hello imagine a world where we could all
learn from the wisdom of others
what could we achieve over the last
decade I’ve been fascinated by social
media and its ability to connect us with
others across the globe and to help
lifelong learning provide connections to
lifelong learning does anybody recognize
the symbol can anybody say what it is
this is the University of Bolton’s motto
wisdom overcomes difficulty the
University Dictionary expression of
wisdom is the ability to think and act
with knowledge experience understanding
common sense and insight someone with
wisdom said no man was wise ever by
chance and this is something that we
need to consider but to start with a
question for you all what is your reason
for being what is your purpose what is
it that you want to achieve in your
lives and what people will you go to for
the wisdom to help you get to where you
want to go learning is messy
it’s complicated it’s twisted at needs
supporting and through the process of
learning we can procrastinate in fact
when I was preparing this talk I
procrastinated looking at this
particular picture fascinated by
actually how rope is being made but when
we think about learning sometimes I’ve
spoken to students and said what will
you do when you leave University are you
going to stay on you know you’re going
to have further study and one of my
students recently said no no you know
I’ve been chained to this university for
such a long time
I just want to get out into the world of
work but what they don’t realize is that
we have steep learning curves throughout
our lives lifelong learning is an
important part of everything that we do
we never stop learning and what we need
to do is to try and evoke that passion
for learning so people enjoy it it’s not
just something that we do to meet the
assessment criteria to get to that next
stage to actually enjoy learning some of
the barriers to lifelong learning or any
type of learning whether that’s formal
learning throughout your time at
University or whether that’s informal
learning that you want to learn a new
instruments or to Rider by to try a new
sport it’s confidence the second thing
is time people often say to me or others
I don’t have time to learn something new
when I talk about social media
I’ve got time to learn these things or
look at it and the other is motivation
so what motivates us to learn sometimes
we put these invisible barriers in front
of ourselves so thinking about those
those three things my mom always used to
say to being quoting from a poem I think
from her childhood if you can’t go over
something or over something find a way
round and there is always a way round
there is always a way that we can
improve what we know and this is all
part of lifelong learning something
that’s made a big difference to my life
in recent years and a neighbor I would
say of my own lifelong learning is the
mobile phone it’s given me access to
lots of information one of the things
that’s helped that of course is the fact
that we now have moved on to smartphones
we carry this mini computer with us day
in and day out so having access to Wi-Fi
change things dramatically a lot of our
universities now have Wi-Fi is something
that we take for granted the second
thing is the third thing sure to say is
is battery
something that frustrates us you know
that moment whether red battery sign
comes up on your phone and we all panic
and think we need to connect we need to
get that and that’s something that a
technology needs to advance so that
batteries last longer but also within
our universities the students are using
their mobile devices for learning as
tutors are using it to access
information we need to make sure that
we’ve got the infrastructure so that our
power sockets in the classroom so it’s
fine for students to be in there and to
charge up their appliances and use the
appliances that they’ve got for their
learning but of course access to the
Internet has to come with a bit of a
health warning we’re in a situation
where we’re in a danger of suffering
from information overload or as Clay
Shirky says filter failure so one of the
things that we need to help each other
is to find out how we get the right
information how can we critically
analyze the stuff that we’re actually
looking at there’s so much there and one
of the things I feel really passionate
about is developing a network of
co-learners not just the people in your
own peer group not even just in your own
class or your own university but people
across the world because they can then
filter information for you not everybody
goes to university from school at the
age of 18 I didn’t go to university at
the age of 18 I should have gone to
university I went to college and I had a
place at Teachers Training College I
always wanted to teach by panik’s
the roadblock the obstacle for me was at
the time teachers were coming out
qualified and the weren’t enough jobs so
I chose to apply for a job in a bank I
got my first interview I got a job and I
spent the next 11 years there I went to
have two children and the nearest I got
to teaching in that particular time was
resurrecting
the place school the local play school
that was going to close down so I
rallied around some friends and we did
some fundraising and we got all new toys
and I had the opportunity to be the
nearest thing I could get to teaching at
