Learning Tweet - social and workplace learning blog

Social Network Analysis for Beginners - part 3 (tools)

2012-01-24T14:04:00.000-08:00

This post completes the serie dedicated to the Social Network Analysis: some relevant aspect are related to technologies enabling SNA interventions so i wish to point to some interesting resources that could help better understand.

Today lots of different tools are available, also thanks to the rapid development of visualization tools that well describe how a network is composed. For example here above how is represented the italian blogosphere network 2011 edition: an interactive map that let us see cluster and deep in for a connections detail view of ties and nodes.

Published on Vincos Blog by Vincenzo Cosenza

Data visualization software are increasingly developed and really help better read, analyze and interact with key concepts of SNA (presented in part 1 and 2), but also to perform predictive analysis and qualitative interpretation.

The most complete SNA software lists i found are on Wikipedia and KDnuggest (data mining community): the first one provides a long list with informations about main functionalities, input and output formats, costs and other notes while KDnuggest points to some sources described by kind of license.

Here above find 3 video that rapidly describe some of the main features available on some platforms:

1. Gephi: an open source graph visualization software

2. GraphInsight: business intelligence for graph data

3. Sentinel Visualizer: the next generation in data visualization, link analysis and SNA

Social Network Analysis for Beginners - part 2

2011-12-20T12:03:00.000-08:00

Reviewing the work of Valdis Krebs, one of the most social network experts, Gilda Haas realizes this great Do-it Together video in which we can find some of the main issues and key-concepts about Social Network Analysys (SNA) and Method;

The video begins reaffirming 3 basic assumptions:

relationships have big impact on influence, decision-making and, i add, trust;
with SNA we can see where we are resilient and vulnerable;
network maps drive strategies for change management;

Wikipedia defines a social network as a social structure made up by individuals (or organizations) called "nodes", which are tied (connected) by one or more specific type of interdependency. I rewrite it just because it helps us to enter inside some of the main concepts and metrics about SNA: in fact, the page briefly explain the history of SNA (related to the network theory), measures and metrics, software and tools, good references and interesting readings (you'll find here also some good definition of node, link, bridge, cluster, closeness and density/links per node).

For describing kinds of connectivity, we talk about bonding when we refer to groups connected at close range (or in cluster) and bridging when connections are between different clusters; strong or weak ties denote a degree of closeness in the network and hubs identify the most influential nodes in the network (source: "Social Network Analysis and the Evaluation of Leadership Networks" by Bruce Hoppe and Claire Reinelt).

Related to this, now check 6 other fundamental key concepts, such as showed by the video:

1. Degrees Centrality: or how well a node connects the network, (not just) by counting the number of ties to other actors;

2. Betweenness Centrality: or how often a node is likely to be an important link between other network nodes;

3. Closeness Centrality: or how a node is near, close to all other nodes in a network (directly or indirectly);

4. Network Reach: or how many "steps" a node needs to reach another one;

5. Boundary Spanners: those nodes that are well positioned in the link to more clusters;

6. Peripheral Players: those nodes that could help or foster linking to more clusters;

Next post will introduce some interesting and useful SNA tools.

2 articles of "Inside Learning Technologies & Skills" Magazine" - Nov 2011

2011-12-04T10:59:00.001-08:00

Inside Learning Technologies & Skills is a magazine periodically published by The Learning and Skill Group (LSG), an international community of professionals that discuss about the impact of learning technologies within organizations;

The group also organize one of the most important european exhibition and conference to discuss innovation and latest advances on managing workplace learning on today's knowledge-based economy (next edition will be the 13th).

Published in November, December and January of each year, the magazine "contains in-depth articles from leading contributors on the latest learning trends and developments" and has a circulation of over 40.000 L&D professionals;

In the publication now available (nov 2011) i've found really interesting the following two articles:

1. Introducing Google Plus: is this the social network we've all been waiting for? - by Barry Sampson (Co-founder and Director @ Onlignment)

The author considers some capabilities related to the professional use of Google plus for Learning Departments and which potentialities can lead to a strategic enterprise adoption.

Describing the main features, Sampson shows us how to gain organizational benefits using G+:

Stream, where contents seems a kind of 'mid form' content, compared to twitter and facebook; we can share links, videos, photos and locations, with great potential for learning and collaboration;
Circles, to organise the people we follow in a new and personal way, with the complete control of what we share: by creating focused circles it is possible to differentiate, communicate and collaborate with different groups of (focused) people;
Hangouts, for the author the tool that has the most potential for learning, allows us to create ad hoc video chats with groups; easier than other virtual classroom platforms, it works as a flexible tools for delivering group activities and on line collaboration sessions.
Sparks, interesting feature to find, choose and save topics and contents not based on our connections but on our subjects of interest and from the whole web; a new kind of useful and dynamic research tool;
Page (not mentioned), help organizations not just to share and promote brand and businesses but to foster engagement and collaboration within projects and activities; it's possible also add them to circles to create lasting links with pages we appreciate.

Well arguing about pros and cons, Sampson captures a key point:
"Integration with other products, and opening up the platform to enterprise customers, (G+) has the potential to cause real problems for the vendors of entreprise social tools suche as Yammer and SocialCast".

Perhaps it's too early but I totally agree with him when states that we should take it seriously, not least because here we have a platform that gives a sensible level of control to all of its users.

2. User Generated Learning and what we can learn from Google - by Moira Nicolson (Instructional Designer @ Saffron Interactive)

This article well explain and summarize an interesting talk that the Google's Head of Learning Technologies Sudhir Giri made at the 2010 Conference of the Association for Learning Techonology (ALT).

'Developing a learning ecosystem' corroborate a L&D key concetp: people, interacting with others and with smart technologies, wants to learn, to collaborate, but also to teach and to create shared contents: the assumption is that to motivate people to learn we need to revise the traditional idea of training by setting an user-generated ecosystem that supports and fosters learning through co-creation, effective contributions and expertise sharing.

To setting up this shared environment we can use some of the main web 2.0 features, such as reported by Nicolson:

Searchability: employees should be able to search resources that might be useful at work;

Participation: employees should be encouraged and given opportuniy to create their own content;

Collaboration: employees should be allowed to work in partnership;

So we can affirm that the Google's method could be applied to any organization? Maybe not yet but what is emerging is that the learner's role has definitely changed, switching from being a "meaning taker" to a "meaning maker". Learning will be more co-created, user-generated, in-formal and self-managed.

Social Network Analysis for Beginners - part 1

2011-11-28T12:33:00.000-08:00

Analyze social networks can lead us to understand, and to explain, how connections and relationships within organizations are strictly related to better performance, continuos improvement and valuable collaborative learning.

Today we see that organizational fragmentation and silos constantly affect the way we face to business-critical knowledge and to emerging complexity: what became really impellent is the creation of hyper-functional bridges between co-workers and accelerate sense-making connections.

This series of posts is on Social Network Analysis but for beginners, it is an introduction to some basic notions, so structured:

The "6 degrees of separation" theory;
6 key concept of SNA;
Some interesting SNA tools;

1. 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon

Did you ever hear about "6 degrees of Kevin Bacon"? In 1967, psychologist Stanley Milgram published his "The Small World Problem", a research in which he explained that the average number of (chains) acquaintances separating any two people in the world is 6.

This is the Wikipedia's definitions:

"Six degrees of separation refers to the idea that everyone is on average approximately six steps away, by way of introduction, from any other person on Earth, so that a chain of, "a friend of a friend" statements can be made, on average, to connect any two people in six steps or fewer".

This funny video could help us to better understand the issue:

The Oracle of Bacon could be used as a good sample, or is a game, for describing this issue, by starting "with any actor or actress who has been in a movie and connect them to Kevin Bacon in the smallest number of links possible. Two people are linked if they've been in a movie together. [...] Then we can count how many". The game is based on datas uploaded on Internet Movie Database and simply gives the shortest path between pairs of actors that can be connected to Kevin Bacon (also find here how the Oracle of Bacon works)

Research and studies have moved forward so we can appreciate how today "the world is even smaller than you thought": as reported in an interesting NYTimes' article titled "Separating You and Me: 4,74 degrees", Facebook scientist and the University of Milan update Milgram's theory by applying it to the most important existing social network and results demonstrate that, in a hyper-networked world, the average number turns in 4,74.

Surely we must consider an essential difference in the method of research: in 1967 Milgram engaged 296 volunteers while today Facebook involves 721 million users, the world's largest network community. But, updating the concept of proximity, how could we apply this theory to organizational improvement? And how the growing use of networking tools can lead us to improve not the quantity but the quality of our relationship map?

I think that Social Network Analysis can be considered the best attempt to bring order, meaning and strategies in managing formal and informal networks: in part 2 and 3 we'll keep on explain its core concepts through other recent researches.

[Coming soon: Social Network Analysis for Beginners - part 2]

3 books on workplace performance and collaborative strategies

2011-10-25T15:08:00.000-07:00

Organizational networks, employees empowerment and collaborative strategies are today main topics to drive a performing workplace model and to face business solutions through innovation and strategic change. I introduce these three books by describing some contents and related comments.

1. The 2020 Workplace: How Innovative Companies Attract, Develop, and Keep Tomorrow's Employees Today

Connected workers are today leading companies to re-design human resources management: based on surveys and case studies, the book argument on how to transform organizations by developing employees engagement and empowerment.
Author's definition of "The 2020 Workplace" is: an organizational environment that provides an intensely personalized, social experience to attract, develop and engage employees across all generations and geographies.
This is the interview by the co-author Jeanne Meister realized for the BulletProofBlog:

2. The New How: Creating Business Solutions Through Collaborative Strategy

How-to 'being' collaborators and the process for collaborative strategy are the two main parts of this book on innovative leadership and creative enterprise: in the introduction Nilofer Marchant explain that, within organizations, to implement a strategy, we need an approach that help us to use conflict and tension to motivate the creative process, identify the things that matter, and still drive alignment and resolutions".

