Statistics show that 800 million people are on Facebook. Fifty-percent of those users visit the site more than once a day.  As a user myself that makes up that fifty-percent, it makes sense for one to ask why not combine eLearning with Facebook. If you’re new to eLearning or Facebook and think this is a brilliant new idea, do not be fooled. This idea of using Facebook as an LMS is not a new idea, in fact it has been a point of discussion in the past two to three years amongst the thought leaders of our industry. Although this idea of combining the two concepts would be of great assistance to charities and non-profits, purely due to cost; charities and non-profits should still be aware of things that Facebook could not offer compared to your custom LMS.

The most important question charities should ask is how secure would their data be in Facebook? We are all aware as Facebook users that once our data is in their system they own it. People are concerned about their privacy knowing that the CIA and US government have connections to Facebook and their data-mining of status updates and other profile information. Thus, using a custom LMS, like Litmos, charities and non-profits could sleep at night knowing that our system secures your content and data reporting.

In addition, charities should question reporting capabilities.  At Litmos, we are frequently asked by our clients on how they can run reports on their learners. When using an LMS, clients want to be able to record learner interaction information, and then store that reporting data for compliance reasons.  Unfortunately, Facebook does not have this feature. Although it could create this feature in the future if it were to integrate an LMS in their system, I’d still be concerned about the security issue and all the custom feature that an LMS offers.

And if a charity or non-profit is indecisive on which route to choose due to funds, they would find in their research that Litmos offers huge discounts on our regular pricing plans to not-for-profit organizations and charities. So please do not hesitate and send us an email if you would like to know more!

-Jacqueline Barnes

Over at the Social Learning Camp I heard some good tips from Mark Oehlert on using Delicious bookmarking within organizations as a way of creating a knowledge base and a culture of knowledge sharing.

The idea that you can turn a solitary action in to a community action is pretty cool. Meaning, instead of people just browsing websites and resources that they like (as they are anyway), you give out a Delicious button to tag their favorite sites with, which can then be used to share resources amongst their colleagues.

For the organization, this tool can effectively turn everyone in to a knowledge ‘scout’. It’s a great free way to find out what your teams are interested in, make use of the people resources at your disposal for researching specific topics, and it’s easy because they’re using the internet anyway so it’s not outside of their work-flow.

@Schnicker

Mark Oehlert is running the Social Learning Camp at DevLearn 2009 and I just attended his session on ‘The Big Three of Social Media / Social Learning: Fear, Control and Trust’.

Here’s a few takeaways from his talk which surrounded corporate culture and their objections to adopting social media, why they exist, and how to work around them:

• People don’t hate change, they hate how you’re changing them
• It’s not an I.T. problem (as in, security objections to social media are not the problem) it’s a human or culture problem
• Companies worry too much that once their people have access to social media they’ll say bad or inaccurate things. But social media doesn’t create idiots, in fact, it can expose them.
• One way to get around the fear, control and trust issues is through policy development
• IBM has the gold standard for social media guidelines 
• It’s not an I.T.issue, it’s not a money issue – many social media tools are too affordable – it’s just fear, control and trust
• Being an eLearning professional means being a psychologist, anthropologist and counselor, because you’re constantly having to overcome and work around the human and emotional issues people have

Oehlert spoke about his experience with the Department of Defense and other government agencies and how Facebook and Twitter are not allowed because of operational security. There is a  fear of exposing vulnerabilities within their community. He says this is a valid concern, but then went on to ask ‘does this mean that they then block access to these networks at the soldiers’ homes’? No. At the end of the day, it is corporate culture that’s the real problem.

@Schnicker

I just want to share some interesting results I found from a Social Learning poll, designed by participants in the Masie Center Social Learning Lab and Seminar and done March 12th, 2009. It was sent out to Learning TRENDS readers – Global Learning Professionals, to which they received 1069 responses.

It’s a great snapshot of where organizations are at with feelings on social learning and plans for implementation. Here’s a link to the results, complete with comments from Elliott Masie:

It looks like Web 2.0 online training and eLearning systems have reached another plateau and they’re in need of the next stage of development: the integration of social and collaborative tools to enhance the learning process.

From a technical point of view I find this very exciting because historically Learning Management Systems (LMS) offer a relatively static one-way learning experience from content –> learner. The bundling together of what I consider to be more ‘fun’ social concepts like wikis, blogs, social networks and microblogs in with an LMS not only transforms it in to a more dynamic offering for teacher/learner, it also gives the learner a voice to contribute, share their knowledge and become part of a collaborative learning program. It’s that idea of ‘transforming people from content readers into publishers’(Wikipedia).

A recent study I read, which I can’t seem to find again for the life of me, (will update this post when I find it again) showed that people using social media enjoy sharing knowledge and answering people’s questions, not because they selfishly enjoy knowing the answer, but because in sharing they help educate and raise the level of knowledge of their connections. I find that to be a very hopeful message because it supports the notion that people will happily and actively engage in knowledge sharing if given the opportunity. Maybe people won’t have to hate training?

Now all of this resulted in the team at Litmos having a long, hard brainstorming session a wee while back to nail down the next steps in development for our LMS. It’s like the barriers have come down and a new era is unfolding where online learning can become a two-way process because the concept of social, collaborative learning is now being endorsed by many learning professionals such as Harold Jarche here in this quote “Successful collaborative efforts are the measure of a successful organization.”

We’ve got some exciting developments on the way to compliment our current formula for course delivery, so watch this space as we prepare to incorporate ideas of knowledge sharing and collaborative learning.

@schnicker

It’s been talked about for years, but ‘Social Learning’ is more recently becoming the big buzz word in learning, and you should probably pay attention because it’s being pegged as the next generation of eLearning (heavily debated of course, as is everything in learning).

