Blog Posts

Use of Social Media by Chinese postgraduate students

10/28/2014

One of the themes Lifewide Education is exploring is the use of social media in formal and informal learning. Like most things in life, I tend to think only in terms of the social media I use or am familiar with and rarely think outside my cultural box. So on a recent visit to Beijing Normal University (BNU) I took the opportunity to conduct a survey of the use of social media by postgraduate students in the Education Faculty. I must confess I knew next to nothing about Social Media in China, other than Facebook, Twitter and Youtube were not considered to be appropriate by Chinese authorities. In fact I could not access these platforms during my visit to Beijing.
I started googling and discovered some amazing statistics. Out of a total population of nearly 1.4 billion nearly half are internet users and over 625 million and 1.2 billion mobile subscribers. There are estimated to be over 625 million active social media users and China's top 10 sites actually have a staggering 3.2 billion individual accounts. Along with those phenomenal numbers, the data also showsthat the largest section of China’s social media users – a full 30 percent – are aged 26 to 30. Ninety one percent of Chinese internet users have social accounts, which is way above the 67 percent in the US.

'Go Globe' characterise the top 10 sites in China as Twitter-like: Weibo and Sina Weibo. Facebook-y -like: QZone, Pengyou, Renren, and Kaixin are all focused around a mix of social profiles, albums, buddies, and social gaming.. Whatsapp-ish - The much talked about WeChat is like Whatsapp, and is one of a number of Asia-made messaging apps – like Line and KakaoTalk – that are battling to get onto the smartphones of young Chinese and Southeast Asian web users.

How do BNU postgraduate students use social media?
Having done my homework I designed my questionnaire armed with this basic knowledge. So what did I discover from the 18 responses. Only one person said that social media was not important in their everyday life. All the other respondents said it was either quite or very important with one respondent claiming that they couldn’t function without it. The preferred device for accessing social media was the laptop and smartphone. The main social media platforms used by these students were QQ, QZone, Sino Weibo, Wechat, Google+ and YouKu (like Youtube). However, all the social media platforms offered as items in the survey were used by someone, including Facebook and Twitter! All the social media platforms were used to 'talk to friends'. Most of them were used to 'connect to people who share my interests', Qzone, Youtube and YouKu were used to 'create and share content'. Most of the platforms enabled 'learning of new things' but google+ was overwhelmingly considered to be significant for this purpose. Youtube, YouKu and Flikr were linked to 'fulfiling my interests' for a small number of users. Qzone, Renren, Linkedin and Sino Weibo were linked to 'belonging to a community'. In response to a checklist of 10 possible reasons as to 'How does social media contribute to your life?' All the reasons were cited as being significant with a score of 3 or more. The highest rated reasons were: Maintaining important relationships (score 4.17), Feeling Connected (3.75) and Everyday learning (3.67). Chinese students perceive many benefits of using social media - it makes it easy to stay in touch with friends, 'it's great to share daily life with other friends via social media'. Its convenient and cheap and it can be used in different places. It helps you to find and get information easily, to learn more things and achieve goals and purposes, and exchange ideas. These students were conscious of the risks of using social media and a number of problems were recognised such as: wasting time, 'losing your life', having to deal with too much information, having to deal with useless messages. The creation of new social problems such as 'flaunting wealth and indifference to others', and 'people meeting less and less; easy to ignore people by our sides and rely on the internet' 'Yes, there are some disadvantages. Social media is amazing and we often spend most of daily time on it. If we want to have deep thinking or study, we cannot rely on social media so much. Using it too much will make us lose thinking and a little blundering'.

All in all, social media is considered to be a useful tool if used in the right way. The most important skills and attitudes for effective and enjoyable use were considered to be the ability to search effectively, to plan usage and self-regulate time and behaviour, 'otherwise you'll lose yourself in social media and get sad', and to be able to 'pick out the most significant' information.

