I’m in a session on social learning at #hrtechconf, lead by Jeanne Meister author of The 2020 Workplace. The audience is wrestling with what is social learning. As someone who has spent a little time focused on this recently, here’s how I define it.
The text version:
Social media is technology used to engage three or more people.
Social learning is participating with others to make sense of new ideas.
What’s new is how powerfully they work together.
That work for you?
If this helps you, you might want to add this slide to your presentations when you want to explain social learning to others. Learn with them, after all. You might want to get a copy of The New Social Learning, too.
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Like it! My definition of social learning is learning in context. Lots of learning at school and at work is done in isolation. You do it alone, with a book, the internet, an eLearning tool, etc. Social Learning is done in groups with or without social tools.
I compare is to information. There’s a great book called ‘The Social Life of Information’. IT and most people in the world talked about information as if it was something in itself, with no context. But information is social, it’s related to people, places, etc. In this way information has meaning or (starts to) make sense.
Marcia,
Curious- why do you call out three people (rather than two) for something to count as social media? Is it because a dyad has had many previous technologies in which to communicate? (Conversation, written letters, telephone, etc.)
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