Informal Education

Informal learning contributes to a major part of human understanding the real fact of our planet Earth and our survival in relation to biotic and abiotic things.

Characteristics of Informal Learning

• Informal learning helps child to develop the skill of interacting with all age group and improve their understanding skills for example when we move to a new village and ask the people for location of a particular spot they give the direction like move 100 feet towards north and then turn towards east. This shows us that people over there are good in direction while others use simple comments like move left after few meters turn.
• A child explores various ways to solve a problem after experimenting and making changes.
• Child is exposed to situation where the child arises and learns from mistakes also.
• Child has the freedom to choose the area of interest and methodology to be used to work out.
• Learning happens every day and at any place and any point of life.
• Age is not a constrain for learning.
• Informal Education mainly depends on conversation and interacting with others.
• Education by life experiences and by living with others.

Learning happens every day at any place and any point of life Informal learning is learning and gaining knowledge throughout life. Emphasis on lifelong learning has increased as people must continue to learn to stay abreast of constant change like technological change. Learning happens anywhere, any time. The learner is inspired to learn as to keep an update of the present day needs. A child learns how to communicate using mother tongue at home from parents, grandparents and relatives where as other means of communication from surrounding society.

Adults want to learn as they are constantly in a social circle like workplace. The usefulness of information decreases rapidly due to technology needs get changed at job places. It needs a continuous update for improvement economically and professionally. Gaining the necessary skills in the changing world shows that learning in specific periods of time is not enough for becoming a responsible citizen.

Informal Education mainly depends on conversation and interacting with others. Informal learning gathers different communities of people and enlightens them with the topic of interest. In city a civil engineer is engaged to build a house. He documents a plan in paper using the angles and size of the room with all details. For a house wife or people involved in the process of building a house gives more details like cost of sand, cement, steel rod and the wages of labor along with the floor plan. This happens when a person is open to interact with all communities of people with dignity and respect.

Child also learns to respect others. Soccer game enlightens a child to play the game in unity. Soccer players have to work together as a team in order to be successful. This helps a person to develop to be better communicator and the one communicated with. To be in a group a person should be able negotiate, understand and socialize. Child learns to be assertive without being offensive. This helps them to build up their confidence and prepare them for their later life. Informal learning helps them to create a social identity. People most relay on the fact that if a person is a good communicator he will survive and this is true as informal learning opens the pathway for enlightenment of people in better understanding of the world.

Social media became a learning tool in today’s era. Identify the pros and cons of using social media as a learning tool. Social media is an efficient and powerful tool at the same time it can make the brain addictive in similar ways that drug can.

Cons:

• Social networking plays a negative role in socializing in reality. They rely on network to communicate and face to face interaction is lost and the emotions are expressed artificially using emoji.
• Teenagers have chosen the path of suicide by playing games or due to online ragging or bullying.
• Teens during outdoor trip they spend time in taking selfie photos rather than enjoying the surroundings and socializing with people.
• Social media can lead to depression as certain messages or pictures lead to bullying.
• Teens become addictive to positive comments for the post and try to do more of the same.
• Too much of personal information should not be shared. It leads to fear of losing privacy, it is possible that hackers find a flaw in the security of the website and use your profiles for their benefits at any point of time.
• Reduces the time of physical activity as they are glued to the gadgets. This increases risk of health issues like obesity in young age itself.
• Exposes kids with age inappropriate content.

Pros:

• Educates people and gives them better understanding of the concept. Kids learn concept using latest technique and with more than one method technique for the concept is used for different level of students.
• Social media is used in large scale gathering and addressing people of present problems. The communication between people reaches with high efficiency and speed. For example, in 2017 protest which took place in India, social media played a vital role in communication. Many of the protesters were students, young men and women using social media. The plan of where and how the protest should take place spread through social media. The protest showed the strength of students and advantage of technology.
• Social networking helps many shy people to express their ideas. Those who feel shy are often reluctant to speak to even the person close to them. The Internet helps them to open up.
• When we need to contact old friends or relatives whose contact is lost, social media tools like face book can be used. People find and connect with their community. They can easily discover when, where, and what incident is happening and the way to participate.
• Confidence of the people increases with the positive comment they receive from their peer group. Social media is both advantageous and disadvantages toll for present generation. If used with proper guidance it is a boon to the field of education but takes a turn when misused.