Social media and self-directed learning
I found Jane Hart’s post on social media FOR learning most thought-provoking:
I have decided to categorise the use of social media in the following 5 different ways:
- IOL – Intra-Organisational Learning – how social media tools can be used to keep the organisation up to date and up to speed on strategic and other internal initiatives
- FSL – Formal Structured Learning - how educators (teachers, trainers, learning designers) as well as students can use social media within education and training – for courses, classes, workshops etc
- GDL – Group Directed Learning – how groups of individuals - teams, projects, study groups etc – can use social media to work and learn together (a “group” could just be two people, so coaching and mentoring falls into this category)
- PDL – Personal Directed Learning – how individuals can use social media for their own (self-directed) personal or professional learning
- ASL – Accidental & Serendipitous Learning – how individuals, by using social media, can learn without consciously realising it (aka incidental or random learning)
This had me thinking about how best to explain these categories to clients and folks not immersed in social media and learning. I started by looking at it as a 2×2 matrix, but of course there are five categories, so that wouldn’t work. However, the axes of the amount of direction versus group size made sense to me, so I created the diagram below. What jumped out at me after the fact, and I’ve highlighted in red, is that social media for learning requires a lot of self-directed learning, either individually or as a participant in a group/organization. Externally directed learning (FSL) is only one of five possibilities. Good food for thought on the future role of the “training” department, isn’t it?
Filed under: InternetTime, Learning
Good food for thought on the future role of the “training” department, isn’t it?
Yes.
This is incredibly helpful in making the case for socialmedia. Execs love diagrams.
Uh, what future was that, Jon?
Is a non-existent future still a future? Interesting point to ponder, jay.
@Jay Cross .. heh, indeed.
Harold’s words, not mine … but I think we both know he was at least implicitly using the tag, no ?
“implicitly using the *snark* tag”
OK, it should have had a *snark* tag, though not a *SNARK* tag.
Nice! Looks like a “normal curve”. Oops, my statistical bias is showing.
mmm..for me, reading Harold Jarche’s matrix of Jane Hart’s list is a prefect example of ASL…
[...] again, I’m learning from my colleagues, as yesterday I realized how important self-direction is in enabling social learning. Now I’m picking up on Jay’s post on Social Learning [...]
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[...] site which is providing an opportunity to explore Jane’s model further and to consider Harold Jarche’s extension to [...]
I am a teacher, and i have a course blog – where does that fall?
These categories refer mostly to workplace learning, Tarun. FSL would be the general category for formal education, especially if students don’t have an option of taking your courses, choosing the subject matter or taking different paths.
The idea of social and informal learning in the corporate learning space is fascinating. But the real challenge is how to implement this new learning culture effectively across the organization as people who calls the shot show skepticism as their main argument is how to control and manage the informal learning and how do you measure it. I work as a eLearning teamlead in an MNC where people are even reluctant to embrace the Rapid eLearning over classical Flash-based elearning.
This categorization of different types of learning is excellent . However I am a bit confused about the term self-directed learning when you write— “social media for learning requires a lot of self-directed learning, either individually or as a participant in a group/organization.”
Even a formal elearning course is self-directed, isn’t it?
Yes, Tirtho, all learning is in some way self-directed, but FSL is directed from outside, in terms of selection and timing as well as externally created learning objectives. FSL has the least degree of self-direction.
Thanks Harold. Got it now. I would also like to know your view about measuring the Informal learning. Do you think the corporates would implement and invest on social mode of informal learning if they couldn’t measure it properly.
Corporations do many things that are not based on pure measurement. What is needed is that informal learning is valued. Anecdotal evidence may be enough to get commitment.
[...] helpful to me: Jane takes a structure proposed by Harold Jarche to look at the performance level and amount of “directedness” in various types of [...]
[...] The specific term had some recent great discussion by Jane Hart and Harold Jarche in the posts Social media and self-directed learning, Using social media for different types of learning that included the following [...]
[...] Social media and self-directed learning (Harold Jarche) [...]
[...] Harold Jarche in his turn produced the following chart to interpret Hart’s listing. I find this a great model to use as basis for my own research on how to categorise different kinds of social media, suitable for different kinds of learning situations, especially to apply to the organization I work for myself. [...]
[...] Harold Jarche in his turn produced the following chart to interpret Hart’s listing. I find this a great model to use as basis for my own research on how to categorise different kinds of social media, suitable for different kinds of learning situations, especially to apply to the organization I work for myself. [...]