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ALD, Inc. Newsletter | August 18, 2011 | |
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Greetings!
Workplace learning is becoming increasingly informal and more social, with the integration of Social Media tools. All this is changing the traditional classroom, event-based training approach to one of more user control.
To keep pace (or set the pace!) training professionals must become facilitators of a new learning process by integrating social media into their training activities. For example, Learning 2.0 means more collaboration, learner-to-learner connections, and the ability to contribute to a vast body of organizational knowledge so that workers can easily access 'learning in real time' and become more effective.
"Getting Ready for the Dance" means preparing now for new models of workplace learning. In their book, The 2020 Workplace: How Innovative Companies Attract, Develop and Keep Tomorrow's Employees Today, Jeanne C. Mesiter and Karie Willyerd wrote:
"Thriving in the 2020 workplace will require organizations to understand the various needs, expectations and values of all the generations. Companies will need to start making some fundamental changes in how they design jobs, careers, learning programs and even benefits."
Join Vital Learning for our next webinar, "Learning Becomes Social: Getting Ready for the Dance with Vital Online 2.0"  on Thursday, September 15 at 2:00 p.m. Eastern time (1:00 p.m. Central, 12:00 p.m. Mountain, and 11:00 a.m. Pacific)
Registration Link |
| Think About It This Way... | | |
Amanda awakens to another day on the road in her job as a list database salesperson. In two weeks, she will move into a position as a territory sales manager. She has two hours before her next call and takes a moment to log in to her organization's learning portal to take a leadership course. She completes the course and sends an e-mail to her online coach with a couple of questions about the course material as it relates to management policies within the company. 
Next, she posts a message on Facebook to connect with other new supervisors who are also taking the course. They exchange thoughts about what they learned and how they will apply their new skills. Later, she returns to her room and decides to log on to the company's learning portal again. This time, she signs on to the knowledge center, which houses leadership tips from seasoned managers. Tomorrow, she plans to access a course about communicating effectively with employees.
Incredibly Social, Incredibly Beneficial
The scenario above demonstrates how e-learning has joined the ranks of social media applications. Like a high-school dance is for students, Web 2.0 applications have become social events for employees, as they glean outstanding benefits through online learning and social media. With these applications, they can engage in learning from virtually anywhere.
Linking online courses with knowledge resource centers helps employees share best practices. In doing so, organizations can add other social media components that provide easy communication vehicles for employees to take knowledge and convert it into ideas that can improve company performance. With social media, tools, training, knowledge and ideas converge and can be shared seamlessly. These e-learning communities facilitate the sharing of essential knowledge more rapidly across the organization because it is more easily accessible. |
| E-learning and Social Media | | |
The recession economy will likely become a driver for the introduction of online learning and the reinvention of existing learning methods with new technologies. The cost of acquiring new employees and training them could be offset through cost-effective measures that allow employees to spend more time on the job and less time in the traditional training classroom.
According to Jeanne Meister and Karrie Willyerd in their book The 2020 Workplace, "These new methods will increasingly include technology-enabled, interactive [and] mobile solutions that connect people with one another, not just with static knowledge or training sources."
E-learning, combined with social learning technologies, provides a lovely dance floor for collaboration and data sharing that can be accessed 24 hours a day from laptops and mobile devices. Because e-learning is convenient and flexible, participants have access to the information they need, when they want it. They also add to the extant knowledge and content that can be accessed by other learners.
This month marks the debut of Vital Online 2.0. With the application's updated technology and tools for e-learning, Vital Learning can help you get ready for today's dance, where online learning meets social learning. Contact us to learn how we can help you retool your strategies to enhance knowledge for your employees and boost productivity. In addition, join us for our webinar "Getting Ready for the Dance" on September 15, 1:00 p.m. Central Daylight Time.
Visit here for more information and to sign up.
This article is by Melodae Morris, M.A., SPHR, APR
Vital Learning Contributor and Consultant
Melodae is one of the facilitators for the September 15 webinar - you'll enjoy hearing her.
Looking out for your professional and personal development,
Christine Johnson
President
ALD, Inc.
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