Hello Everyone,
I went on vacation a week ago or so and as we researched for vacation and finally got on the road, I discovered that I was really participating in
Informal Learning and
Social Learning.
Before I went on vacation I asked my friends and co-workers about Toronto. I had been a long time ago, but it was at a different point in my life. I had little kids and my interests for vacation were totally different. I read a lot of websites and learned a lot from this informal learning activity.
I then started to ask friends about Toronto. They started to tell me about the places I should go to visit. In this social learning activity, I found out that I should go to the CN Tower and walk on the
Glass Floor. Yes, after the first step on the floor, I did have a little problem continuing on, but that isn't my point. :-) I learned from another person about this attraction.
During my visit I used Yelp to find restaurants. On Yelp, I would find restaurants close to my location and then read the postings from the people that contributed comments. These comments were very educational. They either enticed me to go to a restaurant or warned me away, thus the learning occurred.
The vacation didn't end in Toronto. As we moved on to Geneva, NY (The Fingerlakes), we dropped in on Geneva on the Lake and asked a few questions about the Inn. We learned that we should try
Bellhurst Castle down the road for lunch because they had finished serving lunch. Upon arriving for lunch at Bellhurst, my husband surprised me with a nights stay at the castle because he had socially learned from the front desk clerk they had a room free.
The next day we moved up to the
Hyatt on the Hudson in Jersey City with the beautiful view of Manhattan. I had learned about this a few years ago from a AAA office in Connecticut somewhere.
From my VegNews magazine, I learned about the
Blosson Du Jour and Cafe Blosson vegetarian restaurants which we dined at and had excellent meals. I had also learned of a vegan shoe store,
MooShoes on the Lower East Side from VegNews. While talking in to the sales person in MooShoes, she helped us learn about a vegan bakery called
Babycakes NYC that was right around the corner. We promptly went there to have the delicious treats.
This is not all that I learned about from other people, websites, magazines, and books with no formal training involved. And yes, this post is a stretch in giving examples of Informal and Social Learning, but I don't think I am off that much and my vacation was great!
What do you think?
Yours in Learning,
Michelle Moore
