Integrating Academic and Everyday Learning Through Technology: Issues and Challenges for Researchers, Policy Makers and Practitioners

This paper builds on work undertaken over a number of years by a group of international researchers with an interest in the potential of connecting academic and everyday practices and knowledge. Drawing extensively on literature and our own work, we first discuss the challenges around defining informal learning, concluding that learning is multidimensional and has varying combinations of formal and informal attributes. We then highlight the potential of technology for integrating formal and informal learning attributes and briefly provide some exemplars of good practice. We then discuss in depth the challenges and issues of this approach to supporting learning from the perspective of pedagogy, research, policy and technology. We also provide some recommendations of how these issues may be addressed. We argue that for the learner, integration of formal and informal learning attributes should be an empowering process, enabling the learner to be self-directed, creative and innovative, taking learning to a deeper level. Given the complexity of the learning ecosystem, this demands support from the teacher but also awareness and understanding from others such as parents, family, friends and community members. We present a conceptual model of such an ecosystem to help develop further discussions within and between communities of researchers, policy makers and practitioners

Entering Their World: Using Social Media to Support Students in Modern Times

Modern technology-rich environments provide a variety of tools with various types of capabilities that can support student success at the tertiary level. While university-supported learning platforms such as Moodle typically support this academic purpose, social networking sites such as Facebook can also be used within university studies to support student success. One cohort of students and their academic mentor at the University of Wollongong (UOW) in New South Wales, Australia were connected together through a Facebook group. The aim of this Facebook group was to provide support to a group of students transitioning into university study, and into a Bachelor of Primary Education (BPrimEd) degree after successfully completing one full year of university study. Using free access social media software rather than a prescribed licensed program for this purpose provided a platform on which the cohort could access support from their peers and university staff, and generate a community of learners. This chapter details a \u27Students as Partners in Research\u27 project that investigated how the Bachelor of Social Sciences: Education for Change (BSSE4C) Facebook group was used by its members to support and encourage the cohort through their first year of university studies, and support their journey into a BPrimEd degree. It has been co-authored by some of the students and university academics involved, and reflects our collective work on this project