that time and loved every minute of it I
then worked part time my marriage broke
up so I had to work full-time and it
wasn’t until 2004 when my life changed
completely in lots of different ways I
got remarried which was a really
positive happy time but my father died
of cancer
I was then made redundant from the job
that I’d got so I applied for a temp job
at Sheffield Hallam University I also
started my first degree at the
University of Sheffield their Institute
of lifelong learning which gives
opportunities for mature learners to do
a degree in the evenings just a couple
of hours a week it takes longer but it
was an opportunity and that changed my
life and I’ve been since gone on to
taking two masters degrees at Sheffield
Hallam and a postgraduate certificate
and learning and teaching I’m now a
senior fellow of the higher education
Academy and I teach in the Department of
computing and I love my job and I’m
passionate about Evoque the things that
I’ve felt they have motivated me to
learn and to continue to learn so I’m
going to tell you about six things six
words six things that make have made a
difference to me and my approach to
lifelong learning
number one is self belief you have to
believe you can do some things sometimes
that’s hard as an individual so look to
others that can be your mentors and help
you and support you and encourage you
and that can make all the difference
people at Sheffield Hallam believed in
me and I’ve had the opportunities and
I’ve grabbed those opportunities
looked for more number two curiosity
always be curious I was always in my
classes the one that put my hand up and
ask the questions and afterwards people
would say thank goodness you asked that
question because you know I really
wanted to know the answer to that don’t
be scared to ask questions serendipity
this is something where you find out
things by chance my passion with social
media I use my journey time to work each
day looking at social media I look at
what people are tweeting I always say
Twitter’s only as good as the people
that you follow but I learned something
absolutely every day that’s tearing
dippity I never know what I’m going to
come across it’s the creative
exploitation of the unforseen using
words from Danai is serendipity positive
silence engagements this is something
that I’ve put together in place of the
awful word lurking people talk about
lurking on social media
I don’t tweet anything I don’t post
anything but you know I’m I’m listening
this thing’s wonderful we all learn as
children through listening through our
parents through our friends and social
media allows you to do that so you can
observe what everybody else is saying
build your confidence and then start to
contribute to those conversations
yourself resilience learning is hard I’m
not going to pretend it’s not hard and
you have to work at it maybe you think
back to when you learnt to ride a bike
or maybe you learnt to write a play an
instrument you have to practice and you
have setbacks and you think sometimes
I’m never going to get this I’m never
going to be able to understand but you
just got to persevere and ask for help
and the final one is purpose thinking
about what it is what is your purpose
for being what is it that you actually
want to achieve and if you can find that
goal then you know what you’ve got to do
to work towards it so what if there was
a way to use social media and
connectedness to expand our lifelong
learning so a few years ago a friend of
mine Kristina ANSI we had this shared
idea and one of the things that we came
up with was a to develop her an online
course called bring your own devices for
learning which was a way to use your
mobile devices to enhance learning and
teaching and we came up with something
called the 5 C framework so this uses 5
C’s connects communicates curates
collaborates and creates and that’s what
I want to share with you next so number
one is Connect make connections with as
many people as possible through social
media I’ve used LinkedIn and Twitter
predominantly to connect with people
that I know everybody in this room today
make sure that you connects with each
other because then you can have those
conversations afterwards it gives you a
virtual door knock on a door to
anybody’s office in the world and people
can be there to help you number two is
communicate social media has grown
exponentially you know sometimes when
you think of social media we think about
Facebook and you know we’re just talking
about what we have for breakfast what we
did at the pub and you know all these
kind of social things sharing a holiday
photographs which is absolutely
fantastic and can be enjoyable it can be
amusing and all the rest of it but this
image here the conversation prism
created by Brian solace demonstrates the
whole vast
of the social media channels are now
available it doesn’t matter whether
you’re a runner or a knitter there’s a
social networking group that you can
join and learn from others curates one
of the things that I spoke about was the
fact that there is so much information
so why don’t we help each other when
we’re researching something why don’t we
curate that information and share that
out and today again social media
provides a whole host of different tools
from blogging tools we can gather
information and blog a post outs that
you can then share with others that they
