A Personal Journey
Late in 2006 during my own personal study about informal learning, I read two interesting posts by Tony Karrer about using Web 2.0 tools for informal learning. A colleague and I discussed the idea of forming a short-term learning community to study informal learning using the tools set forth by Karrer. We developed a plan, secured a posting tool, and recruited participants.
The Tools
IM: Chat tool facilitated the initial group discussion to select research topics.
Wiki: A Hawaiian word meaning fast and/or quick, a wiki is a body of writing maintained by a community of users. The community is willing to add, edit, and remove content as necessary. As the fastest way to get text online, wikis organize and share up-to-date information. PBWiki was our wiki host.
Social bookmarking: Sites such as del.icio.us and Yahoo MyWeb allowed members to bookmark and share access to useful links. Once the links were bookmarked, members posted links to the bookmarking sites on the wiki. These social bookmarking sites also allow user to work with their bookmarks from any Web-accessible location.
The Plan
- Four to six learning professionals will use Web 2.0 tools to test a learning model and increase knowledge about informal learning. The test period will be four to five weeks long.
- Members initially posted topics/questions about informal learning to a master list on the wiki.
- Through group chat, participant selected 1-2 topics to for their study.
- Participants had 10 days to research the first topic and post their findings on the wiki.
- Participants had five days to read the posted entries and submit questions to the author, who had a week to respond.
- Participants repeated the cycle with the second topic.
- Participants came together for a face-to-face meeting to reflect on both the learning and the process.
Conclusions
- Wikis are a simple-to-use tool for collaboration.
- The smaller the group, the more critical the role for each member. One member dropping out or not contributing has a greater effect on a smaller group.
- Having a person familiar with basic code is helpful, but not required.
- Social bookmarking is an interesting and useful tool.
- Finding willing participants wasn’t easy. With access to 60-75 names involved in training, we received only a few inquiries. I still wonder why so few learning professionals were interested.
- We planned a face-to-face meeting as a reflective wrap-up. In retrospect, meeting as a group at the beginning would have served as a kickoff, allowed each of us to link names and faces, and clarified the process and expectations.
- As one would expect, each of us had different level of self motivation and commitment. Again, having the initial kickoff meeting may have reduced the gap.
- Each of us had different formats to post our information. Interestingly, this is something we didn’t anticipate, but may be one future groups may want to discuss.
- Receiving feedback and question from other team members is paramount. As a whole, our team stumbled here. Again, a kickoff event may have helped.
In the end, the experiment was practical, useful, and a positive learning experience. This informal learning wiki is password protected, so please request a password from frank@fpgresources.com if you’re interested in visiting the project.
Further Reading
The Consolidation of Collaboration
Personal and Group Learning Using Web 2.0 Tools
Personal Learning for Learning
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