Acknowledgement & Future Work
Lifewide Education would like to thank all the students that contributed to the survey. Our intention is to conduct similar on-line surveys of students' use of social media in the UK. Please contact Chrissi Nerantzi if you would like to join this project. [email protected]
Source of information of Chinese social media
'Go Global' China’s Top 10 Social Media Sites (Infographic) http://www.techinasia.com/2013-china-top-10-social-sites-infographic

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Men's Sheds: Social Innovation for the Social Age

10/16/2014

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Inspiring story
You can find inspiring stories about lifewide learning everywhere. In October I was visiting my mother in Australia this week who lives in a small coastal town over 200km south of Sydney. I love coming to her home which she has lived in for 28 years. It's very peaceful apart from the ticking clocks and the colourful and noisy parakeets, lorikeets and rosella's that fly around continuously. The time I spend here is always good for reflection especially when I take long walks along the local beaches. The place triggers memories of different visits we have made over twenty years as my children grew up and eventually visited their grandparents by themselves. In many respects this has been the family home for the third and now the fourth generation of the Jackson clan for we are many.

Whenever I visit Australia I'm always on the lookout for interesting ideas that I can relate to Lifewide Education's interests. I am never disappointed. On my last visit I discovered a local charity called the Dunn Lewis Foundation(1) that had been set up in memory of young people who had been killed in the Bali nightclub bombing doing a lot of good work to support young people and help them develop skills to gain employment but more generally to develop themselves as confident people.

This time I discovered 'Men's Sheds' because just across the road from my mother's house in Narrawallee sits the Ulladulla Men's Shed.

The story of how men formed their own purposeful social groups around the idea of coming together in a shed to socialise and make things is a great story for the Social Age. The grassroots social movement began in Australia(2) in the mid 1990s when a group of men realised that it would be great fun to have a shed in which they could meet regularly to do something practical - especially to make or fix things. The idea quickly caught on and many sheds were established in local communities and by 2006 the government set up an organisation1 to help coordinate and support the creation of more men's sheds. In fact the Men's Shed movement is now part of the Australian health infrastructure that supports programmes to improve men's health and well being. It's a great example of how a local grassroots idea, became a social phenomenon that eventually drove government policy.

The value is in making friends, feeling useful, making a contribution and learning new things
The idea of meeting up with other men to do something of practical value, often making toys and furniture to raise money for charities, appeals to men both living alone or with partners and at all ages although the vast majority of 'shedders' are at or beyond retirement date. Many older men lose some sense of purpose with the loss of their work role, status, workmates, income etc and can find themselves disengaged from their community if the pub or sports is not their thing. The generality of community activities on offer do not appeal to men and with their own expectation of meeting their own needs then some level of social isolation can occur. Men with their own shed have often developed their skills and interests there but in a larger facility, with better or more equipment, with skills you can develop with others and jobs you can do for the community a Men's Shed offers something new. Finding a way of working, alongside others and with a purpose in view but without imposed demands can be exactly what many men need.

And it doesn't stop at making things there are also activities such as making music and cooking. Like the Melton Men's Shed, 45km northwest of Melbourne, where every Tuesday men prepare and cook a two-course meal. It's part of a national trend where older men who have been looked after by wives who are no longer with them, can learning to cook for the first time.

Emerging global phenomenon
There are now more than 1,200 sheds in Australia and the scheme has gone global. There are nearly 200 sheds in Ireland and over 100 in the UK with a new shed opening every three days (4).

The growth of Men's Sheds is an emergent social response to the need for men, particularly over the age of 50, to make themselves useful by finding new purposes in life when they have experienced a significant life change such as retirement, loss of a partner or debilitating illness.

Social isolation, loneliness and stressful social ties are common amongst older men, and are associated with poor physical and mental health, higher risk of disability, poor recovery from illness and early death.

According to a 2014 survey by Age UK (4), more than one million people over 65 in the UK are often or always lonely, an increase of 38% on the previous year. Two-fifths of respondents said that their main form of company is the television. The UK is among the most socially isolated countries in Europe, according to research published in June 2014 by the Office for National Statistics. Asked whether they feel close to people in their local area, 42% said they did not – the highest proportion after Germany. The Campaign to End Loneliness, a national network set up in 2011, believes the issue is a “public health disaster” waiting to happen. Scientific research shows that for older people, loneliness is twice as unhealthy as obesity, as it is linked to high blood pressure, strokes and a weakened immune system.

Older men use fewer community based health services than women, and are less likely to participate in preventive health activities. They also find it harder than women to make friends late in life, and are less likely to join community-based social groups that tend to be dominated by women. Finding acceptable social interventions for lonely and isolated groups of disadvantaged older working class men is a challenge: one that is being addressed by the Men's Shed movement.

