Canadian Journal of Learning and Technology,
Sept 21, 2021
Éric Bruillard, Khansa Ghabara, Sonia Huguenin, Pier-Luc Jolicoeur, Thérèse Laferrière, Sophie Nadeau-Tremblay, Cathia Papi, Marie-Andrée Pelletier, Canadian Journal of Learning and Technology
This is a translation of an article that appeared in French in the Canadian Journal of Learning and Technology this week. It covers the idea of connected learning from the perspective of 'School in a Network' (l'école en réseau - ÉER) and also discusses the Remote Networked Classes MOOC (Classes éloignées en réseau (MOOC CER). I do feel it should be more widely read. I appreciate the discussion of the nature and value of connected learning and the examples offer a concrete example of these principles at work, and so spent some time (with the aid of Google) to create an English-language version (any errors are my own).
Abstract
Connected learning is a growing educational practice that was identified by EDUsummIT2019 delegates as a theme for their examination of the relationship between curriculum/pedagogical practices and learning assessment. This paper focuses on how connected learning has been interpreted and implemented in the French and Francophone cultural context, and suggests that border "crossings", which reflect its dynamism, enhance formal education, especially in cases of disadvantaged students or classes (isolated rural classes). This interpretation is based on historical benchmarks as well as on the notions of agency, interaction, and connection. The scope and implementation of this concept is illustrated by the case of the networked (remote) school, an innovation that adapts to different contexts, including that of COVID-19, by going back and forth between local and delocalized learning activity. Two questions emerge, one concerning the recognition of learning outside the context of formal education and the other, the management of misinformation.
Introduction
Since the pandemic, the sub-fields of education (formal, non-formal or informal) have seen their borders diminish, a phenomenon that digital technology has been accelerating for some twenty-five years. Thus, most countries have urgently changed their training offer in order to ensure pedagogical continuity (Bozkurt et al., 2020). Among other things, teachers in France and Quebec have sought by all means to keep in touch with their students at home, in particular using technologies and digital resources. To this end, many have used the instruments, tools and artefacts of connected learning.
In the wake of the words of Ito, Gutierrez et al. (2013) as well as those of Kumpulainen and Sefton-Green (2014), we retain the concept of connected learning to explore, in a heuristic way, these border "crossings" (temporal , spatial, social or cultural) concretized by interactions for the purpose of knowledge made possible in particular by digital instruments, tools and artefacts. The adoption of the latter, previously seen by many in the educational scene as simple enrichment, now became necessary.
This article on connected learning first offers historical benchmarks drawn from French and English literature, before focusing on the agency of actors as well as the interactions and connections that distinguish this educational practice. Then, a case is presented, that of the school in a network (l'école en réseau - ÉER). In doing so, we cover almost twenty years by focusing on the main opportunities that have made it possible to increase the presence of this device in the formal education of young people. This results in two questions, those of the local recognition modes of connected learning in the education of young people and that of the management of disinformation.
Connected learning: benchmarks
Connected learning, which combines traditions with digital technologies and resources, calls for temporal, spatial, social or cultural border crossings. The historical landmarks presented in this section reflect this.
Some historical landmarks in a French-speaking environment
Talking about connected learning leads to thinking of the Internet, a technology that has existed for 50 years, but this educational practice may appear to be radically new, unprecedented. In a general sense, it is learning supported by interaction with different people, whether or not they are linked to institutions. In this sense, it is certainly the oldest and most widespread form of teaching and learning. Without distance management technology, however, it remains local, the interaction being limited to those around it. It is the journey that opens up new learning opportunities. An interesting historical model, which continues, is companionship, seen as a network for the transmission of knowledge and identities through the profession.[2] The idea of ​​network joins the cultural communication networks of Ivan Illich (1970) who recognizes the right to learn and to teach: "The right to teach any skill should come under the protection of freedom of speech" (p.63).
Learn and teach, but also cooperate: this is what would have motivated Claire Héber-Suffrin (2011) to create the Networks of reciprocal exchanges of knowledge in 1970 in order to "make people experience that we learn better and differently by cooperating" ( p.36). Teaching children with academic difficulties, she decided to give children the opportunity to pass on knowledge not recognized by the school (e.g. dancing, repairing bicycles). According to her, teaching this knowledge enhances children and enables them to become aware of their abilities.