In chapter 6 describes her MurderBoarding framework (a "counterbalance to whiteboarding") as "a four-step process to kill some ideas so others can thrive" and select a winning strategy.

In the video the author shows some collaborative tools and the new perspective for approaching strategies and implementations:

3. The Organizational Network Fieldbook: Best Practices, Techniques and Exercises to Drive Organizational Innovation and Performance

Rob Cross and many other organizational consultants have realized this collective book that analyze how to build networks for collaboration, bridge organizational silos, drive change through networks, connecting people and developing talent.

As described on the back cover, the five parts of the book are described through concrete examples, interventions, and practical advice from network experts.

In the video Rob Cross at the Wharton Mack Center Conference presents his keynote "Driving innovation through networks" on promoting individual performance, leadership group and effective collaboration:

Jostle, People Engagement Platform

2011-10-16T15:06:00.000-07:00

Connect people and help organization to bridge internal silos: Jostle, a new class of enterprise collaboration software, enables companies to foster innovation and internal communication and to manage organizational complexity.
Available in four editions and delivered as Saas solutions, Jostle lead organizations to:
> clarify teams (who is doing what) and support your co-workers;
> find people by role locations or skill for delivering projects o ideas;
> share content or how-to's task and invite other to participate on teams;
> engage by developing connections, market skills and expertise;

More information at JostleTeam Youtube page.

"Collaboration", the book: how to improve your organizational skill

2011-10-01T06:40:00.000-07:00

Recently i have been impressed by Collaboration, the book in which Morten T. Hansen, professor at Berkeley University of California and at Insead Business School, describes how to help leaders focus on the fundamental elements of collaboration within organizations and unify people to achieve results.

Based on fifteen years of research with global firms and companies, the book presents several case histories and statistical datas, around 3 main essential tracks: opportunities and barriers, solutions, collaborative leadership.

In the first part, he describes the organizational opportunities of disciplined collaboration, when to enforce it and when not, and the four most outstanding barriers that leaders must consider managing decentralized units and colleagues:

1. people don't want to seek input from outside;

2. people don't want to give input;

3. people not able to obtain information;

4. people not able to share and transfer it.

The first two barriers concern basically a motivational topic, while the seconds show us that often people are not well skilled to empower a collaboration framework.

In the second part, emphasizing that a tailored organizational analysis is needed, Hansen proposes the following three management solutions:

1. Unifying People by common goals, valuable teamwork and a language of collaboration: shared goals can build a strong sense of belonging and, more important, can help people to understand that competition and collaboration are both required for a performing teamwork (addressing competition on the outside and collaboration on the inside). Leaders should also demonstrate effectively the value of teamwork by promoting and disseminating a language of collaboration and by avoiding the risk of overdoing unification. People could hide behind a unifying goal that must be balanced with individual accountability.

2. Cultivating T-shaped management: combining cross-company contributions and individual performances, organizations could manage and help the overcome of the four main type of performer:
1. lone stars, people who provide great individual results but that not support or help others;
2. butterfly, people who work well across the organization but not in their own job great;
3. laggard;
4. T-shaped, people who deliver great results in their job (the vertical part of the T) AND, at the same time, across the company (the horizontal one).
To achieve this kind of HR management leaders must be able to seriously reward both individual and collaboration performances, also linking money and bonus not just to individual results but also to collaborative behaviors.

3. Building nimble networks: Hansen begins chapter 6 stating that networking within organizations is NOT always a great thing and everybody needs a clear set of rules to run a useful and performing network;
> to identify opportunities outside their units we should:
- build outward and not inward;
- open to diversity and differences and not to size;
- maintain weak ties and not strong ones;
- use bridges and not familiar faces;
> to help people to share value captured we should:
- swarm the target and don't go it alone;
- switch to strong ties and don't rely on weak ones;
- constantly evaluate and map organizational networks.

The third part of the book argument about how to cultivate a collaborative leadership, principally by acting three behaviors: redefining continually success and common goals, involving others for shared decision making, being yourself accountable and holding others accountable.

The book is full of great test table and at the ScoreYourSelf webpage we can find some useful assessment tools (4 test tools) for scoring how is your organization's practice about the principles of disciplined collaboration.

In the video below a presentation by the author at bNet, the CBS interactive business network:

Rypple, a social performance platform

2011-09-08T11:59:00.000-07:00

Rypple is a great social performance platform that shows how to foster team-working and organizational collaboration: a feedback-driven culture is what the Rypple team aims to promote providing a social software for internal feedback management, for sharing goals, focused feedback and real-time recognition to workflow and good jobs.

As well described by Thomas Goetz in his article The Feedback Loop, today we have interesting new strategies and technologies for changing human behavior and encouraging good habits. Arguing on how a modified traffic sign can have a profound effect on drivers' behaviour, he moves to explain 4 sequential basic steps that show how works a feedback loop:
1. Evidence (the radar-equipped sign flashes a car's current speed),
2. Relevance (the sign also display the legal speed limit)
3. Consequence (people are reminded of the downside of speeding
4. Action (drivers slow an average of 10 percent)
Probably we can't change our daily behaviors (or our daily loops) in a so-easy way but this sequence could highlight and helps us to understand the powerful of feedback information.

In this direction lead some new platforms, such as Rypple, that present some interesting functions useful to enable similar virtuous behaviors within groups and team, supporting and promoting immediately feedback and comments to projects or workflows, and leading to new workplace learning experience. Moreover it also means a new way for coaching workers and evaluate networked performances.

These are its main features:

Rypple Thanks: users can give and receive recognition for their work or create nice badges that can be awarded.
Rapid 360° feedback: feedback is essential for learning and improving performance, so users can share comments and opinions in real-time.
Social Goals: people can give comments or describe updates and news about company goals or evaluate progresses and propose changes.
Continuous coaching: by setting a self-tracking page people plan and manage one-to-one conversations and face-to-face meeting with co-workers, regularly and focused.
Rypple Loops: to create performance summaries or reviews and get organized with your stream activities.
Rypple Flow: a TV monitor shows newsfeed, informations and real-time events to help people stay tuned and engaged.

Employee reputation, social goals, real-time recognition and focused feedback seem to be key features to create a new team performance management system: empowering employees to recognize each other's works and share goals, supporting real collaborative behaviors, could lead to provide better workplaces and performances more social for a new effective work culture. But it's not just about the tool and HR and L&D department have to empower employees within disciplined collaborative context.

In the video below the Facebook team argument why and how Rypple help to promote social performances within their staff.

4 Slideshare Collections on Social Business and Community Management

2011-08-04T15:15:00.000-07:00

1. The Community Roundtable

The Community Roundtable is a special network of social media, community and social business practitioners where they can discuss and find peers, best practices and resources, for creating a powerful values-based business and to help organizations in the transition to being social organizations.

The community slideshare channel is a very interesting collection of presentations and documents: his "favorites" page is a great repository of slideshows about enterprise 2.0 , innovation and community management issues (link: http://www.slideshare.net/rhappe/).

2. Social Business Forum

The Social Business Forum is the most important european event where discussing about collaboration, social CRM, enterprise 2.0 and innovation with international speakers and professionals: best practices, case studies and demo area are some of the great value added topics.

The slideshare channel collects all of the presentations showed during the 2011 Milan forum (link: http://www.slideshare.net/socialbizforum).

3. Enterprise 2.0 Conference

Enterprise 2.0 is an organization that leads international conference and expo, throughout the year, with the goal of supporting social business development and spread the powerful advantage of collaboration within companies.

A lot of great resources are available on his slideshare channel: employees engagement, acceleration of business performance and social business intelligence are main topics you'll find here (link: http://www.slideshare.net/e2conf).

4. The Brain Yard

The Brain Yard is an online community for business leader that aims to introduce collaboration and social technologies within organization to create value and better performance.

Produced by Enterprise 2.0 and InformationWeek, it provides an interesting list of resources such as whitepapers, slideshows and videos.

Not on slideshare... but exceptionally useful. (link: http://www.informationweek.com/thebrainyard/).

Social Business reading list [July 2011]

2011-07-17T10:25:00.000-07:00

Check out this new reading list focused on social business, collaboration, enterprise social networking and employees empowerment: i really learn a lot reading and discussing about this article from April 2011 until today; let's add your comment or your suggestions about other powerfull posts on this issue!

1. Building an Employee-enriched culture with social media
by DANA LASALVIA - April 12, 2011

2. Stop, drop and roll-out Yammer
by TANYA LOH - April 12, 2011

3. Best practices for enterprise social networking
by KRAIG SWENSRUD - April 18, 2011

4. An expert look at enterprise collaboration
by ANDY JANKOWSKI - May 13, 2011

5. The true nature of a social intranet
by OSCAR BERG - May 16, 2011

6. Does your intranet solve problems or create them?
by ELIZABETH LUPFER - May 18, 2011

7. The social intranet becomes reality
by TOBY WARD - May 24, 2011

8. On collaboration: interview with Luis Suarez
by ROBERTO COBIANCHI - May 26, 2011

9. Designing collaboration: building system that really work
by PHILIPP SCHAEFER - June 8, 2011

10. How do you know when you have reached a collaborative culture?
by DAN PONTEFRACT - June 8, 2011

11. 10 of the best social business communities & why they are important
by MARK FIDELMAN - June 13, 2011

12. Why is collaboration so difficult ?
by DAN ERWIN - June 15, 2011

13. Employee orientation vs. onboarding: how to capitalize on the difference
by REBECCA MAZIN - June 16, 2011

14. Employee Engagement Best Practices
by DEREK IRVINE - June 21, 2011

15. Ten ways to create a knowledge ecology
by EUAN SAMPLE - June 28, 2011

16. Companies are erecting in-house social networks
by VERNE G. KOPYTOFF - June 26, 2011

17. How curation, collaboration and crowdsourcing can engage staffers
by DOM CRINCOLI - July 5, 2011

Some notes about the video Social Media @ Work

2011-07-03T11:27:00.000-07:00

The video "Social Media @ work" is about how and what is going to change for internal communications within organizations that genuinely open to social media platforms and collaboration tools.

