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Social computing can open up a vast variety of new channels for accessing knowledge and offering alternative learning opportunities. In particular, there are many online communities which connect learners and teachers creating new opportunities for informal learning (cf. Ala-Mutka, 2009). LiveMocha,69 _{for example, is a community}

that enables language learners and native speakers to connect with each other to learn language in interaction, providing also available learning resources for language learning. The “School of Everything”70 _{is a European (UK based) social}

learning network that connects people who can teach with people who want to learn.

Social computing can also offer the opportunity to change traditional educational patterns by allowing more personalised learning

69 http://www.livemoch.com/. 70 http://schoolofeverything.com.

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paths. In Finland the Nettilukio71 _initiative

creates an online learning environment which is fully integrated into the national school system and provides accredited qualifications. It is a comprehensive online study programme aimed at upper secondary school learners. Most of the students are adults (age range 17-75), with some younger exceptions (e.g. Finnish living abroad). The initiative is based on pure online learning with no obligatory traditional classroom teaching sessions. Learning takes place through an online platform, consisting of virtual classroom environment, wikis and blogs. This system allows for students’ flexibility, bridging location and time gaps. Students are actively taking control over their learning pace and timing and are empowered by the creation of their own learning portfolios and learning e-diaries. Evidence collected as part of this study72 _{indicates that reflective learning and}

self-confidence are boosted, and differentiation according to learners needs is facilitated. This example illustrates that the new generation of digital tools can be appropriated to substitute more traditional educational formats.

Furthermore, social computing supports Open Educational Resources (OER), i.e. initiatives offering educational materials and resources freely and openly for anyone to use and under some licenses to re-mix, improve and redistribute. Connexions,73 _{for example, is an initiative offering}

an environment for collaboratively developing, freely sharing, and publishing scholarly content on the Web. All content is free to use and re- use; material is organised non-linearly in the form of modules that can be linked together and arranged in different ways. Wikiversity74 _{is an}

initiative encouraging the collaborative creation and revision of learning and teaching materials, allowing everyone to take part through using, adding and discussing content.

71 http://www.nettilukio.fi/fi/sisalto/. See also: Heid et al. (2009).

72 Cf. Heid et al. (2009). 73 http://cnx.org/.

74 http://www.wikiversity.org/.

As part of this trend, many E&T institutions are making (part of) their teaching and learning material freely available to a broader audience. MIT OpenCourseWare,75 _{for example, is a}

web-based publication platform that makes MIT course content – including lecture notes, exams, and videos – openly and freely available. Similarly, in 2006, The Open University (UK) launched its “OpenLearn”76 _{platform to make}

part of its course materials freely accessible. By April 2008 OpenLearn had seen over 2 million visitors and had 5,400 learning hours of content in its “LearningSpace” content repository and 8100 hours in its collaborative “LabSpace”77

environment, covering a broad range of subject areas. Within OpenLearn, a number of social networking tools are used to facilitate the creation and support of elearning communities, while allowing Open University to investigate and evaluate their use in the open content environment.

Social computing tools furthermore support teachers in integrating ICT into their teaching. For example, “XTEC-Blocs”78 _{is a public service}

of blog-hosting provided by the Ministry of Education of Catalonia. Schools and teachers can create educational blogs and invite pupils and other teachers to post contents on it. Since its opening in November 2007, more than 10,000 blogs have been created. There are different types of educational blogs: school news, classroom diaries, project blogs, literary notebooks etc. The platform provides connections between blogs by means of tags, and cross-search capabilities. It has also a user’s forum and several tutorials. It is based on the open-source project “WordPress Multiple”. Similarly, the Italian “BlogER”79 _{project, initiated}

by the region of Emilia-Romagna, promotes the use of blogs by educational institutions, teachers and learners. The BlogER project has been running

75 http://ocw.mit.edu/. 76 http://openlearn.open.ac.uk/. 77 http://labspace.open.ac.uk/. 78 http://blocs.xtec.cat. 79 http://blog.scuolaer.it/BlogER.

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for five years (since, 2003) with currently more than 1,000 projects and 6,312 active posts.

The recently launched EDU3.cat project80

of the Spanish regional government of Catalonia aims at offering audiovisual material for educational use. The resource section of the portal consists of a catalogue of interesting web educational references that cover webtv, radio, cinema, photography and other new formats, to disseminate relevant and interesting experiences as well as foster the meaningful use of ICT in the teaching practice. There are also sites facilitating the distribution of school lessons via podcast. For example, the “SmartBoard lesson podcast” website,81 _{hosted by two Canadian}

primary school teachers, promotes the sharing of podcasts of SMARTboard lessons among teachers. Teachers can freely up- and download Interactive Whiteboard lessons, including a lesson podcast and user comments. The service is used worldwide, including many EU countries, but most contributions come from Canada, the USA, Australia, and the UK.

As these examples indicate, social computing opens up new learning opportunities for learners and teachers outside formal educational settings, which in turn can contribute to improving and enhancing learning and teaching in formal education. They also provide educators with easily accessible and adaptable electronic tools and resources which can contribute to diversifying and enhancing teaching methods and practices.

80 http://www.edu3.cat. See also the project’s blog: http:// blocs.xtec.cat/edu3cat.

81 http://pdtogo.com/smart/?page_id=2.