Just how do you measure if informal learning happens?

Twitter Friends network map

Twitter Friends network map

One of the things that has made me think about my course project is how to measure what I’m trying to look at: informal learning in social networking services.

One thing I’m very clear on is how much I learn from the brilliant people in my Twitter network. So how can I try to assess and measure what is going on around me?

The basic methodology for my research is to do a case study of a number of users by carrying out a content analysis over a period of time and then map these to the user intention categories outlined in Why We Twitter: Understanding Microblogging Usage and Communities:

I’ve sub divided these categries to try to assess what they are about.

Great, so that gives me content analysis of what is happening with this group of users, but doesn’t offer any idea of whether there is an opportunity for learning to take place.

My tutor Terry King switched me on to George Siemens and his work on Connectivism (and through him I got into the work of all the fab people who were talking about edupunk a while ago), so the idea from my end is to try to map the tweets on to the connectivist model.

This should give me some interesting data to have a look at.

One brilliant thing I have found, and will be testing in a pilot of the coding sheet and service, is using Googledocs forms to create a coding sheet. The thing I love about it is all the responses are poured into a spreadsheet as soon as the reply happens. And given this can be downloaded as an excel file means it is a pretty powerful tool to use.

I’ll blog about the results of that when I’ve finished it.

Then I think a spot of surveying to get some idea of what other people think, and whether my perceptions about Twitter as a great place for informal learning are being shared by others.

And I’m starting to wonder about the number of people who could use respond to a googledocs survey – could be an interesting way forward.

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March 7, 2009 | Filed Under Msc08, elearning | Comments 

Communities vs network of practice

At the Intersection
Image by Harold Jarche via Flickr

Been reading a lot about Communities of Practice recently and thinking I’m not quite looking at the right thing – particularly as Wenger and Lave are talking about communities within the same organisation. But one thing that has struck me in what I have been reading is this quote:

It is life itself that is the main learning event. Schools, classrooms, and training sessions still have a role to play in this vision, but they have to be in the service of the learning that happens in the world.

Etiene Wenger

Some of the most useful things I’ve picked up in my life haven’t been in the classroom, but from outside it. – from teachers, colleagues and former colleagues, friends and passing acquaintances. This kind of informal learning is vital to what we do. Read more

December 17, 2008 | Filed Under Msc08, Uncategorized, elearning, social learning | Comments 

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