Patterns of interaction and everyday knowledge sharing in social network environments

Our research explores online social networking sites to describe the patterns of participation and knowledge sharing in these spaces. We examine how knowledge is shared and how participation is potentially shaped by social or material resources of the space. Our presentation will focus on data gathered from two different types of social networking sites. Theoretical Background Educational researchers have begun to explore how people learn in a range of informal contexts, where freechoice learning is the dominant focus, and which involves participation within social networks of families, hobbyists, or other communities (e.g. Bell et al., 2009; Dierking & Falk, 1994). A fundamental characteristic of informal learning is that learners have some choice over what they want to learn, and is thus tightly connected to individual interests or intentions (Bell et al). Investigations of informal learning have been conducted within contexts such as museums (Ellenbogen et al, 2004; Falk & Dierking, 2002), farming (Saxe, 1991), and game playing (Nasir, 2002). Learning in informal settings can be framed within sociocultural perspectives, where learning is viewed as individual participation within a community of practice (Ellenbogen et al, 2004) and where cognitive shifts in individual reasoning are closely linked with the social processes that are part of the sociocultural setting (Nasir, 2005). Thus, learning can be considered as participation in everyday, situated activities that arise from interaction with material and social resources (Barab & Roth, 2006). Online learning communities are often studied in classroom or professional development contexts. Online communities can be either created by design or emerge in more self-organized ways because of their function in the world (Barab, 2003; Barab & Roth, 2006; Hoadley, in press). Our goal is to examine participation in informal, online social networks. Broadly characterized as social network sites (identified by Boyd & Ellison, 2007), these online spaces offer individuals the opportunity to establish an identity within a bounded context and interact with others that share similar interests (Gunawardena et al, 2009). These activities closely resemble Wenger et al’s (2002) definition of a community of practice as a group of individuals who share interests about a topic and engage with one another to deepen knowledge. The communities we are exploring foster networks of weak relational ties solely online, differentiating them from notions of community with sustained history or common heritage (Barab & Duffy, 2000). Network theory allows the study of some of these aspects, by exploring the nature of ties between the community -i.e., how are nodes (or actors in the network) connected to other nodes with ties. For example, communication ties show who talks to whom, workflow ties show who provides and receives resources, and proximity ties show who is spatially/electronically close to someone else in the network (Katz et al., 2004). Our research explores how everyday, online social worlds create opportunities for participation that are quite different from those encountered in formal educational settings. Yet, these spaces nonetheless may serve to mediate knowledgeable participation and accomplishment of goals in everyday life worlds (Barab & Roth, 2006) of people. Third spaces (Moje et al., 2004), which is closely associated with hybridity theory, is a theoretical construct that may provide a useful perspective for considering everyday learning in online social network spaces. Third spaces describe spaces where new forms of participation are established through a merging of a first space (e.g., everyday home contexts) and a second space (an institutional space like schools or work, or formal technical or scientific discourse) (Bell et al., 2009; Moje et al.). Bell et al. forward the notion that virtual worlds, like chat rooms or game worlds, might be considered third spaces because they are neither home nor work spaces, and provide a "unique potential for the development of identity where new resources and constraints evolve in the social milieu of the virtual space" (p. 264). Bell et al (p. 264) further note: "Whereas geographic, cultural, and technical boundaries have historically constrained cultural exchange among groups and individuals, virtual environments can facilitate transactions across these barriers, opening up new intersections of people, tools, and traditions to support identity development."