Learning how to collaborate and work in groups coexists with learning how to participate in social writing practices with and through social media. Young people are entering higher education with high levels of personal digital experience. Their experience of collaborative learning with and through social media such as Wikis is limited. A wiki way of learning can significantly contribute to developing digital social team working skills.
Historically, researchers have concluded that females self-report significantly lower levels of familiarity and use of web-based technologies than male users. This is not the case with social media. Female users of social media actually participate more and achieve higher domain knowledge than male users. This debunks the dominant deficit discourse around women, expertise, and technology.
Learning experiences in higher education are highly scheduled and planned to the point that we design social and accidental learning moments out of them. In comparing what is experienced in creative industry workshops and retreats to what is expected in the formal learning experiences, we explore what would truly happen if we tore up the syllabus? And why professors resist the social and emergent models of learning design? Models that foster individuality, creativity and an inner sense of identity.