Negative side of social learning

Social learning is not all rainbows and buttercups there are downsides to everything. In social learning they really focus on group learning and bringing students together to work with one another. There can be downsides to this. As all people know often times when students work in groups one student might take charge and do a lot of the work leaving another student doing almost nothing. That student gets no benefits from this style of learning and could jeopardize his or her future of learning. That student would benefit more from a one on one style of learning so they can make sure they are on the same level as everyone else and can go as slowly as they need to grasp all concepts.

More benefits to learning in groups

As I have been blogging about learning in groups socially is a very helpful in many ways. One way I haven't talked about though is how it helps improve students group skills. When learning socially you get the chance to work with tons of other people from a broad range of backgrounds. Learning from them and them learning from you. Getting your hands dirty in my eyes is really the best way to get the most out of what you are trying to learn rather then just having your head shoved in a book.

Combine Them

The past few blog posts I have made are about the different types of programs that have been surfacing on the market lately and how they integrate into social media. The next step I see coming in the process is combining the online learning we have now with these programs. I think in the very near future we are going to see online classes that are on blackboard or other sites combined with the programs like rabbit that will let classes very simply and cleanly collaborate online as if they were all in the same room together. Let people video chat with other students not just with the teacher. Break out into virtual groups and work on projects together. I think we will see this maybe in the next year or two.

Study Pod

I found this interesting program that is sort of like the rabbit program I shared with the class. What it does it where rabbit is more of a social hangout type of program StudyPod is a more class oriented program. It lets you create study groups, share files, make events to name a few things I think something like this is going to be on the forefront of technology in college in a few years just because I already see it happening with so much communication through technologies like blackboard. Below I provided a link to StudyPod's website.

https://www.studypods.com/

Social Learning

Social Learning can be a really good tool for people that are both introverted and extroverted. It allows both to shine in a way. People who are introverted and don't like to get up in front of class can sit back and listen how they like to in the first place letting them be part of the group and be comfortable at the same time. It also allows extroverts to do what they like, being social butterfly's. They can talk to the class or to groups, learn and help other people in the class. So social learning doesn't have to be necessarily on the internet. It can be in class as well. To be honest everything these days are moving online and I think we need more in person classes. More and more people are becoming social awkward and more that just shy.

Make my own time

I watch a lot of ted talks in fact I had seen the Jane McGonigal ted talk before we ever saw it in class. Its really interesting to see the ideas these speakers have to solve the world biggest problems. Jane McGonigal showed us different activities we could do to increase our life span. My favorite was this woman, she came up with this game that was almost like world of war craft. It brought people together to do missions that are real world problems like ending famine or finding a renewable energy but they were cleverly disguised so the gamer didn't know that they were solving these problems making it more enjoyable. There are tons of ted talks just like these out there and there all just as interesting.

Social Media

There are tons of social media applications emerging lately. A lot of them strictly on the mobile platforms. Its really interesting to see all the different formats they've been making lately. Formats that have been moving away from the traditional facebook / linkedin format. For example there's a new app called tinder that everyone's been talking about. It is a dating social media app that allows you to anonymously like or dislike someone then if the person you liked likes you back it will start a chat between you. This is a fun new format for social media that I haven't seen before and i'm hoping more people are creative and come out with creative formats like this.