e-learning

Examples of e-learning in the following topics:

• Homeschooling

  • It allows them to provide their children with a learning environment if they are dissatisfied with offerings at public or private schools.
  • In conjunction with this e-learning, homeschooling could theoretically be combined with a traditional school curriculum to produce more well-rounded results.
  • These co-ops provide homeschooled children the opportunity to learn from other parents who might be more specialized in certain areas or subjects.
  • Unschooling refers to a range of educational philosophies and practices centered on allowing children to learn through their natural life experiences.

• Elements of Socialization

  • To what extent human behavior is biologically determined vs. learned is still an open question in the study of human behavior, but recent reviews of biological, genetic, neuroscience, and psychological literatures suggest that culture can influence biology and vice versa (e.g., nurture becomes nature through processes wherein learned responses and behaviors feed the development of the brain and the activation of genetic potential).
  • There is also a greater likelihood of more formal relationships due to situational contexts (e.g., work environment), which moderates down the affective component.
  • Instead, the author argues that socialization can be broad or narrow within each of the seven socializing forces he outlines (e.g., family, friends, etc.).
  • For example, they may be unable to learn to use a toilet, have trouble learning to walk upright and display a complete lack of interest in the human activity around them.
  • They often seem mentally impaired and have almost insurmountable trouble learning a human language.

• Education and the Global Perspective

  • In its narrowest, most technical sense, education is the formal process (e.g., instruction in schools) by which society deliberately passes accumulated knowledge, skills, customs, and values from one generation to the next.
  • In Africa, the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) has launched an e-school program.
  • The goal is to provide 600,000 primary and high schools with computer equipment, learning materials, and internet access within 10 years.
  • Online learning gives students flexibility and choice in terms of what, when, and at what pace they learn.
  • Discuss recent worldwide trends in education, including mass schooling, the emergence of secondary education in the U.S., indigenous education, higher education, and online learning

• Using computers

  • Why this is important will become clearer as we learn more about how structural analysis of social networks occurs.
  • Suppose, for a simple example, we had information about trade-flows of 50 different commodities (e.g. coffee, sugar, tea, copper, bauxite) among the 170 or so nations of the world system in a given year.

• Symbolic Interactionism

  • Meanings are not entities that are bestowed on humans and learned by habituation.
  • Processual Symbolic Interaction seeks to uncover the elaboration and experience of meanings in natural settings of social interaction through primarily qualitative methods (e.g., examining the process whereby people become and signify selves) while Structural Symbolic Interaction seeks to map the contours of the self through primarily quantitative methods (e.g., examining the structure of the self by asking who people believe themselves and others to be).
  • On the other hand, if people believe (or are taught to believe) that education transmits social inequalities from generation to generation (e.g., Conflict Theory), then they will be more likely to attempt to change this structure over time.
  • Stated another way, Symbolic Interactionism argues that people become selves by learning and internalizing the symbolic materials of the social and historical context and culture they are born into and raised within (e.g., the individual is formed by the society), and then act back upon and alter societies (e.g., norms, cultures and structures) by deploying the symbolic resources at their disposal throughout the course of their ongoing lives (e.g., the society is formed by the joint action of individuals).
  • As a result, Symbolic Interactionism typically focuses on "how" things are done (e.g., the ways people accomplish things that can be observed in real time and in the natural world) rather than "why" things are done (e.g., hypotheses that can only be examined within mathematical and / or experimental settings disconnected from the natural world).

• Norms

  • Social norms can be enforced formally (e.g., through sanctions) or informally (e.g., through body language and non-verbal communication cues) .
  • As social beings, individuals learn when and where it is appropriate to say certain things, use certain words, discuss certain topics, or wear certain clothes, and when it is not.
  • One form of norm adoption is the formal method, where norms are written down and formally adopted (e.g., laws, legislation, club rules).
  • Social norms are much more likely to be informal and to emerge gradually (e.g., not wearing socks with sandals) .

• Group Dynamics

  • In so doing, people learn a wide variety of "signifying practices" or ways of showing others who we are and what we do within group contexts, which demonstrate group membership.
  • Imagine that you have just joined a new religion and you are learning what it means to be a member of that group.
  • Despite these expectations, one may arrive feeling happy (e.g., "I hated that dude. "), appear nervous (e.g., "Can anyone tell I hated that dude?
  • "), or become more emotional than people are comfortable with seeing (e.g., crying "OH MY BABY!
  • Individual = working on our own emotions (e.g., college students managing anxiety at test time)

• Gender vs. Sex

  • Gender is thus also the external perception others develop of us (e.g., Do other people think and believe we are men and/or women?).
  • Since gender - like a play - is ultimately a human created fiction (e.g., a performance of shared understandings), it can only exist as long as others believe and approve of the performance.
  • Some examples may help illustrate the ways people learn to accomplish gender.
  • Assuming both of the aforementioned children never question their placement into these gender categories, the masculine child will learn to be a boy and a man and the feminine child will learn to be a girl and a woman by aligning their own behaviors to fit conventional gender norms over time.
  • For instance, the masculine child may play with toy soldiers, join athletic teams, and learn to prize appearing tough while the feminine child may play with dolls, bond with other feminine-behaving people, and learn that he is rewarded for appearing to care.

• English as a Second Language

  • They must learn English as a Second Language (ESL) in order to function in their new host country.
  • Having class among other students learning English as a second language relieves the pressure of making mistakes when speaking in class or to peers.
  • Nevertheless, ELL students face predictable difficulties in learning English.
  • Those whose native languages are drastically different from English may find it especially difficult to learn the sounds and grammar of English, while others whose native languages are more similar may have less trouble.
  • Further, some have speculated that school administrators may actually encourage ELL students to drop out because it may increase the school's overall average test scores, which may in turn benefit the school (e.g., by ensuring continued funding).

• Introduction

  • Collections of people that do not use the self-referent pronoun "we" but share certain characteristics (e.g., roles, social functions, etc.) are different from groups in that they usually do not regularly interact with each other nor share similar interests or values.
  • You do not have to learn how to interact in that situation every single time you encounter it.
  • To accomplish this, people scan situations for information "given" (e.g., the things people do to signify who they are and what groups they belong to intentionally) and "given off" (e.g., the things people do that inadvertently signify who they are and the groups they belong to) by other people in the situation.
  • In the case above, for example, you (as the driver) would note the information given (e.g., the special car, the lights, and the uniform worn) to ascertain what was happening and who the other driver was, and then you could note the information given off (e.g., the apparent mood of the police officer based upon her or his body language, verbal language, and mannerisms) to predict (accurately or otherwise) what was about to happen to you.