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If you are looking for a real-world example of what's possible when a corporate learning function decides to make formalizing informal learning a centerpiece of its strategy, look no further than Sun Microsystems . At By thoughtfully implementing a social learning environment called Sun Learning eXchange (SLX), the training function found an effective way to "do more with less." At Sun, the sales training group does not have sufficient budget or hours to meet all the training needs of sales professionals.

tools, however the tools facilitated collaboration. So why bother with creating a new collaborative learning environment “outside the firewall”? So in my current experiment, I have: - Set up a collaborative blog on Blogger. - Invited specific people to be authors to this blog. - Identified a list of topics that I want the team to write on. - Posted a few posts of my own and from a team member. - Created a Flickr group to share photos on the blog. - Made a very quiet launch of the Ray Sims recent blog post about motivation for technology adoption by end-users came in at an opportune time for me.

I’ve worked in learning design and management in both business and higher education settings and the differences in how e-learning technology is used in these two worlds is striking.   Business e-learning has focused on short self-paced, independent, interactive learning module typically delivered via an LMS designed to store, deliver and track progress (think Plateau/SumTotal etc) . In contrast, higher education e-learning has been build on their tradition of distance learning and courses delivered over longer periods of time (usually a semester), using LMS systems built on collaborative environments that support communication between students, instructors and peers (think Blackboard/Web CT).  

How do I communicate the value of social media as a learning tool to my organization? In case you missed it, here is a roundup of some valuable recommendations. For example, for the Management group focus on ROI and case studies. Clive Shepherd recommends stepping back from the technology How would you answer this question? Individuals and organizations gave their responses around the web this month.

1. Creating Passionate Users: Crash course in learning theory 2. Keeping Up with the Pace of Change Informal learning will help employees survive in the future workplace 3. Understanding E-Learning 2.0 There are some very interesting changes going on in the world of e-learning that seem to have crept up on practitioners. 4. eLearn magazine: Feature Article Ten Web 2.0 Things You Can Do in Ten Minutes to Be a More Successful E-learning Professional By Stephen Downes, National Research Council Canada

As part of his course on open educational resources, Peter Tittenberger hosted a case study on Collaborative Learning Object Exchange ( recording and slides ). The contrast in thinking during the learning object repository days vs. thinking on social information creation and management (emerging technologies, social networks, tagging) is remarkable. While it’s obvious in hindsight, I was surprised at the many assumptions made in CLOE (and other repositories) that seemed to ignore how people work with information (creating, sharing, reusing).

So here are descriptions of ten applications representing different social media technologies that promote learning. Each tool fulfills at least one of these criteria: encourages collaboration; enables user-generated content or input; provides a way to share; and facilitates informal or formal learning. This flexibility and ease of use could encourage impromptu learning events and meetings that can be set up in a moments notice, increasing the informal learning opportunities Do you have a training or information need that could benefit from a social media strategy? Understanding

Informal learning takes place outside of traditional settings like classrooms, training rooms and self study programmes. Although humans have been learning informally for thousands of years, recently there has been a huge increase in technology enabled informal learning. Virtually all real learning for performance is informal, and the people from whom we learn informally are usually present in real time. It is essentially tacit knowledge which we obtain or locate from talking to the correct person. Examples of such informal knowledge transfer include

Best of eLearning Learning Luckily eLearning Learning was able to point me at the top 63 posts for the month! Top 20 E-Learning Blogs for 2009 + Some Reflections on 2009 - The E-Learning Curve , December 14, 2009 and Change Present Challenges to Many Learning Executives - Informal Learning , December 13, 2009 I fell a bit behind on my reading in December.