Social media is affecting all our lives – it has disrupted countries and it is unsettling organisations.
Although more and more people are now using the term “social learning” to mean the use of social media for learning, most of them are simply referring to how social media can be used within formal, social learning/training – whereas this is only a small part of the picture.
The more powerful part is how social media is being used to enhance informal social learning. But even this fact I don’t believe clearly highlights how social media is now fundamentally changing the way many people – those I called Smart Workers – are now working and learning – and how this is opening up a new era of workplace learnng.
Over the last few weeks I have been providing some postings here about this – in my Smart Worker series, but in readiness for the webinar I gave yesterday (you can see the slides here – Social media and its impact on how we learn in the workplace), I have aggregated all the content on the main website and drafted work on a couple more features of how the Smart Worker works and learns. So rather than posting them individually, here is a link to the collection of materials that I am now building in this area.
THE CHANGING STATE OF WORKPLACE LEARNING & SOCIAL MEDIA’S PART IN IT
- Part One: Meeting the needs of today’s Smart Worker and preparing for those of tomorrow:
Overview of workplace learning; the impact of social media on learning; characteristics of the Smart Worker and how they are using social media; the new mindset and new approach for L&D - 8 key features how the Smart Worker works and learns
- The Smart Worker : recognises that s/he learns continuously as s/he does his/her job
- The Smart Worker: wants immediate access to solutions to his/her performance problems
- The Smart Worker : is happy to share what s/he knows
- The Smart Worker : relies on a trusted network of friends and colleagues
- The Smart Worker : learns best with and from others
- The Smart Worker : thrives on autonomy