New technology, change management and culture of internal collaboration today are constantly related and connected to reach a different way to develop businesses, build and maintain relationships and improve knowledge management.

Red Sky Vision, a british company that leads internal and corporate communication, have realized this excellent interview: here are just some particular issues, (with some statistical information too), that i like to point out:

1. times have changed:

> today organizations need to record and understand what happens inside and outside of them;

> today organizations knows that instead of one source of expertise there are potentially several connected sources;

> "talk, share information and collaborate is the "most effective" use of social media within global organisations";

> we are seeing a continually shitfed behaviour within workforce: employees want more information.

2. how to change:

> "52% of global internal communicator suggest their organisations don't have a social media policy in place";

> Social content is the lifeblood of an organisation and of an intranet: people want to contribute for creating and sharing powerful content and social media platforms offer enormous opportunities;

> never forget to step back for asking and reaffirm "what is the overall goal" underlying your activity;

> now we have a direct conduit to whatever you want inside organization: no filter, no database, but peer-to-peer flow of informations and connections.

3. what is change:

> "74% of business social media users believe that the technology has blurred the lines between internal and external communications";

> we must learn to strategically use lot of delivering tools: people are usually already skilled about that, what we need is engaging contents that deliver connected knowledge.

4. risks and benefits:

> 64% of all global internal communicators rate their team's social media expertise as 'very low' or 'low' and between 1 to 5 out of 10"

> we always need to evaluate risks and benefits of any implementation but considering that a) lot of people could become great former, that aims transparency and openness, and b) that there is more concern about what happens within organisation;

> there are lot of successfully case studies showing the value of well-planned social media strategies that energized and motivated workforces.

4. social media @work in the future:

> organisations definitively opened to the notion that they need to learn from their employees by sharing professional expertise: learning and working continually merge in one in daily activities, with best results for companies and professionals

> by 2013 we will not have e-mail that will be replaced by social media platforms;

> internal communications help business to be more successfull and we must provide and manage social opportunity to our workforces: any chief executives will have to be aware about that.

[Companies mentioned and involved in the interview are: Able and How, IVCA, Melcrum, Communicate Magazine, CorpComms Magazine]

Employee Empowerment: 3 great speech from 2011 Social Business Forum

2011-06-18T10:03:00.000-07:00

Two weeks ago i attended the 2011 Social Business Forum in Milan where, in particular, i've been intrigued by the session called "Employee Empowerment" in which the main issues were about how to improve workplace engagement and business performance by implementing social business models within organizations.

But i prefer to start my related comment starting from the better definition of Social Business, as mentioned on the forum website:

"An organization that has put in place the strategies, technologies and processes to systematically engage all the individuals of its ecosystem (employees, customers, partners, suppliers) to maximize the co-created value”.

Today we are seeing an organizational change increasingly strong and faster, where sharing, collaboration and networking are fundamentals paradigms to create business value and a renewed role for knowledge workers.

For surviving and growing, companies needs to consider, today more than ever, wirearchy more than hierarchy, listening, sharing and responding more than a one-way selling approach, and, basically, face the fact that working means/is lifelong learning and evolving. In other words, trasform and develop processes "just" becoming "genuinely" social.

Within my organization we are now starting to implement an enterprise social network tool such as Yammer: yes, i know that tools are not enough but it's a long hard challenging cultural switch.

For these reasons, i attended to Employee Empowerment sessions and i've been positively impressed by 3 interesting and awesome speech:

1. Designing Collaboration: Building Systems that Really Work, by Phillip Schaefer, associate partner at IDEO

Phillip Schaefer points 5 principles that must occur for creating and maintaining collaborative tools, for what we need to redefine knowledge sharing and design thinking:

build pointers to people
build rewarding systems
demand intuitive interfaces
take the road more travelled
iterate early and often

To engage workers, one of the most interesting topics is that we need to facilitate the intersection between "individual motivation" and "organizational goals", by recognizing and rewarding participation, initiative, innovation within easy-to-use tools (that no need training setup).

2. Connect.BASF: The Online Business Network, by Cordelia Kross (Senior Enterprise Community Manager at BASF)

Cordelia Kross starts describing some relevant company information (number of employees), the "social" initial situation (with stand-alone solutions) and the project objectives: create value through connectedness.

More than all i really appreciate three kind of solutions showed for a successfull achievement of objectives declared:

how to engage (initially) employees: pull and not push approach, some different steps for beginning and facilitating with learning events and webinar (offline events help drive online adoption), and an exciting launch communication with tangible benefits and emotional for a high acceptance of the project (that's why use should be voluntary);
different typology of community, each of them dedicated to a various core concept (expertise, practice, interest, engagement) that employees and organization should intrinsically share, with focus and goals clearly declared and related;
Success factors or why employees embrace the project: voluntary opt-in, strong leadership from community builders, commitment from management but also appeal of relevant conversations and communication of success stories;
3 interesting best practices of knowledge sharing, efficient project work and problem solving.

3. Analytics in Learning and Knowledge, by George Siemens (Athabasca University)

George Siemens presents a very good lessons about our knowledge landscape and the value of big data and information in the networked age: from post-industrial era, we are data and all of our actions.

We still build sensemaking and wayfinding with a social attitude but today what is really new and different is quantity, type and representation of information: individuals and organizations need to face this complexity in a distributed, socialized, gamed and intelligent way, trying to find a coherence tie between this kind of information.

People fundamentally use data and information for daily sensemaking, manage crisis, mapping to existing knowledge, create and share new knowledge: flow of information is continual and ubiquitous, with new and interesting related tracking and managing tools (i.e. see rescuetime.com and talk-o-meter app).

Back to employee empowerment, i think that for knowledge workers (but much more for top-managers) is important and vital to understand that each new node amplifies the value of the entire network...and produces lock-in: for sure, we need to keep clearly this definition within our daily job of empowerment groups and individuals.

Get ready for 2011 Social Business Forum: the interviews list

2011-06-07T11:00:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow 8th June i'm going to participate to the 2011 Social Business Forum, organized by Open Knowledge, at his fourth edition. His specific goal is to "address collaboration, marketing and innovation in the era of empowered employees, customers and partners. [...] the event will provide a unique mix of insight and discussion about social business opportunities, organizational impacts, success stories, best practices and lesson learned".

What is Social Business? Check here useful and clear definitions.
“An organization that has put in place the strategies, technologies and processes to systematically engage all the individuals of its ecosystem (employees, customers, partners, suppliers) to maximize the co-created value”

Issues and arguments about the forum are well explained and discussed in his blog, where you'll find interesting interviews and articles blogged by speakers, experts and consultants.

Here is the interviews list:

1. An interview with Bertrand Duperrin about the impact of new generations (Yers) on change - by Roberto Cobianchi
2. Stefan Lindegaard on Open Innovation - by Stefano Mizzella

3. The Unicredit Social Business Case told by Stefania Todisco - by admin

4. Sameer Patel on Social Business - by Alberto Beccaris

5. On collaboration – an Interview with Luis Suarez - first and second part - by Roberto Cobianchi

6. Interview with Keith Swenson on Adaptive Case Management - by Andrea Incalza

7. Social CRM's destiny: from customer service to value co-creation? - by MyCustomer.com

8. Improving company performance with Social Business - an interview with Stefano Vitta - by Gabriele Persi

9. The network is the learning: an interview with George Siemens - by Stefano Besana

Social Business Forum 2011 - an interview with Sameer Patel

2011-05-24T03:02:00.000-07:00

This is my interview with Sameer Patel, speaker at the 2011 Social Business Forum in Milan next 8 june: i'd like to thank again Sameer for his special helpfulness and for the great chance he gave me with this discussion to learn more about workplace collaboration.

Sameer is a partner at the Sovos Group – a management consulting and execution planning firm that helps leading organizations accelerate employee, customer and partner performance via the strategic use of social and collaborative approaches and technology.

Sameer has spent over a decade leading teams and managing engagements for large customer helping them define and execute sustainable programs that drive employee process performance, business partner network optimization, sales and marketing operational effectiveness and customer acquisition.

Customers that Sameer has had the privilege to work with include well known organizations such as Ingres, Sun Microsystems, KPMG, McKessonHBOC, WR Wrigley Jr. Co., CA, Nike, Oracle, Intel, The Sabre Group, Grupo Televisa (Mx), and Varian. This is my interview with Sameer Patel, speaker at the 2011 Social Business Forum in Milan next 8 june: i'd like to thank again Sameer for his special helpfulness and for the great chance he gave me with this discussion to learn more about workplace collaboration.

He has been quoted on the topic of strategic application of social and collaborative business in leading publications such as CNBC Business, The New York Times, Forbes, ZDNet, GigaOM, ReadWriteWeb, ComputerWorld and CIO Magazine, amongst others. Sameer blogs at Pretzellogic.org and can be found @sameerpatel on Twitter.

Sameer Patel on Social Business

1. Many companies seem to have great difficulty in recognizing that, today more than ever, business performance is strongly connected to the inner workings of workplace improvement and, more generally, to severe organizational shortcomings: which are the first steps that a company must necessarily take to start a concrete and effective way to change towards the implementation of a social business model? And how will these steps become increasingly necessary and essential to ensure growth, development and innovation?

Sameer: Based on our experience executing social and collaborative business engagements, the leadership at Organizations generally aligns more closely with one of two philosophies when it comes to collaboration. On one hand we see organizations who genuinely believe that if they don’t collaborate, they can’t be successful and so the C-Suite makes sharing and working together a top execution priority (as opposed to just talking about it). These organizations look at ramifications such as global expansion plans, remote workforces and acquisition integration strategy and consider upfront proof points to be less important, and where unifying the organization is considered a core utility. The other type of organization is willing to make any kind of investment as long as it’s tied closely to revenue, cost and risk management. These look for ROI estimates upfront and real results relatively soon as they have a number of initiatives that can potentially deliver results. Securing budget is highly competitive in these cases but once you do, you have significant leadership muscle behind you. For these organizations you need to draw distinct estimates for process, operational and financial performance opportunities and the mere promise of benefit via social media/social business, enterprise 2.0 isn’t enough. So understanding the drivers, the estimated efficiency opportunities and a credible case for changing how the workplace engages is very important. That sets a business focused road map instead of an altruistic belief in becoming social for the sake of becoming social. Of course these are both extremes but understanding which way the pendulum swings in your organization and credibly creating strategy and execution plans to respond to this is critical to set your collaboration effort in motion.

