Educating World Citizens for the 21st Century
Comcast Cares Day Voluntweetup with @ShaunaCausey: Teaching Social Media to Non-Profit Organizations © Photograph by: Brian Westbrook @BMW
I have been inspired to think a great deal about social media and education these past weeks. As many know, I have been a longtime volunteer for Seattle’s Seeds of Compassion, which focuses on programs of early social, emotional, and cognitive learning in children and the research and science behind these programs. My passion for the science of learning emerged while working in Jerome Kagan’s lab in the 1980s. Kagan is a key pioneer of the field of developmental psychology and it was while working with him that I was first introduced to the work of such visionary, affective neuroscience; emotion; and cognitive-learning researchers as Richard J. Davidson, Matthieu Ricard, Daniel Goleman, and Mark Greenberg.
Closer to home, University of Washington Professor Patricia Kuhl has recently published a study showing the effects of social interactive learning and languages on developing brain structures in infants. Some implications of Kuhl’s research on adult learners are that a high degree of knowledge retention is only possible when accompanied with personal interaction or activity, such as those found in social media programs, and that adults must be socially stimulated to learn and retain knowledge. Activities like using social media to interact and learn stimulate new patterns of sequential processing, which build new bridges in the neurosynaptic structures of the brain, perhaps leading to more cognitive flexibility. Kuhl’s research may lend a whole new meaning to the statement “social media for social good”!
University of Washington Department of Communications and Digital Media Professor Kathy E. Gill @kegill
Another extraordinary, innovative University of Washington educator is Kathy E Gill (@kegill), a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Communications and Digital Media. Gill is among the first wave of educators critically thinking about and developing a social media curriculum for higher education. She is currently working with her students on writing a “Best Practices” book on Twitter called the @UWTwtrBook. In addition to her MCDM program and teaching responsibilities, Gill is actively working with Social Media Club Founder, Chris Heuer (@ChrisHeuer) on developing a social media education effort to create and standardize a social media curriculum for university-level classrooms.
At Social Media Club Seattle, board members Shauna Causey (@ShaunaCausey) and Maya Bisneer (@ThinkMaya) have been leading the way for social media education in the Puget Sound region. In April, Causey launched an education program for training non-profit organizations (NPOs) to develop and deploy social media programs with an emphasis on “best practices” under the auspicies of Comcast Cares Day. A second Comcast Cares Voluntweetup training for NPOs will kick off this year’s upcoming Gnomedex 9.0 Conference, which will be held on August 20 from 1:00 P.M. to 5:00 P.M. at the Bell Harbor Conference Center in Seattle.
Memetales Founder, Maya Bisneer, intends to develop individualized educational programs for the SMC Seattle group. Programs will be specifically targeted toward business, non-profit, and educational sectors that are requesting training, community outreach, or assistance from the SMC Seattle organization. In keeping with the Seattle social media community’s “Summer of Love and Social Good” theme, SMC Seattle will launch its education program on August 10, 2009, focusing on social media for social good and showcasing Commerce-Cojoining-Compassion initiatives (#3Cs), NPO foundations, and businesses that actively incorporate new media, Web 2.0, and social media channels into their organizations and that are bridging commerce and compassionate-action communities (See Social Media Club Seattle for speakers and event details).
Other noteworthy education-outreach initiatives currently underway and moving into social media include the Voices Education Project, which focuses on helping people understand the roots of war and violence by “hearing the voices of witnesses” and helping communities take compassionate action. And finally, the upcoming Mind & Life XIX: Educating World Citizens for the 21st Century education conference, which is co-sponsored by our local Seeds of Compassion, will be held on October 8-9 at DAR Constitutional Hall in Washington, D.C. The focus of Mind & Life XIX will be to educate people to be compassionate, competent, ethical, and engaged citizens in an increasingly complex and interconnected world. Along with Seeds of Compassion, the conference is also co-sponsored by Harvard Graduate and Stanford Schools of Education and features leading 21st-century educators, humanitarians, and human-development researchers.
Although we are living in rapidly changing, and for many, stressful and economically challenging times, I am struck by the depth and scope of innovative thinking, compassion, and heart generated by our region’s educators and social media community members. Our region’s impact and influence is global. We influence the hallowed halls of Constitutional Hall, Harvard, and Stanford. We ourselves are thought leaders and catalysts for inspiring change. We can and will assume the mantle of social responsibility to lead this new, 21st-century, social media technology wave. For it is not for our lives that depend upon our social media community’s leadership, it is for our children’s.
Seattle, Washington, Iran Election Demonstration 2009
See you at Gnomedex 9.0!
~ Jeris JC Miller @dakini_3
