Networked Learn

Learning and Teaching in the Information
Society. eLearning 2.0 and Connectivism

Author: István Bessenyei

Sopron, March 2007

Table of contents

The crisis of education - finding a way out.......................................................3

Network learning on web 2.0. - Connectivism...................................................5
1. Connectivism..........................................................................................................................................................................8
2. Network learning – the utopia of restored unity?.............................................................................................................9

Summary..........................................................................................................10

Review questions..............................................................................................11

Bibliography.....................................................................................................12

Glossary............................................................................................................15

The crisis of education - finding a way out

1. From pedagogical reform to web 1.0

In pre-modern societies, children grew up in a world whose norms and behaviour system was inherited from
their elders. Parents got the children involved in their everyday work, into the life of the family and the
community, and all the ceremonies. Socialization, work, living conditions and relationships – informal
learning according to present day terminology - were uniform within the framework of family, relatives,
village and church.

In modern industrial societies, specialized institutions took over the tasks of teaching and educating. The
school system became multifunctional and performed a range of duties, such as childminding and nurturing,
ensuring equal opportunities and mobility, transmitting knowledge, providing a moral upbringing, a general
education and satisfying the demands of the labour market. After a while, with the general introduction of
compulsory education and the accessibility of higher education, carrying out the mass of heterogeneous tasks
became impossible, and the contradictions that ensued led to a growing number of critical phenomena1.

There were several answers to the crisis. Pedagogical reformers tried to model, in a school form, the organic unity of
the pre-modern world, and its most famous representatives chose child-centeredness, activity centeredness and
independence as their slogans. These experiments all aimed to create islands within which the distances arising
from the modern alienated world could be eliminated. 2

Radical critics of the school system imagined its renewal taking place outside the institution of school. In his book
on the worldwide crisis of education Philip H. Coombs (Coombs 1971), dreamed of revealing its ills with the
help of scientifically based systems analysis, and of solving the crisis with comprehensive, institutional
reforms initiated from the top. The ideologists of de-schooling, on the contrary, question the very right of
schools to exist. They regard school as a bureaucratic, factory-like institution, an education “kolhoz”, the
scene of social taming. Their most famous representative, Ivan Illich, outlines the re-socialization of teaching
and education, where individuals bypass the formal school system by learning in a self-organising way, from
life, contemporary groups and from their elders with the help of critical reflection (Illich 1971). A system of
informal and accidental activities and the exchange of abilities take the place of bureaucratic, industrialized
teaching, organised from the top. This model defines public education as a service centre and suggests that a
“free choice of partner” in education can be realized with the help of a great communication network. 3
1
Just think of the radical student movements of the 1960’s.
2
The starting point for Freinet was the unity of activity and cognition and the necessity of democratic education. His pedagogy was child-centered,
and independent activities (among others handicraft) were important elements of his methodology. Montessori also based her educational system on
her faith in the skills/abilities of children. The basic paradigms were “self-chosen work ”, independence of the child and freedom. Waldorf schools
stress the importance of the unity of aesthetic, intellectual and emotional education and of being close to nature. Their slogans are: autonomy,
problem-solving learning and child-centeredness. Dewey’s key idea was learning through experience (activities, creation, observation). In his school he
tried to model the socialising medium of performing tasks at home, and introduced students' self-government. Rogers advocates that the individual
needs personality-centered, helpful interpersonal communication instead of traditional “teaching”. (See Pukánszky-Németh 2001).
3
In his book entitled “Deschooling Society”, published in 1971, Ivan Illich states that the future lies in abolishing institutional education. He defines
school as an institution which stifles creativity and makes children lose interest in learning, due to its formal rules, hierarchical structure and
standardizing effect. As opposed to formal regulations and obligatory curricula/syllabuses, Illich stresses “Most learning happens casually, and even
most intentional learning is not the result of programmed instruction. (...)a great deal of learning even now seems to happen casually and as a by-
product of some other activity defined as work or leisure”. Thus, according to Illich, learning is, on the one hand, a subjective, individual activity,
which is squeezed within unnatural borders by the formal school order, on the other hand it is a process which, in most cases, comes about as a
component of another activity. In an uncompromising manner, Illich suggests that the only possible solution is to „abolish the obligatory school
system and develop individual and collective forms of self-education and self-training. Instead of school, he wished to create something less restricted,
a system based on voluntariness and individual freedom, which he called an educational network, the basis of which would be made up of all sorts of
educational-training communities. According to his ideas the school without walls appears, which is no longer a school (it should rather be called an
anti-school), but rather a network of the possibilities of learning, expanded in time and space,” explains Zoltán Czeizer (Czeizer 1997:617), summing
up Illich’s book.

