Social” seems to be the word of the year with Social Media, Social Marketing and Social Learning bursting from headlines, tweets, emails and whitepapers. We’re told that Social Learning is the future and we must adapt or be left-behind. But what does social really mean in a learning context, and what can L&D professionals expect from Social Learning efforts?
What is Social Learning and Why Should We Care?
1) Collaboration and sharing are the heart of successful social learning programs. Traditional training programs focus on one-way communication from a trainer to a group of learners in a formal setting, in which even the most creative participatory elements tend to feel forced and anything but organic. Social learning helps capture the natural, informal learning processes that inevitably take place when two or more individuals work together to accomplish shared goals.
Imagine the benefits of having direct, personal access to every employee in your company at any time, and you will begin to understand the power of social learning. Software developers on opposite sides of the world can instantly share work while communicating face-to-face, while sales teams can ensure that all team members have access to continuously updated competitive information from a central source. Managers can walk subordinates through complicated tasks while they travel, while customer-support representatives can collaboratively troubleshoot customer issues with geographically distant experts.
2) Social Learning enhances knowledge retention. We’ve all seen studies showing how quickly people forget what they learn in traditional training when they don’t have the opportunity to apply the new concepts. Social Learning programs’ focus on continuous learning can provide a major boost to retention. Social Learning programs provide platforms from which to encourage a continuous stream of engagement with recently learned topics, allowing participants to exercise new knowledge for extended periods of time and get real-time feedback from peers when they need help.
3) Technology actually helps with Social Learning. Many early attempts at computer learning simply tried to virtually recreate the classroom experience. But’s today’s collaborative tools do more than recreate, they unleash learning. Think about how discussion threads, instant messaging, interactive polling, on-demand video and real-time conferencing can enable your learning objectives.
6) Content is still king. In a world where thousands – or millions – of sources are just a click away, your ability to make accurate and appropriate content readily available is crucial. Don’t just put your traditional training online, rather think about what resources will make the biggest difference and start there. If you don’t know, ask your employees what they want. And don’t think in terms of version numbers. Your Social Learning content will change daily as your learners collaborate and enhance what you provide.
7) Social Learning is not new. One of the more powerful advantages of social-learning technology is that, unlike numerous technology-driven trends, social-learning technology does not require people to develop new habits, engage in new behavior or change the way in which they interact with others. Rather, social-learning platforms work around and enhance the ways in which people already interact with each other. This key element ensures that Social Learning is not a fad, but will instead take deep root inside the workforce-development industry, empowering organizations to develop more effective and modern solutions to traditional training needs.
