A New Culture of Learning-Reflection

A New Culture of Learning written by Douglas Thomas and John Seely Brown highlights how learning is shifting due to the rapid changes of technology. Technology tools are now shaping this new culture of learning. Learning needs to be viewed in terms of some one's environment combined with digital resources.There are three principles in the new culture of learning. The first one is that old ways of learning can not keep up with the technology changes. Second is that peer to peer learning is now driving the new culture of learning and is focused on interaction and participation. The last principle is the collective nature of this participation that has been evolving.  A new culture of learning puts emphasis giving students the opportunity to explore passions while having boundaries.
Some of my "take aways"from the book start with the notion that we don't have a choice but to change our view of education due to the rapid changes in technology. We have to embrace it.

In addition, the book discussed tacit knowledge as gaining knowledge through personal experience and experimentation. The concept of learning this way is not knew.In fact, it's been known that adding a personal element to learning is always beneficial.  However, understanding that technology allows students to learn in this way every time that are interacting with technology is really profound. The last major "take away" is that there is a process to learning through technology just like there is a process to learning through other means. The concepts of hanging out, messing around, and geeking out really helped me understand that students will be engaging in different ways with technology just as they do with other methods of learning.

I felt that the book was integrating ideas of different resources that we have been learning about throughout our course. Lucy Gray's webinar had an element of urgency for educators to embrace the fast pace changes of technology and to nurture those that were on board in order to foster the change. This ties into the book's idea that we must embrace the change because we don't have a choice. Another connection is the peer to peer learning concept. Carly Shuler discusses the importance of collaboration and interaction with mobile learning in the Pockets of Potential Report which is essentially peer to peer learning through mobile devices.  Lastly, in a very broad sense, the book, The New Culture of Learning, is a good argument in favor of a redefinition of learning due to technology. There were times during my exploration of this argument, that the elements of this book would come to mind.

If asked if I would recommend this book, I would if the reader needed to understand the concept of  how technology is changing learning. Not so sure it would be on my list for pleasure reading. HA!  Because I am an auditory learner, the book alone wasn't as helpful as using all of our other resources collectively. However, as I reflected on the book, I did feel it was beneficial to my understanding of what learning with technology looks like and it created a deeper understanding for me about engagement with our changing technological world.