Social Media and Adult Education

While reading this article  by Kietzmann et al. (2011), I realized the extent to which their final words apply to students in adult education programs. They point out that customers are practically tired of being talked at and instead they want companies to listen to them. Adult students are customers within the framework of community schools and they are waiting to get engaged in conversation with each other and their school.  If such conversations never take place, it is likely because of the organization's lack of understanding of how social media platforms operate. To solve this problem, the authors of the article offer advice in the form of the four Cs: cognize, congruity, curate, and chase. According to the authors, every social media platform consists of seven components: identity, conversations, sharing, presence, relationships, reputation and groups. They function in a unique combination based on the nature of each platform. For example, LinkedIn might rely heavily on...

In the world of Adult Education, time flies faster than anywhere else. Some students leave after a semester, others - after they find their first job. Those with long-term goals stay longer or return to replace a job with a career. That is what I assist them with.  After a few years of teaching English for Speaker of Other Languages (ESOL), I accepted the offer to teach an IET (Integrated Education and Training) Introduction to Healthcare class. I chose to teach it because it gives me a unique opportunity to support a rapid development of students' language skills through building their content knowledge. It is genuinely exciting to see it happen.  One of the most attractive parts of the offer was that I was given a free hand in the development of the syllabus. As you can imagine, now, after the first semester, I have lots of new ideas on how to improve the class. Not in the least, that inspiration comes from my first cohort of students.  Before the last class, one of my ...