Learning Social Learning

Photo: flickr - jisc_infonet (adapted)

O, what a precious comfort 'tis to have so many, like brothers, commanding one another's fortunes!

-- Timon of Athens

Learning sometimes requires privacy, uninterrupted concentration, and focused, individual thought. But this must be balanced against the many benefits of learning more socially. I really want to promote social learning among my students. It changes the game. It makes education more fun and interesting. And it is a better model for promoting life-long learning. 

When I say "social learning" I'm not really talking about having a friend over while you do homework, nor am I just talking about interacting with peers in class. I'm talking about making connections, all the time, everywhere, between what you are learning and whom you are with. I'm talking about building bridges of relevance between you and other people, constructed of the concepts and texts and research questions that you cultivate from your personal learning.  Read on for some specific suggestions on learning social learning...

First of all, connecting and sharing should not just be an online thing. In-person social learning is often the best sort of all. But social media are a critical component of literacy and learning today. And social learning is a natural extension of the social connecting we are all getting used to doing electronically. You've learned to stay in touch so much more than ever before because of your cell phone, your Facebook account, and maybe your blog or Twitter account. We've all discovered that we are much more interested in one another's everyday lives than we ever thought possible. Why wouldn't we be as interested in one another's everyday learning? (See the connection to life-long learning!) Of course all this social media can have some craziness to it, but on the whole, we are seeing the benefits of connection in all kinds of ways. It enriches our lives, and it certainly can enrich our learning.

Here are some ways to be social about your learning (in addition to blogging and commenting on one another's blogs for this class).

1. Connect Through Books
   
   
   
   Consider joining a social book site like goodreads, LibraryThing, or Shelfari. Here's an example of how I did some socially optimized learning using my goodreads account.
   
   This morning I was reading Umberto Eco's The Search for the Perfect Language (because I'm considering some of its concepts as part of an Honors Civ course I'm teaching in Fall 2011). I pulled up my goodreads account, wrote up a quick review of the book (two sentences), rated it (5 stars!) and added it to three of my virtual bookshelves ("read"; "literary"; and "history of civilization"). That's me documenting my learning, putting out there into the public what I'm doing, my interest level, etc.
   
   
   Next, I started to browse through the reviews that others had put up for the book. It was obvious to me that some readers of Eco were not up to the academic nature of his book, which is fine, but some of the readers gave some real insights, helping me remember and appreciate parts of the book that I'd forgotten, and showing me they were appreciating the book in the same way that I do. A reader named Douglas Summers-Stay posted such a review, so I clicked the "like" button, then clicked on his profile.
   
   Can you see where my learning has now started to become social? I started with a book that interested me, found a social book site that hooks me up with other readers, and now I'm looking into my subject not just by way of the erudite pages of an academic monograph, but through the human lens of a current reader.
   
   
   Here's how goodreads continued to help my social learning. Once I got to Douglas' profile, I browsed a few of the books he was interested in. Goodreads helps by having a "compare books" button. I pressed this, and because I have about 100 books on there (and Douglas has a bunch, too), it turns out that we have four books in common. He's read a biography of Newton that's on my to-read list, and a sci-fi novel by Neal Stephenson, Anathem, that a friend loaned me. Hey, we have some things in common. So I browsed more of his books, and he reminded me of a couple of authors that I had forgotten whom I might want to include in my Civ syllabus. Thank you, goodreads. Thank you, Douglas. 
   
   I'm not just plugging a social book service like goodreads (though I really recommend it -- and I think Brook does, too, since she has already put up a widget on her blog showing her goodreads books). It's about getting you thinking about the subjects you study as being very profitably mediated through people. People are so much more interesting, so much more relevant, than a Google search! (If you want even more info about how to take advantage of social book sites, please read #7 in this very helpful blogpost about diversifying your online research strategies.)
2. Connect Through Real-Time Search
   Go to search.Twitter.com (you don't need a Twitter account) and type in what you are studying. Will this yield a lot of nonsense? Probably. But sift through it and try some searches. I typed in "#shakespeare" (without the quotes; the # sign indicates a keyword in Twitter, so people that use it are consciously categorizing that term). This brought up a tweet in which someone mentioned an article about a 14 year old Shakespeare buff trying to see all the plays and blogging about it (at "Shakespearean Monkey").
   

   I browsed his blog, and he's documented with pictures and reviews all of these recent productions that he's traveled to see. You should see it! He gives a nice snapshot of contemporary productions happening around the country. Thanks, Edward Moravscik, you precocious little 8th-grader, and thanks to Thomas L. Strickland (@thomasls) who tweeted this to my attention.
   
   
3. Contact a Fellow Learner
   This is the sort of thing that really makes social learning fun -- connecting with others outside of your present social circle through a common interest. In this case, following up on the last suggestion, I thought, hey, this young Shakespeare blogger could show a thing or two about passion for Shakespeare to my own students. I'll contact him and see. Well, he's not on Facebook. But that newspaper article mentioned his parents, so I wrote an email to his father, a professor at Princeton:
   
   Dr. Moravcsik:
   My name is Gideon Burton, and I teach Shakespeare courses at Brigham Young University. I read the article about Edward. How wonderful of you to support your son's great interest in Shakespeare! I was wondering if you would pass this invitation along to him, at your discretion.
   