Thus, already in Illich’s time, the notion appeared that networking was able to create completely new tools for knowledge
production and knowledge exchange.4 The “de-schoolers” based their vision of re-socialization, of open, self-
organising, networking public education on this idea. However, at the time, their reform proposals – open
educational institution systems for every generation, organically integrating everyday operators into studying,
learning based on cooperation and dialogue, making use of different sources of knowledge, integrating the
experience of older and peer groups – remained utopias. Their ideas concerning the realization of the
“educational web” - for example establishing a database for learning, making public individual ability-
portfolios (e-portfolios), organising a network for contemporary groups to pool their expertise, or a
reference service of those individuals and institutions who are potential participants in teaching - lacked the
necessary highly developed, widely accessible technological infrastructure, and the market pressure of the IT
industry did not yet exist.

The situation changed radically when networking technology – at least in the developed countries of the
Northern Hemisphere and in Australia – reached the critical level of accessibility and prevalence. There was
widespread demand for informal learning and with the slogan of lifelong learning, the political will emerged.
These facts caused significant changes in the nature of the criticism against schools: Illich’s utopia of re-socialized
learning and socialization within networks suddenly became a real possibility. 5

2. Web 1.0, eLearning 1.0

As the use of the Internet spread, it became possible to acquire and store digitised versions of many different
kinds of learning content (texts, pictures, audio and video). Although it was possible to access a wide range
of information with by this means (known as web 1.0), it was not yet truly interactive. Contents could be placed
on the homepages and databases, but it was not easy to create one’s own content and share it with others.
The typical Internet user browsed the web pages and downloaded content, but did not actively participate in
the content-creation process.

Parallel to web 1.0 becoming more widespread, learning management systems, (LMSs) based on the
internet became popular as well: these systems organised the databases, communication tools, task solutions,
administration – in other words the whole learning process – into units. Online courses, which copied
traditional educational patterns, appeared on the World Wide Web in the form of replica modules and
lessons. Standardized, time limited, linear courses were created, with tutors and formalized, automatically
verifiable tasks. This form of education, eLearning 1.0, is actually the technologically supported variant of traditional
knowledge distribution, the virtual extension of textbooks and classroom teaching. Even in this environment, learning
remained a passive process, managed from above or outside. The formalized, centralized, bureaucratic world of
education of industrialized societies was extended into a digital environment. (For further details see Downes 2005a).

4
Illich writes the following: „I will use the words ”iopportunity web" for "network" to designate specific ways to provide access to each of four sets
of resources. "Network" is often used, unfortunately, to designate the channels reserved to material selected by others for indoctrination, instruction,
and entertainment. But it can also be used for the telephone or the postal service, which are primarily accessible to individuals who want to send
messages to one another. I wish we had another word to designate such reticular structures for mutual access, a word less evocative of entrapment,
less degraded by current usage and more suggestive of the fact that any such arrangement includes legal, organizational, and technical aspects. Not
having found such a term, I will try to redeem the one which is available, using it as a synonym of "educational web."
5
We shall not discuss the general questions of lifelong learning or e-learning in this chapter, or their relation to the traditional educational system, or
the prevalence of IT tools in education. From the point of view of the subject, these are general questions that are assumed to be known. For those
who wish to gain in-depth knowledge of these questions before reading the chapter, we recommend the writings of Bertalan Kommenczi
(e.g.:2001), Kristóf Nyíri (e.g.:2000), Seymour Papert (e.g.:1993) or Field (e.g.:2006).

