Designing Connected Learning: Emerging learning systems in a craft teacher education course

This socioculturally informed study aims to apply learning by collaborative designing (LCD) as an instructional model for the creation and studying of new kinds of connected learning systems in teacher education. A case study was organized at the University of Eastern Finland in the context of an information and communication technology (ICT) course aimed at craft student teachers’ (N=13). A qualitative content analysis was used to describe the kind of learning systems that emerged when the students collaboratively designed an extended network of people, objects, and tools for their own learning and teaching. The results reveal that the student teams were active in designing and self-organising the learning environment in the pursuit of shared objects, and in using diverse tools and technologies for thinking and for collecting, organising and sharing information. Implications for designing connected learning and teaching across spaces and communities are also discussed.