21st Century Learning and Teaching

Sociology is the scientific study of human society[1] and its origins, development, organizations, and institutions.[2] It is a social science which uses various methods of empirical investigation[3] and critical analysis[4] to develop a body of knowledge about human social activity, structures, and functions.

A goal for many sociologists is to conduct research which may be applied directly to social policy and welfare, while others focus primarily on refining the theoretical understanding of social processes. Subject matter ranges from the micro level of individual agency and interaction to the macro level of systems and thesocial structure.[5]

Buzz used to be an intangible — something you just felt. No longer.

===> Look for online "curators." Experts who collect and share "best of" resources on specific subjects are analogous to museum curators who carefully choose which pieces to display. <===

In social media, curators do a good job of keeping track of people's conversations as they occur in online social spaces and quickly channeling that information, in some cases using tools such as Storify to distill conversations.

For example, the World Economic Forum in Davos uses Storify to put together summaries of its events. Canadian financial cooperative Desjardins wanted to learn about new electronic currencies, so it tracked a UK community dedicated to crowdfunding and sought experts in Africa on mobile-payment practices. The company prefers such information-gathering methods to relying on market-research firms.

===> If you can find the right set of curators to follow, you can reduce your reliance on searches of traditional databases and publications. <===