Network learning on web 2.0. -
Connectivism

1. Web 2.0 and eLearning 2.0 as an answer to the political
challenge of lifelong learning

The situation changed completely when the phenomenon called web 2.0 started to spread. “Digital natives”
(Jukes/Dosaj 2003) of web 2.0 not only searched for information on the web, but also became content providers
themselves. The areas and tools of interactivity have become practically unlimited. Personal and institutional
information is freely available on the World Wide Web and the technology exists to allow individuals to
harness collective knowledge and entertainment portals for their own purposes. Students can create and
exchange content in a cooperative way, within networks of their contemporaries. Blogs, forums, chats, wikis,
newsgroups, and networks of friends and acquaintances provide an immense communal information
production and exchange framework. The belief of hitherto criminalised file-sharers – that information is
not for hiding but for passing on to others – became widespread. Increasingly sophisticated tools, from
refined search engines through Wikipedia to well-maintained debate- and knowledge portals, are available. By
this means it has become possible to construct personally reflected knowledge adapted to one’s individual needs from information
represented in cyberspace. These characteristics form the didactic basis of eLearning 2.0.

In the field of eLearning 2.0, knowledge chosen, organised, distributed and controlled by the authorities has
been replaced by personal information management based on immediate needs. Consequently, the
importance of official intermediaries and institutions is decreasing. Within networks of contemporaries,
cooperation, learner-centeredness and the ideal of self-organised learning become a real possibility. The
boundary between learning and teaching becomes less distinct. For the “download generation”, the Internet is
not a medium for learning; it is the platform and the centre of personal study. In the milieu of eLearning 2.0, the
opportunity exists to reconstruct an organic learning environment6.

Which developments have generated these changes?

• High-speed broadband Internet (access) has become accessible to large numbers of people,
significantly increasing the rate of data acquisition.
• Information has become ubiquitous and can be reached with mobile tools.
• As open source software has spread, so content management is very cheap and simple making
possible the creation of personalized e-portfolios .

• A wide range of new, free tools is at our disposal: blogs, wikis, file exchange programs, forums and
tools that make collaborative content development possible.

• Freely usable content has appeared (open courseware, open content, CCL – Creative Commons Licence)

6
Kristóf Nyíri writes the following about this: “It’s time we reconsidered Dewey’s thesis. He reasoned that we need schools, artificial educational
environments because the era when young people spontaneously learned while growing up into the world of adults was over. I believe this situation is
rapidly changing nowadays. The environment in which today’s children play, communicate and learn is becoming more and more similar to the world
in which adults communicate, work, do business and find entertainment. The world of mobile phones and the internet unmistakably becomes an
organic learning environment.” (Nyíri 2001)

• New software supporting social networks is spreading rapidly.
• The changeable, uncertain employment situation and the rapid technological changes that school
curricula cannot follow have brought about the political challenge of “lifelong learning”. As an
alternative to formal education, company retraining and private courses try to compensate for the
shortcomings of the education system. In many cases, companies prefer independently organised,
online training and the exchange of expertise outside working hours.
It has become a political requirement that students be given the opportunity to participate in web 2.0-based,
eLearning 2.0-based education in addition to the traditional, basic school training. As adults, they will only be
able to keep up with the challenge of global knowledge exchange and be able to use interactive networks if
they become familiar with these tools and opportunities at an early stage. Thus, one of the tasks of formal
school training is to develop, in addition to the basic ones, skills that ensure that students feel at home in the
2.0 interactive knowledge-management environment. The most important competences should be searching
for and evaluating information and making connections between different fields of knowledge, ideas and
concepts. The real didactic question is how, according to their individual needs, students can be brought to
the point where they can contextualize and connect information originating from different sources, using the
exchange of thought (by way of a network-enabled discourse) and aided by other web 2.0 tools.

The phenomena of web 2.0 pose a new challenge to the traditional school system. If it does not want the
gulf between this generation’s culture and school to deepen even more dramatically, education must inevitably
incorporate the elements of eLearning 2.0 into its repository of tools.

The Apple Education portal demonstrates the cultural differences between the new generation that uses web
2.0 (digital native users) and the teachers who were socialized in the paradigm of industrial society (digital
immigrant teachers) as follows:

Digital Native Learners Digital Immigrant Teachers
Prefer receiving information quickly from Prefer slow and controlled release of
multiple multimedia sources. information from limited sources.
Prefer parallel processing and multitasking. Prefer singular processing and single or
limited tasking.
Prefer processing pictures, sounds and Prefer to provide text before pictures,
video before text. sounds and video.
Prefer random access to hyper linked Prefer to provide information linearly,
multimedia information. logically and sequentially.
Prefer to interact/network simultaneously Prefer students to work independently
with many others. rather than network and interact.
Prefer to learn “just-in-time.” Prefer to teach “just-in-case” (it’s in the
exam).
Prefer instant gratification and instant Prefer deferred gratification and deferred
rewards. rewards.
Prefer learning that is relevant, instantly Prefer to teach to the curriculum guide
useful and fun. and standardized tests.