2. Which are the most frequent hurdles as well as the common mistakes which can often lead to failure of a genuine process of change towards open and collaborative models within organizational contexts? Especially for companies with a traditional organizational model which are the most difficult problems to be addressed? In this sense it is appropriate to consider the possibility of introducing a process of gradual engagement of the various business roles or is it fundamental to immediately extend to all levels of the proposed change?

Sameer: There’s really no generic answer to this but in many ways its both. It’s being able to let cross functional connectivity thrive and relationships emerge but at the same time, executing specific process changes within and between functions by articulating a strong end state for how process, data and people must come together. You strategically work the gradual business performance outcomes, yet allow others to adopt and use the system before you get to them and go deep on their use cases. Doing either one of these means that on one hand you are too siloed and the benefits of creating that collaborative fabric won’t be apparent for a long time (and before managements patience runs out). Going wide means you have to deal with significant participant challenges as the value proposition to each user can be unclear and often you’re just back filling use cases to show value. Not only is this risky but like resurrecting any failed product launch, it’s extremely expensive to get back on track the second time around.

3. The proposal of a less hierarchical model of decision making within companies often encountered much resistance: how best to use the innovative drive that within companies are increasingly “on the bottom” and especially through the dissemination of social technologies?

Sameer: I think that is a fundamental mistake when working with most traditional organizations. You’re not revamping hierarchy and in many cases you are not even pushing final decision making down any more than you did before you used social technologies. Technology will not practically change your management hierarchy. What you are pushing down and enabling at all parts of the organization is collaborative sharing, idea creation, offering better or different approaches to challenges and opportunities. In other words you are enriching the data set available to make better decisions by galvanizing the collecting brain of the organization. In some organizations people might be conformable pushing decision downstream and that’s fine. In others, you are federating the early stages of decision making which means getting more insight and input to help you make better decisions. It’s in fact this confusion that makes the application of such technology more overwhelming and even threatening to managers and we see it all the time in our work. Managers remain managers. They just get to socialize approaches and thinking early, get the best input from closed or open communities, and make more informed decisions, there by enrichening outcomes and reducing risk.

4. Developing an analysis model about an effective ROI which evaluation indicators can provide an effective feedback? Particularly for businesses that are just starting out, which elements may help to reconfigure a deployment strategy either far too weak or rough?

Sameer: ROI often gets people in a bind because we often race to do one of two things: consider engagement metrics (number of registrations, participants, views, comments etc.) or nebulous productivity metrics around productivity and time saved. Whilst critical data points when applied correctly, neither is adequate in and of themselves to get line of business managers to understand how it accelerates sales, marketing, product marketing, etc. More on this topic, here. Metrics needs to be looked at as a) Program Metrics that help ascertain the health of the community and program usage and b) Existing Process, Operational and Financial Metrics that will be impacted by the use of social software enabled programs for employee, customer, partner performance (some examples here). The second informs targets for the first and offers standard baselines for improvement that any executive can get behind if credibly articulated. This also surfaces real business trouble spots where engagement and collaborative approaches serve as effective weapons. Knowing how to phase the applicability of these metrics from initial launch and over time is important as well, so you’re not setting up unreasonable expectations for social business leverage at each stage of maturity.

Social learning with OilProject (renewed)

2011-05-17T14:39:00.000-07:00

Oilproject is a very particular online learning platform founded in Italy in 2004 from a group of italian students: its particularity is that lessons are free, open and headed by volunteers, where the only real goal is to provide free dissemination of information.

I talked about Oilproject on May 2010 and about two weeks the online school has renewed its learning and teaching proposal with some interesting and innovative features:

1. participants, through surveys, decide and schedule what to talk about;

2. it's a "like-youtube" channel focused on learning: create your video and send it;

3. italian communities can promote social, civic and scholar activities and manage focused webpages;

4. as from the beginning, there is no clear distinciton between those who teach and learners.

With no doubt, at least in Italy, this is a very interesting and innovative approach in developing teaching and learning: visit the website, become again student or teacher, and choose your community.

3 infographics resources about Workplace, Enterprise 2.0 and Education

2011-05-01T14:53:00.000-07:00

Infographic is a special way to describe things, argue issues and suggest ideas: here are my last favourites concerning social and workplace learning, enterprise 2.0, education.

Socialcast Blog: Socialcast, famous U.S. enterprise collaboration platform company, in his blog present a very nice series of infographics about collaboration at enterprise 2.0, comunication and engagement at workplace, and other interesting social media tips.

Edudemic: very interesting blog where students and teachers share their passion for learning and discuss about the social media impact on education: here you'll find great infographics, tools, guides and how-tos for improving your ability to connect technology and learning environments.

Infogen: Infographic Generator is a blog where you'll find a large-categorized variety, a collection of beautiful infographics, about different categories such as internet, social media, people, science, history, economy, technology and many other. You can also submit your work or ask for a customized infographic.

3 great books for Social and Workplace Learning

2011-04-17T11:36:00.000-07:00

During these months i've been reading 3 special books about social learning and working smarter: Internet Time Alliance, Marcia Conner and Tony Bingham, Jane Hart, have published the results of their daily professional experience with HR and L&D Departments to create learning workscapes and collaborating environments inside organizations.

Here you'll find the cover images and some mentions from the inside.

1. The New Social Learning - A guide to transforming organizations through social media - Tony Bingham and Marcia Conner

Here are some of "The New Social learning playground rules:

1. No loitering in the playground areas. The value is in participation and engagement.

2. The playground is for people of all ages.

3. Only people interested in having influence are allowed are allowed on the premises

7. enjoy life offline to stay interesting on line

9. Be patient, above all, with yourself"

2. Working Smarter Fieldbook 2011 - Internet Time Alliance

"Continual learning through problem solving and collaboration is the key".

"[...] Organizations must stop thinking of learning as something separate from work. [...] The greater the convergence of working and learning. In many cases, they are already one and the same".

3. Social Learning Handbook - Jane Hart - Centre for learning & performance technologies

"The first step will be to understand the changes that are taking place, then become immersed in the new social media tools that are underpinning this change, in order to help other in the organizations work and learn smarter".

Some ingredientes? "A leader who lives helping people learn. An environment which enables initiative and exploration. [...] Culture of mutual support and individual accountability".

"Workplace learning professionals of the future will have a different role that will be much more concerned with encouraging and supporting learning in all its forms across the organization, than creating, delivering and managing it".

State of Community Management 2011

2011-04-10T12:23:00.000-07:00

View more documents from The Community Roundtable

A very interesting report published by The Community Roundtable, The State of Community Management 2011 edition is a rich compilation for understanding how social media, community and social business are growing inside organizations all over the world.

The CR Network is "a community of peers that provides access to experts, programs, curated content, relevant connections and a private environment to share experience", with over 40 members, partners and facilitators.

Here is the summary of table of contents:

about the report
methodology
community maturity model
2010 roundtable schedule & topics
overview
social business becomes a strategic imperative
interest in community management has increased
a lot of confusions remains
survey result: market maturity
lessons learned from the CR Network members
appendix: resources

The report describes a Community Maturity Model, analyzing it within two axes: competencies and stages of maturity.

1. competencies (needed to build a successfull community):

strategy
culture
leadership
community management
content & programming
policies & governance
metrics & measurement
tools

2. stages (referred to relationship environment of an organization):

stage 1: hierarchy
stage 2: emergent community
stage 3: community
stage 4: network

Certainly this is a very important guide: appendix is also full of interesting resources and readings (also recommended: slideshare presentation Community Management Fundamentals and The State of Community Management 2010).

Workplace Learning reading list [n.°1]

2011-03-27T12:25:00.000-07:00

In the first three-month of 2011 i spend a lot of time reading some really interesting articles about the future model of workplace, deeping how is vital and unavoidable for any kind of organization get linked employee and collaborators with innovative and informal learning environments.

According with Harold Jarche's definition saying "work is learning & learning is the work", here i present my first short selection (in chronological order of publishing):

1. Thinking through performing and learning

by CLARK QUINN - March 25, 2011

2. Learning is the new work

by JAY CROSS - March 23, 2011

3. The Working Smarter Glossary

by INTERNET TIME ALLIANCE - March 22, 2011

4. The objects of informal learning

by DIANNE REES - March 21, 2011

5. Learning on the job

by CHARLES JENNINGS - (on twitter) March 21, 2011

6. Hot topics in Working Smarter for the past 12 month

listed by JAY CROSS - March 19, 2011

7. The impact of social media in the Workplace

by MARCI PAINO - March 18, 2011

8. 10 steps for Working Smarter with social media

by JANE HART - March 17, 2011

9. Working smarter through social learning

by HAROLD JARCHE - February 27, 2011

10. 2020 Workplace

by HAROLD JARCHE - February 15, 2011

11. 10 ways how work will change in the future

by ABNIJIT KADLE - November 8, 2010

12. Think workscapes, not Training

by SUMEET MOGHE - August 30, 2010

5 interesting social tool for learning

2011-03-20T16:21:00.000-07:00

Interesting tools for sharing and collaborating with ideas, projects and personal information: 5 video that present powerful web applications that we can learn to use for personal and social learning environments.

1. Symbaloo: a web-based application for creating, organizing and bookmarking personal information dashboard and web resources. Here can find also a special webmix e-learning-based.

2. Diigo 5.0: a research and collaborative tool and a knowledge-sharing community, not a simple social bookmarking website (here fid out how-to import your bookmarks from delicious to diigo)

3. Vuvox: you can create and mix your personal media (it's your visual voice) with this amazing tool that deliver multimedia collages and interactive presentations.

