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Filed under: informal learning

Informal Learning and Wikipedia

Jimmy Wales talks about how Wikipedia is used for informal learning. For many people it's the first port of call on the web if they want to know something. I may be a bit of a geek, but I have often been watching something on the TV then gone on to look on Wikipedia to find out more about it, often going on tangents and finding out about things I'd never heard of before, from the Wilhelm Scream to the Mandelbrot set.

There are still doubts about the veracity and the validity of Wikipedia however and most universities would often rightly question the use of Wikipedia as a secondary source for students. 

Nevertheless, the more it gets used, the better it becomes and the more refined the peer review gets. There may be a time when Wikipedia becomes the main portal for all knowledge.

Language learning and informal learning

The concept of informal learning has been around since antiquity. In its modern context, it is rooted in post-war development where there have been two main movements. The first movement aimed to empower underprivileged learners in developing countries and was primarily political. The second was borne out of work-based learning such as internships or voluntary work.

Informalapproach_cartoon

In recent years there has been a tendency to formalise the informal through externally prescribing objectives and testing, while, paradoxically, there have been moves towards informalising the formal through the adoption of less structured approaches to teaching. This is particularly true in the language classroom; the number of people taking formal language exams such as IELTS has risen at the same time as a rise in the adoption of more informal approaches to teaching.

In one study, Stephen Krashen (1976) argued that formal and informal environments both contributed to different aspects of second language competence: formal environments help learners with language learning (the grammatical and phonological rules) while informal environments contribute to language acquisition, the subconscious process similar to the way children learn their first language. Krashen argues that active involvement in an environment where language occurs regularly (what he calls an intake intensive environment) is necessary for language acquisition. 

With the development of web 2.0 applications, it is now much easier to create an "intake intensive" environment away from the classroom. Students have access to real-time updates (Twitter), they can share links, photos, music etc.These applications were not intended for educational purposes, though there is clearly value in them for education. However, the educational nature of these applications do not necessarily correspond to the learning objectives of educators. Moreover, students do not necessarily want to use web applications in an educational setting and there are concerns about e-safety and the variable quality of learning that users experience. Despite the immediate appeal of web 2.0 applications, there is a need to explore the opportunities available.