Anchored in the traditions of popular education, the process of knowledge exchange then spread to inter-school networks and then reached the inhabitants of a neighborhood (July, 2002). This approach has also been developed in other countries, under the impetus of the French Movement for Reciprocal Knowledge Exchange Networks. According to a principle of reciprocity, everyone is a supplier and demander of knowledge. Putting people in touch requires making an inventory of the supply and demand for knowledge, hence the setting up of writing workshops (Héber-Suffrin, 1994), in order to best exhibit what 'we can offer and the needs we feel.
Knowledge trees (Authier & Levy, 1999), with the Gingo software, created in 1992, will offer a structured tool for declaring knowledge and skills, supporting the transition to skills and their assessment in the workplace in companies, but also the evolution of certification systems (Teissier, 1998).
Towards 1995 the general public Internet is developing, offering new opportunities for education and training (Cummins & Sayers, 1995; Harasimet al., 1995; Henri, 1995; Paquette, 2002). The experimentation of the network of trunks in Vercors (France) made it possible to connect around a hundred schools in order to develop a system of distance education (Berthier, 1998). Their objective was to break the isolation of the classes. In fact, the project organized reading and writing activities on the network, leading the students to set up knowledge sharing strategies (Godinet, 1996). In French-speaking Canada, Laferrière and Breuleux (1999) presented an illustration of different forms of sharing and collaboration on the Internet during an AUPELF-UREF conference. Beyond the exchange, which can be a simple transaction between people, the idea of ​​cooperation, of collective construction of knowledge, has animated since the creation and development of the remote school network.
Connected learning is intended to be "variable intensity". Access to virtual tours of a museum, setting up a course offered by an instructor or an institution not attached to a formal educational institution, are part of this. Similar practices continue to emerge, particularly with online training and self-taught online learning (Bruillard et al., 2020). Connected learning is therefore characterized by open modes of circulation of knowledge, in and outside institutions as well as by collective modes of writing and building knowledge, which are associated with upstream forms of recognition, valuing people, and downstream, in open certification systems (badges vs diplomas).
The definition is becoming clearer. In the age of easy access to people and information, connected learning is envisioned as a combination of individual interests, interdependent networked relationships, and interconnected experiences that transcend temporal, spatial and cultural boundaries. It harnesses media and technology to expand access to global communities as well as intercultural and interdisciplinary lifelong learning pathways. Connected learning involves socially grounded and interest-driven interactions between diverse participants who collaborate by co-creating, reconstructing and exploiting the diverse perspectives and ideas of others while developing knowledge within their own. community and for it (Bruillard etal., 2020).
Some Anglo-Saxon historical landmarks or written in English
In English-speaking literature, the "crossings" of temporal, spatial, social or cultural borders for the purpose of knowing, made possible in particular by digital technology, reflect an insistence on relationships - with people or with information. The notion of connected learning also highlights the learner's pursuit of his or her interests (Ito etal., 2013; Kumpulainen & Sefton-Green, 2014), and various conceptual frameworks underpin it, notably those of network learning and connectivism.
Learning networks are now based on basic hardware equipment, software and telecommunication lines, suggested Harasim et al. (1995). Jones et al. (2001) have pointed out, however, that the use of digital resources is not a sufficient characteristic to define networked learning. The latter occurs from connections between a learner and peers, between learners and teachers, and between a learning community and its resources. These interactions can be synchronous, asynchronous or hybrid and be mediated by writing, audio, image or video and by shared workspaces, which thus shows the extent of the space of possibilities for network learning and the potential experiences space of learners. This idea of ​​connection between people with digital technologies as media is taken up by DeLaat (2006) as well as Goodyear and Carvalho (2014). In a more recent contribution to the conceptualization of networked learning, Jones (2015) reaffirms, while maintaining the emphasis on connections, that network learning is not limited to online learning.
