Paco Gonzalez

Learning Reimagined: Participatory, Peer, Global, Online

I never call the people who sign up for the courses I offer online “students.” We are all “co-learners.” The terminology both acknowledges and inspires the kind of collaborative learning that turns a reading group into something much more exciting. In both formal, face-to-face, educational institutions and experimental online groups, I work from the first moments to persuade people that it’s possible for all of us to learn together as a community in a more deeply satisfying and useful way than if students take responsibility only for their own learning. It doesn’t take much persuasion - when everybody pitches in at the start, enthusiasm spontaneously combusts. When a sufficient number of people jump in and start contributing and building on one another’s contributions, it becomes clear to all that it’s not just about the teacher’s performance and the student’s ability to complete assignments. It’s about our joint effort to make the whole of our encounter more valuable than just the sum of our individual learning. - Howard Rheingold

More: Learning Reimagined: Participatory, Peer, Global, Online | DMLcentral

Note: the bolds are mine.