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.

[Michele Martin]

Kate, thanks for taking the time to give such a thorough response. I think that one of the things you really highlighted was the importance of the peer learning that occurred here. I was consistently thrilled with people's willingness to jump in and answer questions, provide links and resources, etc. wherever they could. To me that's one of the greatest benefits of using social media for learning--it can quickly create a strong community of practice and sense of connection to other learners that is really amazing.

[Lesa Becker]

Success for me means:
Learning something new that I can apply to my role in Organizational Learning that will help people in my organization be more successful personally and professionally, and to "help them help us" achieve our organizational objectives.

Given that definition, I'd say this course exceeded my expectations. I have not been able to participate as much as I'd like because I have December 1st deadline to finish my dissertation on Information Overload. Since I suffer from the phenomenon myself, I have had to limit my involvement in this coure so I can stay focused on that task.

I do need to say: I learned more in the short time I did participate than I did in many 3 credit graduate level courses I have taken. This course opened my eyes to the possibility of transforming learning in my organization from static eLearning to more interactive and self-directed learning.

I'm attaching my personal "chronology of learning" which shows my journey through 4 decades, starting with nursing school in the 70's, where learning was facilitated by books and lectures, through the era of photo copying journal articles from the library, to the advent of eLearning and electronic databases I used in my masters program, to today. Rock on Web 2.0!

[Michele Martin]

Lesa, I love your chronology--what a great little history of personal learning! One advantage that I think this course has over face-to-face is that you can return to it when you have more time. This process has created a great repository of resources, both in terms of information as well as the people.

[Lesa Becker]

Thanks, Michele. I was hoping the content would still be available after the course was officially over. I plan to go through each lesson after my December deadline. I also wanted to thank you, personally, for the work you have done on designing this course. You have enriched my life.

Here's a "Thank You" for you and my new friends: http://www.appreciationmovie.com/

Lesa

[Michele Martin]

Thanks, Lesa--love the Appreciation Movie!

[Maria João]

Michelle and all,

This was a sucessful course for me and it will still be in the future.
I am only sorry that I have been pushed into the part of a spectator because of my limited english writing skills. Guess what, the course it was a sucess as I am going to start an english course in order to brush up my english. ;-)

I really want to thank you and the creators of this course. I have learned a lot and I am sure, we will meet again!

Greatings from Portugal
Maria

[Michele Martin]

Maria, since I couldn't even REMOTELY read or write Portuguese (although my grandparents were Portuguese and my grandfather didn't speak English until he was 6), I'm impressed that you'd immerse yourself in all this technology stuff in another language! And your language skills seem pretty good to me! :-)

[Brent MacKinnon]

Hi Michele,

I didn't participate near the level I wanted to. I think I'm like many practitioners who are learning as fast as they can and doing so in between very busy work, family and even dare I say social times. That said, I believe the Work Literacy course has been an invaluable experience for me as I checked in, saw what was happening, contributed a little bit, applied some of the learning in my work or social networking and just let all the conversations and dialogue sink in. I think success in learning new ways to communicate using social media tools is something that occurs or accrues over a long period of time. If I look back 3 years from now, I know I would say the Work Literacy course was the beginning of a new stage in my learning and being part of this learning group, despite my minimal involvement was a major stepping stone to where I am now (or in the future looking back ;-)

Thank you for your leadership and guidance, along with Tony and Harold.

Brent

[Vineetha]

I posted my detailed reply here. But, to summarize:

 I learned to use new Web 2.0 tools
 I picked up new skills with tools I was already using.
 I picked up ideas for using Web 2.0 for professional development (creating an online portfolio through delicious, LinkedIn, etc.)
 I learned about how others implement Web 2.0 tools in their course designs
 I now use Web 2.0 more regularly for my personal learning.
 I can now think of ways to use Web 2.0 in my organization and in the courses I design.

Basically, I am more confident about my Web 2.0 skills and I know what I can do with them. So, I guess I can say that the course was pretty successful for me. :)

[Tony Karrer]

These comments are great to see. It's good that people have been able to navigate and get value from it.

[Catherine Lombardozzi]

From a personal perspective... the course was a rousing success. I gained a much better understanding of some of the tools for "learning 2.0" - including ones I thought I understood. The course has a treasure trove of links... from our leaders and from participants. I "met" a number of like-minded professionals and it has been terrific having a window into their thinking.

As to perhaps measuring success...
When we design courses, we measure success (at the very least) by determining if the defined learning goals were met. In this kind of forum, each person defines his or her own learning goals, so success for each of us is quite different... some may even engage without consciously defining goals for themselves - kind-of like window shopping. The way to "measure" success, then, might be to ask participants how successful the course was for them (as you are here) - it will make you feel better (or worse if they give you a lot of constructive feedback), but you may also find out that what you offered wasn't deep enough for some, wasn't broad enough for others, or wasn't at all what some learners needed... then what? This is the challenge of creating "learning environments" which are meant to be broad resources for learning and really rely on the learners to engage and persist. As we continue to move learning solutions in this direction and try to support informal learning as much as formal learning, assessing success will be one of our challenges - especially in a corporate environment. It's certainly something I will continue to think about.

[Bill Graziadei, Ph.D.]

It's not the quantity but the quality.,, and this course was about quality. How do you know? Just peruse the number of excellent collaborative contributions over the past 6 weeks. This truly embodied the concept of what a social learning network is all about. When I take a course or go to a conference (f2f or online), I always say that if I walk away learning at least one thing then it was worth my time. The Work Literacy Web 2.0 for Learning Professionals was more than worth my time. Thanks ALL. I know I will return here often. Until we "meet" again... Ciao, Bill G...