Using Social Media in Training - 1

Earlier this year, I volunteered to facilitate a session on “Using Social Media in Training” at the Personnel Workshop. I knew that my actual, “on the ground” experience with social media was thin, but I also knew that social media had the potential to significantly change the way that we could interact with participants in our training sessions, and I wanted to expand my knowledge and practice.

One of the greatest influences on my approach to training has been Dr. Jane Vella, who introduced the idea that people learn best from what they “process,” not just from “content” they hear or see.

Joining Jane on my short list of “training style influencers” is Dr. Jane Bozarth. (There must be something about being named, “Jane”!) Jane B. has written “Social Media for Trainers: Techniques for Enhancing and Extending Learning,” published by Pfeiffer just last year.

I thought I would take some introductory ideas from Jane B’s book and share them with you in small (one-page) doses, in case you wanted to get up to speed on the whole idea of using things like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, Blogs and Wikis to enhance and extend your training impact.

“The possibilities for uses of social media to create community and collaboration are dazzling, although the array of tools and their applications can seem daunting. But there is no denying the very popularity of social media.” (page 1)

“…this book will help you…better understand the ideas behind social media, and…identify ways of leveraging them to enhance and extend your training programs.” (page 2)

“Finally, in a broader sense, learning to leverage social media tools is critical to the future of training departments…In short: the trainer who masters social media is positioned to help the organization get where it wants to go. (page 2)

“Social Media: This term refers to online material produced by the public. This is distinct form content produced by professional writers, journalists, or generated by the industrial or mass media.” (page 8)

“Web 2.0: Refers to the advert of many technologies that allow users to easily—and often for free-create, publish, and share their own content via the Internet.” (page 9)

“Examples of social technologies used to create social media include those for communication (such as blogs), collaboration (such as wikis), communities (such as Facebook), reviews and opinions (such as Amazon reader reviews), and multimedia (such as YouTube). (page 11)

“Web 2.0 technologies invite everyone to create and share content.” (page 11)

I’ll have more to share in a few days.

Warmly,

David