As for the designers of connectivism (Downes, 2005; Siemens, 2005, 2006), they base learning on the ability to establish links with other people, networks and sources of information and on the ability to recognize or create useful information models. They exemplified connectivism by creating the first massive open online course (MOOC) (Downes, 2013), a system based on the autonomy of learners, free access, diversified resources, and interactions between people that lead to on new learning. Connectivism thus operates a certain reversal: the learner's effort to learn something takes precedence over the teacher's effort to instill something - hence the importance of relating self-interest and peer support to opportunities that may lead to the desired learning.
However, taking the individual as a starting point risks confining the social dimension (collaboration, dialogue, co-construction of knowledge) to a secondary role which, all the more, as pointed out by Ryberget al. (2012), remains obscure if it is not made explicit. Moreover, the offer of MOOCs by universities rarely gives precedence to interactions between participants (Lafortune & Sawsen, 2019; Zhuet al., 2019).
According to the Connected Learning in Crisis Consortium, founded in 2016 , connected learning methods have proved their worth especially in marginalized learning contexts and with limited resources (UNHCR, 2020). It is in such contexts, we argue, that this educational practice takes on more importance as a way to improve formal education. Before presenting the case of the Networked School, however, it is important to deal more fully with the relationship between personal and collective interest in connected learning. The next subsection is devoted to this as we tackle the notion of agency while further discussing those of interaction and connection.
Agency, interaction and connection
Connected learning presupposes that any learning that begins with an individual's interest in a (learning) object is self-generated rather than externally determined; it is based on the agency of the individual, defined as "the power to implement actions for a given purpose" (Bandura, 1997, p.3). An individual learns especially when he is able to pursue a personal interest in a committed manner with the support of caring people. The situation he puts in place can also benefit others. This is recognized, a multitude of elements such as motivation, assertiveness, confidence, opportunities, learning style, resources and the teacher (if there is one) influence the dynamics. interactions and, therefore, learning in an individual (Bruillard et al., 2020). In addition to the agency of the learner, learning is also fundamentally dependent on heteronomous factors (e.g., peers, community, culture) that the learner faces, but also on the sense of affiliation and commitment that the learner develops as well as seized opportunities (see Figure 1).
From then on, a person, who shows openness to otherness, learns within a network, within a community, which influences him, and which he in turn influences through his action. This mutual influence becomes connected learning when members of a learning network or community enter into dialogue and engage in a collective process to achieve a common goal, to deepen or solve a shared problem. The interactive dynamic, mediated by viable resources (tools, signs), then consolidates connections which give the learning community the cohesion necessary for the creation of artefacts, which testify to a common understanding, a collective production. Various forms of individual (diplomas, badges) or collective (distributed publications) recognition may result (see Figure 2).
Figure1 The individual connected learning activity
Figure 2 The connected learning activity of a network or a learning community
This means that when the individual has access to a network of people that transforms into a learning community (Laferrière, 2005), connected learning includes, in the strong sense, the following three components: (1) a common objective or a shared problem (Roschelle & Teasley, 1995), (2) a collective process of understanding or production (Scardamalia & Bereiter, 2010; Stahl, 2006) and (3) openness to otherness (Gadamer, 1995). Such learning then refers to a process during which participants set the objective of understanding the same question or solving a shared problem, have access to different resources (human, material and digital) and co-create artefacts during their process of understanding the question or producing a solution (Bruillard etal., 2020; Ito etal., 2013). Networked learning communities (e.g., ÉER classrooms) and teacher networks or communities of practice (Quentin, 2012; Laferrière, 2017) are examples of learning arrangements.
Although connected learning can also occur in the context of non-formal or informal education (Bruillard etal., 2020; Ito etal., 2013; Papi, 2011), it is in the context of formal education that we chose, in the wake of the conceptual tools and educational opportunities offered by connected learning, to examine the presence of the ÉER in the French-speaking context and subsequently the distance classes (Classes éloignées en réseau) in the FUN-MOOC network.
The networked school in a French-speaking context
The École en Réseau (ÉER), previously named the Remote School in the Network, is an initiative funded by the Quebec Ministry of Education since 2002. When it was set up by CEFRIO, this initiative aimed to develop solutions through the use of information and communication technologies (ICT) to enrich the learning environment of small rural schools (primary and secondary) geographically isolated, in which there was a lack of specialized resources for students, classes at several levels, a small number of registered students and teachers who emphasized their professional isolation (Laferrière etal., 2007, 2016, 2017; Turcotte, 2008).
