Week 9 Post 2

*THIS* Works!

Growing up near the Texas border and living in Dallas now, I am obviously a Dallas Cowboys fan. However, first and foremost I am a Dallas Cowboys CHEERLEADERS (DCC) fan. I grew up watching Making the Team on CMT and just watched the new Netflix documentary America's Sweethearts. 

As the iconic sounds of their Thunderstruck routine played in the background while doing my grad school work for the week it suddenly hit me -- this is the perfect opportunity to explore social media being used to capitilize on informal learning. Plus, what a cool party trick to bust out this routine next time you hear the song with friends or family. I quickly went to Tik Tok and searched "DCC Thunderstruck Tutorial" and was found with a plethora of videos showing how to do the dance, DCC performing the dance, and of course plenty of people sharing their opinions on the show. 

That is where I found this exemplar: 

@theprettyfaguette Full combo front facing at 3:12; full combo back facing at 3:49. Have fun! 😘 #dcc #thunderstruck #netflix ♬ original sound - theprettyfaguette

This is an exemplar for a few reasons:

• it's quick and easy to follow
• he provides annotations to direct people to timestamps that might be most helpful for learning the dance
• he tags common hashtags people might use to find the tutorial 
• he identifies any misconceptions about movements or counts
• actually members of DCC comment on the post and validate his teachings  
• he openly admits to reflecting on his first tutorial and making adjustments accordingly 

The best part is not only is the viewer informally learning the dance, either by searching it out or it coming across their For You Page, but the creator himself admits to learning the dance by watching the documentary. That means he watched them practiced the dance enough times to absorb the information and communicate this findings to the masses. The validating comment by DCC members helps authentic his tutorial. 

I'm sure this not the topic that Dr. Dennan intend me to dive into when discussing informal learning with social media, but I think that's what makes informal learning so unique. You can see it literally everywhere. 

I think it's important to note that the same characteristics of the Thunderstruck tutorial Tik Tok can be applied for anyone wanting to produce content in order to help others learn!