Was This Course "Successful"? How Do We Know?

[Michele Martin]

The Work Literacy course was an experiment in running a learning event using social networking tools. The two major goals we had were for people to have a chance to try out and discuss various social media options and for them to be prepared to participate in new ways at the DevLearn conference to be held November 11-14.

Participants had wide latitude in terms of what topics they wanted to explore and how deeply they wanted to delve into each week's resources. There were no requirements and people could set their own learning agendas as far as what they wanted to focus on and when.

The question I have now is "was this course successful"? How would you define success? This issue of "success" and evaluating social media-enhanced programs is an interesting one and I'm curious to hear people's take on this issue.

[Dave Ferguson]

I don't think I defined success for myself at the outset, so I can't say if I succeeded or not.

I think I had a journeyman's level of knowledge coming in -- I've used a feedreader for a long time, I've had a blog for a couple of years, and I even installed MediaWiki on my own server as a kind of idea manager.

What's been helpful for me is seeing other ways that people use tools I don't make much use of, or how they apply them in arenas I hadn't considered.

Some outside distractions (and work) kept me from participating on a regular basis. That variable "attendance" probably relates to a sense I never completely lost: there were more directions to go in than I could follow, and it was sometimes hard to figure out which to pay attention to and which to ignore.

(Note: this isn't a criticism of using Ning; it's just the state of the synapse on this end.)

[Michele Martin]

Dave, I think you bring up an interesting point about finding the directions to follow and what you do and don't want to pay attention to. That's been one of the greatest challenges for me as a facilitator, trying to figure out how to organize information in ways that are helpful to people, to call attention to ideas and themes, etc. I've always thought that our job should be to make it easier for people to navigate through everything that's here, but at the same time, that's hard to do when the access and activities are so open. It also seems that the very act of navigating may contribute to people's learning (that idea of constructing knowledge), so where's the line between "hand-holding" and chaos?

[Britt Gow]

The Work Literacy ning has been a frequent source of information, new ideas, opinions and inspiration for me over the past few weeks. I think the organisers have done a wonderful job in presenting a wide range of applications for exploration and opportunities for discussion. Well done and thanks, Britt Gow.

[Michele Martin]

Hi Britt--so glad that the course was helpful to you!

[Jason Willensky]

I feel that Work Literacy was successful. I'm now using twitter, blogging, and thinking about how to use wikis for knowledge management. In fact, I can't think of a learning experience I've had lately that turned into transfer so efficiently and on so many different fronts.

My definition of success is the same as when I started participating. I boiled it down to a few questions at the outset:
-- Would I use not-so-familiar Web 2.0 tools within 6 weeks, and would I be somewhat proficient?
-- Would I construct goals to integrate these tools into my efforts as an instructional designer?

I just realized that my criteria look like customized learning objectives. Old habit! The answer to those questions is "yes." Furthermore, I've met some great people through this event. So, thanks!

[Michele Martin]

Jason, really glad to hear that the course helped you transfer knowledge efficiently in a lot of different areas. Would love to know more about why you think that happened. Was it just a matter of good timing for you? Was it the fact that you set those specific learning objectives and made sure you achieved them?

[Jason Willensky]

Michelle -- For whatever reason, having the Spectator/Joiner/Creator hierarchy really helped me. I used a branching mechanism for each topic. If I already felt proficient (e.g. social networking), I was usually a spectator. If I felt clueless (blogging), I tried to be a creator.

Of course, it helped that you gave us plenty of scaffolding. Since the outcomes were "real" (start a blog, start using twitter, etc.), once the course gave a push through the door I felt like I was off and running.

I'd be interested in hearing your feelings about participation. Do you feel that you would have seen more participation if there were no "spectator" option? Or if people made a spectator/joiner/creator selection at the beginning of each topic?

Thanks again!

[Michele Martin]

Hey Jason--interesting that you chose to be a spectator on things that you knew and a creator for things that you were clueless about. A lot of people would do the opposite, although I think your strategy actually makes a lot more sense.

I don't know if we'd have had more participation or not if we hadn't had the spectator level. My suspicion is that it would have been the same, but that by having the spectator level, we gave people "permission" to be ok with not posting in forums, etc.

One thing Tony, Harold and I have discussed is whether or not starting with social networking ended up scaring people off. There as so much that week that it might have been really intimidating, thus sort of chasing people away. Not sure. . .

[Jason Willensky]

Michelle -- There may have been a lot during social networking, but I'd bet that you, Harold, and Tony did us a favor by starting the topic sequence with tools that were most familiar to the most people in the audience. Starting with aggregators or wikis might have been much more challenging. I'm just guessing, though!

[Kate]

I experienced a colossal spike in my learning during this course. The conditions (people, time, skills, format, space) were perfect for me to thoroughly investigate why these social media tools work, then communicate my learning in the forums and try them out with my colleagues and clients.I was familiar with every tool discussed in this course but I didn't really comprehend why they may be considered effective learning tools.

The most beneficial component of the course that triggered my initial and continued engagement was the specific information about how I could participate as a Spectator, Joiner/Collector, Creator. For the last year I've been a 'lurker' reading dozens of blogs but not quite understanding the protocol of how to respond or participate in blogs. Often the online participants in blogs (outside the course) appear to know one another already and I feel that if I was to comment or respond it would be like 'crashing' a company cocktail party. The layout, moderator instructions, and participant introductions in this course provided a very inviting space to ask questions and contribute ideas.

I spent a good deal of time examining the links/resources that the participants provided. Paul Lowe provided some excellent links to research on Web 2.0 tools. Paul's webinar was the best I have every seen. I really appreciated Virginia Yonker's blog about collaboration and the challenges of defining, supporting and evaluating collaboration.
I felt like I was wandering through a immense poster session except it was more dynamic. I didn't have a chance to investigate every topic but I discovered more about why these tools could have the potential to enhance learning.

I appreciated the "So What?" questions such as the forum started by Mark Temple that challenged us to really consider the validity of these tools and identify specific ways in which we could process information or collaborate with others.

I'm not quite comfortable with the 'Friends' element in this course. This is surprising for me because I'm an extrovert and in a face to face encounter I'm comfortable meeting new people. I'm not sure why I would blog something in the course and make it only available to 'Friends' I think I define friends differently. Even after reading the information about 'Friends' in Ning I wasn't sure of when it was appropriate to invite someone to be a 'Friend' or how I was to respond in kind. It felt a little 'cliqueish'.

This course experience is similar to the time I switched from auto mode on my digital camera and started adjusting aperture and shutter speed in that I feel I can more effectively control the way I view and process information. I'm organizing data more effectively with PageFlakes, I'm about to create my fifth wiki to continue planning another project at work, I ventured beyond the 'lurking' mode and asked questions and contributed a few ideas, I've added nine more blogs to my bookmark feeds to expand my reading.

Thank you Michele and Harold for facilitating such a valuable experience!

[Dave Ferguson]

I'd like to second the value of spectator, joiner, creator -- my opinion is that many software tools (web 2.0 and other types) have what look like very steep learning curves. Maybe the sequence is something like:

- Why would you do that?
- What did you do?
- How did you do that?
- What else can I do?

So I think it's important to make newcomers feel welcome to look around, watch what's happening, with invitations that they join in -- but in a context like this, no insistence.

Because, really, Harold, Tony, and Michele aren't going to drive over to your house anyway.

[Michele Martin]

Well, I can't speak for Harold and Tony, but I might drive to your house, Dave. :-)