There's a new social Startup that's recently been gaining a ton of traction in the tech sector called, Quora.
Before you run off and check out the product, it will probably be best if you pause a few moments to get a quick explanation.
Quora hopes to be the knowledge-base for the web (see their about page). It's building knowledge in Q&A form.
The following article was cross-posted from my personal blog, Cyrus' World and was titled "Entreprenuers and sociopaths, more similar than different?". Its relevancy to education centers around the fact that many traits we comdemn in the young are touted in adults. The difference between greatness and the living on the streets are a limited to a few toxic factors. I'm very interested in how and when "speaking out" moves from a problem to a desired trait in an employee, or alternatively when "cockieness" is viewed as confidence and passion.
-- Entrepreneurs and Sociopaths, more similar than different --
I've heard a common complaint from teachers that they feel ostracized from Facebook because of their students. Should you accept friend requests, what's acceptable to post, etc? I was just searching Twitter and saw several articles and tweets about the topic.
There's a beautifully engineered solution from a former Facebooker, Dave Morin, called Path. It's not "Facebook" for closer friends as there's no noise. Just you, your closest friends, and personal moments. Path focuses on allowing you to share everything in context.
From their blog:
Path is the personal network. A place to be yourself and share life with close friends and family. The personal network doesn’t replace your existing social networks – it augments them. Path allows you to capture your life’s most personal moments and share them with the 50 closest friends and family in your life who matter most.
The 50 friend limit is based on the Dunbar Numbar, which is the theoretical limit of human connections our minds can actively manage Share both short video and photos from an iPhone, currently, and more devices soon.
Here's their initial intro video:
So, try it out, and tell me what you think.
With respect to bias, I have no vested interest in Path, although I'd love one.
I was blessed with first generation parents who were very disconnected from American pop culture. Because of this, I never witnessed or understood the celebrity worship during my critical learning period. My heroes included Deepak Chopra, Tony Robbins, Albert Einstein and Bill Gates. Note, my parents are both Psychaitrists, hence the self-help bingeing. I've seen countless rants saying that society lacks role models and real heroes for the next generation to follow. I think, for the first time since the James Dean, media is coming back allowing us to focus on the academic, the creators, and the thought leaders. When I say "media" I'm not talking mainstream media outlets.
We're at a tipping point where the democratization of content and ideas are making it possible for people to follow people, places, interests and ideas. I strongly believe that this is a huge step for education if the opportunity siezed. Personally, I see this as one of the biggest opportunities for our society. If we can create scaffolded, safe environments where we can connect interested children with willing experts, we can inspire a generation. A great example of the impact of a single willing expert is the Khan Academy.
Children are impressionable and can learn vicariously by watching the interactions of experts. We all learn from the nuance of the social interactions online. The problem used to be that the environments where experts interacted were behind closed doors. The doors are opening as they share more ideas publically on social networks. The problem persists that all the content on the social networks may not necessarily be acceptable or appropriate for all ages. Actually, that's a separate debate that I'll keep out of! Nevertheless, with the right filters, children will hopefully learn from role models in all walks of life. The best part is that they will learn to empower themselves to better understand and relate with these role models.
I'm hopeful. If you've had an experience where you've used social media to educate children or to connect with online experts, please share it!
Consumers are riddled with choice and opportunities for instant gratification. Minds are reshaping and gen-Y will be better than their predessessors at handling information from multiple parallel streams. The trend requires all modes of content consumption, including education to re-envision the approach.
The problem to keep people's attention is not a new one. Teachers have found innovative ways of inspiring engagement but could still take some lessons from the online product's usage of game-play and social dynamics.
Game-play Dynamics
We've all heard that life's a big game, but school never felt that way. Game-play dynamics aren't necessarily new and are embedded in many products. Rewards programs have leveraged this model to increase engagement although they aren't really fun for anyone. Many web products allow users to gain points or reputation by contributing. When I was a child, we had gold stars and grades but neither were very compelling.
How can education be more like a video game where learning and personal growth be seen as a necessity to be competative? You'll be inspired if you ever watch a child play some of the more complex simulation games. Whether it's a flight simulator, a conquest game or a puzzle game; the systems are incredibly complex and they often learn with little to no instruction. I'll go futher saying I've seen 10 and 11 year olds play a game and I couldn't understand what was going on.
Like life, they experiment with the virtual world and through a series of mistakes and successes the find the way. We forget that since birth, we love watching when we impact the world around us. We started by squeezing, teething, tasting and grew up and tweeting is a great example of hoards of people getting instantly gratified because someone randomly re-tweets their quote. It's hard to see how a student is making any impact with their coursework. How can we learn from our own love of instant gratification?
The rewards in school are incredibly unauthentic and lack a real impact. I realize the debate on authenticity isn't a new one; however, I don't see a reason why children can't build businesses, products, and solve real problems. Given the right information, children are capable of solving problems that adults solve. The actual problem is that educators don't have the resources to scaffold children through the process of building a business or product. I don't say this as a slight to educators; rather, I believe that we are just hitting a place where social media will be able to provide connections to knowledgable people who can scaffold both educators and the learners in these projects.
According to the biologist E.O Wilson in an NPR interview :
Wilson said that for the most part, we are teaching children the wrong way. According to the biologist, "When children went out in Paleolithic times, they went with adults and they learned everything they needed to learn by participating in the process."
That's the way the human mind is programmed to learn, Wilson said.
But he believes that today, virtual reality can be a steppingstone to the real world. It can motivate a child to exploration.
Social Dynamics
Facebook touts "social design" as a key ingredient to their success. By simply allowing users to "tag" friends in photos, they out-grew every competitor by leaps and bounds. If the assumption is true that we, as humans, are most interested in people; how can this be leveraged to make learning more interesting. This is more than positive peer pressure. It's about vicarious learning and guiding learners to find mentors and role models. Social media is making it easier to follow successful people of all walks of life and I'd love to know whether or not teachers find their students learning and being guided by these thought leaders. If you have a story please leave it in the comments!
I continue this discussion on my post titled "Social Media Killed the Video Star."
Micro-consumption refers to the consumption of summarized or short-form content. As the cost of publication drops and more distribution exists through social networks, feed readers and via mobile devices this content consumption pattern is increasingly pervasive. Some examples include status updates, micro-blogging, or Twitter tweets.
I've been searching for resources on educational technology and haven't found a source where the author surveys the opportunities and impacts of new media and technology on education. "I Learn Good" is a place where I'll aggregate my thoughts and those of other thought leaders in education, technology and media.
Enjoy and feel free to feedback via email »ilearngood [at] kapuno [dot] com.