2. Network theories and eLearning 2.0

According to Castells, the basic paradigm of the information age is networking and the space of flows which
“reigns above the historically constructed space of places...In other words, flows become the units of work,
decisions and output-control, instead of organisations” (quoted by Nyíri 2006). These prophetic words
convey the most important feature of the organisation of learning in the information age. An ever greater
part of the processes of learning and socialisation can be moved from the “institutions of stone” to
decentralized, self-organising networks supported by information technology - the “space of flows”.
Learning in this de-institutionalised space is not about an organisation centrally defining the input and
expecting that every learner reach the output result within a certain unit of time on a pre-defined, uniform
route. In this learning paradigm, the guiding principle is considered to be the common definition of
outcomes. However, the roads leading there are not common – they are individual routes developed from flows within networks
connecting personal knowledge with knowledge from external sources.

Network theory, based on Granovetter’s article on the nature of strong and weak (network) ties (Granovetter
1973), was given a new impetus by the work of Barabási and Buchanan (Barabási 2003, Buchanan 2003) at
the turn of the millennium. It supports the basic, decentralized, “de-schooled” learning-organisational
principles of eLearning 2.0. Barabási and Buchanan pointed out that many networks were scale free. “Scale
free distribution means that many network elements have very few neighbours. At the same time, the number
of elements with many neighbours is not zero.” (Csermely 2005a:35). Distribution according to power
functions characterises these networks. “Power functions mathematically define the fact that in real networks,
the majority of points have only a few ties, and these numerous little points coexist with a few large central
points that have an unusually large number of ties” (Barabási 2003: 100). In his book, Péter Csermely
endeavours to prove that weak ties are what make networks strong. “A tie between two elements of the network is
weak if taking away or adding the tie does not influence in a statistically sensitive way the average of the
network’s typical characteristics (usually one of the group-defining characteristics of the network). Weak ties
stabilize networks” (Csermely 2005a: 363).

Jones and his co-authors (Jones et al. 2006) examined the role of weak ties in network learning. They
interpreted learning as a network process, which includes the ties between the students and their tutors, and
the ties between the students and other sources of knowledge. Within this process, all ties are equal and none
of them are privileged. (This notion differs considerably from the hierarchical network interpretation of
eLearning 1.0, which only concentrates on the strong ties between humans).

Imagine a centralized learning network, in which the professor, or the compulsory, very formalized syllabus
or department represents the central, strong tie, while the interconnections between the students (the
exchange of knowledge amongst student), and the connections between students and other information
sources are insignificant. The network has few weak ties. If the central element is damaged (the professor
becomes ill, the department is closed down, or there is a shortage of the required textbook, which is the
unique source of knowledge), the network collapses. This is because the various weak ties that make the networks
strong are missing. Scale free learning networks, supported by information technologies, are a lot less vulnerable
to this kind of disturbance. In such a network, knowledge sharing amongst students is much better
developed. Students store a vast amount of the curriculum in their own electronic portfolios. Learning
blogs, wikis, forums, social networks (independently created contents) offer additional resources. Students can
also be connected to experts, students and lecturers from other institutions. and older people. They can
intensively use the syllabus-archives created by students from other institutions. Assistant lecturers participate
in the network and preserve the knowledge of their professors in their own e-portfolios. Learning becomes
collective knowledge management based on many weak ties, and not on the central role of the professor or
the formalized syllabus. Apart from a few strong ties, (since the strategic guidance of the professor may still

remain important), the network is made up of very varied, heterogeneous weak ties. The network becomes
strong: if the professor falls out of the system, the stored knowledge elements and the weak ties that can be
mobilized do not allow the network to collapse or weaken.