can learn from what you’ve learned
it could be social bookmarking we
collect lists of references it could be
a YouTube list or a collection of videos
that you’ve put together and saved and
lots of other tools collaborates one of
the most important things working with
others we can do so much more when we
work together rather than just alone and
learning together :
collaboratively building things and
that’s why in university group work
teamwork is so important because that’s
what we need to do in life and when you
go on to get a job
another project Chrissy and myself put
together was something called lthe chats
and this is a weekly chats that’s now
been going for three years so every
Wednesday evening educators from across
the globe government in the UK but
Europe sometimes from America Australia
we have a weekly topic six questions and
for an hour people tweet now those of
you that don’t use Twitter might think
that sounds crazy but over that hour
there are between four and seven hundred
tweets people sharing links to useful
information we have guests each week so
there’s a different theme we’re looking
for students to be part of that so if
anybody wants to lead a chat just
contact me
the other thing with collaboration is
that it’s a community project the LTH
gchat and this was something that
somebody tweeted after hallenby ‘then
led a chance on digital capabilities so
here e works this matrix here and at the
top is digital wellbeing so when i
talked about about that information
overload and critical thinking that’s
really key we need that’s in the
forefront of our minds and at the bottom
is Wi-Fi which obviously it’s crucial to
online learning so this idea of
collaboration takes us way beyond what
we’re learning every day and throughout
our life it’s part of equipping yourself
for effectiveness problem-solving
innovation and lifelong learning in an
ever-changing networked society and
finally creates create things and share
them so whether that is a blog or how-to
guides
make sure that you can do that in some
shape or form because it makes such a
difference to everybody else’s learning
open learning is what we need to work
towards be proud of what you know and
share that with others and do things
differently
take a chance be creative
we don’t know creativity sometimes that
we have so try to do things differently
been innovative and and and different
and above all find your reason for being
in japan is known as a key guy this
reason for being wisdom overcomes
difficulty your motto and
interconnectedness and lifelong learning
can open endless opportunities to share
such wisdom may you find your purpose
and ultimately your a key guy thank you
[Applause]
learn from the wisdom of others
what could we achieve over the last
decade I’ve been fascinated by social
media and its ability to connect us with
others across the globe and to help
lifelong learning provide connections to
lifelong learning does anybody recognize
the symbol can anybody say what it is
this is the University of Bolton’s motto
wisdom overcomes difficulty the
University Dictionary expression of
wisdom is the ability to think and act
with knowledge experience understanding
common sense and insight someone with
wisdom said no man was wise ever by
chance and this is something that we
need to consider but to start with a
question for you all what is your reason
for being what is your purpose what is
it that you want to achieve in your
lives and what people will you go to for
the wisdom to help you get to where you
want to go learning is messy
it’s complicated it’s twisted at needs
supporting and through the process of
learning we can procrastinate in fact
when I was preparing this talk I
procrastinated looking at this
particular picture fascinated by
actually how rope is being made but when
we think about learning sometimes I’ve
spoken to students and said what will
you do when you leave University are you
going to stay on you know you’re going
to have further study and one of my
students recently said no no you know
I’ve been chained to this university for
such a long time
I just want to get out into the world of
work but what they don’t realize is that
we have steep learning curves throughout
our lives lifelong learning is an
important part of everything that we do
we never stop learning and what we need
to do is to try and evoke that passion
for learning so people enjoy it it’s not
just something that we do to meet the
assessment criteria to get to that next
stage to actually enjoy learning some of
the barriers to lifelong learning or any
type of learning whether that’s formal
learning throughout your time at
University or whether that’s informal
learning that you want to learn a new
instruments or to Rider by to try a new
sport it’s confidence the second thing
is time people often say to me or others
I don’t have time to learn something new
when I talk about social media
I’ve got time to learn these things or
look at it and the other is motivation
so what motivates us to learn sometimes
we put these invisible barriers in front
of ourselves so thinking about those
those three things my mom always used to
say to being quoting from a poem I think
from her childhood if you can’t go over
something or over something find a way
round and there is always a way round
there is always a way that we can
improve what we know and this is all