My definition of ‘social learning’ as I understand it is learning that takes place through the use of a collection of web-based tools like wikis, blogs, and social networks which build community and conversation around a topic encouraging a collaborative knowledge sharing environment. There’s a fair amount of literature coming out regarding what it actually means for learning, how effective it is and will be, security considerations and many other interesting arguments for and against.

I’ve just chosen 5 recent social learning resources /articles to share that I’ve found really interesting of late (in no particular order):

1. Jane Hart of C4LPT on Social Learning
2. SLQOTD – Social Learning Question of the Day (read how it works here on the Engaged Learning blog)
3. ASDT ISPI Social Learning Workshop – Dave Wilkins
   Overcoming the Top10 Objections to Social Learning – Dave Wilkins /Kevin Jones
4. Effective Knowledge Sharing – Harold Jarche

5. A Practical Guide to Implementing Web 2.0 (AKA Social Networking Tools) in Your Organization – Dave Pollard (also What’s Next After Knowledge Management for some background on the ‘problem’ social tools solve)

That’s not really 5, it’s more like 7, and then there’s such an amazing web of links within these articles that you really could be busy reading for days on end. Enjoy!

@schnicker

There’s a great group on Twitter called #lrnchat that meet every week to talk ‘learning’. Learning technology, instructional design, semantics – you name it, it gets discussed.

Each week questions are submitted to the Lrnchat blog and one is chosen to be the topic of discussion for the chat time which happens every Thursday night 8:30-10pm EST / 5:30-7pm PST.

If you’re on Twitter and interested in learning, eLearning, online learning or anything related, make sure to visit their blog and find some of the key organizers and follow them. That way you’ll know it’s on when you start seeing your Twitter stream filled with the #lrnchat hashtag.

Although I haven’t been actively involved in the chat yet, I really enjoy reading their discussion comments as they sail by and always make sure to catch up on the conversation at a more convenient time for me by using the Twitter search function. Sometimes the conversation gets pretty heated and other times it’s downright hilarious.

Whatever happens, you’re bound to learn something.

Oh and I’m on Twitter here: @schnicker

You’ll probably be hearing a lot more of the term ‘electronic water cooler’, if you haven’t noticed it already. It’s a reference to the ideas and discussions that come up while hovering around the office water cooler, that are now happening online. Any social media tool (blogs, wikis, Facebook) could represent an electronic water cooler, but most often these days I’m hearing people talk about it in terms of Twitter – a million ideas buzzing around, conversations happening all over the globe, and you can choose to tune in to the ones you want to hear and discussions you want to be a part of.

If you’re already using social media tools (and have successfully managed to filter out the ‘noise’) then I’d imagine you know exactly what I’m talking about. They allow you to meet people and discuss topics that you could never find within the confines of your company, friend group or even locale.

So in the midst of the buzz of ideas, the thought has arisen that the electronic water cooler should be harnessed as a tool to ‘manage’ Gen Y and tap in to the new thought-pool, because it’s a perfect way to encourage development without actively telling anyone what to do (because that just equals rebellion). In a recent article called Five Ways Gen Y will Change the Way You Work, Nick Heath of silicon.com explores a new approach to training, recruitment and retaining staff which is well worth the read.

Some of Heath’s ideas sound pretty theoretical, and so I wonder how they would actually work in reality. But he sites some valid examples (Best Buy, Proctor and Gamble) where the ideas are proven to work. I like the image the electronic water cooler conjures up, and I agree that with such a wealth of information out there, the learning process needs to integrate the more interactive and collaborative features of social media if we want to remain relevant to the Gen Y audience.

To be totally honest, I didn’t like Twitter when I signed up. I didn’t understand the point of it. To me it was just another social network to waste my time. But now I know that you can’t grasp the full potential of what’s going on in Twitter using just the Twitter website.

You have to have a way to manage and understand all that information for it to be useful.

I’d recommend you get straight on to downloading a desktop ‘Twitter Client’ like Tweetdeck. For me it’s ‘message/info management’ central; a filter that separates out the ‘noise’. It enables you to focus in on certain groups of people, specific topics people are talking about, plus see all your direct replies and @replies on one screen so you can respond quickly.

Following lots of people is the way to go because you pick up on all sorts of things you wouldn’t normally. But it can be overwhelming when the tweets are whizzing by and you’re just getting bits and pieces of conversations, but never the full story.

Tweetdeck allows you take the control back over what you want to read and who you want to follow. By creating groups and searches, and by seeing all the information laid out right there, you can gain a better grasp of how Twitter can be used as an awesome networking and educational medium, as well as an excellent viral marketing tool for businesses and individuals.

I’ll show you what I mean. I’ve broken my Tweetdeck screen down in to 6 vertical columns:

1. Everyone’s tweets – this is the feed you see in your normal Twitter account (the only feed!)
2. Just @me replies – so I know who’s talking to me and can reply quickly
3. Just Direct Messages to me – only I see these
4. Tweets from anyone in my geographic area – I created this group & add to it all the time
5. Tweets from people in eLearning & training – another group so I can follow these 2 topics
6. An updating search on ‘Litmos’ & ‘online training’ – anyone mentions these words, I’ll see it!

(click to enlarge)

The toolbar at the top left above the text box is what you use to control your Tweets, create Groups, Searches, Reply, Send Direct Messages, Favourite tweets etc.
The Settings icon in the top right corner is what you use to control the width of your columns, notifications, how often your screen updates, colours and other technical aspects.I can’t emphasize enough how useful the search and groups functions are. Without them I don’t think I’d be interested. Tweetdeck makes Twitter make sense..

Other Posts in this Series:

• Part One – Getting Started with Twitter
• Part Two – Customizing Your Twitter Page & Making Friends
• Part Three – Replies, Direct Messages and Retweeting in Twitter