Social Learning Systems

A top-down approach to social and collaborative learning/working isn't going to work!

Smart organisations who are recognising that this is happening, are therefore asking very different questions about "implementing" social and collaborative approaches, e.g.

how can we build on what is happening and support those who already using social and collaborative approaches?

and how can we help those who would like to find out how to work and learn collaboratively, who are not already doing so now?

via janeknight.typepad.com

Read the article here.

 

Social Learning Tools for the School Classroom

Please add contributions to Jane Hart's new category for ages 5-18.

Her directory is wonderful!

"Directory of Learning Tools called Social Learning Tools for the School Classroom - that is those tools and platforms particularly targeted at or useful for learners aged 5-18."

via janeknight.typepad.com

Read the article here.

 

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

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

Attention, and Other 21st-Century Social Media Literacies

• © 2010 Howard Rheingold. The text of this article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0).

  EDUCAUSE Review, vol. 45, no. 5 (September/October 2010): 14–24

  Howard Rheingold

  Howard Rheingold ([email protected]) is the author of Tools For Thought, The Virtual Community, Smart Mobs, and other books and is currently lecturer at the University of California, Berkeley, and Stanford University.

  Comments on this article can be posted to the web via the link at the bottom of this page.

  If you were the only person on earth who knew how to use a fishing rod, you would be tremendously empowered. If you were the only person on earth who knew how to read and write, you would be frustrated and empowered only in tiny ways, like writing notes to yourself. When it comes to social media, knowing how to post a video or download a podcast—technology-centric encoding and decoding skills—is not enough. Access to many media empowers only those who know how to use them. We need to go beyond skills and technologies. We need to think in terms of literacies. And we need to expand our thinking of digital skills or information literacies to include social media literacies.

  Social media—networked digital media such as Facebook, Twitter, blogs, and wikis—enable people to socialize, organize, learn, play, and engage in commerce. The part that makes social media social is that technical skills need to be exercised in concert with others: encoding, decoding, and community.

  I focus on five social media literacies:

  • Attention
  • Participation
  • Collaboration
  • Network awareness
  • Critical consumption

via www.educause.edu

Direct Link

 

An Introduction to Social Media - Jane Hart's Great Resource

Jane Hart provides a fabulous resource about Social Media on her C4LPT (Centre for Learning and Performance Technology) site.

Check out this fabulous reference!

Introduction to Social Media

MediaShift Idea Lab - Taking the "Me" Out of Social Media

Dan Schultz providea a great look at social media, as it exists today. In his article, In Search of a Community That Takes 'Me' Out of Social Media, he provides insights about caring more for community than for himself.  I especially like the diagram he provides about individual vs. group focus:

He lists some ideas about the value of contribution and gives some wishes for the future. A very good article! 

Training Employees about Social Media - Telstra Provides Great Example

How a 40,000+ Employee Company Trains its Employees on Social Media - TELSTRA

on Mashable: "How a 40,000+ Employee Company Trains its Employees on Social Media" - http://bit.ly/7OlOWS (via @mashable)

Telstra has published it's entire social media guide online! It's called The 3R's of Social Media Engagement and has terrific tips for anyone wishing to use social media in a corporate environment. Use the NEXT tab at the lower right of the guide to turn pages.

 Their policy for using social media can be found here.

Social Media for Trainers - Book from Jane Bozarth

Jane Bozarth ([email protected]) notes that this is the very topic of her forthcoming book, entitled Social Media for Trainers: Techniques for Expanding and Extending Learning. Bozarth also points to the following blog post, where she offers readers some preliminary tips, including specific activities: http://bozarthzone.blogspot.com/2009/11/social-media-in-training.html.

Bozarth is an e-learning coordinator for the State of North Carolina and is the author of several books, including E-Learning Solutions on a Shoestring (Pfeiffer, 2005) and Better than Bullet Points: Creating Engaging E-Learning with PowerPoint (Pfeiffer, 2008).