By Kimberley Kasper
June 2, 2011
Social learning has become the latest application of social media functionality in the business world —the Next Big Thing. What exactly is social learning, whom is it appropriate for and how does it benefit organizations?
When the phrase “social learning” gets thrown around, what people are referring to is a learning environment that incorporates social functionality such as blogs, RSS feeds, and video to create an engaging and easily accessible online sharing community. Such a system encourages learning in context, in the midst of a community of learners, rather than in isolation. It can also enable people to collaborate with others in the creation and discussion of new ideas. This increases engagement and use of online learning content, and enables organizations to capture emerging best practices and new ideas as well as refinements to known best practices.
The interplay between an organization’s Learning Management Systems (LMS) and its social learning platform can vary greatly, depending on company size. Large organizations tend to have enterprise social platforms already in place for their workforce, into which they feed LMS content such as course links, curriculum or virtual classroom registration. For small and mid-sized businesses, the LMS often pulls double duty as both a social platform for communication and collaboration—provided that the LMS features the needed social functionality—and as a typical LMS. Some smaller businesses even use an LMS as a public Web portal, further streamlining the number of platforms and technologies into one value-added solution.
Cricket Communications, the nation’s sixth largest wireless provider, provides a clear example of using an LMS to its full social advantage. The company leveraged its learning management system as the platform for Cricket University, its leadership development program. Employees can enroll in leadership courses and use self-assessment tools, leadership videos, RSS feeds and more.
The company’s best managers share their insights in video interviews, which are available on the leadership home page and the company intranet. An internal social networking site, MyCricketNation, promotes leadership discussions and hosts a blog on leadership written by the chief executive officer.