The ÉER provides them access to a social-digital guidance and support infrastructure, in particular the Via videoconferencing system, the Knowledge Forum and a shared catalog of activities carried out in a network, either in collaboration between teachers and delocalized students. Multimodal social interactions for learning purposes are thus promoted, giving the opportunity for small classes from different geographically dispersed schools to work together. This is what enriches the learning environment for students in small rural schools, and this involves in particular the creation of authentic situations centered on real problems of interest to the pupils.
Over the years, a growing number of teachers have become interested in this inter-class working method which increases in-depth learning around a collective investigation (Allaire & Laferrière, 2013). Several classes from urban areas have joined the ÉER. However, teachers' motives for networking may differ from those in rural areas. For example, the enrichment of the class is seen in a perspective of openness to the other and to the world by teachers in urban areas. The implementation of meaningful contexts around dimensions of digital competence (Ministry of Education and Higher Education, MEES, 2019) is a factor of choice for teachers to work in a network with their students. In 2020, the ÉER will join more than 300 schools located in 31 school service centers spread across Quebec and continue to support schools in their inter-class collaborations.
An important component in the interest of the classes concerns the possibilities of interactions, at a distance, with extracurricular partners (museums, scientists, artists, writers, etc.). This practice was already established in the ÉER long before the current context caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. External resources entered the classes by videoconference and on the Knowledge Forum, interacted with the students to answer their questions, present a workshop on a particular theme or co-construct an activity. Thus, the enrichment of the learning environment is carried out not only by increased interactions with other classes but also by relying on specialists in cutting-edge fields who extend the content for the benefit of student learning.
Because of its design, the ÉER develops a culture of connected learning, since its members (student, teacher, school administration, research-intervention team, educational advisor, IT technician) are part of a network that draws on their contributions in order to meet the common objective of enriching the educational offer by facilitating access to digital technology - through equipment, content and quality of use.
Originally, the research-intervention team proposed three community models which all subscribe, to varying degrees, to the following four principles: (1) ease of access, (2) multimodal human interactions, (3) active learning and collaborative and (4) knowledge co-development (Laferrière, 2017). This means that the organization of the ÉER draws on not only the agency of the subject (who learns, teaches, administers or governs), but also, it is informed by the necessary resolution of the tensions that inevitably arise between different components of the education system. Thus, the codesign of the ÉER - among other things by the production of artefacts around the periodic cycle emerging from local problems - helps the evolution of its network, its sustainability (viability) and its deployment (scaling). In short, the ÉER understands and exemplifies the three constituents of connected learning.
However, out of respect for school dynamics, only members of the ÉER will have access to the entire network. Whether you are a teacher or a partner interested in carrying out REE activities. However, it is easy to become a member. Even if the crucial role of social actors is recognized in the ÉER network (Laferrière et al., 2016), access to "foreigners" does not necessarily contribute to connected learning within a network. Although access is a prerequisite for openly networked (Dron & Ardito, 2018), completely open access would lead to a multiplication of various interests and, consequently, to a densification of the network likely to dilute the mission.
This is why the ÉER model, adapted by local actors from a given school context, is spreading through other than free access to its community. The ÉER shares its expertise in particular by holding transfer sessions and collaborating on MOOCs, including Remote Classes in FUN-MOOC networks, and teaching remotely from TÉLUQ University.
Distant classes in a FUN-MOOC network
Created in 2018, Remote Networked Classes (Classes éloignées en réseau (MOOC CER)) is a training program carried by the University of Paris Descartes, now integrated into the University of Paris, in partnership with the Academy of Clermont-Ferrand and accessible on the French platform FUN-MOOC. This training is dedicated to the ÉER model. More precisely, it leads the participants to experience the networking of classes from small schools in rural areas far from large centers. The training reaches two audiences: (1) teachers, trainers, parents, etc., interested in understanding how networked classes work and (2) classes that implement certain network activities within the MOOC.
