Crowdsourcing Learning
They say that seeing is believing, and right they might be! In terms of education environments, the concept may be even refined to seeing is interacting with the environment. Many things are now possible to make us come closer instantly. Online venues (read hangouts), #tweetchats, instant messages and videos, streaming on mobile devices, even messaging without data plans.
Is there any better way to experience learning than exploring one, or all of them, as a common practice? Learning in isolation yields to box-mindedness (read limitation). To eliminate the risk for boredom or lack of imagination, the teacher can open the interaction to learners outside the class, anywhere in the world. This is a great opportunity to open learning itself to more than just the "paying customer", educate freely anyone who might want to know about the topic. In return the teacher gets real opinions and solutions to problems from so many points of view.
We can actually go much further into the topic when there is genuine interest and the questions are exploratory and build on each other. It's like watching your kindergarteners building a castle out of blocks, each one pursuing their vision, and together building something that neither one's mind could have thought about alone.
On June 29th at 10:40 am (yes, it has to be so precise) I will start a crowdsourced #surveyISTE15 tweetchat to give learners in my workshop exposure to knowledge and ideas that other educators out there might have. Together we will get as many ideas as we can so we can build the best learning experience.
Join us to make learning fun!