Tag Archives: Facebook
The Death of the Traditional Web: Implications for Self-Directed Learning

The Death of the Traditional Web: Implications for Self-Directed Learning

by on June 29, 2011 in Informal Learning

A friend of mine recently sent me a fascinating article titled “The Shrinking of the Non-Social Web” which contained some real eye-openers.  Essentially the Web is not just evolving gradually as it absorbs the impact of smartphones and social media; it’s changing so radically that it might be better to look at what’s happening as the birth of an entirely new concept of internet interactivity and learning.  A brief overview of the content of the article:

Traditional use of the Web (i.e. non-mobile and non-video usage) is shrinking.  Per-person consumption of traditional Web content fell by 3 percent between March 2010 and March 2011 in terms of minutes.

Within that shrinking slice of online time, Facebook is increasingly the portal for everything.  While the “document Web” (as author Ben Elowitz terms the old-style Web) shrank by 9 percent overall, Facebook consumption increased by 69 percent, essentially stealing time …

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Who’s Building the Social Learning Roads?

Who’s Building the Social Learning Roads?

by on April 20, 2011 in Classroom Learning, Informal Learning, social learning

Over the last few months I’ve discussed with my brother, a professor at Bethel University here in Minneapolis, how to incorporate social media into his classes.  Without throwing him completely under the bus, I’ll describe him as being late to the social media party but definitely ahead of the curve when it comes to openness to using informal learning elements like social media in his undergraduate courses.

Most of the time we end up brainstorming ways to incorporate tools like Twitter or Facebook into his lessons, because even though I may have more experience using social media, the tools are so new that no one really knows the best way to utilize them, for anything really.  Companies like Hubspot (love them, by the way) that market themselves as “social media” or “inbound marketing” experts do have some great ideas on how to leverage social tools to increase traffic, sales leads, …

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Surfing the Net: Waste of Time or Personal Directed Learning?

Surfing the Net: Waste of Time or Personal Directed Learning?

by on April 13, 2011 in Informal Learning, social learning

Last week my girlfriend and I ate dinner at Darbar Indian Grill in Uptown Minneapolis with another couple (good food, but overpriced), and we got on the topic of surfing the net on the job.  By the way, “Surfing the Net” is a great phrase that fell by the wayside far too early.  It conjures memories of terrible 90s thriller movies featuring Sandra Bullock in the prime of her career.  I’m sorry, but somebody explain to me why she won the Best Actress Oscar for The Blind Side, honestly.

Our conversation centered on whether or not companies should limit their employees’ use of the internet and social media while at work.  One friend mentioned that her company doesn’t allow her to use the internet, period, because they expect her full attention to be on patients for the entire day.  And she felt this to be acceptable.  Another friend stated …

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Twitter as Social Learning: Seven Ways to Facilitate the Exchange of Information

Twitter as Social Learning: Seven Ways to Facilitate the Exchange of Information

by on March 14, 2011 in social learning

Most of us in the adult learning industry have already found and incorporated Twitter into our everyday lives.  Where Facebook and LinkedIn serve mainly as social dashboards for our personal and professional networks, respectively, I see Twitter as a customized information portal.  For those of you that use web-based aggregators like Google Reader but have not yet made room for Tweets, Twitter is an aggregator on steroids.  Instead of waiting for your favorite journalist to write a thousand-word essay on Charlie Sheen’s shenanigans from the day before, you can hear directly from Mr. Sheen himself, the second he wants to speak.

Twitter gets a bad rap.  From its childish name to its complex language of re-tweets and hashtags, many people tend to criticize the application before they try it.  Since I became an active Twitter user a few months ago, the application has grown on me to the point …

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Not Everyone is a Social Customer

Not Everyone is a Social Customer

by on February 11, 2011 in customer service, Development Tools, social learning

A couple weeks ago I wrote a blog about the need to train your clients on the various methods of…training.  The heart of the message was that we should challenge ourselves to open our clients’ eyes to more than what they already know and do.  Because the world of technology, and for that matter the use of technology in training, is changing so rapidly, most business managers are unaware of the promising user adoption solutions coming to the forefront.

This ever-changing technological landscape is currently held captive by social media, and for good reason.  The applications everyone from Wired to the Wall Street Journal are talking about are altering the way we interact with each other, the way we purchase goods and services, and the way we learn.  The big story last week was how Facebook and Twitter played a lead role in the Egyptian protests against Mubarak, allowing people …

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