Social Learning
Part I: The Future of E‐Learning is Social Learning
Jane Hart
Centre for Learning & Performance Technologies
www..c4lpt.co.uk

Part 1
The Future of E‐Learning is
Social Learning
Jane Hart is a Social Media and
What is Social Learning?
Learning Consultant who has a 25
year track record of helping business
year track record of helping business
What are Social Learning
and education understand how new
Platforms
technologies can be used for learning
as well as to improve job and business
p j
performance. She currently focuses The role of a Social Learning
on helping organisations introduce Professional
social media into their learning and
g
performance support initiatives.
(c) C4LPT, 2009

For many years this was the model of learning.
For many years this was the model of learning.
(c) C4LPT, 2009

Most e‐Learning
simply automates
simply automates
that model.
The only difference is
Th l diff i
now learners don’t
need to be in the same
need to be in the same
place at the same time.
They can have access
They can have access
to learning at any time,
any place
yp
(c) C4LPT, 2009

However, although a lot of money is spent on creating engaging,
interactive, multimedia courseware,
one vital ingredient is missing: other people
one vital ingredient is missing: other people
So a blended approach
is often employed.
But even face‐to‐face
events are often
delivered in a fairly
traditional way.
(c) C4LPT, 2009

Meanwhile, outside of the formal learning
Meanwhile outside of the formal learning
environment (online courses, classroom,
workshops, etc) individuals are learning in
p, ) g
other ways – often without realising it ‐
whether it be by reading, listening or watching
…
(c) C4LPT, 2009

… or simply by talking to one another.
or simply by talking to one another.
(c) C4LPT, 2009

Only recently
Only recently
has this
informal learning
g
been recognised as
important …
and that it needs to
be supported within
an organisation.
But how?
(c) C4LPT, 2009

In fact, the easy availability of
f h l bl f
new, social media tools has
meant that individuals are
meant that individuals are
already managing their own
personal (informal) learning
personal (informal) learning
…
th t i th search f
that is they search for and
d
access all kinds of resources:
videos, podcasts, blogs, etc,
videos podcasts blogs etc
whenever they need them,
they create their own resources
they create their own resources
and store them for easy
retrieval
(c) C4LPT, 2009

They also make
Th l k
connections
with like‐minded people
with like minded people
with whom they can
communicate
it
and share ideas,
resources, experiences,
i
and so on.
(c) C4LPT, 2009

And groups of
individuals are using
these new tools
to “self‐organise”
t “ lf i”
…
to collaborate and
co‐create content and
co create content and
generally
work and learn
together
(c) C4LPT, 2009

Even within the traditional formal learning environment,
these new tools are being used by educators
to ensure that formal learning is becoming more
participative, social and collaborative.
participative social and collaborative
(c) C4LPT, 2009

Today’s Learning Platforms
y g
therefore need to be able to
support all these learning
approaches:
h
formal and informal,
personal and social
ld il
But there are drawbacks
with most of the existing
tools and systems …
tools and systems
(c) C4LPT, 2009

Current organisational learning
C t i ti ll i
systems, e.g. LMS primarily support
(non‐social) formal learning.
And even LMS 2.0 systems
(i.e. LMS + social media)
only support
only support
formal social learning
(c) C4LPT, 2009

But the use of a large
number of stand‐alone social
media tools would be far too
media tools would be far too
overwhelming
for many users within an
y
organisation.
(c) C4LPT, 2009

It would also mean that
personal and organisational
p g
data would be scattered all
over the Internet,
with obvious concerns about
hb b
data privacy and security
(c) C4LPT, 2009

What is needed is an integrated
platform of key social media tools Social media tools
that can:
that can:
Blogging
1. provide a secure pace for
Micro‐blogging
individuals to aggregate, store
gg g ,
and share their personal RSS feeds
learning and working
Social bookmarking
resources
Social networking
2. provide a secure space for
groups to work and learn File sharing
g
collaboratively
Communication tools
3. provide a secure space for
Collaboration tools
Collaboration tools
formal social and collaborative
f l i l d ll b i
learning to take place
(c) C4LPT, 2009

A number of enterprise social
A b ft i il
learning platforms are emerging.
There are commercial systems like
SocialText – www.socialtext.com
and Mzinga – www.mzinga.com
But one free, open source
platform that has been around
pa o a as bee a ou d
some years is Elgg ‐ www.elgg.org.
Elgg is fully customisable,
configurable and extensible.
configurable and extensible
Part 2 of this presentation
P t 2 f thi t ti You can experience an Elgg‐
looks at using Elgg as a social powered social learning platform at
learning platform. www.c4lpt.net
(c) C4LPT, 2009

Whatever the
platform or tools
p
that are used
to provide a
social learning
i ll i
approach
within an
within an
organisation,
learning
professionals will
fi l ill
need to support
learners in new
ways ..
(c) C4LPT, 2009

1 – They will need to help
individual learners acquire a
range of skills to manage
range of skills to manage
their own personal learning
2 – They will need to help
y p
groups understand how to
address their own team
performance and learning
performance and learning
problems
3 – They will need to build
formal learning solutions
that focus on providing a
social, collaborative,
, , Part 3 of this presentation looks at how to
Part 3 of this presentation looks at how to
participative learning support informal and formal social
experience learning within an organisation.
(c) C4LPT, 2009

The Centre for Learning & Performance
Technologies provides a range of
Social Learning Consultancy Services
to help organisations with their
social learning initiatives
social learning initiatives
For more information, please go to
www.c4lpt.co.uk/socialmedia/
(c) C4LPT, 2009