4. Yutongo: a brainstorming and collaboration tool, useful for sharing ideas with innovative approach (find here the explanation of the ideation process metodology)

5. Readability: a web application that enable a more confortable way of reading web pages by removing text and other stuff around the main text; a reading platform useful for readers and publisher too.

Dan Pink at TED: a video on science of motivation

2011-03-08T14:18:00.000-08:00

Dan Pink is the author of the book "Drive: the surprising truth about what motivates us" in which describes why and how autonomy could improve motivation in our activities and performances.

In this video at TED conference, Pink explains that "what science knows mismatch with what business does" about organizational behaviour and motivation: some studies show that higher incentives not always lead to higher performances. What is needed instead is autonomy, mastery and purpose.

"Human beings have an innate drive to be autonomous [...] and connect to one another. When the drive is liberated, people achieve more and live richer lives".

Learning Technologies Magazine

2011-02-27T15:23:00.000-08:00

Inside Learning is a magazine that, three times per year, present and discuss the latest and more innovative learning and development trends. With many powerful contributors, it supports the Learning Technologies exhibition and conference.

For sure, it's a very interesting and substantial choice of excellent resources and articles for understanding the state of social learning, future of education, tools for learning and much more.

the january 2011 digital edition

Learning Technology: the Horizon Report, 2011 edition

2011-02-21T13:11:00.000-08:00

In this video we can appreciate the presentation of the 2011 Horizon Report (pdf version) a special volume that, since 2002, describes and examines emerging technologies for teaching and learning over the coming five years.

Created by the Horizon Project's Advisory Board, a collaboration between The New Media Consortium and Educause Learning Initiative, it analyzes key trends, critical challenges and six "technologies to watch" that are likely to enter mainstream use.

Each section present a topic, with interesting readings, concrete examples and list of good links; here is the summary of table contents:

1. time-to-adoption - one year or Less: electronic books and mobiles;

2. time-to-adoption - two or three year: augmented reality and game-based learning;

3. time-to-adoption - four to five year: gesture-based computing and learning analytics;

Here is my top link list:

Qwiki: learning and information experience

2011-02-12T09:43:00.000-08:00

Qwiki is a very interesting search-engine platform who deliver an innovative information experience: check out this video presentations about it at TechCrunch Disrupt.

Here are some articles that well describe his potentials and his missings: for sure qwiki could become the way we find information and we learn, "in a format that's quintessentially human - via storytelling instead of search".

Qwiki: learning vs. knowing by Miguel Esquirol @Softcity Cafè
Start your next lesson with a Qwiki! @ Chris'21 Century Learning Blog
Qwiki: stop reading and start learning @ Pallab dot Net Blog

Quora: social media for knowledge

2011-01-31T12:51:00.000-08:00

In this video we can appreciate a short introduction to Quora, "a continually improving collection of Questions & Answer" implemented by communities of users.

I think we could consider it as a new social learning tool: interactions, flow of contents and resources, useful in promoting ideas and collaborative learning, Quora could really be one of the most important social media for knowledge.

Edited by Grovo, a multimedia training platform, the video shows you just a few of the many features of Quora; for other interesting proposals:

A future for learning

2011-01-19T08:30:00.000-08:00

In this presentation can find an interesting explanation about social learning, with history and theory contributions, and good samples and comments.

TribalCafè is a social business agency focused on social media services that enable people and team performance, communities of customers, with learning and marketing innovation. Check out the social media training webpage.

An excellent summary on the value of engagement and networked knowledge in designing and implementing of learning environments.

Social Learning from Smart Technologies

2011-01-11T23:14:00.000-08:00

Powered by Saba Learning, interesting video about the social learning space developed by Smart Company, world's provider of interactive whiteboards, online learning resources and training development.

Smart Learning Space is a virtual learning environment enabling innovative interactive experience for teaching, learning and live student outcomes: with a customizable user interface, it's a good sample of merging with social media tools (after all, as said on Saba website home page, "80% of learning is informal").

Massive Online Open Courses starting in 2011

2011-01-06T11:44:00.000-08:00

As posted by George Siemens in December, there are a lot of open courses starting in 2011; for an introduction to Massive Online Open Course check this video presentation by Dave Cormier:

I'd like to present two of these (where Siemens is involved):

1. Learning and Knowledge Analytics (LAK11): "is a conceptual and exploratory introduction to the role of analytics in learning and knowledge development", and it will help participants to define learning analytics plans. For all details check the syllabus where you'll find credits, course description and outcomes, audience, technologies used, weekly activities and the course schedule (for 6 week, from 10 january to 20 february).

2. Connectivism and Connective Knowledge (CCK11): "is an open online course that over 12 weeks explores the concepts of connectivism and connective knowledge and explore their application as a framework for theories of teaching and learning". At this page you'll find details about the course outline, how it works, course facilitators (G.Siemens and S. Downes) and other useful informations.

Word Lens: augmented reality translation app

2010-12-19T08:24:00.000-08:00

Amazing app for iphone that provides you a meaningfully tool for words translating and for learning languages: this app allows you a simultaneous translation using augmented reality technology.

You just have to point your camera phone to the text written on a banner, cards or sheet and it's pretty ready your translation needs.

Available also without internet connection, ready for English and Spanish languages, QuestVisual is now working for expanding to other languages and to other platform such as Android and Blackberry.

Schoology: platform for social learning

2010-12-15T22:50:00.000-08:00

Nice project for social learning, Schoology is a free web-based platform that combines social networking with learning management systems (LMS) for creating & sharing academic courses and contents.
Easy to setup, with no pc programming knowledge necessary, it's a very interesting plug-and-play system that allows you to:

create school, course & group pages;
create assignments, tests & quizzes;
manage grades & attendance;
course analytics;
customize with add-ons;

Check out its academic, social, management and administrative features and implement premium add-ons that help you customize special options: the teacher can easily create a course or a group that any student can access with personal code to join activities and services.

Collapsus: a transmedia storytelling experience

2010-12-08T18:40:00.000-08:00

Amazing documentary that could redefines a new approach to blended storytelling and could be a very nice inspiration for learning modules of the near future.
Here you can watch just a walkthrough but i recommend you the entire version.

Collapsus Walkthrough from SubmarineChannel on Vimeo.

Produced by SubmarineChannel, the project shows you how ten young people try to manage an Energy Risk Conspiracy, placing them in different locations such as London, Teheran and Colorado, to avoid a blackouts and for creating a livable future world.

First goal of Collapsus is attract a different audience than traditional documentary viewers: in fact you cannot be just a viewer but now you have to be a player, directly involved, trying to interact and make decisions that change the events of history.

Collapsus combines interactivity, animations, and fiction, and is a very good example of simulation game that could be reproduced for learning game: engagement, playfulness, real stories and interactivity are all crucial elements for a renewed model of learning.

Top 100 tools for learning 2010 by Jane Hart

2010-11-29T12:02:00.000-08:00

View more presentations from Jane Hart.

Jane Hart is a Social Business Consultant and Founder of the Center for Learning & Performance Technologies and of the Internet Time Alliance: her blog is a very valuable resource for any Learning Professionals who wants to improve his learning and technology skills and for those professionals who need to working smarter in their organization with the support of social media.

Check-out this special list of new learning tools, think that his really value can be summarized in:

545 contributions from learning professionals worldwide (teacher, academic, trainer, consultant etc);
since 2007 can find position changes for any tool described;
interesting predictions and emerging trends for 2011 (first 10 position don't change..) ;
here you can share your top ten tools to help build the list;
tools are properly classified in Free, Commercial, Desktop, Server, Online, Mobile;

Thanks to jane Hart and her staff for this excellent contribution: now you just have to contribute and share your favorite list.

Interactive Visualization: resources for writing for new forms

2010-11-13T09:42:00.000-08:00

How we present data, content and information? What it means "writing for new forms"? And more, what is collaborative information visualization? How can we visualize complex networks?

In this video Jeffrey Heer from the University of California, Berkeley, presents some good comments and a number of visualization techniques at University of Washington Computer Science and Engineering Program (TV channel).

Hierarchical data, time-series and social networks data could be presented with the following projects and tools:

1. Flare: an ActionScript library for creating visualizations that run in the Adobe Flash Player;

2. Infovis: a javascript toolkit for creating interactive data for the web;

3. Docuburst: a project for visualizing document content using language structure;

4. SocialAction: a social network analysis tool that integrates visualization and statistics to improve the analytical process.

And for collaborative and sharing visualization:

5. Vizster: an interactive visualization tool for online social networks, allowing exploration of the community structure of social networking services such as friendster.com, tribe.net, and orkut;

6. Sense.us: a web application for collaborative visualization of demographic data;

7. Swivel.com: the world's first data sharing tool;

Moreover, here is my (check out also on my delicious page) selection about best website, link, examples and much more about visualization and infographic:

VisualComplexity: a unified resource space for anyone interested in the visualization of complex networks;

Visualizing: a community of creative people working to make sense of complex issues through data and design, it's a shared space and free resource to help you achieve this goal;

Infographic ShowCase: a collection of the best infographics & data visualization on the web;

Cool Infographic: a blog covering infographics, data visualization and visual thinking;

Information Is Beautiful: ideas, issues, knowledge, data-visualized!;

Iinfographic: a project on great factual graphic knowledge.

