SocialLearn

The Learning Revolution is here according to the UK government’s latest white paper on informal learning. A controversy is brewing around formal and informal learning as the TES announces that “DIY learning shelves teachers“.

People are directing their own learning by finding tutors on School of Everything, taking time out to do DIY Masters, using free content from university courses, using a myriad of free tools online and coach surfing their way around a physical world of knowledge. Bloggers are pulling together resources for independent learners, librarians are creating websites like The Autodidact Project.

Autodidact. A strange academic sounding word. Define the word in Google and it will tell you that means “a person who has taught himself”. Wikipedia extends the explanation to say “Autodidacticism (also autodidactism) is self-education or self-directed learning. An autodidact is a mostly self-taught person, as opposed to learning in a school setting or from a tutor.” Another word for this is automath which is slightly less of a mouthful. The main distinction between an autodidact and a dilettante is that the former has serious intentions and develops a deep understanding of the subject they study, whereas the latter is that annoying person at the party who pretends he knows everything but in fact merely dabbles in a subject.

More browsing  reveals that the poster boy for autodidacticism is Joseph Campbell who went into the woods to read for 5 years rather than study for a doctorate. This suggests that you would need a certain level of education in a formal system before you had the confidence and knowledge to direct your own learning. I wonder if this is true for people who are working in new subjects that fall outside the mainstream of conventional education. Has involvement in formal education been a successful foundation for the work of innovators? What are the lessons we can learn from teenagers using technology to teach themselves?

People who work in learning theory have spent years researching the subject. In The Open University’s research repository I found an abstract for a 2003 book called “The passion to learn: an inquiry into autodidactism” which includes 14 case studies identifying common themes: “emotional/cognitive balance; learning environment; life mission; and ownership of learning”. It’s this kind of knowledge about the motivations and behaviours of learners that is feeding into the development of SocialLearn. To paraphrase Prof. Martin Weller, if the educational system adapts to the learner, rather than the learner adapting to the system, what will be the outcome?

A few years ago (how time flies) we started thinking about how the internet was making it easier than ever for people to direct their own learning. There has been some visionary work done by people like Michael Wesch into the changing world of education. But are there missing pieces? And is it only the few and not the masses who can really take advantage?

SocialLearn has become fondly known as ShhhocialLearn at The Open University as we went into a quiet corner to frankly think about what we’d done. We realised we’d thought quite a lot, as is the won’t of us academic types, but we hadn’t done much. This was followed by passionate declarations of “Just Do It” but we had a little more thinking to do. We hadn’t quite got to the crux of what would make SocialLearn more than just a “Facebook for Learning”. But after a few more months of thinking, aided this time by flipcharts and coloured pens, we have it. We think.

You’ll be able to judge for yourself later in 2009 when we launch the beta site. For now you’ll have to remain satisfied with the musings of the team as we get these thoughts into code.