Teaching and Learning in the Cloud: "Anywhere, Anytime." Anybody, Too?!

Anita August, Sacred Heart University

Abstract

Knowledge is no longer produced exclusively in the traditional class-based learning environment. For twenty-first century learners, digitally networked classrooms are the new social spaces where innovative learning perspectives are cultivated. However, like traditional class-based learning environments, digitally networked classrooms need to be sensitive to the social forces of race, gender, and class that will inescapably invade digital cultures. Therefore, even in the cloud, this chapter argues, “difference” as a concept is always already embedded as a contributing feature under which knowledge is constructed and constructing. To this end, this chapter suggests that a consideration of “difference” and its signifying effect on cloud pedagogy is a useful lens to explore the phrase “anywhere anytime” to the term “anybody” in the digitally networked classroom. Finally, this chapter proposes that the model “anywhere, anytime, anybody” must become part of the basic structure of a democratic and collaborative knowledge building community to democratize teaching and learning in the cloud.