Welcome to Wired University

2010-10-25T22:51:00.000-07:00

Interesting proposal from Wired U.S. of this month: internal editors wonder about their own credentials and curriculum and promote a new kind of "higher learning for highly evolved humans". At Wired Magazine Page you can check this innovative course catalog (here for the entire article) that i tried to resume:

Course Listings

Statistical Literacy: "making sense of today's data-driven world". Learning to manage tools for statistics, self-tracking, analytics; you need to master data and infos all around you to embrace uncertainty, for your advantage.
Post-State Diplomacy: "power and politics, sans government". Today's leader and organizations are very different from those of 20st century: to understand how change your citizenship you need to know the most influential entities on the world stage. Apple, Google, Facebook, but also religious extremists, criminal enterprises and other transnational groups.
Remix Culture: "samples, mashups, and mixes". Try to use an artworks approach on your projects and activities: you'll learn that you don't have to build your works "building something out of nothing" but instead you have to improve your ability of re-arranging, re-assembling and re-building some good examples, best practices, that already exist.
Applied Cognition: "the neuroscience you need". Now let's focusing on how our mind works, for example, evaluating political and ads campaings and some other "arts of persuasion", influencing our mindset development. Manage your decision-making processes and your ability of evaluate "how emotion influences reasoning".
Writing for New Forms: "self-expression in 140 characters". So often writing refer not to people or just our friend but alghorithms in some search engine, that's why you must have some tagging skills and the ability of identify keywords and #hashtag useful for your speech. Rapid, coincise and focused mass comunication.
Waste Studies: "understanding end-to-end economics". Waste is today a big problem: we lose "valuable time", human capital, opportunities and energy. The whole world needs some skills for understanding what causes waste, how and where reduce it. We all need a new proposal for becoming "smarter consumers" and more aware, conscious, about our life-style on this world.
Domestic Tech: "how to use the world as your lab". Try to renovate our domestic and household habits recycling, re-adapting, things, filtering some simple and repetitive tasks with a scientific and reparable approach.

This course listings includes some very good assignment, tips & tricks, homework, reading list and lab schedule: a great inspired example of PULL instructional design, for creative and engaging learning, that now you could work out again.

Could you suggest some interesting adaptation strategies about it?

How to improve your storytelling skills: ZooBurst

2010-10-06T11:55:00.000-07:00

Nice presentation about this special web based tool dedicated to your storytelling skills: check out how you can convert into digital format a novel, a photo-tour, and many more.

ZooBurst helps you create your 3D pop-up book: just need a browser, the adobe flash plug-in, and choose between two types of account, a free-basic and a premium: authors can make items clickable, "allowing readers to learn more about individual characters within a story", and sharing it with other readers embedding the book in blogs and websites.

With an ordinary webcam, this educational tool also allows you to enjoy ZooBurst book in Augmented Reality: can find any kind of explanation at the support page.

So enjoy, create and share your story!

Social Learning Revolution: the video

2010-09-26T09:54:00.000-07:00

Excellent video presentation by SSJ - consultancy for innovative learning solutions, located in Brasil: concise, quick, a very good example of rapid-learning pill. Inviting you to join the conversation, the video sums up some of the main issues about the recent social learning development, mentioning some of the leading learning experts and consultants.

Learning is now a human centered experience, related to a worldwide scale, and the development of web 2.0 led to a new approach to formal learning: people learns from other people, day by day, and that means enclose informal learning within programs of learning and skills improvement.

Social learning is a revolution, says Jane Hart, founder of the Centre for Learning & Performance Technologies in UK, as result of the plot of:

connection
collaboration
sharing

At the end of the video, with the mention of Mark Weiser, the father of ubiquitous computing ("the best tools are invisible tools"), an interesting synthesis between formal and informal learning, most of all inviting you to:

tell stories
be meaningful
connect emotionally
use your five senses
start small, keep it simple
be fun

What could we add to this list?

From multi to mono-tasking

2010-09-13T20:00:00.000-07:00

Nicholas Carr e Chris Anderson: due punti di vista sui limiti e le potenzialità della rete nell'aprire nuovi scenari cognitivi per gli utenti

"Internet ci rende stupidi?" Su Wired-Italia del mese di agosto, ho letto con interesse l'articolo in cui viene tradotto un estratto del famoso articolo di Nicholas Carr “Is google making us stupid? what the internet is doing to our brain”; nel frattempo, su Wired-US, Chris Anderson nel suo articolo “The Web is Dead” offre alcuni spunti interessanti di riflessione che in parte rispondono ad alcuni dei quesiti posti da Carr.

Basandosi sui dati emersi da diversi studi scientifici dagli anni ’80 ad oggi, Carr in sostanza sostiene che:

in rete attiviamo più facilmente una lettura sbrigativa, un pensiero veloce, e questo inevitabilmente porta a un tipo di apprendimento superficiale, privo di profondità;
la rete rende più difficile il trasferimento delle informazioni dalla memoria a breve a quella a lungo termine, processo cardine per lo sviluppo in profondità della ns intelligenza: troppi "rubinetti informativi";
la rete è un sistema a interruzione che comporta uno switching cost: la nostra attenzione viene costantemente richiamata e sollecitata e il processo di ri-orientamento che attiviamo grava sulle nostra risorse mentali;
l’hyperlink e il multitasking portano quindi ad una ginnastica mentale eccessivamente dispendiosa per la nostra capacità di comprensione, a discapito della lettura e del pensiero profondo.

Ma è davvero così? Stiamo cioè chiedendo al web di interromperci ogni giorno sempre di più? Alcuni studi suggeriscono invece che la rete sia un ottimo strumento per gestire al meglio il surplus cognitivo che le tecnologie permettono: navighiamo la rete spinti cioè anche da altre motivazioni, dalla voglia di condividere, dalla creatività.

Secondo Anderson stiamo vivendo il passaggio dall’era del web open and free, “in cui tutto sembrava ruotare intorno al browser”, alla fase attuale in cui la navigazione è quasi "costretta", recintata, dalle apps che girano su tablet, ipad e smartphone: ciò porterà inevitabilmente ad una diversa modalità di esplorare e di gestire le informazioni, meno libera e meno aperta ma più semplice e più comoda.

Lo sviluppo delle tecnologie tende a favorire quindi la riduzione del carico cognitivo sull’utente? L’overload informazionale, tipico dell’era del browser, in cui “usando un motore di ricerca come Google finivamo per scorrere tanti siti a volo d' uccello, raccoglievamo qui e là tanti bocconcini di contenuto gratuito, in modo atomizzato”, è destinato a ridursi drasticamente? O meglio, aiutati dai nuovi applicativi, stiamo diventando più abili e selettivi nella navigazione in rete?

Così prosegue Anderson: “mentre sul web sorvolavamo velocemente su tutto, ora ci soffermiamo più a lungo nell' assorbire i nostri contenuti preferiti sull' iPhone. Siamo in una transizione dall' èra del multi-tasking, in cui facevamo troppe cose alla volta (telefonavamo guardando lo schermo del computer) ad un mono-tasking”, in cui passiamo meno tempo a ricercare informazioni perché le abbiamo già pre-selezionate e filtrate.

Ci troviamo davanti ad una nuova modalità di fruizione e gestione dei contenuti in rete: Carr, a mio avviso, sottolinea bene alcune caratteristiche della rete di qualche anno fa, ma manca l'upgrade con gli ultimi sviluppi. Stiamo imparando a selezionare e ad approfondire le informazioni di cui abbiamo bisogno ogni giorno e, molto probabilmente, ciò avrà un impatto sulla nostra capacità di apprendere e sullo sviluppo delle nostre abilità cognitive.

photo credit: BuddhaMunx @http://www.flickr.com/photos/phoenix725/

Google for Learning

2010-06-12T15:00:00.000-07:00

Quali strumenti di lavoro offre Google per supportare le comunità d'apprendimento? Ecco un video di presentazione di Google Apps for Education, una suite di tools gratuiti e personalizzabili per attività didattiche di aziende, scuole e università. Di seguito proviamo a mettere a punto la lista aggiungendo altre interessanti e utili applicazioni.

Communication tools:

Gmail: web-based mail
Googletalk: voice over IP
GoogleCalendar: a free time-management web application

Collaborative production tools:

GoogleDocs: web-based documents, spreadsheets, and presentations
GoogleSites: free website and wikis
GoogleGroups: discussion groups and usenet newsgroups
GoogleSketchUp: a 3D software tools
ScribbleMaps: create custom google maps

Sharing tools:

GoogleVideo: free video sharing
Picasa: free photo sharing
GoogleBookmarks: free bookmark storage service
GoogleBase: online database for submiting all kinds of content

Search tools and organization:

GoogleCustomSearch: create custom search engine
GoogleAlert: e-mail update based on choice of query or topic
iGoogle: a customizable AJAX-based startpage or personal web portal
GoogleReader: feed RSS reader

Courses, tutorial and e-learning platform:

GoogleCodeUniversity: a website providing course and tutorials about current computing technologies, Creative Commons licensed
CloudCourse: a course scheduling system, tracking learning activities

Nuove prospettive per le piattaforme di Learning Management System

2010-05-30T20:00:00.000-07:00

Trovo particolarmente interessante il dibattito in rete in questi giorni sul ruolo e gli sviluppi delle piattaforme di LMS (Learning Management System) nei prossimi anni. In particolare, la domanda a cui alcuni ricercatori e professionisti dell'e-learning cercano di rispondere è la seguente: quanto sono e saranno in grado i sistemi di LMS di integrare al loro interno apprendimento formale e informale, curricula strutturati e strategie di social learning?

I 2 punti vista che descrivo brevemente partono dall'assunto che oggi le piattaforme di LMS svolgono funzioni non più riconducibili solo alla tracciabilità dei curricula e della reportistica ma si configurano invece come veri e propri "sistemi sociali" integrati (valuable "social system"). Diverso però è la loro conclusione sulla centralità degli LMS all'interno di un sistema di apprendimento corporate.

