Chief Learning Officer - October 2007 - (Page 24)

learning solutions Elements of Social Media Arrive on the Learning Scene Bryan Menell In January 1996, Elliott Masie declared himself a nanolearner. In doing so, he placed his finger on the pulse of a trend in e-learning that was just starting to take shape. For several years, our society has been “microchunking” everything — it just seems more palatable to break everything down into its smallest logical component. The sale of record albums has been going down, but sales of single songs (through services such as iTunes) are skyrocketing. Amazon.com recently announced that rather than buying a book, it will be possible to purchase just a chapter of that book, or perhaps even just a single diagram or chart. People are more likely to read brief blog postings these days rather than buy a newspaper. This trend has not been lost on the learning community — the length of custom e-learning courses requested in 2007 is half of what it was in 2004. The learning field was actually an early pioneer in microchunking. Wayne Hodgins is widely credited with coining the term “learning object” in 1992, many years before the Internet came into common use. Hodgins immediately recognized one of nanolearning’s major benefits: the ability to remix, reassemble and reuse. Teens today inherently understand this value when they create custom playlists (e.g., “New Releases,” “The Best of Hip-Hop,” “Cool Party Mix,” etc.) of iTunes songs to share with their friends. The interesting thing is that there could be a single song that would be part of all three of those playlists, but it would play a different role and have a different impact based on the other songs in the list (and their order) — the experience of listening to that track can be very different, depending on its context. If a picture is worth a thousand words, context could fill a dictionary. Let’s look at some examples of how this might work in a corporate context. From Restaurant Review to Alternator Noise Ben attended the University of Michigan and earned a bachelor’s degree in electromechanical engineering. While in school, he helped to create a Web site that reviewed local restaurants, and he kept up with his school friends through Facebook. To help meet the rigorous demands of his curriculum, Ben organized and took part in online study groups using software such as Skype and virtual whiteboards. He even found a group of students at the University of Miami who were using the same textbook used in his class. Ben was recruited by a major automobile manufacturer headquartered in Michigan. His engineering group at work was focused on alternators, and over time, Ben became somewhat of an expert on alternator noise. That expertise came about through some work October 2007 I www.clomedia.com I Chief Learning Officer 24 http://Amazon.com http://www.clomedia.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Chief Learning Officer - October 2007

Editor's Letter Table of Contents Letters to the Editor Taking the Lead Trends Best Practices Effectiveness Guest Editorial Elements of Social Media Arrive on the Learning Scene Trend Micro: Making Learning More Modular CLO Profile Learning’s Role in Talent Management INTTRA: Using Global Learning to Better Enable Talent Management Operationalizing Communities of Practice U.S. Army: Sharing Lessons from the Field Looking Back, Moving Forward Leveraging Business Data to Develop Strategic Learning Solutions Chrysler LLC: Metrics, Score Cards and Automobiles Advertisers' Index Editorial Resources Connecting the Dots: Recognizing Talent Development Differences at Nonprofits Nonprofits in Health Care: Learning at ENH Case Study Business Intelligence Case Study In Conclusion

Chief Learning Officer - October 2007

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