Social learning, an example

Ok, so I don’t seem to have a problem finding things to write about each week. Through following links in Twitter, LinkedIn, and various blogs (that I’ve discovered through following other people’s recommendations in Twitter and LinkedIn) I’ve discovered numerous bits of information that have challenged and enlarged my thinking around learning and development. This week it was a great article by Jane Bozarth entitled ‘From Traditional Instruction to Instructional Design 2.0’.

After delving into various articles about instructional design, e-learning and learning through social media, I had been asking myself “how does one use social media and e-learning tools to facilitate learning?” “How do you start to develop something like Charles Jenning’s 70:20:10 model in the workplace?” and “What part do L&D specialists play in this?” I found that Bozarth’s (not sure if it’s appropriate to use first name or last so I’ll stick to my standard academic labeling) article provided practical examples on how to apply social learning, such as identifying performance gaps, a no-brainer but crucial, considering what the business environment is like and their receptiveness to social media, and examples of how to leverage social media to support and enhance existing learning avenues.

Support is a key word here, rather than replace. Social media is not social learning. Bozarth defines social learning as “learning with and from others by moving within one’s culture, workplace and world.” Social media are the tools to support this. In a similar vein, another article I read this week from Forbes online entitled ‘The top 10 ways to become truly social’, makes a point that  “we can’t automatically make employees interact in deep and sustainable ways simply by hitting the on button, creating a Facebook page, launching internal social communication or real-time performance feedback platforms and replacing e-mail addresses with hash tags”. In a lot of respects social media can provide opportunities for interaction but not necessarily the motivation to learn.

I want to share a great example of social learning that I have observed recently that captures the motivation, ability and opportunity to learn. My husband Gareth is really into his tequila and I’m talking the real tequila here. No shots with salt and lime, and no worms. These being the first things people not in the know ask about when either one of us mentions good tequila. We do seem to have some backward notions of tequila drinking in NZ, but that is slowly changing.

Now aside from a trip to Mexico a couple of years ago, most of Gareth’s knowledge about tequila comes from what can only be described as social learning. He learns from live-streamed videos, Facebook discussion groups and whatever else he can glean from the Internet. He’s passionate and motivated about it and he’s connecting with like-minded, passionate and motivated people to share ideas and ask questions. Obviously, New Zealand is geographically isolated from Mexico, but social media provides the opportunity to learn without necessarily being there.

As Bozarth says social learning is “often unconscious and unintentional, and it often looks more like solving a problem or working together to make sense of something”. Like what Gareth is doing. I think it’s helpful to pay more attention to these unintentional methods of learning, as we might learn something ourselves.

Here are the links to these two articles if you’d like to read them:

Jane Bozarth, Traditional Instruction to Instructional Design 2.0

http://www.astd.org/TD/Archives/2012/Mar/Free/Mar12_Feature_ID_2.0.htm?utm_source=weejeemedia&utm_medium=hootsuite&utm_campaign=weejeemedia

Dov Seidman, The top ten ways to become truly social

http://www.forbes.com/sites/dovseidman/2012/02/24/the-top-10-ways-to-become-truly-social/