"A defense of LMS" di Dave Wilkins (Executive Director of Product Marketing at Learn.com) presenta i seguenti argomenti a difesa della centralità dei LMS:

LMS is an essential business application: Wilkins spiega come, in un mercato del lavoro dinamico in cui le persone cambiano sempre più spesso posizioni lavorative, per le aziende si rende necessario un sistema di "onboarding" training necessariamente standardizzato, controllabile e strutturato; inoltre, punto fondamentale, la struttura formale di un LMS risponde alle esigenze del committente-cliente che ha bisogno di misurare con precisione il percorso formativo delle proprie risorse umane per poi, anche sulla base di questi dati, attivare strategie di allocazione, validazione dei piani conformità e business plan; una piattaforma di social learning non ha ancora gli strumenti per garantire questi passaggi fondamentali.
Modern LMS solutions are way more than a pure LMS: ecco 27 esempi di soluzioni che rendono le piattaforme di oggi molto più social rispetto a qualche anno fa; per citarne solo alcuni, la possibilità di gestire vari formati di file, gestire conformità e nuovi modelli di valutazione, rendere tracciabili giochi di ruolo e didattiche simulative, fornire strumenti di amministrazione semplici anche ai corsisti. In sostanza, un LMS ha molte più social features di quante formal features abbia una piattaforma di social learning e anche alla luce di ciò va ripensato il ruolo del trainer, visto unicamente quale consulente esterno, in un ottica di engagement produttivo, affidato direttamente a risorse presenti all'interno di un'organizzazione.
Market and System Maturity: il mercato e i sistemi formativi aziendali non sono ancora pronti ad assumere il modello informale dell'apprendimento come modus operandi dominante; è necessario soprattutto completare un passaggio culturale, non solo tecnologico, sedimentarne il valore e l'efficacia formativa e ci vorrà ancora tempo: ma quanto tempo? E a quel punto i learning provider saranno pronti?

Wilkins conclude il suo lungo articolo sostenendo la necessità di un sistema che supporti e integri insieme diversi modelli di apprendimento (formal + informal + social interventions) ma soprattutto chiarisce cosa non sia auspicabile: un sistema che tenga queste dimensioni separate su piattaforme diverse e non comunicanti.

In "The standalone LMS is still dead", Dan Pontefract (Senior Director, L&D at Telus), pur concordando sulla necessità di un approccio che integri tutte le dimensioni dell'apprendimento, afferma un modello di apprendimento in cui le piattaforme di LMS, in quanto dispositivi autonomi e indipendenti, sono solo una parte, uno degli 'attori in campo', che va inserito in un processo di ridefinizione dell'intero learning ecosystem:

LMS was an essential business application: pur offrendo ottimi ed efficienti sistemi di formal learning, secondo Pontefract le piattaforme tendono a isolarsi dalla galassia dei sistemi di apprendimento informali, sempre più distribuiti e accessibili, e proprio la loro particolare autonomia operativa rende impossibile l'implementazione di un vero learning, content and collaboration ecosystem (LCC).
Modern LMS solutions are way more than a pure LMS: su questo punto entrambi concordano anche se Pontefract sottolinea come le organizzazioni, perché possano davvero possederere una piattaforma di LMS moderna, debbano dar vita ad un flusso di lavoro permanente, integrato e condiviso di formal, informal e social learning.
Market and System Maturity: in questo senso è necessario aiutare e sostenere la maturità del mercato; le aziende infatti dispongono spesso di una piattaforma per i contenuti (Sharepoint), di una piattaforma di social collaboration (Jive, SocialText), di un sistema di ERP (SAP, Oracle) e probabilmente di un semplice LMS: ciò che manca è una "tabella di marcia", una vera e propria roadmap system, che sviluppi non solo singole competenze individuali o 'di area' ma soprattutto integrazione, collaborazione e apprendimento condiviso tra tutti gli ambiti e le divisioni di lavoro.

Pontefract afferma quindi, che il ruolo di tutti gli stakeholders coinvolti nei processi aziendali e la loro centralità nel definire metodologie di integrazione tra tutti gli strumenti operativi e collaborativi presenti nel contesto organizzativo hanno un'importanza decisiva rispetto ad un modello in cui gli LMS organizzano il flusso di informazioni, 'misurano' e dettano le regole e i livelli di partecipazione.

Mi pare che l'obiettivo sia condiviso: portare le organizzazioni ad sviluppare al proprio interno un eco-sistema per l'apprendimento condiviso, in cui la formazione si avvale degli strumenti, concettuali e operativi, di social ed informal learning, e al contempo di curricula e percorsi strutturati, per far crescere i singoli e l'organizzazione insieme. I mezzi per giungere all'obiettivo, a mio parere, sono più in un approccio 'ecosistemico', in cui le parti tutte concorrono ri-definendo continuamente i percorsi e le metodologie di lavoro.

Oilproject.it e Comedu.it: due diversi esempi di free e-learning

2010-05-12T08:02:00.000-07:00

Descrivo brevemente due interessanti progetti per la formazione on line che indicano la strada all'e-learning per esprimersi concretamente come spazio di apprendimento condiviso e collaborativo.

Il primo progetto di chiama comedu.it "Persone e progetti verso l'uso etico, educativo e sociale dei nuovi media". Da poco lanciato da Francesco Arleo, networker freelance, si propone come spazio per la creazione, gestione e implementazione di corsi tematici ed è costruito con Ning (da poco disponibile anche nelle versioni free-basic e premium), la piattaforma on line multilingua che permette di creare e personalizzare un piccolo social network intorno ai propri ambiti di interesse.

Comedu.it permette di creare un proprio profilo, invitare amici e contatti, partecipare al forum e proporre una discussione; inoltre è possibile iscriversi ad uno dei gruppi tematici presenti, inserire post sul blog e utilizzare tutte le funzionalità di interazione dei social media: twitter, facebook oltre a una serie di interessanti apps.

Le rubriche propongono tematiche relative all'uso educativo e sociale dei nuovi media: si parla di tecnologie educative, di scrittura creativa ma anche di percorsi di integrazione tra adolescenti italiani e stranieri, di creatività migranti e inclusione lavorativa. E' possibile proporre un gruppo tematico e verificare se la community ha interesse a partecipare.

Il progetto è ancora abbastanza giovane, deve allargare la comuntity di fans e lavorare un po' sulla usabilità dell'interfaccia ma offre insieme ad altri uno spazio per l'apprendimento decisamente interessante.

Il secondo progetto, Oilproject, ha invece ha già qualche anno di vita ed è ormai noto per gli addetti ai lavori: si tratta di Oilproject, il portale per l'approfondimento e la formazione on line sviluppato e gestito da una community di esperti che a titolo volontario condivide le proprie conoscenze con gli utenti iscritti.

Se inizialmente gli ambiti di discussione erano focalizzati su Internet e Informatica, da qualche tempo si occupano anche dell'intreccio tra rete e attualità, politica, ricerca scientifica, privacy, energie alternative: un approccio a 360 gradi che permette di approfondire la cultura della rete e dell'innovazione nei suoi intrecci con tematiche di carattere più generale.

Le lezioni si strutturano su un palinsesto di incontri con personalità ed esperti , tra cui formatori, politici, docenti e giornalisti. Per accedere alla classe virtuale e interagire con i relatori è necessario iscriversi e accedere alla chat, così da dare vita ad un proficuo scambio di domande-risposte, opinioni e commenti in tempo reale: un portale per l'apprendimento di indubbio valore per cui vale davvero la pena partecipare alle sessioni e magari proporre argomenti da sviluppare.

Nonostante tematiche e modalità di fruizione differenti entrambi i progetti, pur nel loro diversio approccio, rappresentano una sfida importante al mondo dell'apprendimento on line: ancora una volta apprendimento e insegnamento si sovrappongono in maniera proficua e, per citare gli autori di Oilproject, non c'è netta distinzione tra chi insegna e chi impara. Il valore reale di queste esperienze allora non sta effettivamente nelle dinamiche di partecipazione che siamo in grado di attivare?

From Augmented Reality to Augmented Learning - Part 2

2010-04-27T11:17:00.000-07:00

Realtà Aumentata: quali scenari si aprono per l'e-learning?

All'interno delle tradizionali distinzioni tra blended e e-learning e apprendimento formale e informale dobbiamo probabilmente inserire un'ulteriore distinzione: parliamo cioè di ambienti di apprendimento che, attraverso le tecnologie della Realtà Aumentata (R.A.), ci portano verso lo sviluppo di augmented learning environment.

Il video Augmented Reality in the Classroom, insieme a moltissimi altri disponibili in rete, dimostra come siano cambiate le modalità di engagement dei discenti e descrive solo alcune delle infinite applicazioni a scopo didattico per la R.A.. Ecco alcuni esempi:

studio delle discipline scientifiche: Learn AR ha sviluppato un interessante learning tool per l'approfondimento di materie come biologia, chimica e matematica (link al video);
giochi didattici: ecco un altro esempio di computer game technology;
parchi a tema: iTacitus, progetto di ricerca dell'Unione Europea del 2008, ha ri-costruito la Reggia Venaria Reale di Torino arricchendo le possibilità esplorative dei visitatori.

Se sei particolarmente interessato al tema ecco un video davvero utile ed esplicativo: durante il NewMediaConsortium Symposium on New Media & Learnin g 2010, Craigg Kapp, giovane docente al College of New Jersey, illustra straordinarie sperimentazioni didattiche che la R.A. rende finalmente possibili.

Il video Augmented Reality in the classroom mostra i 45 minuti della sua presentazione all'evento e cerca di rispondere alla domanda "How Can AR be used in Education?". Kapp espone un elenco di strumenti per la l'augmented learning:

Augmented textooks and Simulation with special card: il libro si apre e sullo schermo osserviamo oggetti in 3D e informazioni correlate ;
Augmented Physics and Assistive Technology: il disegno su carta si trasforma velocemente in un oggetto 3D, da cancellare e rifare a piacimento;
Mobile RA: l'interfaccia con wikitude ci accompagna per le strade di tutto il mondo offrendoci le informazioni che scegliamo.

Insomma, per quanto ancora poco diffuse, le tecnologie della Realtà Aumentata trovano ormai sempre più spazio su pc e supporti mobili e contribuiscono così a sviluppare interessanti e innovative prospettive per li mondo della formazione: instructional designer e sviluppatori sono quindi chiamati a ri-pensare il tradizionale concetto di LMS (learning management system) e ci porteranno sempre più a osservare il mondo fisico e reale come un'estesa e ubiqua piattaforma sulla quale costruire ambienti di apprendimento personalizzati.

