I was following discussions on how social learning can be helpful in the technical learning and for organizations. I have come across statements such as ‘The way organizations would learn in near future will be revolutionized by Social learning’, ‘The future learning is Social learning’ and many more. I concur to some of the arguments and statements that I followed. I also agree that 70% of learning is informal and the power of informal learning from your peers and subject matter experts is high. I also agree that learning is more valuable when it is relevant.
This made me critically evaluate the possibility of the future being driven by such unorganized and unstructured learning to replace the existing forms of learning.
So, finally here I am with findings of this medium - ‘Social Learning’ and its uses for learning in real world organizations. I would start with advantages and benefits to begin with.
• Social Learning is a good medium if the topic you are learning is evolving. That is, if the technology or the topic itself is in its very initial stages and people are trying to communicate and discuss the future of the particular technology or topic.
• Social Learning is also very effective if you are trying to gain basic knowledge about a topic by doing your part of research from different available resources. This could mean preparing for a session before going to attend it or to read some topic just to know how relevant it is to you and so on.
• The cost involved in carrying out such basic level of research or knowledge acquisition is very minimal. This could be a very good reason for organizations to encourage Social Learning bearing in mind the extent to which the learning can happen.
• One very interesting aspect of using the social learning platforms such as Linkedin, Facebook and so on is that organizations can create communities specific to a topic. The communities can be created either inside the organization or outside with panel of experts and subject matter experts. This will create a learning eco-system.
• On something like twitter, it is good to follow the subject matter expert or evangelist, department or a vertical to know the updates in the organization or for a technology.
• It is known that information (knowledge) is of two types, formal or explicit information and tacit information. We also know that formal information is easy to track and can be properly managed in an organization. It is often tacit information that is often very easy to lose and difficult to manage. Social learning and social learning platforms are a good way to at least record the tacit information into some form of content/information.
The disadvantages are the important aspects of social learning that can be viewed both as opportunities and short-comings. The opportunities would enhance the learning eco-system if improved.
• It is very important to properly organize the learning eco-system that is easy for learners to find their way in the system. Otherwise, the time invested by learners to find appropriate information/learning may go in vain.
• Lack of subject matter experts or mentors in communities can mislead learners. This would make the learners have difficulty in both understanding the subject and also maintaining their interest in the topic/technology.
• A very common problem in social medium for learning is lack of appropriate monitoring in the communities to see if the medium is not being misused for unnecessary discussions.
• Organizations must encourage and motivate the evangelists and subject matter experts to write articles, blogs, wikis and FFO (Frequently Faced Obstacles) for their respective topic/technology. Without appropriate content in the learning eco-system, learners might not be interested to use the social learning medium.
These few of the findings that I thought were good to write into a post. After my critical study of these facts, I realized that Social Media for Social Learning is here to stay and slowly become an integral part of the existing learning system in organizations. It can even gain prominence and can be impressive medium for learning if used appropriately and with efficient judgment and correct tools to implement.
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