Deconstructing the Work Literacy Learning Event

The Work Literacy online learning event is over and Harold Jarche has posted some of what he learned from our facilitation of the course. Time for me to share some of my thoughts. . Using Ning for the Course Our first big decision was what platform to use. We ended up going with Ning because it integrated several different tools (blogs, forums, video and photo-sharing, social networking profiles, groups) at... Read more →


Implementing Social Media: A Tale of Two Case Studies

A couple of interesting posts from Nathan Wallace on his organization's experiences in implementing a wiki and then a year later, a customized microblogging platform called Jitter. You need to read both, but here are some key points: The organizational wiki seems to have been adopted more quickly and used more extensively than the Jitter solution. This is in part, Nathan says, because the wiki was responding to a need,... Read more →


Has the Work Literacy Course Been "Successful"? How Do We Know?

I'm on my way out the door, but wanted to post this question. . . Ken Anderson has been participating in the Connectivism and Connective Knowledge (CCK08) course and on Friday asked if the course was failing: I wonder how many are left actively participating and/or monitoring the CCK08 course. Some 2100+ allegedly originally registered, with 18 seeking credit. The Moodle forums have been drying up over the last 3... Read more →


Negative Online Behavior is a Product of Culture, Not Your Social Media Tools: What I'm Learning from the Work Literacy Course

One of the questions I'm most frequently asked when talking to people about using social media for learning in organizations is how do you "manage" comments and how do you deal with people "being negative." There's a general fear that once you open the floodgates to participation, you're going to be inundated with people acting inappropriately and unprofessionally. Although I think this is a fair question I think that 1)... Read more →


Some LinkedIn Resources

Linkedin View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: linkedin kawasaki) It must be LinkedIn day, because in addition to this great presentation I found from Guy Kawasaki, I also see that LinkedIn has launched a suite of Applications that you can add to your profile, including apps for: Your Amazon Reading List Slideshare Linking your Wordpress or Typepad posts to your profile Box.net so you can share documents via... Read more →


Although WIRED is now claiming that blogs are dead, I'm not buying that. Maybe they're dead to a minuscule group of people who are easily bored and only talk in 140 character spurts, but if learning is reduced to tweets, I think we're in big trouble. It's that kind of short-term, surface discussion of issues that in my opinion has contributed to the current world-wide financial crisis we're in. Life... Read more →


I'm just back from a long week of training and Wii bowling with Christine Martell, which explains my unanticipated blogging break. I had intended to write, I swear, but somehow time changes and cross-country travel got in my way. And yes, the afore-mentioned Wii bowling didn't help either. One of my stops was to Portland, where I did a day-long session on blogging, podcasting and screencasting with about 25 members... Read more →


Week 4 on RSS and Aggregators is Up at Work Literacy

We're embarking on Week 4 of the Work Literacy learning project. This week it's RSS and feed readers. Although the thrust of the module is primarily about how learning professionals can learn and manage information by subscribing to feeds, I find that I'm more interested in how we can use feeds as learning tools for the people with whom we're working. For example, I continue to be in awe of... Read more →


Blogging for Learning--"Audio Blogging"

This is the last (for now) in my series of posts on using blogs for learning. Earlier this week, Lee Kraus wrote a post on finding the time to blog. He mentioned that he has a two-hour drive every day, which leaves lots of time for thinking, but not for writing. Time is always a challenge for bloggers, but if you're in the car two hours a day, audio blogging... Read more →


Blogging and "E-Flective" Practice

Blogs and educating the eflective practitioner View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: elearning professional) Over at Work Literacy this week, we hosted a great webinar on using blogs for reflective practice. It was run by Paul Lowe, who is a senior lecturer and course director at London College of Communication, University of the Arts London. You can access the recorded session here. Just click on the link and... Read more →