TYPES OF LEARNING CHAPTER 3

SOCIAL MEDIA
TYPES OF LEARNING
SOCIAL MEDIA
oIOL – Intra- Organizational Learning
oFSL – Formal Structured Learning
oGDL – Group Directed Learning
oPDL – Personal Directed Learning
oASL – Accidental & Serendipitous Learning

s e d fo r 5 types of learning
ial media c a n b e u
ere are th e e x a mples how soc
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 IO
INTRA ORGANZATIONAL L
LEARNING
How social media can be used to keep the employees up
to date and up to speed on strategic and other internal
initiatives and activities.

Learning from everyone

in the organisation

This is when employees are sharing information and

resources with others throughout the organisation, to keep
each other up to date and up to speed on strategic and
other internal initiatives and activities.
 IO
INTRA ORGANZATIONAL L
LEARNING
Although some organisations are beginning to put in
place internal social collaboration environments for
employees to share news, resources etc with other
another, as well as improve communication between
employees, others are, once again, self-organising and
using external social media tools to do this themselves.
 FS
INTRA ORGANZATIONAL L
LEARNING

▪The use of blogging by senior managers and project leaders to

provide a perspective on organizational policies or to
disseminate information about current initiatives around the
organization, which others can comment and feedback on
▪The use of a private micro-sharing service where colleagues can
keep each other updated with their news and activities
▪The creation of a collaborative resource or knowledge base
which all employees can contribute to
▪The creation of an organizational community or network where
employees can establish contact with colleagues (who may be
remotely located) as well as enable easy communication and
collaboration between them.
▪For file-sharing in the organization where employees create and
share, or else find and view podcasts, documents, etc which they
can rate for others
 FS
FORMAL STRUCTURED L
LEARNING
How educators (teachers, trainers, learning designers) as well
as students can use social media within formal education and
training.
Learning in formal classroom or
in online courses

This is formal education and training; classes, workshops, etc

– either face-to-face or online which are “pushed” to the
learner.
 FS
FORMAL STRUCTURED L
LEARNING
Although most workplace training is still very much
focused on the creation and delivery of content, social
media (wikis, blogging, for instance) are sometimes
used to “add-on” social activity to an online course.
Whereas in education, (schools, colleges, universities
etc), social activity is much more integrated into the
course and classroom.
In some cases a fully collaborative approach to
learning is employed so that the learner is a full and
active participant in the formal learning process
 FS
FORMAL STRUCTURED L
LEARNING
It is a collaborative, sharing approach to formal
learning. However, it is clear that individuals are
using social media to “learn” in many other ways
which have nothing to do with being trained or
taught by anyone
 FS
FORMAL STRUCTURED L
LEARNING

▪Building a collaborative library of course links in a

social bookmarking tool
▪Creating course/class blogs with learners writing
learning blogs
▪Using wikis to create collaborative course learning
spaces where all learners can participate and
interact with one another
▪Sharing of course presentations, videos etc, which
are often embedded in blog or web pages
▪Using micro-blogging services for disseminating
course news and tips
▪Using social networks to create learning
communities and to enable easy communication
and enriched learning experiences.
 PD
PERSONAL DIRECTED L
LEARNING
How individuals can use social media to organise and
manage their own personal or professional learning.

Finding things out

for or by yourself

Many individuals organise and manage their own personal

“learning”, that is they are by themselves.
 PD
PERSONAL DIRECTED L
LEARNING
Finding and using both informational and
instructional content to address their learning
problems, as well as connecting with others to
build a professional learning network where they
can ask and answer questions and have
discussions with others.
Social media, and in particular social networking
sites like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn have
made this easy to set up.
 FS
PERSONAL DIRECTED L
LEARNING

▪Joining social networks to interact with

others, ask and answer questions, start
discussions and build a personal or
professional network
▪Using micro-sharing services, to share their
own daily information, as well as follow
people that share tips, guidelines and tools
▪Using a social bookmarking tool to find the
best sources of information about a subject
(“crowd-sourced learning”)
▪Using an RSS reader to subscribe to blog and
web feeds to keep up date with what is
happening in their field of interest
 GD
GROUP DIRECTED L
LEARNING
How groups of individuals –teams, projects,
study groups etc. – can use social media to work
and learn together.
Working with a team or other
group of people to solve your
problems

Here groups of individuals (could be as small as

2 peoples) learn and work together, e.g. in work
teams, on projects, in study groups, or in a
coaching/mentoring capacity.
 GD
GROUP DIRECTED L
LEARNING
GDL is an extension of Personal Directed Learning,
where groups use social media tools to share information,
resources and experiences with one another.
Self-organising groups of employees, are using a variety
of social media tools to provide the functionality they
need to collaborate and work and learn together, or even
for coaching or mentoring purposes.
 FS
GROUP DIRECTED L
LEARNING

▪The use of group spaces or social

networks to store and share ideas,
experiences, resources and contacts
▪The use of collaborative tools to work
together on common documents, or to
brainstorm together
▪The use of social bookmarking tools to
create bookmarks for the team or project
▪The use of private micro-blogging tools to
talk (in real-time) about work issues, ask
questions of colleagues and join work
groups.
 AS
ACCIDENTAL & L
SERENDIPITOUS LEARNING
How individuals, by using social media, can learn
without consciously realising it.
Acquiring knowledge
without realising it

This is where individuals “learn” without

consciously realising it (aka incidental or random
learning, or even “learning at the water cooler”).
 AS
ACCIDENTAL & L
SERENDIPITOUS LEARNING
Although accidental learning can take place in
any of the above scenarios as well as in other
personal or professional settings, some
individuals like to take advantage of possible
serendipitous learning that might occur using
social media (e.g. in social networks).
Although organisations normally don’t concern
themselves with this type of “learning”, it is
nevertheless important to recognise that it take
place.
 FS
ACCIDENTAL & L
SERENDIPITOUS LEARNING

▪Finding out about new things by using

micro-sharing services, joining social
networks, viewing photo-sharing,
video-sharing or presentation-sharing
services
▪Finding links to resources in a social
bookmarking site that can help prompt
ideas and creativity
REFERENCE
Hart, Jane. (2010). What really is social learning? Learning Age
Magazine. Retrieved
from http://c4lpt.co.uk/janes-articles-and-presentations/what-really-is
-social-learning/