I’m not sure I understand what falls under the term “social learning” platforms since I’ve seen almost every thing imaginable, including YouTube, described as a social learning tool. But what I’m looking for is your views.
I’ve seen so many vague claims for the effectiveness of social learning, but I’m not really seeing clear explanations of how social learning tools can help learning occur within companies and organizations in a way that will show a return on investment.
Here’s the help I need from you. Tell us, in the comments, how you feel the use of social learning (you define it as you wish) is or can be used to make learning better in organizations — better than other tools that existed before. For example, explain to us how Twitter is better than the old “chat” systemsm or how LinkedIn is better than a listserver, or how YouTube is better than hosting videos on one’s own site.
I’m clearly biased and I want to make sure there’s balance on this site, and to make sure I’m not missing something. Here’s your chance.
- Be Specific
- Name specific social learning tools
- You need not have data per se
- If you have data or ways to measure success tell us.
Ok?
Go
I don’t really subscribe to the consistent benefit of ‘social media tools’ for learning, but here’s what I see as potential business case and benefit of newer technology based human connectors over older technology based tools.
Advantage: Access, Data Flexibility, and Convenience (and let’s face it, search is simply better now than it was – so there are potential discovery advantages as well)
Many older tools required either synchronous participation (IRC, for example) or asynch participation. Some of these tools also required that a particular tool or class of tool be launched to participate. The newer tools offer a variety of access and participation modes. Twitter like tools also offer API’s so that the service can be consumed or mixed freely, and participation can be on a synchronous or asynchronous engagement mode.
Twitter like (not Twitter itself, nor a public facing tool of any kind) tools offer easy access for authenticated performers to ‘tag into the stream’ bits of knowledge, experience vignettes, warnings, or questions soliciting feedback from other performers within their connected network. My background is vocational, mostly blue collar. To someone who has done the work, the idea that I could quickly log into a work provided portal, scan through a chronological set of tagged entries (1) from experts I trust in the organization (2) by tags or (3) from a search, resonates with that vocational background. Having a simple point of entry (a single field) and some simple rules seems more accessible to me than some of the alternative knowledge collaboration and capture tools I’ve experienced. On the other hand, just because it resonates with me doesn’t mean that I’d still use it in 6 months, or that it would ever resonate with former blue collar colleagues.
Using Twitter like tools for anything but performance support and keeping up with experts that touch just the right frequency and amplitude of posts doesn’t seem realistic to me. The academic crowd is all over it, particularly the corporate training and vendor crowd. It might work for some of the folks at the moment, but it is likely that the novelty will wear off for a significant number of these folks.
I think there are tangible and measurable benefits to closed knowledge sharing network for performance support / community of practice. Is this any better than a Forum, ListServe, or other ‘classic’ web centric collaboration technology? For archive access and organization the flat tagged entry is potentially less steps to access / participate.
Similar advantages apply to video based repository tools. To put video on your own site you had to fuss with players, formats, storage, access, arrangement, and this doesn’t consider that your video isn’t part of a bigger repository and isn’t automatically discoverable through a search mechanism if you didn’t do the work yourself. Vimeo, YouTube, etc. offer consistency and ease of posting. These also offer built in feedback mechanisms with potentially very wide exposure. Learning benefit? Surely there IS benefit, but you can’t rely on it. If you set out on Monday morning and said ‘I need to know about XYZ by Tuesday’ you’d be hard pressed to guarantee support from any of the video sites. There’s a lot of stuff there, which means there’s a lot of crap. YMMV and serendipity applies. This makes YouTube little better than the Blockbuster up the street for learning content on a random search.
However, a teacher or instructor could potentially post useful supplements to their lesson plans. A teacher or instructor without their own host wouldn’t have had this opportunity a decade ago.
The greatest advantage for me personally has been the accessibility to personal publishing and mechanisms for discourse (Blogs / articles / comments). The vast quantity of perspectives and viewpoints, particularly in this field, have had a real impact on my growth and mindset. Is it measurable? Sure – I can’t isolate the effect, but I’ve been pretty successful at work and I’m satisfied that I am not starved for viewpoints via the internet. It’s really not the same as it was a decade ago, as much as 1999 was different than 1989. Access and convenience are advantages of the newer toolsets over older toolsets.
I know you were looking for support for an opposing viewpoint, but I don’t think that there is a binary answer here. It depends on the group, and to a larger degree the implementation of the process and solution.
Thank you Steve. I think I’ll need some time to digest what you’ve written.
Hi — I’m just here to sort of echo what Robert is asking for before I tweet his blog post to see if there are more replies to be had.
I’d like to see a story — a person with an objective that is achieved in whole or in part by learning, obstacles to achieving that objective, the introduction of social learning tools that help the person overcome the obstacles and achieve the objective, happy ending. Can anyone point me to one of those?
I’ve seen plenty of descriptions of how social learning, informal learning, etc. are supposed to work; I’m interested now in reading some stories of them in action.