9.20.2010

Blog Book Tour: Social Media for Trainers

Social Media for TrainersWelcome to the seventh stop of the Blog Book Tour for Jane Bozarth's new book, Social Media for Trainers. If you have been following the blog book tour, then you know Jane's book not only provides an introduction for understanding how to use social media tools, such as blogs, Facebook, Twitter, and wikis; but is also chock-full of examples. And these examples are quite important as they provide models for learning.

However, perhaps you are still somewhat leery of using social media for learning, thus I'm listing a few points for you to consider.

We often think of new technologies or concepts as being silver-bullets or replacements for present training and learning initiatives. Past examples include video tapes and elearning. And yes, sometimes they are able to stand by themselves as the learning platform; however, they often work much better in blended solutions. Thus, social media should not normally be thought of as a stand-alone solution, but rather as extensions of face-to-face exchanges in order to extend the learners' networks.

Social media can provide a virtual bridge by acting as the common learning environment (see Instructional Design — Social Learning and Social Media). Thus it extends and in some instances may replace the required social interactions that takes place in a lot of learning processes.

As noted earlier, examples provide learners with real models. Social learning works in a similar manner in that it allows the learners to perceive others for comparison and self-evaluation. In addition, we can bounce ideas off of them and are often a neutral source of information, which may help or speed several forms of instrumental learning (Conte, Paolucci, 2001). We know these social interactions are important because while we might picture someone learning informally as being a “lone learner,” studies have shown that during an informal learning episode a learner normally interacts with an average of 10 people (Tough, 1999). And even though you might only be interested in formal learning, you have to support these informal learning episodes because informal and formal learning are closely tied together — an average of one-hour of formal learning spills over to four-hours of informal learning (Cofer, 2000).

Thus to transform training from an event to a real process you have to support the informal learning that accompanies the majority of formal learning. Bell (1977) used the metaphor of brick and mortar to describe the relationship of formal and informal learning. Formal learning acts as bricks fused into the emerging bridge of personal growth. Informal learning acts as the mortar, facilitating the acceptance and development of the formal learning. He also noted that informal learning is not a replacement for formal learning processes as it is this synergy that produces effective growth.

To make training an effective process, you really have think about tying the various parts of learning into a whole, such as formal and informal learning, and the social learning that normally needs to accompany the other two. While the main reason for training failing in the past was most likely the failure to link formal learning to a real business need, I would think with all the emphasis on it the last few years that we have now gone beyond that and we now need to refine our efforts. Jane's book can be an important part of the solution.

Next stop for the Social Media for Trainers Blog Book Tour is Gina Schreck, that is scheduled on September 22.

You can follow Jane on Twitter: @janebozarth and @SoMe4Trainers; connect with her Facebook pages: Jane Bozarth Bozarthzone and Social Media for Trainers; or read some of her thoughts and ideas on her blog.

References

Bell, C. R. Informal Learning in Organizations. Personnel Journal, 56, no. 6 (June 1977): 280-283, 313. (EJ 160 136).

Cofer, D. (2000). Informal Workplace Learning. Practice Application Brief. NO 10. U.S. Department of Education: Clearinghouse on Adult, Career, and Vocational Education.

Conte, R. & Paolucci, M. (2001). Intelligent Social Learning. Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation. vol. 4, no. 1.

Tough, A. (1999). Reflections on the study of adult learning. Paper presented at the 3rd New Approaches to Lifelong Learning (NALL) Conference, University of Toronto: Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, Toronto, Canada. Retrieved January 8, 2008 from http://www.oise.utoronto.ca/depts/sese/csew/nall/res/08reflections.pdf

9.09.2010

On The Media

A recent On The Media Podcast has several short stories about media that might be of interest to many of you. Unlike their original podcast in which all the stories are combined into one podcast, their web page on the podcast has the stories broken down into short segments so that you can pick and choose the ones you want to listen to.

Field Guide

The first story that might be of interest is titled, Field Guide (transcript), that discusses the popularity of the Madden NFL video game among pros, college, and high school football players. One thing is for certain — the new players are much more familiar with offensive formations, defensive formations, play calls, etc. than new players 20 years ago; and both players and coaches agree that they are learning a lot about football through the video game.

The Uncanny Valley

The next one is titled the The Uncanny Valley (transcript). The story is about simulations and the human sims within them. What is interesting is that if you create a sim that is 95 percent lifelike, it is great; however, if you made one that is 96 percent lifelike, it is a disaster because it is like a a human being with something wrong. That is, if it gets too life-like, but something is slightly off, it starts to look horrifyingly dead and dull — which freaks people out.

The Facebook Effect

Why does Facebook trump all it's competitors? The Facebook Effect (transcript) story says it is because:

  • You use your real name on Facebook, and while this seems so familiar now, it was really quite revolutionary when Facebook launched
  • The service improved from a technology point of view
  • They live by the rule “only the paranoid survive”

The Death of the Web?

While the recent story in Wired magazine left many people scratching their heads, the story, The Death of the Web? (transcript) notes that we have to realize that the “web” is NOT the “internet.” The web is what we surf via our Web browser (web sites and HTML). While the internet is composed of the network, the wires, the routers and all that on which digital information flows. And it is non-web applications that are starting to have a big impact in how we receive our information (think iPad and iPhone).