A synthesis of research on Men's Sheds (5) points in particular to the health and well-being benefits of men coming together in a purposeful way. Participation in a Men’s Shed, a community garden or other activity, is linked to older men’s desire to engage with their peers in work-like activity. This gives them a sense of identity, self-esteem and value and provides a space within which they can re-create a sense of masculinity in older age. Overall findings from these studies indicate that Men’s Sheds and other gendered interventions provide an array of benefits for older men including: learning new skills, sharing knowledge; personal achievement; community engagement; the opportunity to meet and interact with others. There is a strong association between having good social relationships through leisure and other forms of activity with good health. However, to date there is no robust measurable evidence that involvement in Men’s Sheds has a significant effect on the physical health of older men.

Personalising this story
My father spent many years of his retirement, until he was well into his 80's, working voluntarily with a group of pensioners to make children's toys to raise money for a local charity that provided holidays for disabled children and their families. He also had his own shed (garage) full of tools neatly arranged and labelled on the walls and a heavy duty work bench where he made toys for the grandchildren and more recently great grandchildren - a dolls house for the girls and a garage for the boys . When he died six weeks ago my mother invited the men to come over from the Ulladulla Men's Shed across the road to help themselves to any of his tools. They had been so appreciative of the gift so I went over the road to introduce myself and say how pleased my dad would have been to see his tools being put to such good use. Apparently many 'Men's Shed's' receive donations of tools and equipment in this way - another great example of men helping other men even in their passing.

I met Barrie (left) who had started the project over 6 years ago - apparently the Ulladulla Men's Shed was number 35 in the whole of Australia. Barry had seen one on the north coast and decided it would be a good idea to have one in Ulladulla so he set about trying to raise awareness and money. The local council were not interested in supporting the project but a church was, and donated the land on which the shed sits. Over the last six years the project has grown and there are now over 100 men making use of the facility. On the day of my visit there were about 10 men busy working in the garden and workshops. Barrie told me that they receive very little financial aid but people make donations which are tax deductable. Mostly though, the Shed survives on the money they raise themselves through selling what they make or grow in the garden. While it might be tough to sustain the enterprise it is not only sustaining itself but there are plans for extending the shed to accommodate more men. Having seen it for myself you cannot fail to be impressed by the power in the idea and the even greater power in the implementation of it.

Relating this to the Social Age
So you might ask how does this relate to the Social Age? one of the themes Lifewide Education is exploring this year(6). In many respects the situation we are seeing in which men are physically coming together in the same space for companionship, to make themselves useful and to learn and be creative through the things they make, is more akin to the Manufacturing Age into which many of these men were born and learnt their values. It demonstrates to me the idea that each 'Age' of learning does not obliterate the earlier Ages, rather it subsumes and enriches it with new tools and approaches. I did not see or hear of Men's Sheds going digital but in my internet searches I discovered that there are opportunities for men to learn about computers and Web 2.0, and digital photography and in this way develop new skills that will enable them to participate in the Social Age of learning. And thanks to 'my sisters dongle' I was able to sit in my mother's lounge in Narrawallee and discover lots of things about Men's Sheds that I never knew before. In checking my twitter feed I discovered a blog by Steve Wheeler(7) that explained the theory of constructionism - a cognitive theory that relates to learning by making things and this seems like a useful theory within which to view what goes on inside Men's Sheds. The culture of learning we associate with the Social Age is all about participation and what Men's Sheds is all about is encouraging men to participate in their own self-determined projects within what Douglas Thomas and John Seeley Brown call 'collectives' (8). It's also about co-creation and the bounded spaces of a Men's Shed is full of creativity and co-creativity. It is in the sense of belonging and participation in a 'collective' for the purpose of creating and co-creating in order to contribute to society and to personal wellbeing where Men's Sheds intersect with the Social Age.

Acknowledgement
A big thank you to Barrie Wilford for inspiring me with the story of the Ulladulla Men's Shed.

