Social Earning

PROLOGUE

Good news bad news: learning in collaboration with others via social media can be amazing when learners(and their organizations) engage.

SOCIAL

Learning in the company of others offers learners a significant benefit. Individually they learn from gaining and applying their own knowledge. In groups learners benefit from insights triggered by others sharing their perspectives.

A traditional classroom's capacity may constrain group learning. Environmental issues might hinder social learning as well.

EARNING

Learning via social media removes some of the constraints. One, with walls gone you can share knowledge with as many others as you can network with. You can leverage technology to share perspectives across a variety of media: writing, videos, podcasts to name a few.

To benefit from social media learners have to invest themselves in it. Thinking about learning as earnings they have to work at it.

Social media can be a thorny issue for some organizations. Some I have produced learning experiences for have strict policies in place on how social media can be used. Others may prohibit it completely. There are cultural constraints as well. Things people share online via social media is visible. It takes a lot of trust for this exchange to happen.

EPILOGUE

Trust is the currency of learning with social media. When the trust is there learners are motivated to share. My job is designing training that leverages story, what some might call case studies, to hook learners interests and empathy. I keep advocating for it, designing it in where I can. We're getting there.

 

Approximate Like a Champ

PROLOGUE

Mr. Crowley. There have been many in my almost six decades of life who have helped me in one way or another. This man stands out for setting me on a path that I didn’t even know I was on.

APPROXIMATE

My second trimester at DeVry Institute of Technology, Mr. Crowley taught analog circuit analysis. He taught a design technique that I use every day in my craft and elsewhere: approximations.

The design technique he espoused involved looking at a problem or solution in stages. The first stage was ideally. How does the circuit operate without losses or constraints? Each successive approximation drew closer to real-world conditions.

LIKE A CHAMP

My instructional design craft continues to take advantage of approximations. How would genius hour, a learning strategy I learned about at EdCamps, work with adult learners? First pass: It would be awesome. Motivated learners would.. The second pass through I’d add a real-world constraint like, say, a union contract that places limits on how and where workers can learn.

This, of course, guides me in identifying problems and steers me towards teaching and learning strategies that work in my environment.

“Approximations work like a champ.” I recall Mr. Crowley saying often. He was right.

EPILOGUE

How will I become someone’s champion? If it works with others like it did with me then I probably already have done or said something to help someone launch or continue boldly on their way.