Engaged Learning

Live Blogging the Learning Technologies Conference

Oct 23, 2008 Social Learning SIG

The Learning Technologies Conference in Portland, Oregon is happening as I type.  Christine Martell, Michele Martin, Dave Richards and I are hosting.  There are a few things I wanted to point out as we are going through this:

1. Learning and working are not exclusive.  They can happen at the same time.  We have such a tendency to separate them.
2. Social Learning IS NOT training.  Unlike #1, we absolutely must separate these two.  Until we do we cannot grasp the advantages of using Web 2.0 tools for learning.  They fit very nicely together, but are not synonyms.
3. Training = Delivery.  Social Learning = Creating the learning with others.  Training = 1:many.  Social Learning = many:many or many:1 where the one is you.  Creating an Articulate module or using Captivate is not Social Learning.  Ask: This piece of learning I am thinking of - will I create it with others or deliver it?  We must be clear what it is and what it isn’t.
4. Many people worry about using Web 2.0 tools.  Many of them are false concerns - worries that are not even real worries.  Sometimes we work ourselves up against unseen and unrealistic monsters (and we lose every time).
5. Content does not need to be perfect.  Look at Youtube.  The videos are horrible, but how many people watched and loved the fire eating rabbit?  Not that we want content to be trashy, but it doesn’t need to be perfect.
6. Social Learning is not THE solution - it won’t solve all your problems.  There must be a balance with other tools and methodologies.
7. You are accountable for your learning.  Not the training department, not your teacher, not your mother - YOU.  Flip that, and you are not accountable for another’s learning.  They are.  Let’s not try to take that upon ourselves.

Tags: articulate, captivate, christine martell, learning technology conference, michele martin, social learning, training, Web 2.0