- Imagine you see me walk into your favorite coffee shop
on Saturday morning.
The place isn't super busy yet,
and surprisingly, you're not pressed for time.
You come up to me and say, hey Daniel,
I dug your course on digital learning.
And then I'd say, well that's cool.
What did you find the most helpful thing about it?
We sit down and talk for a few minutes.
We sip our coffee.
You learn from me as I share the experiences
that inspired the course.
I learn from you as you talk about
what you found helpful in the opportunities
to apply digital learning at your company.
The training industry would call our conversation
an example of social learning.
In the context of digital learning,
social learning happens when a space is created online,
and people come into that space to share knowledge.
To post and respond to questions.
To share resources and best practices.
There are two basic platforms where
digital social learning takes place.
There are internal social platforms,
where employees of a company share information.
A traditional example is the company internal website.
Another example, and this is becoming quite popular,
is the cloud-based application
that behaves like a social media site.
For instance, Yammer, Slack, Microsoft Teams, and Workday.
There are also external social platforms.
And really, what we're talking about here
are communities of practice.
An online forum devoted to a particular software
or organization is an example of this,
as are the Twitter and LinkedIn communities.
Social learning is a powerful tool,
and it's become a mainstay of digital learning.