   Dear Edward:
   I was delighted to read about your passion for Shakespeare in the article in St. Louis Today. This led me to your blog, where I read about the many productions you've seen. I particularly liked your detailed report about the Merchant of Venice production. That's a hard one to pull off, and the way you described the ending made me really wish I'd gotten to see that interpretation. The photos are great! Too bad you couldn't have come to the recent production of Pericles done at our university (Brigham Young Univ.). 
   
   
   I am a professor who teaches Shakespeare, and right now I'm trying to get my students excited about seeing live productions. I'm also teaching these students about blogging and trying to get them interested in how great it is to share your learning with others in the way you have been doing. I was wondering if you might be willing (with your parents' permission) to be interviewed about your love of Shakespeare and about your blogging. If possible, I'd love to have a live Skype interview with my class so that they can ask you questions and perhaps see you. But we could also just do a phone interview, or exchange questions over email. I think you are a great example of following your passions productively and using the new media to help that along. I'm referring my students to your blog, and hope you will continue to report on plays you see.
   
   Let me know what you and your parents think. If an interview doesn't work out, that's fine. I hope you can at some point visit Cedar City, Utah for our annual Shakespeare festival (summers and fall). Check it out here.
   

   
   

   Dr. Gideon Burton
   
   
We'll see what happens there. I also mentioned Thomas Strickland, the one who tweeted about Edward. In Twitter I clicked on his profile, and found out he is a theater company founder from around Atlanta. I wondered if he had seen the production of Timon of Athens that Edward mentioned on his blog (which I tried to see when I was there). Hmmm. Well, if I were to reach out to Mr. Strickland, I'd have a couple of connections through which to do it.
4. Connect Through Photos
   It's all about user-generated content these days, and that makes it easy to find others with whom we share interests. One of the biggest photo sharing sites today is flickr. Maybe you post your photos there? I have a flickr stream with some of my academic photos. Anyway, I went to flickr and entered the search term "Shakespeare production." Right away, I found photos documenting a production of Richard III done in April of 2010 at a private school in Texas. Conveniently, someone took a shot of the printed program, making it pretty easy to get in touch with those involved (of course, I will use caution in contacting the underage, as I did above with Edward). So, what could I do with that information? Obviously get the director or some of the cast to talk about their experience. If I were a student who had just read Richard III (as I know a few of my students have just done), I would have some specific questions regarding certain speeches or how this or that was handled in a school production. Don't you think that that director or his students would enjoy reminiscing about their recent production? Can you see the value of such connecting to your own learning? Richard III is a boring old play until you find out that others have been getting into it, having fun with it, recently, and that they are easy to contact and probably excited to get the attention.
   
   Well, I noticed that in the notes to the photos for that production that they gave the name of the school's website. From there, it referenced a blog (Bill's blog) that had a post writing up the success of their Richard III production. The post thanked a professional actor who had given them an introduction to the play, one Robert Clover-Brown. I googled Robert, and found he has a website called Shakespeare Man.
   
   
   This man goes around to schools and acts as Shakespeare, introducing kids to Shakespeare and having a great time doing it (the site demonstrated). I noted a link on his site to a radio interview in which he talks about playing Shakespeare with his lovely British accent (he's from the UK and trained at Cambridge). Have a listen. He has a most mellifluous voice.
   
   Now look where this little journey has taken me. From a general photo search, I've ended up finding out about a school doing Shakespeare, seeing evidence of their engaged learning about Shakespeare, and a great actor who takes the Shakespeare experience meaningfully to students. Think of the possibilities! What would you ask the Anderson school cast? How about Mr. Clover-Brown? How hard would it be to contact them? Not very. I left a comment on Bill's Blog from the Anderson school, thanking him for making his students' learning public. 

I hope you are starting to get the vision of social learning: As we all make our teaching and learning activities more public, we open opportunities for social connections that make our learning more meaningful and relevant.

• How are you learning to learn socially?
• Who is already interested in what you are studying?
• Are you using the books you read as bridges to interesting people and communities?
• Do you see photos, videos, and websites as social gateways, not just entertainment or information?
• To whom could you reach out as a co-learner, either in person, or through available media channels?

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Update on #2 "Contact a Fellow Learner":  Just 90 minutes after I emailed Edward Moravscik's father, I received this very cheerful response:

Dear Dr. Burton:

Thanks for your kind note, which I will of course pass on to Edward. Being in the same business, of course neither his Mom nor I have any objection to any exchange with you on Shakespeare. We’ll see what Edward wants to do. I know he did notice the Pericles at Utah Shakespeare this fall, and we thought hard about attending, but the logistics worked out better in St. Louis. Best,

Andy Moravcsik

It turns out that Edward's father, Andrew Moravcsik, is a contributing editor at Newsweek and a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution. Hey, now I'm wondering if Dr. Moravcsik (whose academic speciality is politics) has been most interested when his son has studied the history plays with all of their political intrigue. Hmmm. I'm formulating a question for Edward for when he Skypes in to our classroom: "Given your father's interest in politics, how would you say that some of Shakespeare's history plays are relevant to today's political scene? Have you ever had those sorts of discussions over the dinner table?" Maybe so, since when I looked up one of Dr. Moravsik's Newsweek articles, it started with a classical allusion to the fall of Troy. I bet they've talked about Troilus and Cressida.

See how easy that was? You give people good reasons to connect with you and you can strike up new academic, professional, and/or personal relationships through the ease of our new media. The digital age is an awesome time to be learning. Social learning puts you on the fast lane of the Infobahn.