The MOOC presents texts and videos which provide an overview of general questions on connected learning: the ÉER device (application?), collaborative work, the co-development of knowledge, the pedagogy of the survey, the co-writing of texts and various ergonomic issues. The training ends with presentations on computational thinking and educational robotics as well as short films around robotic activities that elementary students illustrate.
For classes, several activities are offered. Before the MOOC is distributed, students are invited to present their school and its environment. Twenty-five classes, from schools in Quebec, France and Tunisia, got together to share their environment with other MOOC participants. The students got involved in their own way, which makes each presentation unique. The presentation of the students of the Jenzat school has also slipped into the promotional video of the MOOC. In order to encourage the students to watch the different presentations, the MOOC CER offered a game: from a board displaying images taken from each of the video presentations, the students had to associate each image with the corresponding school.
The classes also offered puzzles, to be discussed in the forum, most often rooted in their local environment. Here are a few examples:
Do the crystals that can be found in maple sap have similar shapes to snow crystals?
What is the favorite delicacy of the Bigorne?
I am a historical figure who founded a town known as "the new town" on the Tunisian coast in 814 BC. I came to flee from the city of Tyre in Lebanon because of my brother's dictatorship, who am I?
Some puzzles were offered in the form of a picture or a poem:
I do not lack order But I have my own order: The Duke before the Prince, The Prince before the King, I place the weak A little before the strong, And if I wear mourning Before seeing death, It is what has died, with me, Always precedes birth, Just like the adult Comes before the child. Who am I?
Another activity offered to them was the creation of galleries "On the way to school":
Each week, a programming activity, named Robots and Turtles was presented and the MOOC ended with participation in a competition.
Despite a timid participation, MOOC CER succeeded in mobilizing a wider community, made up of students, teachers, parents, educational institutions and researchers, around collaborative activities between classes. It was also an opportunity to test, on a large scale, a network learning model and to examine the opportunities offered by it around the professional development of teachers, the issue of educational resources and that of possible transfers of training content to educational activities in the classroom.
As for the follow-up of the MOOC, certain difficulties were identified: the temporality of the training is not that of the class, which makes the follow-up difficult. Likewise, faced with appropriation problems, the question arises of training for the management of the networked classroom, during a MOOC. Finally, the unsuitability of the forum interface (Open-edX) and its lack of ergonomics did not facilitate the appropriation of the MOOC. A teacher felt that it "is not really accessible to students [and that] it does not allow them to post messages themselves."
The reopening of MOOC CER, outside the forum, during a period of confinement, aroused the curiosity of nearly 900 people, no doubt looking for discussion opportunities, ideas for activities or relocated resources to be exploited collectively. Indeed, the way of doing the class during confinement has sometimes been reduced give tasks and homework. Sending written instructions, providing lessons to print or read on screen, prescribing homework, are not very complicated tasks. It is almost like what used to be called correspondence courses. For unprepared parents, it's like exporting home a closed, scary version of school, which they are asked to take care of. Thinking differently about formal education, outside the classroom, opening up to activities of exploration and discovery, sharing, diversifying the moments, giving a role to the collective, is a strong stake, which will come, we hope, to nourish training and the professional development of teachers. The networked school has moreover provided formal education for young people aged 6-16 with interesting ideas for organizing learning activities in a network, working collectively or launching in collective surveys, as the following subsection demonstrates.
"I teach remotely"
Created by TÉLUQ University, at the request of the MEES, "I teach remotely" is a set of open-access training microprograms, aimed at allowing practicing teachers to adapt to the passage necessary for teaching any or partially remotely in the context of a pandemic. It has already attracted more than 150,000 visitors from 144 countries and has more than 25,000 subscribers to its mailing list. The primary objective is to equip teachers of different levels (preschool and elementary, secondary, college and university) at both an educational and technological level with distance training. The four microprograms - Support, Adapt, Disseminate and Evaluate - are broken down differently depending on the level of education concerned. Significant networking has been deployed in order to best adapt the training to the realities and needs of teachers.
With regard to preschool and primary school, the first microprogram, Support, aims to equip teachers to initiate first contact with students in the context of distance classes, but also to organize teaching-learning. The second, Disseminate, aims to help teachers choose the technological tools for distance teaching by presenting them the most frequently used and simpler tools. The third, Adapt, offers ways to adapt its distance courses in different disciplines as well as specific courses of action for pupils with special needs and children in preschool education. Finally, the fourth, Evaluate, is a reminder of the basic principles of evaluation.
