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)
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:
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/