Let me start with the basic answer to the question raised in the topic:
- Learn the tools and related methods for use by yourself and in your workgroups.
- Find tactical opportunities to apply these alongside formal and informal learning.
That’s pretty much it. But let me elaborate a bit more on these answers.
Getting started with personal and workgroup adoption
The best first step into e-Learning 2.0 is learning the tools themselves so that you are generally familiar with how they operate. I recommend that you get hands-on experience with:
- Editing wikis
- Writing blog posts and commenting
- Using an RSS reader, such as Google Reader, to subscribe and stay up-to-date on blogs, magazines, searches, social bookmarking tags, and other sources of information.
- Using social bookmarking, such as Delicious, as a tool for keeping and organizing Web pages
- Using social networks, such as LinkedIn, as a means of finding expertise and asking questions
The best way to learn these tools is simply to go out and use them. The articles in this series (see “In The Archives” in this issue of Learning Solutions) have listed a number of the tools. You may have been able to attend the online workshop that The eLearning Guild and Work Literacy conducted September 18 and 19, which provided opportunity to experience these tools. If you are a Member Plus or Premium Member of The Guild you can download the leave-behind materials from this workshop that give specific suggestions on learning these tools. There will also be multiple sessions on this topic at DevLearn 08.
Once you experience these tools for yourself, take the next step: practical adoption in a workgroup. The workgroup doesn’t need to be at your work. It can be for your soccer team — put a calendar up on a wiki. Start a blog that discusses your adoption of e-Learning 2.0, and keep up-to-date with fellow bloggers using an RSS Reader. Use social bookmarking to keep track of places you want to visit on future family vacations. Create a social network on Ning to communicate with fellow enthusiasts who are coordinating activities for a weekend. Once you know the tools, the applications are easy to find.
Getting started as part of learning solutions
Now that you have experience with these tools personally and in workgroups, you are in a good position to adopt these tools as part of learning solutions. A wiki seems like a logical place to start. I’ve long advocated the use of online reference systems as a replacement for much of the content we try to pack into our courses. It used to be that you would use RoboHelp or a Content Management System to create the reference content. Not any more. Now it all should go on a wiki.
This is important: At first, your wiki may only be editable by the training organization. Later, you can open the wiki for editing by the help desk, subject matter experts, customer service, or other people. Create FAQ and Common Issue pages, because these will attract edits.
Blogs, in my experience, are most often adopted alongside extended formal learning experiences. They are best when it is a sustained learning opportunity with collaboration and reflective thought required. Use them as a public vehicle for doing writing assignments, and then you can make commenting part of the grade.
You can also adopt blogs for things like journaling your experience, as a new hire, on a particular project, or as part of finding and selecting a new tool. Many times you can enlist coaches, or people going through a similar experience, who can share thoughts via blogs.
Avoid pitfalls
Avoid these two common pitfalls:
Highly regulated content
While you can fully moderate a Wiki to keep the quality high, the value of a wiki is the ease and immediacy of updates. Thus, if you need full moderation because of liability concerns, you should look at other adoption opportunities.
Top-down
You probably noticed that all of my suggestions are tactical and bottom-up. This is intentional. Taken broadly, there are significant cultural implications for organizations around the adoption of these tools. Trying to start at the top, with top-level policies and enterprise adoption of tools, is often tough. However, with tactical adoption as a strategy, you just adopt the tool that best fits the needs of the situation. Normally, there is little resistance to this approach.
Final suggestion
My final suggestion around getting started in e-Learning 2.0 is simply to dive in. Begin to experience the tools, and try them out. If you make smart, tactical adoption your strategy, then it really doesn’t feel like anything that revolutionary.
