The Connected Learning Research Network – a Transatlantic collaboration of practitioners and researchers – has set out a clear manifesto for Connected Learning. In contrast to many other approaches, theirs is not technologically driven. Their primary meaning of “connected” is rather the importance of seeing effective learning as embedded in political and social contexts, and with the progressive objective of building social capital and promoting appropriate forms of inclusion and social justice. The digital concept of “connected” – social media and the construction of wide ranging and inclusive virtual links – follows from this. The origins of this approach lie in the work of John Dewey, Paolo Freire and the well-tried practices of experiential learning.

See: Ito, Mizuko, Kris Gutierrez, Sonia Livingstone, Bill Penuel, Jean Rhodes, Katie Salen, Juliet Schor, Julian Sefton-Green and S. Craig Watkins. 2013. Connected Learning: An Agenda for Research and Design. Irvine, CA, Digital Media and Research Hub. Available through Amazon.