Using Network and Mobile Technology to Bridge Formal and Informal Learning

Speaking about the integration of communication technology into teaching and learning processes we cannot ignore the wide and indeed ever-widening gap that divides the students' personal/daily use of web 2.0 and mobile technology and the way schools propose them for educational activities: on the one hand, there are the newest generation of students (sometimes called "digital natives") with their innate capacity for mastering technologies, using them for both social and learning purposes, albeit with little or no method; on the other hand, there are the teachers ("digital migrants") who, while making admirable attempts to innovate their teaching, tend to propose an educational use of 2.0 resources based on conventional methods and practices of study, anchored to old teaching schemes. It would instead be necessary to conceive and introduce new methodologies inspired by the so-called e-pedagogy, which are able to fully exploit the potential of network technologies both for social interaction and for accessing information. e-Pedagogy presents an innovative approach to teaching/learning processes, characterised by informal processes (among both students and teachers) aimed to answer specific, localised knowledge needs, in which serendipity is often synonymous of incidental learning. But since this type of learning is not planned by either student or teacher, the problem of its connection to formal learning paths arises. In this sense we need to understand how much of this "activism", which is frequently immediate and instinctive and expresses itself through videos on YouTube and posts and links on social networks, might be transferred to formal learning contexts and adapted to formal curricula. In other words, it is worth considering how the uses of network and mobile technology (NMT) which have been autonomously acquired by students and teachers outside the school context could be channelled towards new educational paradigms which combine formal and informal learning processes centred on accessing information and social interaction. With this in mind, the aim of the book is to analyse and discuss: a) the conditions that should ensure real sustainability in the integration of informal and formal/institutional learning dimensions; (b) the potentialities offered by NMT exploitable in favour of such integration.