Perelman, who produced a radical criticism of the school system in the early 1990’s, created the concept of
hyper learning (HL) to denote this type of network learning:

“HL is not a single device or process, but a universe of new technologies that both possesses and enhances
intelligence. The "hyper" in hyper learning refers not merely to the extraordinary speed and scope of new
information technology, but to an unprecedented degree of connectedness of knowledge, experience, media,
and brains - both human and non-human. The "learning" in HL refers most literally to the transformation of
knowledge and behaviour through experience. “ (Perelman 1993:2)

Perelman says that the ubiquitous, intelligent tools of information technology motivate us to participate
actively in learning. Broadband information transmission makes it possible for everyone to call upon
knowledge everywhere, at any time. Not only do advanced search-engines make navigation on the sea of
information possible and effective, but they also efficiently aid understanding and contextualisation. This is all
the more true because those tools, based on artificial intelligence, are becoming increasingly effective in the
assistance they provide. In the future, the gauge of individual knowledge and the guarantee of success on the
labour market may be the informally acquired competence visible on one’s electronic-portfolio, and not an
official diploma.

1. Connectivism
The basic level of learning theories based on network theory is concerned with the organisation of individual
knowledge - , the cerebral system connecting knowledge elements, in fact, the neuro-psychology of individual
knowledge organisation. For an individual’s knowledge organisation, strong ties are represented by knowledge
elements that have been connected into a formal system. To these are weak information ties, which are more
accidental and associated with a set of heterogeneous, weakly embedded aspects. The greater the number of
weak pieces of information that surround the knowledge with strong ties, the more willing we are to accept
them as valid. The strong tie itself may be strong enough for us to consider the information as valid, but such
a condition is a lot more vulnerable. If the source of information which is considered universally valid
becomes, for some reason, discredited, that immediately causes all information originating from that source
to become invalid. If, however, this connection is surrounded by versatile, secondary, weak information, then
it ensures stability even in the case of damage. 7 Siemens writes the following about this:

„How does knowledge flow within a network? Which factors have an impact on the process? If we
tentatively ascribe life-like properties to our learning networks, we can partly answer this question.
Any living organism seeks two primary functions: replication and preservation. Nodes within our
networks follow similar aspirations. Established beliefs and learning often ensure that new
information is routed through (i.e., contextualized) the existing network. New information is
evaluated and coded with reference to the existing meme8 of the learning network.” (Siemens 2005)

Using the tendencies of the network as a basis, Georg Siemens founded a learning theory of the information age
called connectivism (Siemens 2005). In this theory, Siemens surpasses the traditional theories such as
behaviourism, cognitivism and constructivism. (Even this last one - which stresses the socially motivated
7
This string of thought is based on Péter Csermely’s personal statement.
8
For the theory of memes see Kolin: 2002

nature of learning - focuses on individual learning techniques and the processes of inner mental activity, and
does not take into consideration the way learning takes place in organisations and network structures.)

Connectivism considers learning as a process in which the role of informal information exchange, organised into networks and
supported with electronic tools, becomes more and more significant. Learning becomes a continuous, lifelong system of
network activities, embedded into other activities. The motivation for gaining and contextualising information
becomes stronger if searching and evaluation becomes a cooperative, network activity. Students can
significantly improve the efficiency of their learning if they take part in a network, or virtual community
dealing with the given subject. Thus the collective knowledge once again becomes a source of individual
knowledge (“cycle of knowledge development”). As the number of cooperative activities increases, personal
social networks become the scene of informal exchange of expertise, and “communities of practice”
develop. Besides the questions of “how” and “what” to learn, we now have the question of “where to learn”.

Siemens makes it clear that in networks, contextualising information and determining validity may both
become collective processes. (A list of popular topics, useful syllabuses, important links, articles and blogs,
compiled in a cooperative manner may serve this purpose. 9) So-called feed-aggregators help the collecting and
feeding back of information into one’s own knowledge network. 10 Instead of consuming information that has been
embedded in connections by institutions, learning may become an active creation of knowledge. 11

2. Network learning – the utopia of restored unity?
The learning-organisational, knowledge-creating theories of eLearning 2.0, hyper learning and connectivism
express the hope that networking supported by advanced technology can put an end to the modern division between
institutional learning and personal knowledge and become a tool of reintegration. 12

There is a desire to decrease the alienation of the world of traditional school with the help of the
information flow taking place in the social networks of the virtual world and in cooperative, creative areas of
learning. We talk about network communities, organic and open learning environments, the intertwining of
everyday activities and learning, the gradual disappearance of the border between spontaneous and
institutional learning, the intermingling of childhood and adulthood (see Nyíri 2001). Although this desire
was just a utopia in the age of the early, radical school criticisms, or when the first network learning theories
appeared, today, in the globalised environment of the information society, creating new forms of
embeddedness in the virtual space of social networks has become common practice.

