Monday, July 09, 2007

Participation & Networking

Participation is the principle dynamic of human learning and therefore of integral human development. İf there is no participation, there is no development. This is because human beings can only learn, grow and develop by directly interacting with and reflecting upon the world around them.

People learn more when they are involved in learning, doing what they are learning, than when they are merely listening to some one talk about it. The engagement of learners is not only an indicator of their learning, it is how they learn. Research showed that adults learn 20 percent of what we hear, 40 percent of what we hear & see, and 80 percent of what we do or discover for ourselves (knowles, 1978).




Networks

Evidence suggest that the types of network we form around ourselves affect everything from our health, to our career success to our very identities. One study of a randomly selected sample of 6928 residents of Almada County, over a nine period showed that people who lacked social and community ties were more likely to die......than those with more extensive contacts (Berkman and Syme, 1978:186).

A follow up study looked at the same sample over a 17 year period and confirmed these results, but also found that extensive contact with friends and relatives (compared to contact with spouse) was particularly important in reducing mortality for those over the age of 60 (Seeman et al. 1987).

Another study showed that maintaining a diverse network reduced susceptibility to the common cold (Cohen et al. 1997). people who had frequent contact (in person or on the telephone) to others across a wide range of relationship types (relatives, neighbors, friends, workmates, members of social groups, etc), tended to resist infection better than those whose contacts were with a narrower range of relationship types maintaining network ties to different groups of people in organisations has been associated with higher performance ratings (Mehra et al. 2001), and faster promotions (Burt, 1992). Having the right contacts can help you get ajob and can help you negotiate a higher salary (Seidel et al 2000).

İn this perspective, for any community, the higher the level of citizen engagement in civic life and in voluntary orgs, the better the overall economic health of the community (Putman, 1993). We also know that maintaining relationships with people requre resources that some groups of people find it difficult to afford. İncreasing research attention is being directed towards the negative side of social interaction.

Assuming that we want to gather information on friendship ties between individuals in a small organisation of 33 people. How do we do this? There are at least three ways of proceeding. First, we could collect whole network data using a roster of the names of all 33 people in the organisation. We could list the names of all 33 people in the organisation. We could list the names on a sheet of paper with instructions to the respondent to tick the names of those individuals whom the respondent considers to be his or her personal friends. From these data we could then prepare a whole network of relations that indicated for each pair of individuals whether one or both of the individuals considered the other to be a friend. The data could be arranged in a 33 by 33 asymmetric matrix. But what if we were unable to gain access to all 33 people? An alternative would be to collect egocentric data from each person available to us. This would entail a significant sacrifice in data quality. Each individual that agreed to participate could be prompted to give us the names of his or her friends in the org. This prompting could take the form of a complete roster of 33 names. Or we could prompt the individual to remember by providing cues such as different roles (Do you have any friends who are managers?) Once the respondent provided a list of names, the respondent could then be asked to indicate the relations between the friends, which of the respondent's friends were friends of each other? from these data, each respondent's position in the egocentric network could be estimated. This approach seems particularly suitable for very large organisations where it is impossible to gain data from all organisational members. Personal records also contain a welth of info concerning whom job applicants know in the organisation. Who is kin with whom, who recommended who for employment, and so on. Records of relationships such as friendship and kinship are collected for a range of different purposes and often form the basis of pioneering work on social networks.


Ref.:
Convergence, İntl Council for Adult Education, Canada, 1994
Social Networkds and Organisations, Sage Publications, 2003
Recent Theories of Human Development, Sage publications, 2001

Learning Challenges

As life expectancy grows we have the advantage to live longer, having more time to explore our multi dimensional capacities and get the sense of different phases of lives, abilities, interests, skills, and suited profession. The number of American 100 years olds reached 80,000 this year and is predicted for up to 500,000 by the year 2040. İn Britain, Queen sent 255 letters to new centenarians in 1952 and 4,623 in 2005. Among other attributes what is shared by all who age older are said to include emotional resilience, good coping skills, intellectual activity, a sense of humor and a zest for life (H.Tribune, 2007).