part of lifelong learning something
that’s made a big difference to my life
in recent years and a neighbor I would
say of my own lifelong learning is the
mobile phone it’s given me access to
lots of information one of the things
that’s helped that of course is the fact
that we now have moved on to smartphones
we carry this mini computer with us day
in and day out so having access to Wi-Fi
change things dramatically a lot of our
universities now have Wi-Fi is something
that we take for granted the second
thing is the third thing sure to say is
is battery
something that frustrates us you know
that moment whether red battery sign
comes up on your phone and we all panic
and think we need to connect we need to
get that and that’s something that a
technology needs to advance so that
batteries last longer but also within
our universities the students are using
their mobile devices for learning as
tutors are using it to access
information we need to make sure that
we’ve got the infrastructure so that our
power sockets in the classroom so it’s
fine for students to be in there and to
charge up their appliances and use the
appliances that they’ve got for their
learning but of course access to the
Internet has to come with a bit of a
health warning we’re in a situation
where we’re in a danger of suffering
from information overload or as Clay
Shirky says filter failure so one of the
things that we need to help each other
is to find out how we get the right
information how can we critically
analyze the stuff that we’re actually
looking at there’s so much there and one
of the things I feel really passionate
about is developing a network of
co-learners not just the people in your
own peer group not even just in your own
class or your own university but people
across the world because they can then
filter information for you not everybody
goes to university from school at the
age of 18 I didn’t go to university at
the age of 18 I should have gone to
university I went to college and I had a
place at Teachers Training College I
always wanted to teach by panik’s
the roadblock the obstacle for me was at
the time teachers were coming out
qualified and the weren’t enough jobs so
I chose to apply for a job in a bank I
got my first interview I got a job and I
spent the next 11 years there I went to
have two children and the nearest I got
to teaching in that particular time was
resurrecting
the place school the local play school
that was going to close down so I
rallied around some friends and we did
some fundraising and we got all new toys
and I had the opportunity to be the
nearest thing I could get to teaching at
that time and loved every minute of it I
then worked part time my marriage broke
up so I had to work full-time and it
wasn’t until 2004 when my life changed
completely in lots of different ways I
got remarried which was a really
positive happy time but my father died
of cancer
I was then made redundant from the job
that I’d got so I applied for a temp job
at Sheffield Hallam University I also
started my first degree at the
University of Sheffield their Institute
of lifelong learning which gives
opportunities for mature learners to do
a degree in the evenings just a couple
of hours a week it takes longer but it
was an opportunity and that changed my
life and I’ve been since gone on to
taking two masters degrees at Sheffield
Hallam and a postgraduate certificate
and learning and teaching I’m now a
senior fellow of the higher education
Academy and I teach in the Department of
computing and I love my job and I’m
passionate about Evoque the things that
I’ve felt they have motivated me to
learn and to continue to learn so I’m
going to tell you about six things six
words six things that make have made a
difference to me and my approach to
lifelong learning
number one is self belief you have to
believe you can do some things sometimes
that’s hard as an individual so look to
others that can be your mentors and help
you and support you and encourage you
and that can make all the difference
people at Sheffield Hallam believed in
me and I’ve had the opportunities and
I’ve grabbed those opportunities
looked for more number two curiosity
always be curious I was always in my
classes the one that put my hand up and
ask the questions and afterwards people
would say thank goodness you asked that
question because you know I really
wanted to know the answer to that don’t
be scared to ask questions serendipity
this is something where you find out
things by chance my passion with social
media I use my journey time to work each
day looking at social media I look at
what people are tweeting I always say
Twitter’s only as good as the people
that you follow but I learned something
absolutely every day that’s tearing
dippity I never know what I’m going to
come across it’s the creative
exploitation of the unforseen using
words from Danai is serendipity positive
silence engagements this is something
that I’ve put together in place of the
awful word lurking people talk about
lurking on social media
I don’t tweet anything I don’t post
anything but you know I’m I’m listening
this thing’s wonderful we all learn as
children through listening through our
parents through our friends and social
media allows you to do that so you can
observe what everybody else is saying
build your confidence and then start to
contribute to those conversations
