Hello, welcome to my blog! This is my first time posting writing online. I am very excited about it. Today I’d like to talk something about networked learning and how it helps young scholars to develop their early career.
The theory of networked learning was created back in 1970s by Ivan Illich. Since the last decade, the development of internet makes it way easier for people to connect with another around the world. It also makes the access to learning materials easier. The networked learning itself is evolving rapidly. But one thing does not change is the core of networked learning—connection.
Because of the idea of connection, networked learning is a great way for young scholars to develop their early career. For young scholars, increasing exposure of their work to both public audience and peers in their field is the key to a successful career. Because everyone is involved in networked learning to some degrees nowadays, sharing research ideas and posting work on platforms (blogs, Twitter and Linkedin) is a smart move to “advertise” yourself. In the old time, participating conferences is the main and most effective way to reach out with other researchers in the field. But because social media is almost real-time, zero cost and covering a really wide range of audiences, it is gradually replacing conferences and becomes people’s first choice.
In my field, people post their new publications, share pictures of the presentation and discuss potential collaboration on Twitter a lot. There are senior professors who are already the big names in the field as well as young scholars who just started their career. Everyone looks so passionate to research and is very willing to share ideas with others. As a PhD student, I think it is the time to build connections with people in the field. Maybe one day I will get a postdoc offer or get funded for a project just because I post my idea or make a comment today. Who knows!
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Thank you so much for your post! It is really interesting to think of blogs/twitter/LinkedIn and other platforms as a way to advertise yourself. And it can definitely be a great way to connect with others in your field and share ideas. It is great to hear that so many in your field are actively sharing ideas and pictures and papers.
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Awesome, Kaisen. Can’t agree more on this. Social media like Twitter is a common playground of many scholars. I myself follow a lot of scholars of my field on Twitter. This is nice that we can have an idea of the person by following him on social media – what kind of research he is doing, whats his next goal, what he is thinking of an existing problem…so on
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Great post! I do agree with you that early and relatively young scholars do have the option to advertise their work online. More importantly, they do not have to pay fees and overall costs of attending conferences to further themselves and their career. I feel as if conferences and other events that require some form of subscription was another barrier to an academic career. Hopefully, this will help either alleviate or remove this barrier.
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