Human Ecological Complexity; Epistemological Implications of Social Networking and Emerging Curriculum Theories

Abstract

Online courseware and social networking have dramatically changed the way students and educators learn and think about learning and scholarly communication.  With a transdisciplinary ecological focus on educational research, this article incorporates research in chaos and complexity theories, sociology, and philosophy to address research questions  in relation to social networks and human ecological complexity.  This article subsequently contends that curriculum theory is deeply impacted by social networks--which draw attention to human ecological complexity in teaching and learning—and that curriculum theory is in a unique position to integrate chaos and complexity theories which help to recreate the ontological and epistemological frameworks needed to respond to social networks.