While I was enjoying a separation from the external world of social media this past summer, George Siemens of Athasbasca University , authored a very stirring if not controversial post entitled “ Losing interest in social media: there is no there there “  . After finally dusting off my mental cobwebs and getting around to reading articles, research and blog posts that I missed over the summer, George’s post was, by far, the one that got me thinking the most. Emoting via social media is not intended to be a negative connotation. Is it substantive? MORE >>

Do you have a training or information need that could benefit from a social media strategy? So here are descriptions of ten applications representing different social media technologies that promote learning. Category: Social Networking Platform. Elgg is a social networking engine and publishing platform for running your own social networking site on a public or private server. Elgg is an aggregate of many social media technologies in one platform. Post from: The eLearning Coach 10 Social Media Tools For Learning. Audacity. MORE >>

Going forward, and as best I can, I’ll use the term ‘ Connected Learning’ to describe a knowledge ecosystem made up of formal, informal and social learning behaviours and modalities. There are a few reasons for this: Learning will forever be part formal, part informal and part social (see this CLO Magazine article I wrote for more details). Modalities involve a connection of sorts too, be it connecting with a classroom or a conference (formal), with a mentor, a book, a website (informal) or with a blog, a tweet or a discussion forum (social). Learning 2.0 MORE >>

We relied on one another, as strong and weak tie neighbours, often congregating in these buildings to share, to socialize, and to learn. worry, however, that ‘ Nimby Neighbourhoods’ will supersede actual social relationship building. In other words, rather than extending a physical hand and chiming “hello” to your neighbour, we’ll take nimby-ism to greater heights obfuscating physical relationship building in favour of and solely with those found in social networks and the like. And that’s where we need to begin thinking differently. MORE >>

Social networking sites such as Facebook provide a way to meet both of these goals, however according to a survey  54% of U.S. employers Organizations cite many reasons for banning Facebook and other social networking platforms including company privacy, productivity, and network security.  Here’s By supporting the use of Facebook and other social networking sites we are basically telling our employees it is OK to talk about our business online. Instead many experts suggest that companies create a social networking policy.  MORE >>