The spread of new forms of learning also implies various potential conflicts. There are numerous signs that
the new forms of informal network learning can only be fitted into the narrow, bureaucratically controlled
framework of traditional institutions that are limited in time and resources, with great difficulty. The
pedagogical debate concerning this issue often goes in the wrong direction, because the discussion is between
two incompatible conceptual worlds. An important educational-sociological, network-research and
pedagogical question of the coming period will be how the institutions of the official school system will
accept this phenomenon, to what extent they will integrate or reject it, and what types of conflicts,
compromises and solutions this process will develop.

9
See, for example, the webpage urlguru.hu.
10
For example Google reader, xFruits or blastfeed.
11
For the debate about connectivism, see Verhagen's critique and Siemen's reply. (Verhagen 2006, Siemens 2006).
12
Kristóf Nyíri writes the following about this: “The border between practical and theoretical knowledge is becoming fluid. Practical training and
theoretical education are extremely close. Education in the humanities and in science is getting closer to vocational training and technical training,
research is now closer to teaching. Primary, secondary and higher level education overlap now, just as institutionalized learning overlaps with extra-
institutional learning.” (Nyíri 1997a: 699)

Summary

In traditional societies, socialisation did not take place in separate institutions, but rather took place in the
family and within small communities. In modern societies, specialized institutions have taken over the roles
of teaching, educating and child minding. Mass-education could only be organised in a standardized,
industrial way. Pedagogical reformers wanted to change this alienated socialization into socialization based on
independence that could be provided in child-centred schools. The radical critics of the school system wanted
to de-school the whole of society, saying that spontaneous activities and the network of knowledge exchange
could replace formal school.

With the spreading of information technology, the utopia of network learning may become a reality, at least
technically. A vast amount of spontaneous knowledge exchange is taking place on the interactive World Wide
Web. It is on the basis of this that the theories of eLearning 2.0 and connectivism declare that network
participation and access to information and to software that interprets and contextualizes information makes
a completely new, cooperative, self-organising form of learning possible. This process questions the role of
traditional educational institutions today. While the forms of eLearning 1.0 only meant the mechanical
transposition of traditional linear learning to a virtual medium, the mode of operation of eLearning 2.0,
(organised into networks, self-organising, embedded into activities) may be the starting point and driving
force of a learning-organisational process that takes advantage of the opportunities offered by the
information society.

Review questions

1) Describe, in a few words, learning in traditional societies.

2) What is the difference between the ways in which web 1.0 and web 2.0 work?

3) Why are networks that have a lot of weak ties stronger?

4) What type of social or learning network (newsgroup, forum, chat room, collective games) do you
participate in? Describe them from the aspect of the means and content of communication.

5) List what the theory of connectivism says about learning.

6) Which software facilitates the operation of social and learning networks? What characterizes it?

Bibliography

Primarily recommended reading:

Downes, Stephen (2005a): E-learning 2.0 http://elearnmag.org/subpage.cfm?section=articles&article=29-1
(Accessed: 10/02/2007)

Siemens, Georg (2006): Connectivism: Learning Theory or Pastime of the Self-Amused?
http://www.elearnspace.org/Articles/Connectivism_response.doc (Accessed: 27/03/2007)

Further recommended reading:

Barabási, Albert-László (2003): Behálózva. A hálózatok új tudománya. [Enwebbed. The new science of networks]
Magyar Könyklub [Hungarian Book Club]

Bessenyei, István (1997): Világháló és leépítés [World wide web and redundancy] In: Educatio, 4:628-644
http://www.neumann-haz.hu/tei/educatio/educatio/1997tel/studies/3bessenyei/3bessen_hu.html
(Accessed: 26/01/2007)

Czeizer, Zoltán (1997): Játék és tanulás az interneten.[Games and learning on the internet] In: Educatio 4:615-
619 http://www.neumann-
haz.hu/tei/educatio/educatio/1997tel/studies/1czeizer/1czeizer_hu.html#tfoot7 (Accessed:
16/03/2007)

Nyíri, Kristóf (1997a): Nyitott oktatás és távoktatás. [Open education and distance education] In: Educatio/4
699-706 old. http://www.neumann-
haz.hu/tei/educatio/educatio/1997tel/studies/8nyiri/8nyiri_hu.html (Accessed: 21/01/2007)

