A toolbox for democratic and participatory methods in education

With the trends in the use of social software and social media, a more informal and democratic online culture is developing, especially in younger generations. This culture is increasingly conflicting with traditional teaching styles. One of these trends involves the introduction of more democratic and participatory interaction styles in daily activities, online and for larger communities. E-democracy tools and methods could be an important means to facilitate e-democracy in traditional education. However, e-democracy poses a number of challenges, which require careful consideration when implementing a democratic process. One of the disciplines that can offer solutions to these challenges is the facilitation of group and collaboration processes with the use of Group Support Systems. A recent development in this area of research is the use of design patterns to document techniques for collaboration. In this paper we present a set of design patterns for the facilitation of e-democracy, that can be used in traditional education