• There is a century of rich literature on social learning from the fields of education, psychology, and sociology characterizing a wide variety of practical applications such as instructional techniques, consumer behavior conditioning and determining criminal motives. Most sources credit that social learning theory is based on research by the French sociologist, Gabriel Trade who lived from 1843 to 1904.
• One issue with today’s offerings for social software in education is that they are being presented as “social learning” solutions, but they are not being designed, packaged or integrated with the greater concepts of social learning theory in mind.
• Until there is a serious effort to create a holistic online learning platform that is based on facilitating the fundamental principles of social learning theory, the term “social learning” should not be used to describe learning platforms which simply include social media capabilities.

Written by: Stephen Gilfus and Frank Ganis, © Gilfus Education Group