(2110) EXAMINING LEARNERS' SOCIAL INTERACTIONS IN THE CONTEXT OF ONLINE SOCIAL LEARNING FROM CASTELLS' LENS OF THE NETWORK SOCIETY: IMPLICATIONS FOR LEARNERS' ONLINE COLLABORATIONS

摘要

Our study of learners' social interactions in the context of online social learning situates Castells' [1]network society thesis and networked sociality in relation to discourses and theories of socialinteractions and their correlative constructs sociability, identity, and social capital. Castells' [1] networksociety thesis, allows us (1) to organize learners' social interactions as individual “living” socialnetworks [2] of technology-mediated communication, (2) to conceptualize learners' social interactionsas the flows within these networks and (3) facilitates our empirical study of trust and its relatedconcepts as constituted in and through these technology-mediated social interaction flows.Castells' [1] conceptualization of social relations organized as individual living, social, technologicalnetworks highlights the idea of a new type of sociability that is both individual and social as well asunceasingly creates and recreates social relations. Furthermore, networked sociability constantlyinnovates the networks that comprise these social relations based on the momentary needs andinterests of their members [3]. The living network not only has implications for how network membersrelate to each other (sociability), but also how they define themselves (identity), the value theyperceive in these relations (social capital), and, for our study, what kinds of trust can be performedwithin these social interactions and how such trust may mediate the quality of learning for learnersengaging in online social learning. We propose to use the motion chart, or dynamic bubble chart, as avisual metaphor for this type of living network-a network that consists of living bubbles constantlymoving, interacting, creating and recreating their identities and relationships as needed in the moment.The social, interactional, and emergent nature of the living network construct complements the socialconstructivist learning theory that frames our study's social learning lens and the epistemologicalassumptions that shape it. Specifically, that (1) learning has a social dimension wherein “participantsseek opportunities for private and open interactions in the learning environment that promotecommunity and learning” [4 p. 160], (2) learning involves the social construction of sharedunderstandings, (3) learning involves reshaping our “selves,” our identities, and our understandings ofthe world in which we live [5], [6].This paper reports on the preliminary findings of a research study on conceptualizing learners' socialinteractions online from Castells' lens of social interactions. The purpose of this study is to gaininsights into how this lens may help us to understand learners' social interactions as far more fluid andtransient which, in turn, may have implications for collaborative learning online. We focus on themicro-sociological level-social interaction-as the unit of study and take a qualitative interview approachfrom the learners' perspective, which facilitates developing thick descriptions of learners'understandings of their online social interactions and how they may shape their learning. We use theresearch findings of previous studies on social interactions to provide general guidelines, assensitizing concepts, heuristic ideas, to point us in the 'directions along which to look' [7 p. 9] as weinterview online social learners.