#WorkingOutLoud on the Social Learning Designer as Architect

I’m half way through facilitating a two day workshop on Social Learning design: these types of day are pretty full on, so writing at the end of the day is daunting. As part of #WorkingOutLoud, i just wanted to share a reflection on what Social Learning Design entails.

We talked today about the role of an architect: to create spaces. Architecture is not specifically about bricks, steel, and glass, but rather about how those materials separate space. And once that space is separated, to make offices and houses, we move into them and make homes and communities.

Social Learning takes place within the arms of a community: but we cannot create that community ourselves. Our role, as the learning architect, is to create spaces, and support: spaces to listen, to learn, to ‘sense make’, to collaborate, to tell stories, to challenge, and so on. If we create these spaces well, and use our architectural knowledge to interrelate, and interconnect them, then we may be luck enough to build an engaging learning experience. And if we build that, then people may form communities to learn.