Abstract:

Once the graduate passes through the Halls of Academia, how can we, as educators and mentors, help them to continue with the educational journal? Can we ensure that they will become and remain lifelong learners or sporadic creatures of habit to do research, writing, and creativity whenever it is needed? We can make a difference in the classroom, as well as plant the seeds of their educational development during their lifetime – if we plan to start before the adult learner leaves our classroom, along with the help of technology and social media. During this paper, we will explore the use of technology and social media as a “different set of change agent tools and application developers” in the quest of preparing all learners to continue their journey of learning and appreciating what lies ahead of their pathways, instead of avoiding different situational problems, dilemmas, and issues. Consequently, the paper will address how current educators can introduce new technological applications, namely web pages and e-Portfolios, to help adult learners learn better applications for use in their personal and professional lives, as the foundation for further research and writing projects. The use of these technological tools, as well as the application of social media to help students to see how they can connect and build strong social capital networks for current and future projects can open up new opportunities for many students. However, as many students may be a bit anxious or apprehensible about the use of various forms of social media, the paper will explore a variety of applicable social media that will help students to see value with these types of social media and how they can benefit them in the future. The use of both technological and social media tools will help the students to build their lifelong learning toolbox and skills sets. Finally, this paper will discuss the potential applications to link students back to their academic roots and perhaps serve as mentors and/or coaches for new students to help continue the learning process in terms of volunteer work with their associated educational institution.

Keywords:

Lifelong learning, adult learning, social media, technology.