Education and the social Web: connective learning and the commercial imperative

Just as commercialism has rendered television beyond the reach of education, commercial pressures threaten to seriously limit the potential of the social Web for education and learning. In recent years, new socially‏ oriented Web technologies have been portrayed as placing the learner at the centre of networks of knowledge and expertise, potentially leading to new forms of learning and education. This paper argues that commercial social networks are much less about circulating knowledge than they are about connecting users (“eyeballs”) with advertisers; it is not the autonomous individual learner, but collective corporate interests that occupy the centre of these networks. Looking first at Facebook, Twitter, Digg and similar services, it argues their business model restricts their information design in ways that detract from learner control and educational use. The paper also argues more generally that the predominant “culture” and corresponding types of content on services like those provided by Google similarly privileges advertising interests at the expense of users