I’ll be presenting – along with SocialFish Lindy Dreyer – on “Professional Development 2.0″ soon at the American Society of Association Executives annual meeting, so thought I’d prepare my handout for the session via a blog post. Below are a number of resources you might find valuable when it comes to blending social media tools like blogs, wikis, and social networks with more traditional approaches to education – what has been dubbed “Learning 2.0″ in many circles.
I plan to keep adding to this post over the next week, as I don’t have enough time right now to try to cover everything in one sitting. If you know of other good resources, please comment and add them. I’ll get them into the post.
And be sure to also check out Lindy’s post on Technology and Learning.
Overview
This first resource is right here at Tagoras (hey, it’s our blog afterall 
As far as we know, it offers one of the best general overviews of Learning 2.0 as a concept along with specific ways in which the social Web might be used to support association education initiatives.
Learning 2.0 for Associations
The title says “associations,” but really there is not much in here that doesn’t apply to pretty much any type of organization. This free eBook give a rundown of what exactly the term “learning 2.0″ means and then offers a range of examples, mostly from the association world. My hope is to have this updated by the time of the ASAE meeting, though given that it was first published in early 2008, it has held up remarkably well.
Examples
There are a wide range of examples out there – some of which are highlighted in Learning 2.0 for Associations. The following represent a wide range of approaches – from the very simple to the much more rich and complex – with the hope of giving you a real sense of the possibilities. Only some of these are truly association initiatives, but there is nothing from the others that could not be applied in an association context.
Work Literacy
If you haven’t ever checked out this great site set by Michele Martin and others in run-up to the eLearning Guild’s annual meeting earlier this year, pay a visit soon. It’s a site about Learning 2.0, but it is also Learning 2.0 in action. Built on the Ning social networking platform – a free/low cost option for creating your own social network – the site offers a brief curriculum in Web 2.0 for learning professionals. More importantly, it offers a lot of input and insights from wide range of learning professionals. While it was intended as a tool to build interest and engagement for the eLearning Guild meeting (take note you educational event planners!), it lives on as a great example and a resource site.
For some great follow-up thoughts on the Work Literacy initiative, be sure to see:
- Michele Martin’s Deconstructing the Work Literacy Learning Event
- Harold Jarche’s Post Work Literacy
ASAE Professional Development Council Virtual Lunches
The American Society of Association Executives (ASAE) Professional Development Section Council started a monthly conference call series in June to bring educators in the sector together to discuss professional development issues. For the second call, a Twitter “hashtag” was set up so that participants could easily communicate before, during, and after call (see below for more on Twitter and hashtags). Additionally, the Council began recording the call so that the contents could be easily shared. The power of this example is that is a relatively low-effort, extremely low cost option for putting a “toe in the water” of Learning 2.0. For more details, see ASAE PD Virtual Lunch – An Easy, Low-Cost Learning 2.o Digital Product.
AENC on Slideshare
The Association Executives of North Carolina (AENC) are just one example of the many organizations that have started to make use of Slideshare as a great way of posting PowerPoint slides from their events – in this case from a presentation on Work 2.0 Tech Best Practices given by ASAE’s Reggie Henry. Slideshare automatically converts the slides into a Web viewable format that can be accessed on the Slideshare site or embedded into pretty much any other site. Slideshare also provides a discussion area for each slides show and makes it easy to share to Twitter, Facebook, and other social networks. It’s an incredibly simple – and free – approach to adding value to your educational events.
Connectivsm & Connective Knowledge
If you would like a massive dose of learning 2.0 – along with an introduction to some of the more important theoretical thinking about learning in a connected world – check out the site for the Connectivism & Connective Knowledge “course” facilitated by Stephen Downes and George Siemens in 2008. This was dubbed a “massive open online course (MOOC)” by … well, someone … and that is just what it is. People from all over the world participated and leveraged a full range of social media and other Web tools to create a collective learning experience. A second round of the course will actually launch on September 14. If you are serious about Learning 2.0, you will want to sign up. Did I mention it’s free?
23 Things
23 Things was the brain child of Helene Blowers back when she was at the Charlotte/Mecklenberg County public Library. It has since been replicated by many other libraries as well as by other types of organizations. The idea – simple and brilliant – was to set up a blog that offered up 23 Learning 2.0-type activities “to encourage staff to experiment and learn about the new and emerging technologies that are reshaping the context of information on the Internet today.” This is a model you could easily repeat in some way shape or form across your organization or membership base.
Resources
Incorporating social media into your professional development activities first requires a decent understanding of how social media works and some of the major technology options that are available. For boning up on the basics, it is hard to beat the series of short, entertaining videos produced by Commoncraft:
- RSS In Plain English
- Blogs In Plain English
- Wikis In Plain English
- Social Networking In Plain English
- Twitter In Plain English
- Twitter Search in Plain English
- Online Photo Sharing In Plain English
- Podcasting In Plain English
- Social Bookmarking In Plain English
- Social Media In Plain English
- Websearch Strategies In Plain English
Jane Hart’s Slideshare presentation on Twitter is also a great resource that offers the added benefit of using Slideshare – potentially a very useful Web 2.0 tool for association e-learning.
Stay tuned for additions to this post, and in the meantime, submit any resources you have.
JTC
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