Sources of information
1 Dunn Lewis Foundation
2 Mens Sheds Australia http://www.mensheds.org.au
3 UK Mens Shed Association http://www.menssheds.org.uk/
4 Howard E (2014) ‘If I didn’t come to the shed, I’d be alone, watching TV’. The Guardian, Wednesday 8 October 2014 http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/oct/07/mens-sheds-movement-isolation-loneliness-mental-health 5 Milligan C, Dowrick C, Payne C Hanratty B, Irwin P, Neary D, Richardson D (2013)
Men’s Sheds and other gendered interventions for older men: improving health and wellbeing through social activity. A systematic review and scoping of the evidence base. A report for the Liverpool-Lancaster Collaborative (LiLaC) and Age UK
http://www.ageuk.org.uk/documents/en-gb/for-professionals/research/men%20in%20sheds%20age%20uk%20brief.pdf?dtrk=true
6 Lifewide Magazine Issue 11 Exploring the Social Age and the New Culture of Learning
http://www.lifewidemagazine.co.uk/
7 Learning and Making Powerful Ideas http://steve-wheeler.blogspot.co.uk/2014/09/ learning-making-and-powerful-ideas.html?view=classic
8 Thomas D and Seeley Brown J (2011) The New Culture of Learning
http://www.newcultureoflearning.com/

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New Leadership for New Learning

10/9/2014

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In a recent article in the recent Lifewide Magazine (1) I suggested that the Flipped Classroom could provide the ideal conditions for a culture of social leadership to flourish. This was based on questioning the applicability of Julian Stodd’s NET framework for social leadership(2) to teaching and learning in higher education in a digital age.

In this blog, I am suggesting that in addition to having frameworks for leadership in higher education we need to open up conversation on what we mean by leadership, how we all conceptualise our role as leaders. I am also suggesting that the deceptively simple 5 practices of good leadership espoused by Jim Kouze and Barry Posner in the 5th Edition of their highly acclaimed book The Leadership Challenge: How to Make Extraordinary Things Happen in Organizations can provide us with a framework for thinking about ourselves as leaders in learning and teaching.

Leadership is currently a hot topic with calls for more or new leadership across all sectors including business, government, public service and administration, and higher education. It almost seems as if leadership is the catch-all for nearly any problem irrespective of context. In the case of Higher Education there is remarkably little research on models or paradigms of leadership in higher education. The studies that stand out are those of MacFarlane (3), and Fullan & Scott (4). A consistent theme in these works is the special and complex nature of leadership in higher education. Co-existing in the same organisations are examples of hierarchical leadership (the norm), distributed leadership by virtue of the compartmentalised nature of higher education institutions with Faculties, departments and administrative centres requiring leaders and leadership that respond to the hierarchy. There will also be many examples of ‘heroic’ individual leadership. What we know very little about is the ‘leadership mindset’ either at individual or collective levels.

Leadership remains a contested concept and despite the vast literature on the topic, there is no magic bullet, no one model of leadership deemed better than another. However, across the terrain of leadership literature and research, much of which is focused on business leaders and leadership, it is clear that the plethora of leadership models and frameworks have a common aim - the ability to influence others to produce positive change that enables an organization or group to achieve its vision (5). But there is perhaps here also a question of whose vision and perhaps the often overlooked role of leader is to engender a spirit of ownership for any vision that is being implemented especially if the vision is being handed down from on high.

The constant call for more or new leadership suggests a perceived gap between what is desired and what is practiced regarding leadership in complex ever changing organisations. What is lacking in much of the leadership literature is an articulation of the vision of what ‘more and new’ leadership is, what it will lead us towards, and what this means for leadership in higher education.

It might be argued that the most appropriate models for leadership of higher education institutions will depend on defining the vision for the institution itself. The institutional mission will reflect the vision and the plethora of functional units will interpret the mission within their particular context.

The five practices of good leadership in Pouze and Kosner’s (6) framework provide us with a tool to reflect on and articulate our leadership practice:

Model the Way – Leaders set an example for all constituents based on a shared understanding of what is expected. Leaders are clear on their values and lead in accordance with these values.

Reflective practice is something of a mantra in higher education. As academics and ‘leaders’ in teaching and learning, reflecting on our values as teachers and how we live up to these values in our practice could be made explicit through our learning and teaching portfolios; our role as role models for learners could be elevated in importance as part of institutional culture.

Inspire a Shared Vision – Good leaders can inspire a vision for the future - 'people commit to causes, not to plans' (6).

The digital and the social age combine to enable new approaches to learning and teaching. Students are stakeholders in the vision for learning and teaching. Why not have learners contribute to the shared vision, shift the dynamics of the classroom, put the ‘social’ back into the act of learning? Design a curriculum for the twenty first century that resonates positively with all stakeholders.