The attitude of envy toward elderly for being in the way emanates from inability to analyse the important role they play. Older peoples' experience and presence is more likely a safety valve rather than stale capital. Furthermore, constructing a demanding social attitude around older people and motivating them to advance their mental and physical activity not only is effective use of resources but also will create more needs, fill up social gaps and consequently strengthen family and social bonds.

One area that needs exploring is involvement in learning and higher education in later stages of life and profession. This requires organising particular learning activities that is participatory to inform older population of new meanings. The immeasurable and sense of possible realities beyond observation tend to be ruled out of formal education. Patterns of belief about the world and traditional wisdom challenge the frameworks of understanding of further learning, which reveals how much we recognise duty to be critical about the fundamental questions and our deeply held convictions.

A cross cultural analysis of adult education in Britain and US suggest Americans lost their previous interest in adult education due to their consumer oriented approach to education, which project the great American emphasis upon pragmatism and consensus relative to Britain. Britain is regarded as possessing a much greater cultural acceptance of political and philosophical dissent and an awareness of history which is reflected within British adult education curricula and academic debate.

There is inherent incompatibility between a critical thinking mode and the requirements and operations of practical teaching. İnformal practices of older people in further education is taken up and discussed in the context to move away from conventional discipline model which is grounded on the claims to objectivity. Education is concerned mainly with localised practice, involving heterogean situation and contexts which contain value judgement and operational differences while conventional descipline entails a general and universal character (Bright, 1989).

Teaching endeavers should challenge older learners to construct and examine new knowledge , and study their previously accumulated knowledge from different perspective, and to further grow trust and feel confident about learning. Creating learning needs will induce older people to recall their important social roles and encourage further socialisation which in itself creates more needs and growth.

Technology is used as facilitator of learning for older people providing excellent instrument that fits low-action life style of ageing population. The role of technology in learning can be adjusted as a tool to access information, and create an evirnoment of emerging ideas. Technology enables elderly to communicate with less strain caused by movement limitations and in so doing draws outlines and programs that engages older people in producing knowledge more in tune with future.

Limitations on the ability to use technology have impacts on aged learner sense of safety and security. İt is important to address this fear of learning by more patience in a supportive environemnt. While 77 percent of the wealth is held by older population if they are poorly informed and technically educated, they find it hard to see the advantages of new technology and its implications.

They can use the advantages to disguise behind technological devices in order to take more critical stand without risking of being thrown out of the debate by more agressive players. This increase interaction and facilitates their networking expansion.

Reed suggests there are still greater gains in networking through social software due to the effects of interactions with groups and clusters (Reed, 1999). Technology may further encourage communication between and across generations which is informative and much needed for all. Techology nurtures culture and environment of independence, and increase control, through widening of access to resources and domains which is instrumental for running independent life, and to develop contacts and to compensate for emotional drawbacks. One study show that digitally minded student's need 'to control' their online and e-learning environment is directly associated with their high use of technology.

Knowles identified adult learners in a Learning Environement Design Project with ideas, opinions, and beliefs but little or no scientific background with growing interest in science.

Technology makes it possible to design learning environment that can provide space to engage individuals simultanously while allowing them to choose their style of learning and organise their knowledge outcomes (Andone et al. 2007).

As Knowles suggessted adults are self directed learners and as they mature, they take increasing responsibility for their own study, this attitude reflects the growing authonomy and consequently develop their own understanding of knowledge. The interaction between learner, peers and teachers are aligned to social development theory.


Refs.,


Downes, S., 2004, Educational Blogging, Educause Review 39(5)
Johnson, M., Herald Tribune, 17 July, 2007
Knowles, M., 1984, The adult learner: A negotiated species (3rd Ed.), Houston, TX:Gulf publishing
Educational Multi Media, www.aace.org
Scope Research Group, http://scope.educ.washington.edu
www.infed.org/thinkers/et-dewey.htm
Reed, D.P., 1999, Beyond Metcalfe's law to the power of community building, www.reed.com