Monday, September 29, 2008

Week 1 - Web 2.0 for Learning Professionals

I just spent about an 90 minutes working on the Week 1 coursework for the Work Literacy - Web 2.0 for Learning Professionals course. The focus this week is on Social Networking--Ning, LinkedIn and Facebook. I've been exploring all 3 sites for quite a while, and as far as usefulness in my work as a Curriculum Designer, I'd rank them as follows:
  1. Ning
  2. LinkedIn
  3. Facebook
I can see a lot of potential in Ning because it's a place to promote community and social networking, and it incorporates blogs, discussion forums, videos, etc.

LinkedIn is more of an online resume in my mind, though there is much more to it that I still need to explore such as groups, recommendations, etc.

Facebook doesn't seem to provide a lot of value professionally, but I'm open-minded and welcome any ideas that people may have regarding how to use it in a business and training environment.

I'll continue to engage in the Week 1 conversations and see where it takes me. So far, I really like the design of the course and I'm certain I'll learn a lot of useful information as I move forward with developing a business case for how we can use Web 2.0/Learning 2.0 technologies in our team/department/division/company.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think the main benefit for using facebook as a learning tool is that in many cases there would be less resistance to adopting its use by gen X & Y.

That being said, I am yet to find any real case studies of this being done effectively. I guess the main way that you could use it is to create a facebook widget that links to your course . . .

Janine Perkins said...

I think you are right. I have used Learning Town, which I think is created using Ning. It's been great to get feedback from different people using tools I am interested in.

I use Linked In and add new contacts each week. If you are looking for a job or have a friend who is, the combined contact list access can give you a huge edge on the competition for the position. You don't really know who your contacts know until you get them to join Linked In.

I use Facebook to get back in touch with people and for staying connected in small ways with friends. With working and kids, even small efforts help you stay connected with friends, since at night, time seems to speed up. It is fun to see who gets in touch with you. I don't use it for anything related to business other than to see what some of my colleagues are up to.

michael hotrum said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
michael hotrum said...

Collin - apologies - deleted while trying to edit - as to social networking environments I would reccomend Elgg; I have developed 5 communities of practice in this environment (it is white label, you set it up on your server, you control it, the users control access to any information they post. I like a number of things about it - it is designed to be a private space and a public space, users control access, tagging and can create their own communities within the larger network, and their own list of access groups - and it is free and runs on YOUR server -no third party control or content ownership issues. See http://elgg2.extension.ualberta.ca/cts_connections/ - this is a community I developed for the career and technology teachers across Alberta Canada. In developing the various online communities I've discovered the biggest dilemma is attracting, maintaining participants.

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