Social media’s role in learning and development: key takeaways

On 9 May I participated in a webinar entitled Social Media’s Role in Learning & Development, sponsored by eCornell and skillfully moderated by Charles Jennings (other speakers: Brice Jewell and Andy Jones).  Key takeaways from the webinar are as follows:

The role of social media in learning

• the 70:20:10 model now applies – ratio of learning, corresponding to learning through: individual experience, engagement with others and structured courses, respectively (for more information and context, refer to Jennings presentation 8 Reasons Why You Should Focus on Informal and Social Learning)
• Define what social media channel is appropriate for what information
• The goal of the exercise is to get people the information they need at the right time

Integrating social media into learning

• Establish communities for courses to encourage group collaboration
• Consider posting course material on the community to allow participants to suggest changes and make live updates
• Set up collaboration tools (ie. LinkedIn group or Twitter #hashtag) to connect people before and after the event

Measurement of social learning

• The challenge of how to measure the impact of social learning is a non-issue in the sense that it should be included in the evaluation of the overall programme
• Activity measures – Likes, Followers et al – are not as important as social measures, such as achievement of goal measures

Pitfalls?

• It is wrong to think that a social media platform will be accepted in an organization if it introduced; “If you build it, they will come.” does not necessarily apply
• Failed social media projects are often caused by having too much or too little governance to meet project goals

New skills and capabilities

• In contrast to other web-based communication means, like email, the successful use of social media requires a high degree of empathy
• Social media content should be moderated to make sure that it meets organizational needs and is not a distraction
• Some companies are engaging ‘Collaboration Consultants’ to help the organization achieve business goals by identifying pain points and ways alleviate them

Social gamification

• It works

Tips & Tricks

• To encourage participation, launch polls and quizzes
• “Ask questions they can’t answer”: make quiz questions difficult (expert-level) and then direct participants to a learning opportunity, after which they will be able to answer

Future uses of social learning

• Social media engagement is a way to learn about the capabilities and interests of staff.  Content can then be directed to them based on their function and interests

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