As a sociologist I just could not resist the opportunity to paraphrase Emile Durkheim’s (1984) classic work from the 19th century. Back then the analysis regarded how modern societies develop and thrive through a higher level of division of labour. In a peculiar, and slightly ancient, way the societies relied on a peer pressure, but on a more aggregate level.
Our contemporary society rather asks questions about how a digital division labour can be done and at the same not overdevelop the individualisation to a degree where we become secluded. To refer to this course, higher education nowadays can be customised and individualised, but there are still, and will further on most likely still be, needs for human exchange. Or is it maybe just a hypothesis that we still will be dependence between people?

Learning in communities has been a very interesting topic to discuss. Not least as one could look back at some experiences from creating group work in my classes when teaching at the Swedish National Police Academy. It has always baffled me how groups can be so different; they belong to the same class and get the exact same instructions. Yet, the outcome differ so much that it very much has to do with some sort of learning climate, or is learning culture a better term to introduce? To reconnect to my opening lines I quite often come across that group participants just divide their labour and at the end just ”glue it togehter” into incoherent presentations. After a while one gets a pretty good feeling for groups that have worked together, maybe in a functioning community, or just divided the labour without collaborating. Like a loosely knitted network, where their individual goals are disparate and the sense of community oblivious. But, in contrast to Oddone’s (2018) presentation, they are not just random people that happen to connect, with or without digital tools. As they study together for two years, they ought to feel a resonsibility in common and create a constructive peer pressure. And one can just wonder what that would have been in a digital society, where the ability to collaborate takes its responsibility and a more mature mindset. As teachers, or facilitators, it is very important to enhance peer pressure as a part of the learning. And that takes more than parallel reading, you have to inflict ”barter” between the participants; ”if we do not do the assignment for each other, we all will flunk”. The grade is to some secondary, it is just passing that is of importance. But others are always aiming for the highest grades, and the motivation is embedded in being an A-student. It can be crucial for the teacher to ponder how groups are created, and to what ends. It must be remembered that even the high-performing students need stimulation to sustain their interest.

In this grows a question I think Kay Oddone  (ibid) put forth, and that is if the learners see their setting as a community for learning or a ”just another network”? And where learning is individual with perhaps some occasional input from other people. It will not come as a surprise that there is room for frustration, and even conflict, if group particpants have so varying expectations and commitment to working together (Capdeferro & Romero, 2012). To sum up this, it is a question of what a PLN stands for and means in our age of plethora and constructivism. In the quest for future learning in a digital society one maybe needs to recall the discourse of division of labour. For is a self-constructed network the way  or is a more structured and demanding learning community the way to go? And this choice will have implications for the role of the teacher.

References
Capdeferro, N. & Romero, M.
(2012). Are online learners frustrated with collaborative learning experiences?. The International review of research in open and distance learning, 13(2), 26-44.

Oddone, K. (2018). PLNs Theory and practice, part 1, 2018-10-31

Oddone, K. (2018). PLNs Theory and practice, part 2, 2018-10-31

The division of labour in a digital society

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