Collaborative learning, (I prefer collaborative as it seems more like an organization thing than social) basically informal learning, is the way to go today, and yet we seem to have so many questions coming up:
All very valid questions to ask while we are still bordering on the implementation of the collaborative learning project, and trying to measure what value it would bring after implementation. It is possible to convince management that collaborative learning would work for the good of the organization, just like brainstorming and knowledge sharing sessions did in the traditional models. The advantage here is the time saved on those meetings, and converted into information accessible through the medium of Web 2.0 resources. These resources have proven outside the organization in triggering conversations and bringing in a lot of collaboration to fully define facets of a single idea. Let's take the example of collaborative/social learning so to say. We know the benefits by now:
I think all of the above are necessary activities we anyway need to do, in order to work effectively in an organization and bring value as individuals. So then whats missing and why are we apprehensive about implementing collaborative learning and measuring the outcomes? How is it different from the traditional ways of achieving the same goals?
In my opinion, one of the main factors here is that all this happens virtually, in an uncontrolled environment, where anyone in the community can be the source of the information. How do I validate the information before using it for a task? Please help me out here.
The solution??
My goal is to suggest a solution about how you may ensure authenticity of the information. I think the idea here has to be locally dealt with by the management and implementation team of a collaborative learning solution. Their effort has to be in the direction of:
If we do not take pains to evaluate how best we can implement such a model in our organization, we would be repeating the past when we thought that elearning was the best way to go, and later realized that it was ineffective mainly due to inadequate research and planning of the course design. We missed aspects of learner motivation and relevance, and created learning that was just an information dump. Let's not repeat this with collaborative learning if we want it to succeed and achieve greater heights.
I'd love to hear what you all have to say about implementing collaborative learning at your workplaces.
- How can we get it to work to really bring value to the organization and the customers?
- How can you ensure it is used the right way?
- How do you ensure authenticity of information that is critical to the organizations goals?
All very valid questions to ask while we are still bordering on the implementation of the collaborative learning project, and trying to measure what value it would bring after implementation. It is possible to convince management that collaborative learning would work for the good of the organization, just like brainstorming and knowledge sharing sessions did in the traditional models. The advantage here is the time saved on those meetings, and converted into information accessible through the medium of Web 2.0 resources. These resources have proven outside the organization in triggering conversations and bringing in a lot of collaboration to fully define facets of a single idea. Let's take the example of collaborative/social learning so to say. We know the benefits by now:
- Helps establish virtual relationships and trigger good discussions that result in brainstorming on certain thoughts and ideas. Thus, helps in arriving at conclusions based on the thoughts expressed during the discussions.
- Helps one get a wider perspective on certain topics and allows them to read up all available resources before concluding on a topic.
- Generates a sense of satisfaction to have adequately researched on a topic, discussed it with people in the community, heard peoples experiences, and finally reached a consensus.
I think all of the above are necessary activities we anyway need to do, in order to work effectively in an organization and bring value as individuals. So then whats missing and why are we apprehensive about implementing collaborative learning and measuring the outcomes? How is it different from the traditional ways of achieving the same goals?
In my opinion, one of the main factors here is that all this happens virtually, in an uncontrolled environment, where anyone in the community can be the source of the information. How do I validate the information before using it for a task? Please help me out here.
The solution??
My goal is to suggest a solution about how you may ensure authenticity of the information. I think the idea here has to be locally dealt with by the management and implementation team of a collaborative learning solution. Their effort has to be in the direction of:
- At what level is the implementation of such a model feasible? It should ideally be at a business unit level where employees work on a set of related products or services.
- Devising a model that will work for the organization given the culture that exists. For example, we will use our existing blog, wiki and forums and integrate search into it. We will add more Web 2.0 tools as we go along.
- Define some high-level directives as to what they would like to see being discussed and in what forms. For example, encourage employees to share information in certain high level categories like, possible product implementation models, product architecture related topics, improving product performance, product usability, best practices, tips and tricks, troubleshooting, customer scenarios, other ideas, etc.
- Benefit or recognition they can provide to an individual who shares their knowledge or idea that eventually brings business benefit. For example, management should come up with some reward mechanism or tie the task of sharing knowledge as part of the individuals performance.
If we do not take pains to evaluate how best we can implement such a model in our organization, we would be repeating the past when we thought that elearning was the best way to go, and later realized that it was ineffective mainly due to inadequate research and planning of the course design. We missed aspects of learner motivation and relevance, and created learning that was just an information dump. Let's not repeat this with collaborative learning if we want it to succeed and achieve greater heights.
I'd love to hear what you all have to say about implementing collaborative learning at your workplaces.
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