SOCIAL LEARNING
Engaging with social media

This page documents my thinking around how people use (i.e. engage with) social media tools and how this is influencing my approach to teaching people how to use them.

Whilst working on the Mini Tutorials for the 25 Tools resource earlier this year, it became clear to me that I needed to address the requirements of three very different users.  For example, with YouTube there were those that would want to share their videos online, there were those that would just want to view videos, but a third (middle) group of users who want to interact with the videos by commenting on them (and thereby help others to identify the best videos around). I named these three different levels of users as follows, (albeit after struggling  for some time to find the most appropriate labels)..

1. Reader or passive Consumer
2. Participant or (re-)active Contributor
3. Creator or proactive Producer

I then mapped these 3 levels of engagement across the 25 tools the following model of engagement.

Using the information from the table above I then refined the 3 levels further, creating sub-levels where necessary:

1. Reader or passive consumer, who
   • browses Web sites, blogs, and wikis, watches videos and screencasts, listens to podcasts, etc.
2. Participant or active contributor, who
   • contributes to content in blogs, wikis, and other Web sites as well as rates, comments on and favorites items
   • shares links using online bookmarking services or from their RSS readers; or
   • connects with others using instant messaging, SMS, and micro-blogging and social networking
3. Creator or proactive producer, who
   • creates and shares their own content like photos, videos, and other files and documents
   • builds resources to encourage connections and discussion with others, e.g. blogs, wikis, social networks, etc.

It is clear that not everyone wants to be or will need to be a high-end Creator, but most will need to be Participants and all will need to be effective Readers.  Hence trying to teach others about social media tools requires an understanding of current capabilities as well as future requirements or desires.  For example, teaching people how to create a blog is pretty daunting if not meaningless if they haven't understood the purpose of blogs, read many blogs or commented on blogs AND/OR don't see a need or want to create a blog. . 

This then led to the production of a number of further resources:

• A self-assessment quiz to ascertain the current level of engagement with social media as well as the scope of engagement, i.e. whether there is low or high usage of tools within each level

• The How to do more on the Internet resource (originally called Engaging with Social Media), which broke down the use of these tools into 30 (graded) activities to develop competence and confidence in the different levels of use of the 25 tools (and others), and which gradually moved individuals from their current level to their desired level of engagement.

• 30 activities is however, rather a lot so I then started work on an abridged version.  I wrote this up as a quick guide on how to get started with social media for learning and productivity, for those who wanted an overview of developing engagement and called it my 12 Step Plan to getting started with social learning.  The 12 steps are:

  1. Become an effective consumer

  2. Rate and comment on content

  3. Store your bookmarks online

  4. Comment on blogs

  5. Subscribe to blog feeds and share your items with others

  6. Contribute to content

  7. Get connected

  8. Share your diary online with others

  9. Share your own content online

  10. Collaborate with others on a common document

  11. Write a blog or set up a wiki

  12. Create your own private social network

• I started to use this new approach in client workshops and focussed on developing the necessary competencies from identified current levels to required levels using an agreed set of tools.  For short workshops this could only address a number of competencies, so e.g. a typical 3 hour workshop looked at the following 6 topics

  1. Effective web searching - using Google

  2. Social bookmarking: searching, storing and sharing - using Delicious

  3. Understanding blogs and commenting on blogs

  4. Subscribing and managing RSS feeds - using Google Reader

  5. Contributing to other's content and creating online content -  using Google Docs

  6. Creating a personal start page - using iGoogle

• Currently I am now creating a Social Learning Space that provides the opportunity to find out about and explore social media whilst experiencing a social learning environment at the same time.  The Space contains 10 main activities as well as an embedded toolset.

1. Prepare - for the new social learning space and your place in it

2. Discover - search the new Web 2.0 world of social media

3. Store - explore social bookmarking to store and share links

4. Participate - rate/review items to help the best rise to the top, comment on blogs

5. Subscribe - find out how to subscribe and manage RSS feeds

6. Contribute - to content production in wikis and other shared documents

7. Connect - meet with others in discussion forums,  social networking sites and using micro-blogging services

8. Share - share your diary online or other content like photos, presentations or videos with others

9. Create - write a blog or set up a wiki for collaboration purposes

10. Build - build your own community or social learning space around social networking principles