Can Networked Learning be defined - and should it be?

Abstract

A recurrent question in the context of the Networked Learning Conference (NLC) is “what do we mean by ‘networked learning’?” This question is raised not only before the conference, by potential submitters of papers to it, but is often discussed during the conferences, too. Several answers have been provided in the literature, and though they do not exactly collide, they do seem to vary somewhat on what they emphasize. A common outset is the early, often-quoted definition of Networked Learning by Goodyear, Banks, Hodgson, and McConnell (2004, p. 1) which stresses connections - between people, and between people and resources - as the defining characteristic of Networked Learning, and ICT as the medium that provides these connections. In later years, however, some researchers have focused more on persons and less on ICT as the loci of connections, understanding a person as networked to others, e.g. in the workplace (De Laat, 2012). Others have viewed the defining point of networked learning as the sociomaterial entanglement of physical, virtual, human, organizational “actants” (Fox, 2005; Wright & Parchoma, 2014), in effect arguing that all learning is networked learning and placing no priority on ICT-mediation.