Everyone needs different people in their lives and wants to belong somewhere. You build your community - or communities - as you make your way through life. And you do it by making things together with others: fashion, tools, shelters and… well… life! It is really helpful when you have different tribes for different purposes. You can have a tribe of family and friends, colleagues who are working in the same way as you do-tribe, colleagues who have the same interest- tribe, hobby-tribe, etc.. These tribes can be on a scale from very steady to temporary tribes.
After finishing this activity you
- Took part in a pop-up community
- You understand future by design
- You understand the importance of learning tribes
- You understand when to lead others by following
Pop-up community
What is a pop-up community? Fortunately, that is easy to explain. It is a group of people that is consciously temporary and established to achieve a certain goal together. For example, the Kidney Foundation has set up a pop-up community to investigate why some donors and volunteers do or don't use Facebook. This gave them insight and suggestions to improve the Facebook page of the Kidney Foundation and thus to get in touch with their target group. Several Cities of Learning started the project Youth co-design Cities of Learning: learning, civic and career pathways to involve young people in designing their Cities of Learning and create policy recommendations to get a better connection with the needs of young people in their communities.
How would you like to be invited to participate in a pop-up community and help the organisers improve their product? What are do's and don'ts?
Future by design
In 2030 you will probably be expected to be able to use technology for many things you do. How great would it be when you can have influence and create social impact. What if we take this opportunity of rapid change and create an alternative vision of the future? How to apply what we already know to achieve a sustainable new world civilisation? What if we agree that war, poverty, hunger, debt, inequalities, exclusive societies, global warming and other sufferings will be unacceptable? How would you use technology and Future by design?
(from minute 9 the talk starts, and from minute 23 non-formal project with youth starts).
People learning
Learning is important for every living creature – we can all agree with that. There is evidence that babies start to learn even before they are born. Going into great detail about “what” learning is and how it happens has many scientists in disputes for decades. In their book on “Learning to learn”, P. Kloosterman and M. E. Taylor agrees that “learning is not just one thing, but it can be looked at in many different ways”.
Awareness that technology will be used more and more opens up possibilities that we can do more and more. While also realising that not every person has by nature the skills and interest to learn how to use technology. That is why it is important to understand how people learn. It will support creating the impact that you want to create via Future by design.
Building your learning tribe and the learning environment that the community needs should remain flexible. Each person is learning in their own way. Most people benefit from a range of learning methods and teaching techniques. How can each member of your learning tribe benefit most?
When discovering how people learn, we must take into consideration the many factors that play a role in one’s learning process. When discovering those factors we can explore:
- What were the educational principles and foundations we “grew up with”?
- Where did we learn (educational structures, institutions) and what were relations with people we encountered there?
- What was the context and the content of our learning experiences?
- What kind of methodologies did our educators use?
- And what was the overall nature of our main learning environments?
All these questions help us realise what kind of learners we are, how do we learn best and if we have any certain style of learning. But also, they help us to understand that the what, when, where and how of learning needs to be tailored to meet each learner's strengths, skills, needs, and interests. Creating micro-learning via the Cities of Learning platforms is a way to connect with the skills, needs and interests of your tribe. You can follow the process of learners and let them build their own e-portfolio.
Explore your own learning and learning of others and get the “know how” on how to connect with others in pop up (and other) communities. If you wish to continue with exploration of the skill of Managing Learning use the “Vision my learning” activity to plan, organise, monitor and review your own and other people’s learning.
Best leaders are also the best followers
We all collect followers on social media, but we rarely see ourselves in that category. In her TED talk Dr. J. Bentley says it might be because we associate following with being passive - for example “follow the herd” or “I am just following orders”. But in reality it is how we all start. First by following our parents, teachers, friends and in the end … following our dreams. J. Bentley shared an example of orchestra musicians who follow their conductor. But at the moment of musical performance they bring out every cell of their skill, experience and judgement and create something incredible. So it is not a passive process at all. It is a highly skilled process of collaboration and cooperation in doing something that would be impossible on your own. The build your tribe skillzone emphasises the importance of building or finding your own communities to learn and while building relationships that help you make the future you want for yourself.