Socially Studies: Doing School Like Social Networking

Supercool School Principal (as in a founder of the company and school administrator) Bjorn Lasse Herrmann believes: “If people learn enough they can solve any problem.” So he created a way for people to learn very easily and in a socially connected network. Supercool School makes it easy for anyone to start a school; in fact, you can “start a free school in 60 seconds.” The founders of Supercool School realized that people aren’t just looking for good content, but they want a community of people to connect with who are interested in the same topic. Bjorn says, “The social experience of Supercool School creates chemistry and leads to a lot of informal ways of learning."

The platform actually started as a facebook application and now stands on its own, retaining the social networking feel. As one of their first schools, Startup School reached more than 2100 entrepreneurs in 130 countries and attracted over 1400 people to “like” them on facebook. Joseph Nganga, a social entrepreneur from Kenya says “I have learnt a great deal from other entrepreneurs – both experienced and in the start up phase. Startup School has enabled me to network with a variety of professionals who have helped me think through my own business, plan for its needs and better pitch to investors and partners.”

LocaleMotive, another emerging informal education platform with a social component, aims to help students “Study Socially. Check-In Locally.” While it hasn’t launched yet, students can expect a free study tool that will have features of project management software and feel like social gaming. Parents, schools, and teachers can view the progress of one student or an entire classroom.

As someone who resonates with Henry David Thoreau’s statement: “I was not born to be forced; I will breathe after my own fashion,” I appreciate the innovation and informal nature of these startups. They bring more practicality to academia, which appeals to me. Some of us (all, I would argue) were not made to sit in a chair attached to a desk or the grown up version of that with our ankles shackled to cubicles. Socially networked, innovative—maybe even fun, dare I say—education makes sense.

To remain relevant, education has to embrace and integrate social networking and I think its best that those innovations come from the private sector. (As a side note, how in the world did “Government on facebook” get 19,000 people to like it?) I’m curious to see how the formal education sector and accreditation bureaucracy will challenge, embrace, and change these informal education resources. Maybe we can, like Bjorn believes, solve some bureaucratic problems with education—entrepreneur style.

Photo credit: Shaylor