participatory media, a peer-topeer modelling process was possible, where students could learn from the posts of others. In looking closely at the tools that enable peer-to-peer interactions to take place, this article highlights the challenges in utilising the dynamic nature of social media and the structural processes needed to support students in becoming active participants in their learning and the learning of their peers.This article discusses the research study in three phases, and in each phase it provides two examples of teacher projects. In doing so, it presents screen clips of the online project as well as a structural diagram showing the analysis of the interaction within the project. The complexities and issues dealt with through the action research process are also highlighted. In describing this exploration, the article looks closely at the unique qualities that social software offers teaching and learning. It investigates many of the social tools such as 'My Page', Blogs, Groups and Discussion Forums. It also identifies the search tools and mechanisms that social sites offer in supporting the structural organisation of user-generated content in such a dynamic environment.When considering the tools and mechanisms within social sites, it does appear that social media has the potential to alter how learners access information and knowledge, as well as how learners interact with the teacher and their peers. Through identifying and analysing the Material published as part of this publication, either on-line or in print, is copyrighted by the Informing Science Institute. Permission to make digital or paper copy of part or all of these works for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that the copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage AND that copies 1) bear this notice in full and 2) give the full citation on the first page. It is permissible to abstract these works so long as credit is given. To copy in all other cas...

<p>This paper deploys notions of emergence, connections, and designs for learning to conceptualize high school students’ interactions when using online social media as a learning environment. It makes links to chaos and complexity theories and to fractal patterns as it reports on a part of the first author’s action research study, conducted while she was a teacher working in an Australian public high school and completing her PhD. The study investigates the use of a Ning online social network as a learning environment shared by seven classes, and it examines students’ reactions and online activity while using a range of social media and Web 2.0 tools.</p><p><br />The authors use Graham Nuthall’s (2007) “lens on learning” to explore the social processes and culture of this shared online classroom. The paper uses his extensive body of research and analyses of classroom learning processes to conceptualize and analyze data throughout the action research cycle. It discusses the pedagogical implications that arise from the use of social media and, in so doing, challenges traditional models of teaching and learning.<br /><br /></p>

This article looks at how social and participatory media can be used to strengthen interdisciplinary literacy and connects the multimodality of social environments with Middle‐Years Mathematics curriculum and delivery. The article reports on part of an eighteen months action research study in an Australian public high school within the author's two Year 8 Mathematics classes. The article provides student samples from within these classes as it contributes evidence and analyses that may help to inform teachers from across subject areas to recognise and implement literacy practices, not as an isolated classroom activity, but across their disciplines. By taking a more ‘social’ approach to designing projects for Middle‐Years Mathematics, this study supports concepts of literacy as a social, cognitive and cultural practice.

Social and participatory media offer opportunities to interact and

The importance of integrating technology into the classroom has become a priority at most levels of the curriculum in many countries around the world. This paper draws on the evaluation and research that informed four outreach programs. The authors acknowledge that teachers are generally time poor and often have limited information and communication technology (ICT) skills and confidence, while students have skills and knowledge in ICT that often go untapped in the classroom. They present a curriculum that promoted peer to peer learning and support for teachers. This is a model of pedagogy for outreach that promotes a community of learners between ICT teachers, generalist teachers and preservice teachers while promoting socio‐cultural student led learning practices in the classroom.