session overview

Wednesday 27th January 2010

11:30 - 12:30 Track 1 Session 1

Communities and social learning

In the past year social learning seems to have grown up. From outsider status it has come to the centre of a great deal of learning activity - from content creation to performance support. With the key concern of the quality of learning increasingly being answered by robust processes, it's now time to take a step back and consider the big question of what impact all this will have on corporate learning and development, and to hear a case study of a very successful corporate implementation of social learning.

P1: From content to community: how L&D is changing

Jane Hart, Social Learning Consultant, Centre for Learning and Performance Technologies

People naturally learn from each other, and as technology-supported social learning becomes main stream, what effects can we expect it to have on organisational Learning and Development? Jane Hart argues that social learning offers the L&D function great scope for widening its impact, and increasing its effectiveness. But it is also a potential threat: people will use social learning regardless of L&D - so where does this leave the L&D department of the future?

Social learning: Evolution or revolution?
Which technology to consider and which to ignore
Should social learning be top down or bottom up?
The role of L&D in a world of social learning
Do courses have a future?

P2: Using a web 2.0 social learning environment

Peter Butler, Director of Learning, BT Group

Formal learning is costly, takes time to produce and more often than not it takes the employee off the job. BT's new web 2.0 social learning environment enables more informal learning. The results, according to Peter Butler, are lower costs, improved time to competence and less time ‘off the job’. In this session Peter examines data from 11,000 users of the system showing its popularity and usefulness, and explores: