Social Media and Learning--What Are the Implications of This Course?

[Michele Martin]

For the past 5 weeks, we've had the opportunity to try out new social media tools for personal learning and for working with other learners. We've also discussed best practices for using these tools and the opportunities and challenges inherent with each. In this Forums, we want to explore the overall themes of learning with social media that have emerged over the past several weeks.

* How have these tools changed your thinking about learning?
* How have they changed your personal professional practices?
* What are the key themes that have emerged for you?
* What questions still linger?
* What will you be doing differently as a result of participating in this course?

Leave us your thoughts here. This is the culmination of 5 weeks of activity, so let's see where all of this took us.

[Jason Willensky]

-- How have these tools changed your thinking about learning?
I usually build training thinking in terms of linearity, individual performance, and synchronous learning. Now I'm seeing the potential in these tools to enhance the learning environment through always-available topics, collective knowledge management and group deliverables, and "whenever" contribution.

-- How have they changed your personal professional practices?
Some colleagues and I are looking at integrating white label social networking solutions as part of a model for new hire training.

-- What are the key themes that have emerged for you?
Use the tools to enhance the design and the learner experience, and choose appropriately. Also--the wiki topic made me realize just how much I need to organize knowledge for myself.

--What questions still linger?
Will we be forced to chase hot tools and social platforms to stay competitive... is this an ever-expanding universe of tech goodies?
How can these tools help quiet participants be more interactive during a training class?

--What will you be doing differently as a result of participating in this course? Blogging (and microblogging on twitter), getting more engaged with my social networks, thinking outside my geographical box, participating instead of lurking, creating wikis for a few different cultural projects and business ideas, adding these tools to my ID toolbox, and building my community of practice and (hopefully) generating new work through improved social networking skills.

[Tony Karrer]

Great questions Jason! and looking forward to connecting ongoing via blogs.

[Jason Willensky]

Thanks Tony -- likewise. Thanks also for the blog tip on full feeds. Looking forward to Corporate Learning Trends and Innovations 2008!

[Virginia Yonkers]

The design of the course itself and even the question of how to measure the learning has posed a number of questions that I did not have coming in to the course (questions are good).

Specifically, what are some design options for courses that might be "open ended" that the social networking tools allow? How should we be reconfiguring course designs to support student learning, learning assessment, student support needs in their learning, and administrative planning requirements? How can we make learning both flexible, yet in line with administrator's (organizations, schools, universities, etc...) goals and needs for accountability?

Finally, social bookmarking is definitely the tool that I want to work with in the next 3 months. I would like not only to get to know all of its features, but also play around with it to truly integrate it into my teaching as a collaborative tool, a means of information sharing, and a PLN tool. Right now I only use it as an information sharing tool, mostly as a way to access information as I move between 3 different computers.

[Michele Martin]

Great questions, Virginia. For me, the ongoing design question is how to reconcile the essentially informal nature of this kind of learning with the very formal requirements and issues of institutions. I suspect that some paradigms will need to shift, but it's still unclear to me where and how this will happen. There are essential tensions between the more learner-centered, de-centralized nature of the learning environments we create with these kinds of tools and the very entrenched, very controlled approaches that have emerged in schools and corporate learning over the past 100+ years.

[Jeff Cobb]

I think one question a "course" like this raises is "Does it end?" It may taper off, but it seems to me the seeds are here for a continuing discussion, ongoing contribution of case studies, exploration of tools not examined here, etc. That kind of thing can, of course, simply continue out in the blogosphere, but it is helpful to have a more focused community. - Jeff

[Michele Martin]

Jeff, I think you make a great point about the fact that this sort of framework does allow the learning to continue for people, although I've found based on some other experiences I've had in using Ning for this sort of activity that there's definitely a challenge in keeping community and learning going. I'd love to see if this happens. . .

[Catherine Lombardozzi]

-- Thinking about learning
One of my favorite quotes is from Kent Seibert: "Reject the myth that we learn from experience and accept the reality that we learn by reflecting on experience." My experiences in this experiment underscored for me how important it is to reflect "out loud" - if not by engaging online, by taking some fo what you're thinking about and talking about it with others. These kinds of tools make it possible to compose and share your thoughts on what you are learning, to ask questions, to get feedback from others (many of whom you have never met). Tools also make it possible to learn from others... following their bookmarks, for example, or using the tools to make contacts, simplify your own research, and more. They expand our learning support system is fabulous ways.

-- Professional practices
Actually changing my practice in light of these insights is trickier. :-) I definitely have an increased desire to connect outside of my current circle - and the course has demonstrated that connections can be valuably made online. I have some to-do list items: Sign up for LinkedIn and experiment there, experiment with my Facebook page by inviting some professional "friends" (I was motivated to sign up originally so I could see a young friend's homecoming pictures), comment more frequently on other people's blogs, solidify my time management practices related to online "surfing" ... more...

-- Themes
A lingering theme for me is around different kinds of participation. From the beginning, we encouraged people to be spectators, commenters, or creators as they saw fit... but I fear the collective lost a great deal of benefit not knowing what the spectators were thinking (or saying offline) about what they learned. Many of us (myself included at times) learned a great deal and discussed the tools and concepts with "live" colleagues, but I worry we lose something not getting feedback back into the collective spaces... Still mulling that one over...

-- Questions
Questions are as much philosophical as practical...
> What is participation? How do we encourage different kinds of participation?
> How do we "design" these tools for use in deliberate learning solutions? (aesthetics, usability, inducing engagement)
> What does success look like? Are there different kinds of success?

-- Doing differently
Where I go from here...
> Nurture the connections I've made...
> Continue to experiment as appropriate uses come up.
> Work with my organization to find ways to enable learning-rich functionality since we can't use public tools due to regulatory constraints and privacy concerns.

In short... many thanks to both leaders and participants for an enriching experience!