Title: Sociality and learning in social software

Authors: Tim Hoogenboom, Martin Kloos, Wim Bouman, Rene Jansen

Addresses: Department of Information Management, University of Amsterdam, Roetersstraat 11, Amsterdam 1018 WB, The Netherlands. ' Department of Information Management, University of Amsterdam, Roetersstraat 11, Amsterdam 1018 WB, The Netherlands. ' Department of Information Management, University of Amsterdam, Roetersstraat 11, Amsterdam 1018 WB, The Netherlands. ' Department of Information Management, University of Amsterdam, Roetersstraat 11, Amsterdam 1018 WB, The Netherlands

Abstract: Lately, Web2.0 or social software receives a lot of attention, both by practitioners and academics, because of its ability to support social learning processes. We explore two criticisms that assess the learning impediments within current manifestations of social software. Firstly, we hold that social software is biased towards market-organising and secondly, it lacks a social theory of learning. By using both the social learning cycle of Boisot and the learning architecture of Wenger we theorise about structures that could guide the design of learning within social software. The objective of this paper is to support the design for object-centred sociality in social software to enable a more social approach to learning.

Keywords: social software; sociality; social theory of learning; Web 2.0; social learning; social networks.

DOI: 10.1504/IJKL.2007.016708

International Journal of Knowledge and Learning, 2007 Vol.3 No.4/5, pp.501 - 514

Published online: 17 Jan 2008 *

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