The design of the four microprograms mobilized the involvement and collaboration of several partners, namely resource teachers from the ÉER, educational advisers from the Beauce-Etchemin School Services Center, members of the RÉCIT national services as well as three teachers at the TELUQ Education Department. This is a network of practitioners from different backgrounds to create short texts, video clips, diagrams and interactive questionnaires to best train teachers. Examples of concrete applications and logbooks are also provided to promote ownership and reflection on the various elements offered. Finally, numerous video and written testimonials from teachers who have experimented with distance learning are present to allow learners to better familiarize themselves with innovative practices (Richard et al., 2017). The training seeks to show how certain practices can promote and consolidate student learning at a distance.
The collaboration of the ÉER will lead to new knowledge and practices in distance education, such as explicit training in the teaching practices common in the ÉER and their underlying principles. The expertise developed for more than 15 years by preschool and elementary school teachers from the ÉER has made it possible to transpose their inter-class work practices to a remote classroom context. Consequently, the microprograms at the preschool / elementary level of the "I teach at school" training program disseminate - without prescribing them - ÉER practices in the teachers' network.
Access to the educational and didactic resources of the ÉER network and the sharing of expertise (practitioners and researchers) help to deal with a problem shared by all the participants in the training, namely how to do better carry out distance learning. It remains imperative to continue supporting teachers in a collaborative way. There are many modalities to explore, but the need for support is very real. The learning of collaborative teaching is at the center of the training.
A need for recognition in connected learning?
Initially taking the form of free training resources for teachers, the "I teach remotely" training did not provide for monitoring and certification of learning. The many requests that arrived after the first two modules were put online led to the establishment of a certification system for each microprogram (11,636 certificates have already been issued for the preschool-primary level). In fact, beyond the benefits obtained in terms of learning, learners want to find some form of recognition, and this is not always obvious when one leaves the traditional academic frameworks.
Recognition to benefit from training
The previous examples (MOOC CER and "I teach remotely") illustrate the interest in "connected models" for improving formal education and the multiple opportunities offered by the Internet, in connection with or outside traditional educational institutions, particularly in adult training.
A very strong current societal trend, in a neoliberal type conception, is to make people more and more responsible for their own learning. For example, the European Digital Skills Framework is designed to help citizens self-assess, set learning goals, identify training opportunities and facilitate job search. If people take charge of managing their own learning, they also need recognition, but don't always have the time to acquire the degrees awarded by institutions. Kato et al. (2020) note the emergence of new "alternative diplomas", such as micro-diplomas, digital badges and industry-recognized certificates, due to a growing demand for further training and professional development. In fact, as early as 1970, the UK Open University had started to open its courses, which only accelerated, there and in other educational institutions, by means of the Internet. Such training helps learners update their skills, certify those they already have and acquire new ones.
The MOOC, Coursera, edX, Udacity or even FUN MOOC and FutureLearn platforms have deployed micro-accreditation-type training. These are training courses derived from MOOCs, but more substantial, with a greater certifying value and potentially more valuable professionally. Private companies have also adopted this training model. ICCF@HEC Paris is a micro-accreditation type training offered by a company in partnership with a major business school. This is a series of three online courses in corporate finance, culminating in a final indoor exam. In his thesis, Huguenin (2020) sought to understand and explain the individual dynamics of people engaged in this type of training and the benefits they could derive from it, including the repercussions for their local professional community.
According to Figure 2, the relationship between personal and collective interest manifests itself locally through a quest for cohesion that can culminate in newly negotiated forms of recognition. Offshored (delocalized? outsourced?) connected learning manifests the agency of the individual, without minimizing the social dimension. For example, in the case studied by Huguenin (2020), participants are provided with numerous resources (videos, textual documents and exercises) allowing them to develop their knowledge. Synchronous and asynchronous exchange spaces are also offered, discussion forums and virtual classes (weekly). These spaces are used to ask educational and organizational questions. Discussions between the participants, some of whom also risk answering the questions of others, and with tutors and trainers, enrich the content of the course. Participants use them as real documentary sources and write down the information collected in notebooks.
