I've mentioned in a number of previous postings that during the summer I worked on the E-Learning Guild's E-Learning 2.0 Research. The 360° Report is published this week; and Steve Wexler, the Director of Research at E-Learning Guild,
has done an amazing job in analysing all the data from the E-Learning
Guild Members survey and bringing out all the salient points.
Over the last few weeks, supporting articles for this research by other members of the research team, Mark Oehlert, Michele Martin, Brent Schlenker and Will Thalheimer, have been published in the Guild's Learning Solutions e-Magazine. This week it was the turn of my article Understanding
Today’s Learner and this is how it is billed:
Much of what we read about generational differences between learners in the
Web 2.0 world is a bit removed from reality. In this week's article author Jane Hart connects the dots between theory,
reality, and practice by using Guild Research and interviews with practitioners.
The article is FREE to access for Guild Associate members, and comprises three main parts: Part One looks at what the research tells us about the characteristics of today’s learners (aka Learners 2.0), and how they best learn. Part Two reports on interviews with eLearning Guild members on how they perceive learners today, and how they are addressing their needs. Part Three looks at the importance for learning and development professionals to experience being a Learner 2.0 in order to advise on appropriate new learning approaches.
When writing the article I referenced the work I had been doing in understanding the use of social media in the workplace, in particular the Model of Engagement with Social Media that I had developed, that showed that users interact with these tools at a number of different levels, i.e.
- Reader (or passive consumer)
- Participant (or active contributor)
- Creator (or proactive producer)
My research on today's new breed of learner has shown that he/she is (amongst other things) someone who is highly engaged with social media at all 3 levels and on a very regular basis - irrespective of age! And interviews with learning professionals showed that those who were most successfuly implementing (or moving towards implementing) E-Learning 2.0 in their organisations, were also highly engaged with social media and its ethos. It seems clear that having an excellent understanding and hands-on appreciation of these tools is vital to being able to advise on appropriate learning experiences and solutions for this new generation of learner. So in terms of social media, how can learning and development professionals who have yet to explore social media get started - or engaged?
Over the years I've run a number of workshops on different tools and technologies and have got participants to set up blogs, wikis, etc themselves (i.e. become Creators), but I have now come to realise that whereas this approach works for some, for others it really is like being thrown in the deep end, when what is wanted and needed is an approach that builds confidence and competence with social media by gradually working up through the levels (of Reader and Contributor) to Creator.
I therefore drew up a 12-step plan to getting engaged with social media. This started as a quick guide for learning professionals and actually appeared as an article in elearning age magazine this month. Since that time I have been using this approach on a number of workshops, and feel that it has worked out much more successfully than before; people really have begun to grasp the value and power of social media much more quickly. I've now had a number of requests to offer this as an online, on demand professional development resource, which is what I am working on now, and it will become available shortly (let me know if you are interested when it is ready).
In the meantime for those who want to assess their current level of engagement with social media there is a self-assesment quiz. Note this is an updated and refined version of the one I mentioned in a previous posting.
Postscript
DevLearn conference takes place 12-14 November in San Jose, California. There is a Pre-Conference E-Learning 2.0 Symposium on 11 November, in which I will be present and involved. If you are going to the Conference I look forward to seeing you there.
Karyn Romeis is exploring the impact of the use of social media on the professional practice of learning professionals, for her MA dissertation. She'd like some input - and would like to hear:
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