Thanks, again, to Twitter, a wonderful piece of media was shared with me. In most cases, it’s a blog post or article that makes me think and reflect on education, ed tech, social media, or some other topic of interest. This time around, a link to a TED Talk was retweeted by Joyce Valenza.
When I saw the video was about learning communities, I was drawn in. I watched it and wanted to share a few quotes that really stood out to me. These may seem completely senseless as individual statements, but when you watch the video, you might get a sense for why I felt they were important.
- “You rarely go to a place that isn’t on your personal map.”
- “I think the reason I was a terrible student in school is because I thought education was just a series of hurdles…I had to jump over to achieve adulthood.”
- “All at once, I became a learner. And I became a learner because I found myself in a community of learners.”
- “So I started to learn because learning was cool”
- “A lot of the learning I did in high school wasn’t about what happened inside the classroom, it was about what happened outside of the classroom.”
- “I promptly quit my job. And for the first time since high school, I found myself without a learning community. And it was miserable. I hated it.”
- “To me, the most interesting of communities of learners that are growing up on the internet right now are on YouTube.”
While you’re watching the video (it’s embedded below) – think about these statements and how they related to your educational philosophy. How are these statements related to your current situation. If you’re a teacher, are you creating the hurdles? Are you encouraging learning outside of the classroom? Are you a learner surrounded by other learners? Have you learned anything by watching a YouTube video? Share your thoughts in the comments.