On the individual recognition side, each course is sanctioned by a case study, which must be validated in order to be able to pass the final exam and thus hope to obtain a labeled certification. Collective recognition is produced upstream for participants who have collaborated and achieved a certain cohesion in their interpretations of the questions under study (Huguenin & Bruillard, 2019). Also in the case of the relocated (distributed?) community studied by Huguenin, nearly half of the participants created or participated in working groups to prepare for the review. Some met physically and others worked exclusively remotely, organizing videoconferences, exchanging emails or chatting in WhatsApp groups created exclusively for training.
The relationships developed during training sometimes last through its outcome. In addition to friendly relations, mutual aid and professional relations are maintained. Sometimes people are called upon to collaborate professionally afterwards and others share professional opportunities they know of or share some of their contacts.
Local recognition for engaging in training
Open badges are also another form of individual recognition that is developing (Ravet, 2017). In a context where learners are in search of recognition, in terms of tangible benefits, badges can appear as a kind of capitalizable currency whose acquisition allows various transactions and accumulation gives the equivalent of a diploma.
We can also see there a modality of collective local recognition, that is to say, when the individual reinforces his "social place" within local communities, family, professional or other, even finds or acquires a "social place". Ravet, defender of open recognition, allowing everyone to be an active participant in an ecosystem of mutual recognition, proposes to recognize practices instead of recognition of skills. "Development is from a certain point of view hyperlocal, and it is this hyperlocality that gives it a global value - and not the other way around. The space of recognition is that of the community in which the competence is built and implemented " (Ravet, 2020, sect. 3).
Recognition can then constitute a trigger in the commitment to connected learning: recognizing others by assigning them a badge also means being recognized as a person capable of assigning badges. The Reconnaître (ORA) association recently appointed Claire Héber-Suffrin honorary president, attesting to the continuity of reflections and implementations: "[...] a cooperative class, a network of reciprocal exchanges of knowledge ... mutualize recognition which will have effects on learning and on the experience of solidarity" (Petitqueux, 2019, para. 5).
Prospects for connected learning: how to collectively manage disinformation?
In formal education, the learner is very often captive. This is particularly the case of school education, and we see that connected learning can come in response to the difficulties observed, whether linked to the safeguarding of small rural schools or to the motivation of specific groups of pupils in difficulty. But the learner is most often in a protective environment. For non-formal or informal education, connected learning, with Internet resources, offers a multitude of opportunities, but they're not always labled and assured. The choices are largely based on the learner.
An important question is knowing who to trust: institutions or networks? Of course the "or" is non-exclusive and it is possible to articulate the training offered by institutions and others outside institutional frameworks, but the process for accrediting a particular offer is complex. Having recourse to a trusted third party is a practice which is developing, but it can come up against the "communitarianism" of the Web, that is to say the fact of accepting without discernment all that emanates from a community in which people are integrated or feel close. In his study on the behavior of young people (16-19 years old) with regard to fake news, Abdoul (2020) finds that young people show vigilance vis-à-vis the information they receive, but not if they are concerned with ecology, a field whose ideas they defend and relay. They tend to discuss information with their parents, especially during the evening meal. This shows the importance of local rituals and exchanges in nearby communities. One might think that the habit of collective question-solving within the framework of the ÉER may help to develop forms of active resistance to disinformation.
Conclusion
In this text, we have presented connected learning in a French-speaking context as favoring action, an improvement in formal education in problematic situations (disadvantaged students, isolated rural classes). The experience of "pedagogical continuity" attests that the responses provided can benefit everyone, in the same way that developing training methods in response to various disabilities can be useful for all students. Hence the importance of training for teachers in order to better understand the processes of connected learning in "disadvantaged" school contexts or in those that are more resistant to confinement. A double process is then at work: a openness to the outside to access new possibilities and enrich the context; a return to the interior, to the collective and not just individual premises, in order to establish internal recognition. Articulating the extended network and the local community leads to a double recognition: external, with the habits of the school and internal, to feel good in one's local environment. We find this in adult training, with micro-accreditations: a opening up to an extended network, a local group with a closer professional network of trust.
