This strikes me as something that Education needs to better understand…..

There is something simply wonderful about a directory of people. And then enabling people to make the directory social. You quickly find not only the people, but who they are, who knows who, and who is paying attention to who.  You can surface what people are working on. Groups that exist are made visible, and new groups form easily. http://www.socialtext.com/blog/2009/08/the-crm-iceberg-and-social-sof.html

Strikes me that this has a huge implication for eLearning…  And perhaps even new models for research collaboration… In an organisation where the directory is social and the activity is transparent there must be fantastic opportunities to bust out of silos!

What I do know is this, we spent the entire industrial revolution dehumanizing not only our employees, but customers in pursuit of ruthless efficiency and profit. We will rediscover the efficiency and profit lost by working together in ways we haven’t yet imagined.
http://www.socialtext.com/blog/2009/08/the-crm-iceberg-and-social-sof.html

If employees were TEACHERS and customers were STUDENTS – what were we pursuing and what will we rediscover?

What if this matrix were applied to Teaching and Learning??  Would the transformation make for more engaged/satisfying/meaningful learning?

Social Media is a Culture, Not Just a Strategy ~ Samir Balwani (so is education)

The message was that learning consists of interacting in communities of practice; we want students to engage with learning communities from an early age so they know how to navigate them, giving them the ability to take charge of their learning.

Stephen Downes – learning is distributed
http://jennylu.wordpress.com/2009/04/08/stephen-downes-learning-is-distributed

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