Social Media is growing rapidly. Exponentially. See below, Gary Hayes’ fascinating counter for just how fast information is flowing and in the process, people being engaged in discussion/content and thus – LEARNING (and for the most part without a teacher) 🙂 Here are my own thoughts on THE NEW LEARNING

What does it mean to us eductors? It means we have to get onboard the “Web elearning express”. We can’t avoid this any longer. Get blogging, using a wiki, video conferencing, bookmarking, using ebooks, chatting, putting courses online, tweeting on twitter and sharing, sharing, sharing… And more….

Whatever your perspective – without a doubt it is a revolution. Not because it is “better” for learning (we don’t know this yet though research suggests). No. Simply because people are doing it, using it, learning through it. There is more activity and this “gross” data doesn’t lie. So if our audience is using it – we should be too. Numbers like these don’t lie. The more our students actively encounter/engage/discuss content – the more they are learning. This we know.

Some people writing “smartly” about Social Media are: Danah Boyd (primarily about youth/teens), Jane Hart (from a technological focus) and David Warlich (general context), George Siemens (Connectivism) and Marc Prensky (digital immigrant/native fame). But many others…. (for my own self fulfillment – I always return to McCluhan’s Gutenberg Galaxy).

So start a blog, a wiki, make a classroom discussion site (http://edu20.org) or a group here. Do anything but at least START TODAY! This video outlines why we must reach our students in this fashion…..