Le forme di partecipazione della rete avranno in tal senso un ruolo decisivo e la sfida per l'e-learning di domani potrebbe giocarsi nella capacità di tenere insieme nuovi "strumenti di lavoro" e nuove possibilità di partecipazione, tecnologie molto avanzate e connessioni sempre più estese: quali abilità dovremo sviluppare per abitare questo grande spazio conoscitivo?

From Augmented Reality to Augmented Learning - Part 1

2010-04-19T20:50:00.000-07:00

Su Current TV, nella sezione geek files, ho trovato un video davvero interessante sulla Realtà Aumentata e sulle sue possibili applicazioni nella vita reale. In questo primo post cercherò di riassumere in breve i concetti fondamentali, soprattutto grazie alle parole di Bruce Sterling, noto scrittore texano fondatore del cyberpunk. Nel secondo post proverò a descrivere le possibili applicazioni della R.A. all'interno di un ambiente di apprendimento, con particolare riferimento all'e-learning.

Cosa succede quando la rete esce dal Pc e invade la realtà arricchendola?

Questa è la domanda con cui gli autori del video introducono l'argomento "Augmented Reality". Per Wikipedia è "la sovrapposizione di livelli informativi ad un flusso video che riprende la realtà di tutti i giorni", in cui tali elementi vengono poi visualizzati attraverso un device mobile. Quando parliano di R.A. ci riferiamo in sostanza ad un'interfaccia che può arricchire la nostra esperienza sensoriale e aggiungere nuove dimensioni alla realtà fisica "aumentadola" in tempo reale.

Le prime esperienze di R.A. nascono nei primi anni '60, quando Morton Heilig (regista ed inventore) realizza Sensorama, una macchina capace di riprodurre immagini 3D, con una serie di dispositivi plurisensoriali (interattivi) con cui interagire. Fu una delle prime esperienze di realtà virtuale che trovò poi ulteriori sviluppi negli anni seguenti, quando nel1999 Hirokazu Kato elabora Artoolkit, la prima vera applicazione di R.A. Fino al 2008, quando con il progetto Wikitude diventa finalmente possibile visualizzare informazioni utili relative al luogo di interesse verso cui puntiamo il nostro device mobile (esempio).

Secondo Sterling, per un'esperienza di Realtà Aumentata dobbiamo disporre di :

webcam e paper-markers, un foglio con un quadrato bianco e nero che ripreso dalla webcam permette la "registrazione";
mobile device che "osservano" un'area ben precisa...;
projection mapping video, un segnale video che viene "mappato" su un unico luogo fisico.

Qual'è il risultato? In pratica possiamo prendere un oggetto virtuale e metterlo in uno spazio reale. Per raggiungere questo obiettivo sono necessarie 3 operazioni:

unire un oggetto virtuale con un oggetto reale;
interagire con questo in real time;
collocarlo in uno spazio tridimensionale.

Il terzo punto ci porta al "problema della registrazione", uno dei punti cruciali: la registration è l'azione attraverso cui aggiungiamo segmenti della Realtà Aumentata alla Realtà Reale, attraverso una mappatura sul mondo reale di un oggetto o di un luogo fisico. Il nostro device mobile è fornito di un GPS, ha una webcam ed è collegato alla rete: il software di localizzazione tridimensionale installato permette l'identificazione dello spazio fisico che abbiamo di fronte e proietta sul nostro display le informazioni che riteniamo utili in quel preciso momento. Nel caso di Wikitude, ad esempio, il programma interagisce con le informazioni presenti nel database di Wikipedia.

Ma quali sono le possibili applicazioni che possiamo farne nella vita di tutti i giorni? Qual'è il valore sociale della Realtà Aumentata? Grazie al digitale e allo sviluppo della banda larga possiamo aggiungere nuovi layer informativi al mondo fisico e quindi nuovi strati di informazione alla realtà che osserviamo: saremo in grado di sfruttare questa enorme possibilità per aumentare anche la nostra capacità di sviluppare apprendimento e conoscenza?

Conferenza UE, Marzo 2010: Modelli di integrazione delle ICT nell'istruzione

2010-04-07T12:05:00.000-07:00

Mi fa molto piacere dare spazio ad un post di Sabina Nari, (project officer presso l'ETF dove si occupa di progetti elearning), che ha partecipato lo scorso 16-18 marzo alla Conferenza Internazionale “Modelli di integrazione delle ICT nell’istruzione” presso il Ministero dell’Istruzione nella città di Madrid.

Alla conferenza hanno partecipato più di 170 esperti, tra rappresentanti dei ministeri dell’educazione dei paesi membri dell’Unione Europea ed imprese del settore tecnologico. Particolarmente interessante l’intervento di George Siemens, Direttore associato all’Università di Manitoba (U.S.A.) del Learning Technologies Centre, dal titolo "From ICT Integration to Systemic Trasformation".

Ecco il punto di vista di Sabina, dopo tre giorni di incontri.

Le scuole del Nuovo Millennio sono pronte alle sfide dell'era digitale?
di Sabina Nari

Lo scorso 16-18 marzo il Ministero dell’Istruzione spagnola, nell’ambito del semestre di Presidenza Europea, ha ospitato la conferenza internazionale “Modelli di integrazione delle ICT nell’istruzione”. Nei tre giorni di questa interessante conferenza gli esperti si sono interrogati sulla preparazione dei sistemi didattici e scolastici dell'Unione europea nel rispondere alle esigenze in termini di forme, metodologie e strumenti dell’apprendimento nell’era digitale.

La dimensione sociale e collaborativa dell’apprendimento e l’ausilio di strumenti tecnologici sembrano essere ancora un mistero, se non addirittura un tabù, per molti sistemi scolastici dei paesi dell’Unione europea. Nonostante esistano alcuni validi tentativi, soprattutto in forma di progetti-pilota, esiste ancora una forte resistenza al cambiamento e all’adattamento.

La presentazione di George Siemens, teorico internazionale dell’apprendimento collaborativo e della teoria dell'apprendimento denominata connettivismo, (inserisco il link: Connettivismo Da Wikipedia), fra i vari scenari proposti è stata particolarmente esaustiva ed interessante:

Madrid_EU_Presidency

View more presentations from gsiemens.

Un sistema di pianificazione differente che è la chiave di volta per il cambiamento secondo il punto di vista di Siemens: i sistemi educativi e scolastici dell’era moderna sono troppo rigidi, non sufficientemente aperti né flessibili per adattarsi ai rapidi cambiamenti sociali, culturali e tecnologici. In questo contesto di cambiamento, è necessario pensare a nuovi modelli e nuove forme di insegnamento, ma soprattutto a nuove forme di pianificazione e di sviluppo di politiche per l’insegnamento; certo non è un compito facile ma appare ormai in tutta evidenza un passaggio necessario.

Nella società attuale un ragazzo fra gli 8 e i 18 anni trascorre molte ore della propria giornata esposto a qualche forma di media (fra musica, televisione, video game e il grande contenitore dei social media): ciò che lo studente vive nella realtà di tutti i giorni deve avere continuità con ciò che apprende a scuola ma soprattutto con le modalità dell’apprendimento che sperimenta nei vari ambiti del proprio percorso di vita.

Le tecnologie possono diventare così uno strumento educativo molto potente perché può rompere i confini fra scuola e casa, fra studio e tempo libero; le istituzioni scolastiche e gli insegnanti sono chiamati a cambiare, quasi a rivoluzionare, il loro ruolo per diventare guide per un utilizzo critico e proficuo degli strumenti tecnologici e delle informazioni ormai sempre più pervasive e aggiornate in real-time.

Bisogna fare i conti con la mancanza di risorse (di tempo, finanziarie e umane) per porre in atto il cambiamento in tutte le sue dimensioni. Le presentazioni hanno evidenziato iniziative interessanti soprattutto nell’ambito dell’innovazione nelle metodologie d’insegnamento ma rimane la necessità di un sostegno all’insegnante più decisivo, che tenga presente il riconoscimento formale dell’impegno di chi vuole innovare, la definizione e l’adozione di nuove politiche d’insegnamento, la messa a disposizione di fondi e di infrastrutture adeguate. Non da ultimo il consenso ed il coinvolgimento delle famiglie è un aspetto altrettanto chiave nell’attuazione di questa metamorfosi culturale.

I partecipanti quanto hanno interagito con i social media? Twitter ha rappresentato durante tutta la conferenza il second level di comunicazione e scambio fra partecipanti. Mentre l’evento si è svolto secondo uno stile comunicativo piuttosto tradizionale, dando largo spazio alle presentazioni frontali, i partecipanti hanno scambiato opinioni (talvolta anche piuttosto accese) e condiviso idee utilizzando gli strumenti propri dei social media. Gli spunti sono stati molto interessanti e mi hanno dato l’occasione di assistere al mio primo evento che in questo senso ha indubbiamente affiancato tradizione e innovazione.

La scuola del Nuovo Millennio è pronta alle sfide dell'era digitale? E come si confronta con il cambiamento in atto?

Sabina Nari (mail: sabi_nari@yahoo.it; twitter: @saxun; facebook: sabina nari)

TAG

The Twitter Book: strategie di social learning dal libro di Tim O'Reilly e Sarah Milstein.

2010-03-29T12:48:00.000-07:00

Sul blog di Enrico Giubertoni si può trovare il mio guest post di qualche giorno fa dove segnalo alcuni tools di supporto a strategie di social learning.

The Twitter Book è molto user friendly, con un taglio stile striscia fumettistica che affianca alla pagina di puro testo la descrizione grafica dei concetti presentati (potete "sfogliare" la presentazione qui sotto): il libro riesce perfettamente ad essere un'ottima guida sia per chi si avvicina alla twittersfera sia per chi desidera approfondirne l'uso per ricerche avanzate.

Citando direttamente le parole di O'Reilly, 3 sono i concetti fondamentali per i quali ho segnalato alcuni link:

1."Advanced search is one of the best parts of the service"
2. "Figure out who’s influential on Twitter"
3. "Twitter is a discussion channel"

The Twitter Book - A Sneak Preview

View more presentations from O’Reilly Media.