Schuler, Douglas (1996): New Community Networks: Wired for Change. Addison-Wesley Publishing Company,
http://www.scn.org/ncn/ (Accessed: 14/03/2007)

References:

Barabási, Albert László (2005): Behálózva. [Enwebbed] Előadás a Mindentudás Egyetemén [Lecture at
ENCOMPASS, ENCyclopedic knOwledge Made a Popular ASSet]
http://www.mindentudas.hu/magazin2/20050913albertlaszlo.html) (Accessed: 01/02/2007)

Buchanan, Mark (2003): Nexus, avagy kicsi a világ. A hálózatok úttörő tudománya.[Nexus, or what a little world we
live in. The pioneer science of networks] Typotex Kiadó, [Typotex Publishing House] Budapest

Castells, Manuel (2005): Az információ kora: Gazdaság, társadalom, kultúra. 1. köt. A hálózati társadalom kialakulása.
[The Information Age: Economy, Society, Culture. Volume 1 The Development of Network
Societies] Gondolat - Infonia, Budapest

Coombs, Philip H. (1971): Az oktatás világválsága. Rendszerelemzés. [The World Crisis of Education. System
Analysis] Tankönyvkiadó, [Educational Publisher’s] Budapest., 1971

Csermely, Péter (2005a): A rejtett hálózatok ereje. Mi segíti a világ stabilitását? [The Strength of Hidden Networks.
What Helps to Stabilize the World?] Vince kiadó, [Vince Publishing House] 2005

Csermely, Péter (2005b): A hálózatok sejtjeinkben és körülöttünk.[Networks in our cells and all around us]
(Előadás a Mindentudás Egyetemén) [Lecture at ENCOMPASS, ENCyclopedic knOwledge Made a
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Glossary

Lifelong learning. The concept of lifelong learning focuses on the development of a new culture of
learning and the dissemination of competency-based education. It encompasses the whole life cycle of the
individual, from early socialisation and pre-school education to the post-active age (from the point of view of
employment). Its objective is to guarantee access to learning for everyone, and includes forms of learning
that are outside the school. Apart from learning within the formal framework of school systems, it regards
personality-building experiences taking place in any other area of everyday life (for example through the
media), at the workplace or in the family, as learning. (Definition of the Ministry of Education
http://www.okm.gov.hu/main.php?folferID=1027)

E-portfolio. The function of the electronic portfolio is to compile in one place all the documents related to
the studies of a student. The knowledge maps, learning diaries, solutions to problems/tasks, tutor- or self-
evaluations, various links stored in a wiki or assembled with the help of other knowledge management tools
all promote the pooling/exchange of knowledge among people. Those participating in network learning can
form an opinion concerning the previous knowledge of their partners, their sphere of interest and their style
of learning on the basis of the e-portfolio, and this can help cooperative learning.

Informal learning. An activity that is realized outside the framework of institutional organisations, aimed at
promoting learning, and acquiring and applying knowledge.

Open source code. This expression applies to software where the source code is either public property, or,
more often, the owner of the copyright distributes it under a licence that complies with the open source
definition. This type of licence may, for example, prescribe that the source code must be distributed along
with the program, and that it may be modified freely (or at least with minimal restrictions). (Szabó-Hámori
2006:582)

Output-control. In a pedagogical sense, output-control means that it is the desired learning (competency)
aims that are defined, and not the input content, broken down into a detailed syllabus divided into time-units.
Choosing the individual route leading to these aims depends on the previous knowledge of the individual and
on the various time demands. In this system, the output is uniform and the input is different.

Learning management programs (elearning framework systems) (Learning Management Systems, LMS)
Learning management programs based on the Internet contain the following functions:

• Keeps a record of the learners and their results
• Keeps a record of applications to courses and exams
• Gives access to the various materials and elements of the courses
• Keeps a record of the activities of the users: teachers and students
• Usually ensures a primary communication interface
• Endeavours to increase student activity with automatic functions.
• Supports the teacher’s evaluation/assessment (both formative and summative)
• Contains elements of self-evaluation and accountability
• Informs users of the latest news concerning education
• Supports the realisation/arrangement of web-lectures and web-seminars
• Supports the work of virtual groups, ensuring collaborative surface.

Web 2.0 The expression web 2.0 is the collective name for those second generation internet services, which
depend primarily on the community, in other words, the users, to create the content together, or to share each
other’s information. (Wikipedia)

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