DevLearn08 - Day 1 (cont. again)

Session three: "Learning 2.0 and Workplace Communities." The presenter started 10 minutes early. Good thing I was already in the room.

This presenter works for Mzinga, which you may recall is the company that implemented AAA Mid-Atlantic's Web 2.0 solution. They're also here as an exhibitor.

He made a good point that the problem with Web 2.0 technologies is not that they are new or foreign to us, the problem is that getting started using them is a change for people. I can say from personal experience that that is absolutely true.

The idea that an average or non-expert employee is going to post something that is inaccurate is almost somewhat absurd. Before a user posts something, they have to have three things: knowledge of the topic, the know-how to post in the first place, and the confidence to handle any criticism that arises as a result of their post. People do not post without that level of self-efficacy.

It's acceptable for employees to use their internal social networking tool, discussion board, whatever, to discuss topics that are not strictly work-related. Examples for AAA NCNU might be: company sports teams, volunteer stuff, and the like. If people use the tool for this kind of stuff, it gets them used to using it, and they start to realize that they can use it for other, work-related things as well.

This presenter just vetted my idea of using our internal online community to link to formal courses in the LMS. Reading a page about diversity at AAA? Great, here's some links to some formal courses on the topic to go along with the social discussion. It would also be nice if the search could search not only community content, but also LMS content. I don't think that's realistic in the near future, but at some point it would be nice to have that functionality.

Ooh, he has a great slide that illustrates something else that myself and others have thought about in terms of the community model, and how it is used in relation to formal courses. I know that I've had trouble trying to express this idea, and this illustration does it very nicely. I'll have to see if I can get a copy of that slide.