Challenge the Process – The work of leaders is change. All change requires that leaders actively seek ways to make things better, to grow, innovate and improve, to get extraordinary things done (6).

In the 21st century, our constant challenge is rapid and multiple change in almost all spheres of life. There are major global challenges and we need to capture the creative thinking of all stakeholders in the learning and teaching contract. What would a visioning of a curriculum for the social and digital age look like? Can we ask bigger questions of ourselves and challenge our own conceptions of leadership positioning and responsibilities as a leader? Can we constructively challenge the status quo?

Enable Others to Act – Leaders need to consider two essentials: the ability to create a climate of trust; the ability to foster relationships.

Fostering a sense of shared creation of new knowledge and shared responsibility could lead to dynamic learning situations. As outlined in the aforementioned article on the potential of the Flipped Classroom (1), having the courage to let go, to be a learner and teacher simultaneously, creating a climate of trust in the classroom, allows for role modelling the learning process, sharing and creating visions for learning and understanding, engaging with the challenge of a different narrative for higher education and negotiated outcomes for learners.

Encourage the Heart – celebrate the values and victories by creating a spirit of community.

Encourage the heart means remembering to acknowledge, affirm and reward performance, having the generosity of spirit to recognise that success is a shared enterprise.

The most significant function of universities and colleges is to teach, to provide students with the best possible learning experience preparing them for a challenging world. In a changing world being transformed by the capabilities of new technologies and the emergence of the social age, we need to bring to the fore more searching questions regarding our vision for teaching and learning. What is required of us to play a leading role, show leadership and lead the challenge of realising a new vision appropriate to a new age?

The point being emphasised in this contribution to the Lifewide Education blog is that leadership is an active, conscious process. It is so much more than a title, position or mark of status. How often and in what ways do we make explicit our narrative or articulation of our conceptions of leaders, leading, leadership? How do we measure our own effectiveness as leaders?

One final point, leadership is for the many not the few. We tend to think of leaders as those in positions of authority and power but in a world of constant change everyone who is imagining and implementing change be it in the boardroom or the classroom is a leader. So in response to the clarion call for new, better, different or more leadership, we encourage more dialogue and debate within higher education on what it means to be a leader and how we understand ourselves as leaders regardless of our professional role.

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How can Higher Education Adapt to the Social Age of learning?

9/29/2014

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Higher education cannot be immune from the profound changes that are being driven by the adoption of social media as a social global phenomenon. Indeed HE is already beginning to adapt by introducing new pedagogic practices that are consistent with the features of learning in the Social Age. This blog describes four ways in which pedagogic practices combined with social media can assist the process of adaptation.

Socio-constructivism or constructing meaning with others This means creating the conditions were we can learn and work with others to construct and co-construct meaning in a social context ie to make what is learnt and the process of learning more personally meaningful and relevant. Learners, their teachers and the wider community and networks need to be involved in this process as co-learners. But all too often the dominant approach to learning in higher education is not one of collaboration and co-creation of meaning rather it is one in which teachers organise and orchestrate the learning process transmitting their knowledge and understandings via lectures and resources that they have determined and then test whether this knowledge has been transferred.

Learning in highly organised and controlled ways within well defined topic structures and physical or intellectual spaces is safer than the less structured, meandering, self-determined and collaborative ways of learning in the Social Age but it is less useful to students who are about to step out into that world and who are not prepared for it. The challenge for higher education is to blend traditional disciplinary ways of learning with pedagogies that require student and teacher involvement in the ways we are learning in the world outside formal education which is typically informal, collaborative and personally relevant and meaningful. In fact we all participate in social groups large and small that constitute important personal networks for learning and development. But what types of pedagogies and supportive scaffolds are needed to help us maximise on such opportunities in a global community and a multitude of networks?

Social media can be seen as networked ecosystems for self-organised exploration. We have access to these via desktop and smart or mobile pocket and bag technologies. Driven by our curiosity and the desire to discover and uncover new and exciting things about ourselves, others and the world around us, social media puts us on a journey to construct meaning and develop understanding through social connections and conversations with others.

