Social Learning Systems

21st Century Skills | Home

An important book for education...

 

In 21st Century Skills, Bernie Trilling and Charles Fadel tell why and how the global landscape for learning is reshaping itself, and what this global transformation, often called the “21st century skills movement”, may bring to a school near you. Based on a framework developed by the Partnership for 21st Century Skills, this book and DVD vividly illustrate the skills needed to survive and thrive in a complex and connected world:

• Learning and innovation skills


• Digital literacy skills


• Life and career skills

via www.21stcenturyskillsbook.com

Bernie Trilling: I Just Want my kid to be Happy... and Successful

Great Article from Bernie Trilling...

Read the entire article here.

 

There is growing agreement worldwide, from educators, business and government leaders (see for example www.p21.org), that the formula for success in our times involves fusing the "3Rs" -- the traditional basic knowledge-and-skills of reading, 'riting, 'rithmetic and other subjects like science and social studies -- with the "4Cs":

• Critical thinking and problem-solving
• Creative thinking and innovating
• Communicating
• Collaborating

via www.huffingtonpost.com

17 Pivot Points for Social Media Marketing Success

From Neil Glassman...

Generation Y is an important audience for marketers and not just because of their buying power. As the first “always-on” generation, they dictate the evolving protocols of social media. More than ever, we need to learn from the youngest participants in our society.

The jam-packed agenda of Pivot delivered the context and understanding to enable marketers to map a strategy of successful social media engagement with the Millennials of Generation Y — and other generations, too. You can view videos of the full conference, but don’t click off until you’ve checked out my selected takeaways that follow.

via www.socialtimes.com

The Conversation Prism link.

Read the complete article.

 

Twitter Handles for Fast Company's List of Top On-line Influencers

They aren't who we would think they'd be...

 

The top 10 on-line influencers according to Fast Company's The Influence Project were:

1. Jeremy Schoemaker
2. Shefqet Avdullau
3. Tod Sacerdoti
4. Cory Boatright
5. Greg Clement
6. Frank Kovacs
7. Sebastian Saldarriaga
8. James Dunn
9. Richard Lee
10. Pace Lattin

Read entire article here.

via www.sfgate.com

Gates Foundation Launches $20M Grant for Online Ed | News & Opinion | PCMag.com

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation on Monday announced a $20 million grant program to improve college graduation rates via technology, which will probably be oriented around online education and learning programs.

Next year, the focus will be expanded to K-12 programs, Bill Gates, the chairman of Microsoft and the co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, said in a conference call.

The initiative, first disclosed last week, will be known as the Next-Generation Learning Challenges, a $20 million "funding round" that will be handed out in grants ranging from $250,000 to $750,000. The request period will run until Nov. 19; the winners will be announced by March 31, the foundation said.

Read the complete article.

via www.pcmag.com

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is doing wonderful things.

Twitter Tips for Corporate Learning

One of the most common misconceptions about Twitter is that people are just posting what they had for breakfast and other miscellaneous (dare I say useless?) facts. Well, those people are out there, but the fact is, they are likely not a part of the numerous substantive conversations taking place on Twitter. 
 
Twitter offers you the opportunity to curate a community in which you can share bite-size, high-value tweets as part of an ongoing conversation around a particular topic. So how does this apply to corporate learning? A few uses just off the top of my head…
 

• Have learners “livetweet” classroom training
• Set up a course “hashtag” so participants can keep conversation going
• Have learners identify and “follow” virtual mentors to learn from
• Network, share best practices and find answers to your greatest HR and training challenges

via blog.blackboard.com

Direct link

 

One of the most common misconceptions about Twitter is that people are just posting what they had for breakfast and other miscellaneous (dare I say useless?) facts. Well, those people are out there, but the fact is, they are likely not a part of the numerous substantive conversations taking place on Twitter. 
 
Twitter offers you the opportunity to curate a community in which you can share bite-size, high-value tweets as part of an ongoing conversation around a particular topic. So how does this apply to corporate learning? A few uses just off the top of my head…
 

• Have learners “livetweet” classroom training
• Set up a course “hashtag” so participants can keep conversation going
• Have learners identify and “follow” virtual mentors to learn from
• Network, share best practices and find answers to your greatest HR and training challenges

How Long Does it Take to Create Learning? (2010 Research)

by Bryan C on September 14, 2010

Research Participants: 249 companies organizations, representing 3,947 learning development professionals, who have created content consumed by 19,875,946 learners.

All results are shown as ratios, showing number of hours of development to create 1 finished hour of learning (output)

 

We just completed a large-scale study and encourage you to use the results to benchmark and help improve your own internal development practices (see below):

How Long Does it Take to Create Learning?

via brandon-hall.com

Direct link

Make sure to check out the newest info on course development ratios. Extremely useful for anyone managing the development of traditional classroom and/or web-based training materials.

FT.com / Reports - Customer service via social networks

Best Buy launched its “Twelpforce” in 2009, alongside a range of commonly found customer service tools, including phone help lines, click to chat, and “frequently asked questions” section on its website, fed by an extensive range of open customer discussion forums.

Best Buy was one of the first companies to take an active position on Twitter as the medium gained prominence rapidly last year. And just two years ago, according to Thor Muller, founder of Get Satisfaction, which helps companies set up and manage social forums, “companies were largely ignoring social media”. Since then, he says, “there has been something of an arms race to embrace social media as an opportunity.”

“They now see it not just as low-cost marketing opportunity through word-of-mouth, but also as a way to demonstrate their customer centricity, putting customers first.”

via www.ft.com

Can other companies take such an innovative approach to including social networks in their customer service approaches?

How to Help Students Use Social Media Effectively | Edutopia

If we are going to enable our students to find and share their voice with the world, we need to equip them with a powerful skill that is timeless: writing effectively. Our students must realize that there is a BIG difference between "your" and "you're" no matter what forum they are using to communicate a message. Consider this, how much effort does it take to edit 140 characters? Not much. I have spent the last eight years of my teaching career combing through student essays that are chock full of common errors: “then” vs. “than”, “it’s” vs. “its”, and knowing when to use an apostrophe to denote possession. These students learn from my feedback that their message is diluted. If I were to let this student move on without correcting his or her errors, this trend would continue and possibly diminish their capacity to reach their full potential. The same principles must apply in all forms of social media.

via www.edutopia.org

Read the entire article.

Students Off Limits On Facebook To Norton Teachers - wbztv.com

Choose your friends carefully…especially if you're a teacher in Norton.

Monday night, the Norton School Board passed a new Facebook policy. Teachers are not allowed to "friend" students on Facebook and other social media, and they're strongly discouraged from friending past students and their parents.

Parents think it's a good idea.

"They (students) say things that they know are jokes, but teachers might not know are jokes, and I don't want kids to be labeled unfairly," says one Norton mom.

The new policy also allows administrators to check up on teachers' behavior on social networking sites to make sure they're following the rules.

...

A spokesperson with The Massachusetts Teachers Association says it would be impossible to enforce, since Facebook has settings to keep friends lists private. "It seems like it was written by people who don't understand social media."

via wbztv.com

This is definitely a tricky area for teachers and school districts.