Discussion on Social Network Learning from the Long Tail

Abstract The long tail can be applied not only in the economical field, but also the culture field. Firstly, the paper details on the long tail phenomenon among data, information and knowledge. Then it points out that there exists significant long tail phenomenon in learning style, learning resources and learning space. According to the elements to boom the Long Tail market, the paper proposes a view on social network learning. It can be regarded as learning supported by social software, learning in real social environment, and learning with the integration of the three kinds of nets (neural networks, Internet, social networks). Knowledge is categorized into core knowledge and growth knowledge, the former depends on constructing and the latter depends on connecting. As the long tail does not replace the 80/20 rule, this paper holds the notion that connectivism also cannot be a substitute of constructivism, and they should complement each other