What we could learn from Connectivism? Connections with the community

Great to learn that your community (by Keith Lyons) is so committed. I hope every one is well. And with the support of so many other enthusiastic volunteers in the community, I am sure that your community would be able to overcome the threats of fires.

This also brought me back to my memory on community service. 

When I was in my early twenties, I participated as a volunteer in the Community and Youth Office, part of the social welfare department in the government.  I was elected as the Vice Chair of a Volunteering Association called Dawn’s Association after a series of events were organised and run for the poor families in a community (with a few thousand people).  Our Association was made up of youth volunteers between the age of 17 to mid 20′s. We organised game stalls, cartoon shows, visit to soft drink company, picnic during a summer vacation for the young kids of poor families.  On one occasion, whilst I was leading the kids to a picnic, I witnessed one of the most memorable incident on our way in a coach.  I noticed a small kid (may be 7-8 years old) was really enjoying his ice-cream cone.  After a while, I was surprised to find that he has finished eating it without any wrapper left behind.  Oh dear!  The kid has eaten the ice-cream cone with the paper wrapper. On the same occasion,  I noted another kid dropped his red-bean popsicle on the deck of the coach, but he immediately picked it up and continued eating it without any hesitation. 

What was the lesson I had learnt? Kids of a poor background needs education, or at least they need to learn about what is edible, and the health, hygiene and safety aspects!  Besides, they need strong support and care of peers and adults  throughout their early stages of development in the community.  

Everyone needs such support through social networking, and learning could be greatly enhanced through those valuable connections.  And that’s education!  And we could then be able to better understand each others’ needs through the networking processes at this digital age.  

In our community, we need to support the poor and disadvantaged too, just like the kid’s example, so they could live with pride, confidence, and decency. 

Are we all born with compassion towards our fellow citizens?  How could we show such compassion towards our community?  Is it through our continuous involvement in our community?  

So, I  echo with Keith on the needs of building our community, to make it  a better place for everyone to live in.  Social networking and education are just like the two sides of the coin.  They work side-by-side. 

Are these also the result of valuable connections – to the community?  Does what you give and contribute to the community make a difference?  Is it the learning we share through Connectivism?

We are already witnessing all these community building through our blogs, networks – and the New ConnectivismEducationLearning network as well!

Hoping that we will continue our contribution to the community through our wonderful acts of love, care and support.

Connectivism Technology Web2.0 Education Learning and Research

I will continue to explore in these areas:

Connectivism, Technology, Web2.0, K-12 Higher and Open Education, E-Learning and Personal Learning Environment and Research.

Please leave your comments here on this blog or ConnectivismEducationLearning

No spams please.

Best wishes.

John

Education and Learning Movement under Technology (Part 3)

The notion of teacher as a student is sound in theory, but quite a challenge in practice for most professional educators, especially when interacting with kids. My experience is that kids would prefer to have a private space where most would like to explore on their own, without any interference from adults. This has already been explored and discussed in the report The Living and Learning with New Media (Ito, Horst, Bittani, et al., 2008).   Kids would also like to take risks that are beyond the traditional boundary in the physical world through those virtual games like SECOND LIFE, WARCRAFT, or Wii, or social network like MYSPACE, FACEBOOK, ON-LINE CHATS, MSN or Mobile CHAT.  And they would NEVER tell you the truth that are classified as PRIVATE AND CONFIDENTIAL in an interview or survey. Why? These are the hidden secrets that they won’t like to share, just as any hidden secrets adults have. If each of us reflect on this theme privately, one will find that learning in private could be one of the most enjoyable experience in life, without comments, criticism, control and judgment by any body else.

So, what I think is important is to understand that kids have their rights to learn, in their own way, at their own time, and under an informal learning environment, though sometimes they may need to be guided by their parents or guardians when they are too young. This does not need to be mixed up with the formal education to avoid destroying their creativity and autonomy. Also putting new wine into old wine skin (or bottle) will only make the matters worse, as there would be leakage of wine, and this is used as an analogy in my previous post of education and learning movement under technology (part 2) in http://suifaijohnmak.wordpress.com

What may be a better solution? Peer learning is a generational phenomena, and we need to respect that kids feel more comfortable in communicating with peers for advice. Opening up conversation with kids is important. However, if the kids are looking for relationship, interest, fun in the interaction and conversation, then learning may better be related to those themes rather than the academic education and learning agenda.

Besides, it depends on what we meant by learning. To learn better in playing a virtual game by a kid may help in boosting one’s confidence. On the other hand, a kid may also be addictive to virtual games upon time. So, too often, parents are concerned with such habits and have thus joined with the kids in playing the games. Is this the solution?  Will this also assist both parents and kids in acquiring media literacy?

As mentioned in The Living and Learning with New Media , there is no benchmark to measure media literacy.  So is it really necessary to measure it at all? We are now moving in an uncharted water, and so more researches, discussion and debates on these areas may help us in understanding the needs and expectations of our kids and next generation at this digital age.

Prevention is better than cure. Education is better than discipline. And learning is better than ignorance.  Are we also a generation of digital walking along with our kids?