Social media can only exist if there is sharing and reciprocity – when we are active, learners and teachers. Social media enable us to learn in the real world with and from others and therefore make learning authentic, current and less lonely. We are exposed to and immersed in a plethora of voices, resources and opportunities and constantly filter, refine these and construct our own paths. We cooperate and collaborate and become part of social networks and communities and create our personal and collective learning ecologies. Through this process we become social learners that take advantage of the opportunities. HE is about constructing new meanings, making new discoveries, debating and challenging what is out there. Social media present rich and authentic opportunities for engaging in all these aspects of learning.

Constructionism or learning through making
This pedagogical concept is directly related to hands-on learning through making, in the physical, digital or hybrid world that marries the two. The making of objects, artefacts and models is fundamental to the active process of learning and to discovering what works or doesn't work in a particular context. All too often higher education teachers make things for their students rather than involving them in making things for themselves or in co-creating their learning process and journey. Through making things learners make sense of concepts, ideas, materials and objects and also gain satisfaction, feel motivated and a real sense of achievement. Surely, making something for the first time is a creative act, so by enabling learners to make their own tools and artefacts we are enabling them to be creative and experience co-creativity if they are working with others: an essential experience for the Social Age of learning.

So the challenge for higher education is to create a better balance in the activity of making so that the teacher is not the only maker and provider of tools, resources and artefacts, but learners are also encouraged and enabled to make things for themselves and with others.

Social technologies and media are opening up a whole new world of making by enabling us to become digital creators, learners and teachers. As the technology has become widely available and easy to use we carry their enabling power around with us in our pockets and bags. They are ready to hand to record a thought, a feeling, event or experience which can then be incorporated into the digital artefacts we create.

Already we can see that institutional technologies are being displaced as students and teachers experiment with social media. Our personal digital technologies have enabled us to personalise our learning by empowering us to make things that are relevant and meaningful to us enabling us to find self-fulfilment in our creations. By sharing our works with others, especially we create new possibilities for conversations with people that share our interests and passions enabling new relationships for learning. Often these people are on the other side of the globe. There is so much potential to utilise social media and engage students as makers and help them through such activities to develop valuable skills, understanding, behaviours and attitudes that will enable them to become even more expert in this social world of learning.

Experiential participatory learning
At the heart of this theory of how higher education might adapt to better prepare students for learning in the Social Age, is the idea of learning through self-determined experience, including reflecting on and drawing meaning from experience. Out in the real world we make things up as we go along often making mistakes in the process, we struggle to overcome obstacles and we see and make use of opportunities as they emerge. Learning in everyday life is an unfolding and uncertain journey we experience with others.

But the journey our learners make in higher education is pre-designed and pre -defined by teachers - with content and process pre-determined and prescribed. Their concerns are with certainty, with conformity and with clarity and with timetabling. They are not so concerned with creating opportunities for experiment and do not take kindly to mistakes being made, especially where assessment is concerned.

There are real challenges for higher education in creating a curriculum / learning experience that is more like the real world and less like the classroom. The articles by Dylan Tweney and Lorraine Stefanie provide us with examples of how this might be achieved.

Learning is a participatory process not a product or something that just happens to us passively. We need to experience it. Social media would not survive and thrive without participation. They provide a rich experiential and experimental opportunity for learning and teaching. Participation there is multi-directional and multifaceted and can be visible or invisible and is interwoven into the fabric of other individual and collective activities, in the virtual and physical world. Luckin et al. (2010, 12) for example propose the Learner Generated Context framework ”for open, creative and participatory learning experiences.”

Open learning and open educational resources and practices in the Social Age
It has been suggested that we are moving towards a more open education system so perhaps Open Education is the most appropriate form of education for the Social Age. It promises to provide every citizen with exactly the kind of learning s/he needs, when, where and how s/he needs it. This is a fundamental shift from most of formal education today where learners generally comply with the when, where, what and how an institution chooses to provide its educational opportunities.

Purposeful 'sharing' is at the heart of open learning as it is the Social Age and social media is a great promoter and enabler of openness with the potential to transform us into open individuals. Through social media we are able to find creative ways to share and connect, cooperate and collaborate as well as construct and experience. We create learning objects using our own devices and with a click of a button we are able to share what we have made with the whole world rather than just one teacher.

One solution to the current paradox of traditional education in a digitally enabled Social Age is to unbundle the functions and practices of a university in order to enable the learner to create the package he/she requires. Making available specific functions and support will, it is argued, enable a knowledgeable and skilful learner to design their learning pathways themselves by pooling the different (learning) resources and opportunities available, and combining them in a way that allows them to learn what, when, where and how they wanted to learn. A more radical view of the world of open learning tells us that we already have the power at our finger tips to create a course for ourselves, decide on licensing and organise social learning events and activities which we can make available to anybody who wants to join us. In this way we can all be teachers and co-learners in the Social Age.

