session overview

Social learning in the real world

It's time to have a real conversation about social media and its role in learning. Is it just a black hole for time, or can it be useful, and how on earth do you regulate it, or can't you? Our three speakers all have different experiences,  backgrounds and opinions on this. Come and bring your own thoughts to this interactive session and share them as we try to work out how to put social media to work - collaboratively, of course.

P1: Community is the core

Dan Martin, Editor, BusinessZone.co.uk

Dan Martin is chairman of UK Business Forums, with 55,000 registered users and many more unique visitors. Typically, visitors are small business owners looking for, and giving, advice. They learn a great deal from each other, but without any formal intervention. It's learning, but not as L&D knows it.

• The value of giving advice away for free
• How a community self-regulates
• What makes a good community member

P2: Being smart about social media

Neil Lasher, Chair, ASTD Global Network UK

Social media may be the latest thing, but we shouldn't get carried away with ourselves, says Neil Lasher. It can be a great tool for learning - used correctly. It can also suck up people's time - used incorrectly. How can you tell the difference, especially when today's chit chat could turn to be vitally useful at work tomorrow?

• Social Learning vs Social Environment Learning
• The new, active role of the learner in all of this
• What do we need to make social media-based learning work?

P3: Are we just getting in the way?

Sharon Claffey Kaliouby, Senior Vice President, Enterprise Ireland

There's no doubt that collaborative technologies help people learn from each other, so why aren't they a core component of the Learning and Development profession? Are the definitions and restrictions we place on ourselves getting in the way of our getting the job done? L&D's role is more than producing and disseminating courses. Sharon Claffey Kaliouby argues that social media's effect may be more revolutionary than we think:

• The value of social media in learning
• How those outside L&D use and define social media, regardless of age, location, and status
• Will social media make L&D re-invent itself?