Social Networks, Learning and the ghost of Ivan Illich
July 2, 2008
In Chapter 6 of Deschooling Society, Ivan Illich talks about Learning Webs and Peer-matching (page 93):
The operation of a peer-matching network would be simple. The user would identify himself by name and address and describe the activity for which he sought a peer. A computer would send him back the names and addresses of all those who had inserted the same description. It is amazing that such a simple utility has never been used on a broad scale for publicly valued activity.
It doesn’t sound all that radical in today’s age of social networking, but bearing in mind it was written in 1970 it’s remarkably prescient.
Almost 40 years on, Becta has commissioned a project called Young People and Social Networking Services to
to investigate how social networking services can and are being used to support personalised formal and informal learning by young people in schools and colleges.
Not surprisingly, the project finds that social networks provide lots of benefits and opportunities for formal and informal learning. These include debating, discussion, content creation, exploring and of course, collaboration and peer learning.
So, why aren’t they more widely adpoted? Well, interestingly the report also looks at some of the barriers to adoption and finds that the education system itself is just not geared to the provision of such services – from the lack of training to support teachers in the use of these technologies through to the blocking and filtering procedures in school ICT infrastructure.
Of course, Illich’s primary thesis with Deschooling Society was that a universal education system based on schools was not feasible and ran contrary to his central arguments for disestablishing schools. On the face of it, the findings of this new project indicates that not much has changed in 40 years and that the very ’system’ of schools is still preventing the use of “Learning Webs”.
But the fact that Becta is supporting this project indicates otherwise and that things are changing. Social networking is a reality in the lives of many of us (not just ‘young people’!). Understanding the risks (and there is an excellent section on this also provided by the project) is a key element but today’s students are savvy web users.
Ivan Illich was right: learning webs (=social networks) are a tremendously rewarding and beneficial educational experience. However, they can co-exist alongside ‘traditional schools’. He just didn’t anticipate how pervasive and powerful these technolgies would become.
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ivan illich,
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This entry was posted by martynfarrows on Wednesday, July 2nd, 2008 at 5:11 pm and is
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Sarah Scaife
July 3, 2008
As someone very new to Ivan Illich – I finished reading ‘Deschooling Society’ yesterday – I am also challenged and excited by his vision for a web of learning. A site I work is an emerging example of just the sort of ‘peer matching network’ Illich envisioned. ‘Living Here… West of the Exe’ http://www.livinghere.org.uk is a virtual space for individuals and communities in four neighbourhoods of Exeter. Contributors generate, explore and negotiate a shared sense of neighbourhood identity in partnership with the Royal Albert Memorial Museum.
Illich talks about an individual posing a question in order to gather a small group who would like to share a journey of enquiry into that topic, however obscure. (I don’t have the book in front of me, so cannot give a page reference). Living Here is a site for community sharing, discovery and queries. This is underpinned by more in-depth research if you choose to look for it. The sum of the contributions poses questions about local identity and how individuals fit in west of the Exe and in the wider world.
Of particular relevance is the way the site wraps an almost invisible support structure around a contributor – basic editor, ‘amateur’ subject experts and ‘professional’ curators. Rob Day says “In our un-deschooled society we even lack the terminology to describe this network stuff without bringing in implicit value judgements!!!”
We hope that the structure of the site will encourage visitors to make journeys through the content, but try to keep a light touch in signposting. The graphic designer John Maeda (John Maeda 2007 ‘The Laws of Simplicity.’ Massachusetts, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press) talks about the pleasure of being “comfortably lost”. People need some sense of having explored by themselves in order to experience the joy of unexpected discovery. Imagine a day out on Dartmoor. If detailed signage was attached to every gate or rock the experience would be somehow spoiled.
Illich imagined the role of inspiring individuals who might replace the professional teachers of the 1970s and become something like mentors (he uses a different phrase which I don’t have to hand, more like ‘learning journeymen’?) and suggests that many people might move in and out of this mentor role at different times and in different encounters and relationships. Key to our philosophy is that museum staff, including curators, engage in the flow of content and ideas as equals and peers, sometimes inspiring the learning, sometimes (mostly) learning from the community.
In this the site is reminiscent of another educational experiment, The Dartington Project here in Devon. As with that project we might say of the site that “The originality of the places rested in its combination and recombination of ideas generated from many sources” (Michael Young 1996 The Elmhirst of Dartington. Dartington Hall trust p.99) Like the school established at Dartington there are no clear divisions between teachers and pupils, and the ‘curriculum’ flows from the communities own interests (Young 1996, p.136 –137).
This may all sound a little academic but I hope if you look at the site you’ll agree it’s quite a warm and friendly place, rather like the neighbourhoods in which it is rooted.
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andy sawyer
July 4, 2008
I enjoyed the ’see West of the Exe with new eyes’ fly rounds! I think museums are good at helping us see communities with ‘new eyes’, which can be a good thing.
Linking social networking with communities sounds as though it should be a powerful combination, does anyone else have good examples where this has happened?
However its packaged, social networking looks like it has the legs to be relevant for the longer term. Thanks for flagging up the BECTA report, it looks very useful. ENISA (the spookily named European Network and Information Security Agency) has a report – http://www.enisa.europa.eu/doc/pdf/deliverables/enisa_pp_social_networks.pdf – that looks at the risks of social networking sites in some depth, which might make a useful read for any institution wishing to engage seriously with social networking safely and positively.
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