History shows us that the significant social changes occur when we change our perspective and the open learning / open education movement, aided by social technologies and media is beginning to change attitudes and practices within higher education. Social technologies and media are enablers in this process. Students and teachers are more empowered than ever to create, collaborate and disseminate openly resources and practices and build on the creations of others. Supported by a global network of peers and like minded people, we define new personal and collective open and dynamic learning ecologies supported by cultures.

These are just a few thoughts on some of the challenge for higher education as we move into further into the Social Age of learning. Examples of how social media are being used in higher education can be found in Issue 10 of Lifewide Magazine. Lifewide Education embraces the idea of the Social Age and the idea of lifewide learning and development in the socially and technologically connected world would seem to provide an appropriate philosophy for learning in the Social Age.

We welcome your thoughts on the way higher education is adapting to the Social Age. Please share your thoughts and ideas.

NB This blog is based on an article by Chrissi Nerrantzi and others in Issue 11 of Lifewide Magazine (see below)

Information sources
Gauntlett, D. (2011) Making is connecting. The social meaning of creativity, from DIY and knitting to YouTube and Web2.0, Cambridge: Polity Press.
Jackson, N. J. (2013) The Concept of Learning Ecologies in N Jackson and G B Cooper (Eds) Lifewide Learning, Education and Personal Development E-Book. Chapter A5 available at http://www.lifewideebook.co.uk/uploads/1/0/8/4/10842717/chapter_a5.pdf
Luckin, R., Clark, W., Garnett, F., Whitworth, A., Akass, J., Cook, J., Day, P., Ecclesfield, N., Hamilton, T & Robertson, J. (2010) Learner Generated Contexts: a framework to support the effective use of technology to support learning, in: Lee, M. J. W. & McLoughlin, C. (eds) Web 2.0-Based E-Learning: Applying Social Informatics for Tertiary Teaching, IGI Global, pp. 70-84., available at http://knowledgeillusion.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/bookchapterluckin2009learnergeneratedcontexts.pdf
Nerrantzi, C, Jackson N J and Buckingham S (2014) Adapting higher education to the Social Age of learning: How can social media help? Lifewide Magazine Issue 11 available online at:
http://www.lifewidemagazine.co.uk/
Redecker C (2014) 'The Future of Learning is Lifelong, Lifewide and Open' Lifewide Magazine Issue 9 March 2014 available on-line at: http://www.lifewidemagazine.co.uk/

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sharing & curating perspectives on the social age

9/22/2014

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This week sees the publication of our quarterly magazine, Guest Edited by Julian Stodd, on the theme of the Social Age and the new culture of learning that is emerging from it.

The notion of a Social Age of learning began to crystallise as we worked on issue 9 of the magazine, where our focus was a vision of learning for the 21st century and beyond - a vision of informal, personalised but collaborative learning. The vision is both formed and realised by technologies which are changing our access to information and the ways in which we create new meaning. The hierarchical model of omniscient teacher passing down their unquestioned knowledge crumbles as social media encourage exploration, exchange, reuse and co-creation of ideas.

As we developed this theme in issue 10 of the magazine, we began using the term ‘Social Age of Learning’ after coming across Julian Stodd's ideas in his popular blog http://julianstodd.wordpress.com/. It was a natural step for us to invite him to guest edit Issue 11 and what an amazing job he has done! in providing us, through his articles, a framework around which other writers and the editors can elaborate.

While we were assembling this issue, the members of the editorial team, excerpt for Julian of course! were conscious that we were of the generation that has spanned the transition from an Industrial Age of design and production to an Information Age in which knowledge resources and expertise are as crucial to success as other economic resources. But we tend to overlook the fact that growing out of the Information Age is something different is a new 'Social Age' of learning aided by the internet and its associated technologies and our changing means and habits of communicating and participating in the on-line worlds we increasingly inhabit. Fundamentally, as a society we are changing the way we find, share and co-create information to develop new knowledge and meaning, achieve our individual and collective goals and purposes and create or co-create things we value.