yourself resilience learning is hard I’m
not going to pretend it’s not hard and
you have to work at it maybe you think
back to when you learnt to ride a bike
or maybe you learnt to write a play an
instrument you have to practice and you
have setbacks and you think sometimes
I’m never going to get this I’m never
going to be able to understand but you
just got to persevere and ask for help
and the final one is purpose thinking
about what it is what is your purpose
for being what is it that you actually
want to achieve and if you can find that
goal then you know what you’ve got to do
to work towards it so what if there was
a way to use social media and
connectedness to expand our lifelong
learning so a few years ago a friend of
mine Kristina ANSI we had this shared
idea and one of the things that we came
up with was a to develop her an online
course called bring your own devices for
learning which was a way to use your
mobile devices to enhance learning and
teaching and we came up with something
called the 5 C framework so this uses 5
C’s connects communicates curates
collaborates and creates and that’s what
I want to share with you next so number
one is Connect make connections with as
many people as possible through social
media I’ve used LinkedIn and Twitter
predominantly to connect with people
that I know everybody in this room today
make sure that you connects with each
other because then you can have those
conversations afterwards it gives you a
virtual door knock on a door to
anybody’s office in the world and people
can be there to help you number two is
communicate social media has grown
exponentially you know sometimes when
you think of social media we think about
Facebook and you know we’re just talking
about what we have for breakfast what we
did at the pub and you know all these
kind of social things sharing a holiday
photographs which is absolutely
fantastic and can be enjoyable it can be
amusing and all the rest of it but this
image here the conversation prism
created by Brian solace demonstrates the
whole vast
of the social media channels are now
available it doesn’t matter whether
you’re a runner or a knitter there’s a
social networking group that you can
join and learn from others curates one
of the things that I spoke about was the
fact that there is so much information
so why don’t we help each other when
we’re researching something why don’t we
curate that information and share that
out and today again social media
provides a whole host of different tools
from blogging tools we can gather
information and blog a post outs that
you can then share with others that they
can learn from what you’ve learned
it could be social bookmarking we
collect lists of references it could be
a YouTube list or a collection of videos
that you’ve put together and saved and
lots of other tools collaborates one of
the most important things working with
others we can do so much more when we
work together rather than just alone and
learning together :
collaboratively building things and
that’s why in university group work
teamwork is so important because that’s
what we need to do in life and when you
go on to get a job
another project Chrissy and myself put
together was something called lthe chats
and this is a weekly chats that’s now
been going for three years so every
Wednesday evening educators from across
the globe government in the UK but
Europe sometimes from America Australia
we have a weekly topic six questions and
for an hour people tweet now those of
you that don’t use Twitter might think
that sounds crazy but over that hour
there are between four and seven hundred
tweets people sharing links to useful
information we have guests each week so
there’s a different theme we’re looking
for students to be part of that so if
anybody wants to lead a chat just
contact me
the other thing with collaboration is
that it’s a community project the LTH
gchat and this was something that
somebody tweeted after hallenby ‘then
led a chance on digital capabilities so
here e works this matrix here and at the
top is digital wellbeing so when i
talked about about that information
overload and critical thinking that’s
really key we need that’s in the
forefront of our minds and at the bottom
is Wi-Fi which obviously it’s crucial to
online learning so this idea of
collaboration takes us way beyond what
we’re learning every day and throughout
our life it’s part of equipping yourself
for effectiveness problem-solving
innovation and lifelong learning in an
ever-changing networked society and
finally creates create things and share
them so whether that is a blog or how-to
guides
make sure that you can do that in some
shape or form because it makes such a
difference to everybody else’s learning
open learning is what we need to work
towards be proud of what you know and
share that with others and do things
differently
take a chance be creative
we don’t know creativity sometimes that
we have so try to do things differently
been innovative and and and different
and above all find your reason for being
in japan is known as a key guy this
reason for being wisdom overcomes
difficulty your motto and
interconnectedness and lifelong learning
can open endless opportunities to share
such wisdom may you find your purpose
and ultimately your a key guy thank you
[Applause]
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