Abstract:

The topic of social networking is not new, it was founded at the origin of man as social being, as a network implies the presence of at least two elements, in this case people. In addition, the construct becomes important now as the technologies have been incorporated into the daily lives of people meeting spaces allowing the generation, raising needs and creating products that cover. Thus, in the last twenty years the influence that technology has had on all areas of human activity has been exponential. The purpose of this paper is to share the conceptual findings we have reached about social networks in the educational context. Some of the documents reflect the social networks of recent empirical research, however, not enough work on this subject from this point of view rather need to reflect on the concept that there are discussions around the issue and its influence in various areas as educational.

In relation to this, there are differences of opinion among researchers who study the subject because these structures are derived from different epistemological positions that can be conceived as a paradigm, a theory, methodology or technique. Some authors suggest that the lack of conclusions and agreements on the subject due to the contributions made ​​by different areas of knowledge in almost 80 years, lack of systematization. To locate the emergence of social networks as a research topic in the history of thought, was required to do a trace on the concept of network and end this section with the conceptualization of social network. This first approach is mainly theoretical and it seeks to reveal the systematization of the concepts due to the complexity of the network.

The lecture exposes the connectivism as the learning theory developed from the social networks, and it also describes the possibilities of education that arise from the theoretical principles it upholds. Connectivism is presented as an alternative to learning theories most studied in recent decades, ie, behaviorism, constructivism and congnoscitivismo. These theories, although the process of learning analyzed from various points of view, are not very suitable to observe the light of the influence of technologies. That is, are insufficient to meet the educational challenges that arise in the digital age. The questions that arise about these theories, are related to the learning process that is generated from a knowledge that is acquired in a linear fashion.

Connectivism is formed by a series of statements made ​​by George Siemens presented as "a theory of learning designed for the digital age" (Siemens, ...). In this theory, learning is exposed to a series of connections and includes technology as a resource in the educational process. Siemens says that learning is essentially a process of creation and management of networks formed by nodes-or knowledge-relevant people. Therefore, knowledge is a dynamic that is generated by connecting to a network in which information circulates and connecting new knowledge.

Keywords:

Social networks, connectivism, education.