The changes that are defining the Social Age have profound implications for the way we learn and develop through our institutions for education - our schools, academies, colleges and universities. Our educational system is founded on approaches to learning and teaching that were originally developed for an industrial age. They were partially adapted to the knowledge age but have yet to be reconceived for the Social Age. This issue draws attention to some educational experiments that point us in the direction that our formal systems of education need to go if we are to embrace the self-organised interest-driven forms of informal collaborative learning that characterise the Social Age.

Lifewide Magazine is a good example of how we discover develop, curate, re-purpose and re-contextualise and share knowledge in the Social Age. Its content is intended for a particular community - people who are interested in the educational implications of the ideas we explore. Its purpose is to enable us to develop the narrative that ultimately we hope will inspire and help the members of our community and anyone else who discovers our stories. Its production is always a collaborative, co-creative venture driven by values, interest and curiosity, and created through inquiry facilitated by the enormous information resources we can access through the internet and the technological tools now available. Similarly, the way we share and distribute the knowledge it contains is largely achieved through the internet and social media. None of this would have been possible even a decade ago which shows how quickly this new era is shaping our thinking and practices. Our Magazine is a perfect example of learning in and for the Social Age.

The Social Age seems a natural home for our ideas and practices relating to lifewide learning, education and personal development. Looking back over previous issues of the Magazine we can see how we have journeyed towards this moment of recognition and appreciation. We hope that you will read the Magazine and share your perspectives on this social phenomenon.

http://www.lifewidemagazine.co.uk/

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new beginning

9/18/2014

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This is the first blog on our new website and as I sat down to write it I hadn't a clue what I was going to write about. A week ago we suddenly lost all the content on our existing site and the company hosting it could not explain why. We had been toying with the idea of creating another site using the tools that we were now familiar with so the moment seemed opportune to create a new site that we can manage and support more easily. So the decision to build a new site was a consequence of something that we could not have anticipated - it just emerged and we had to deal with it. What initially seemed like a problem soon turned into an opportunity and so we spent a few days 'making it happen'.

This idea of 'making it happen' as a focus for creativity was the recurrent theme in a series of conversations on creativity that I was involved in today at Buckinghamshire New University. There were many stories about challenges being turned into opportunities which stirred hearts and fired imaginations to the point where people put in effort to make something new and meaningful happen.

Making something new happen is also the challenge for anyone setting up a website or blog. Such virtual spaces are empty vessels that have to be given life and meaning by those who contribute to its development. Only time will tell whether we will be successful but we have the belief that we can be because no one has quashed our enthusiasm for having a go at doing it. Sir Ken Robinson made the point that, 'it doesn't take a lot to be encouraged or discouraged', in a recent BBC radio 4 broadcast during an interview with Sarah Montague in her excellent series 'The Educators'. Through the interview learnt something about the early life of Sir Ken Robinson and how experiences have shaped him to become the person he has become. Drawing on events from his own life he illustrated how school, or rather individual teachers, managed to do both of these things to him. It's likely that we can all look back on our own lives and identify similar experiences when a teacher has said or done something that has caused us to believe that we have something to offer the world, or conversely, that we which thought we had to offer, is of little or no significance.

Teachers can turn your life around

LWE has undertaken a number of surveys recently which includes questions on what encourages and discourages creativity amongst higher education teachers. Having a manager and/or team members who encourages you is one of the most cited reasons for a supportive environment in which creativity can flourish. Sadly, the converse is also true. Managers and colleagues who criticise and dismiss attempts to move outside the norms of practice destroy fragile confidence and stifle creativity.

In her book, 'The Progress Principle', Teresa Amabile identifies encouragement as being one of four nourishers essential for a workplace culture in which creativity can thrive. We are all responsible for the culture we inhabit - whether at work at home or in some other daily space - so the question for all of us is - do we encourage our colleagues, students, family members and friends enough? Or do we put them off through careless words?

Actions speak louder than only words so let us go forward confident that we can animate this website with thoughts and resources that reflect our values, our purposes and our ambitions as a community-based educational enterprise supporting the holistic development of people through their own lifewide experiences.

Sources of information
Amabile, T. M. and Kramer, S. J. (2012) The Progress Principle: Using Small Wins to Ignite Joy, Engagement, and Creativity at Work. Boston: Harvard Business Review Press.
BBC Radio 4 The Educators http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0249h5b

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sharing & curating perspectives on the social age

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