Social Media and Informal Learning: Twitter

For my informal learning project, I would like to look at incorporating internet-based learning and social media as a part of the AP Art History course (including an instructor-developed Moodle site).

The following were chosen because they are about education and technology:
          InnovativeEdu
          plugusin
          THE_Journal
          GrowConnected
          TeachPaperless

The following were chosen because they relate to Moodle, a possible site for my informal learning project:
          MoodleShare
          moodlenews
          moodle

The following were chosen because they focus on art history content:
          britishmuseum
          philamuseum
          TheArtHistory
          arthistoryblog
          metmuseum
          asianartmuseum

The following were chosen because they are about art education:
          arted20
          PennStateArtEd
          bscarpenterii



Assignment: Create a Twitter account and sign up to follow at least 10 people or organizations that somehow relate to a topic you have in mind for your informal learning project or intervention final project. Conduct a search in Twitter to find groups or people you might like to follow who you think would be helpful in this respect. Share your initial list of 10 people or organizations and briefly explain why/how you believe each person or organization on your list will be helpful to you and your informal learning project or intervention final project.

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Informal Learning

Informal learning is a different way to look at education.  It reverses some long-held beliefs like the teacher as the fount of all knowledge but embraces a world-as-teacher, holistic lifestyle that engages learners in all aspects, allowing them to be in control of their learning journey.

Informal learning might be seen as anything outside of the teacher-to-student transfer of knowledge that traditionally takes place in a lecture-style classroom. This learning may be self-directed or collective, taking place outside of school or within the confines of school but outside of traditional school learning activities. Informal learning is characterized by experience and problem-solving, often occurring without the objective of learning or large degrees of structure, but while one is going about life tasks. A teacher may be involved in informal learning activities, playing facilitator and allowing the student to go down his or her own learning journey. In that situation, the teacher is not the pitcher of knowledge, pouring into the students, but a prompter, providing further stimuli for sustained learning and self-reflection. Overall, the learner is in control and everything is teacher, be it environment, life experiences, peers, other adults, social media, or formal texts chosen at the direction of the learner.

Informal learning is aerodynamic trial-and-error, playing with twirly, light-up toys with friends on the boardwalk. 

Informal learning is a friend asking a friend to help make a birthday cake, sharing a youtube tutorial,
making many alterations (out of preference and necessity), googling the recipe for a cake mix missing its instructions,
posting pictures on facebook, emailing the tutorial to friends, and sharing tips with other peers.

Assignment: Compose a 200-word statement in which you define “informal learning.”

References:
Barron, B. (2006). Interest and self-sustained learning as catalysts of development: A learning ecologies perspective. Human Development, 49, 193–224.
Jamieson, P. 2009. The Serious Matter of Informal Learning. Planning for Higher Education. 37(2): 18–25.
Zürcher, R. (2010). Teaching-learning processes between informality and formalization, the encyclopaedia of informal education.

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