Informal learning community

I’ve been thinking more about my project and have sorted out what I’m going to be looking at.

I’ve been on Twitter for a while now and find it a really useful place to hang out – mostly because of the easy access to such an interesting network of people (that means you if you’ve come here from twitter).

I’ve been learning a lot in a number of fields – my network consists of journalists, elearning types, developers and just plain interesting folks – and this kind of informal learning where the network shares information and ideas really interests me.

One of the key issues for me is a how a group of like-minded professionals (or people with a shared interest) can use a web 2.0 service to share developments and use Twitter as part of a personal learning network. So that, in a nutshell, is what I’m interested in.

As a journalism trainer, I’m obviously interested in how this can be used by journalists (although as an elearning type I’m also interested in this area too). But I’m going to do a case study based around journalists.

I’ve spoken to a couple of people and asked if they mind being part of a case study (they kindly said yes!) and I’ll be contacting some more in the near future.

And in the meantime I’m doing the reading on communities, learning, communities of practice and more!

December 6, 2008 | Filed Under Msc08 

Comments

  • amcunningham
    I think it is great that you are looking at uses of social media/twitter for something other than elearning. I'm been thinking about the applications to medical education but think I need to find some evidence of use by a few real jobbing doctors now.

    Journalism by it's nature probably thrives on the immediacy of web 2.0 tools. May we would hope that medicine would be more considered. Actually, I think my remark is unfair to journalism. It should be considered as well.
  • Hi Anne, this particular project is looking at how an informal community learns - so it is elearning, although many of us are looking at Twitter as a news tool.

    Have you spoken to Nick Webb over in Medic? He has a Twitter plan up his sleeve which sounds very, very interesting.
  • Michael
    Anyone playing with Twitter Groups at twittergroups.com. I've set mine up but find it a bit odd getting it going. Seems to have potential.
  • Hi Michael I've been using Grouptweet with my students, but I have just joined a group for journalists set up by @paulbradshaw so will keep you posted on that
  • Not sure how useful this might be, but I feed a bunch of 'social media for journalists' related training links into this tumblr,

    http://noodlepie.tumblr.com/

    Maybe nothing you haven't come across in other areas, but thought I'd throw it your way.
  • Thanks Graham - a good resource and one that makes life an awful lot easier! I'm going to forward that on to my students.
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