Community and social network sites as Technology Enhanced Learning Environments

Abstract

This paper examines the affordance of the Danish social networking site Mingler.dk for peer‐to‐peer learning and development. With inspiration from different theoretical frameworks, the authors argue how learning and development in such social online systems can be conceptualised and analysed. Theoretically the paper defines development in accordance with Vygotsky’s concept of the zone of proximal development, and learning in accordance with Wenger’s concept of communities of practice. The authors suggest analysing the learning and development taking place on Mingler.dk by using these concepts supplemented by the notion of horizontal learning adopted from Engeström and Wenger. Their analysis shows how horizontal learning happens by crossing boundaries between several sites of engagement, and how the actors’ multiple membership enables the community members to draw on a vast amount of resources from a multiplicity of sites. They show how the members thereby also become (co)producers of such resources, which then in turn become resources for other communities.

Keywords:

• analytical framework
• communities of practice
• community websites
• Technology Enhanced Learning Environments
• zone of proximal development

Acknowledgements

We are indebted to the actors on Mingler.dk for their generous answers, and to our colleagues for fruitful comments.

Notes

1. Please refer to the Postscript for an elaboration on this issue.

2. Semi‐public means that the profile owner can choose which information to share with different types of users, e.g. all Internet users, friends, other site users with a profile and so on. The techniques and affordances for showing or hiding different types of information in the profiles vary greatly between the various sites.