Clearly we will be left behind as learning professionals if we rely solely on a linear production model of instructional design. Recently I spoke with Karie Willyerd, VP and Chief Learning Officer at Sun Learning Services, about what she is doing to enourage her staff to use use Web 2.0 regularly. Karie has some suggestions for experiments designed help further employ Web 2.0 as a tool for learning. She believes CLO’s should consider the following:
Develop a wiki for your New Employee Orientation program requesting input from recently hired employees on what to include in future programs. Rather than spend 6-9 months in the instructional design phase, the wiki could begin to capture the suggestions of new employees as they enter and then complete the program.
Create a podcast series profiling a variety of subject matter experts sharing their “top tips” in a number of areas relevant to learning clients in the organization, such as new product development, leadership development needs and branding challenges.
Use the latest computer technology to troll Internet sites and push blogs and other feeds to the desktops of employees so they can keep track of what consumers are saying about your company and your competitors.
Develop a channel on your site to have learners “rate” their courses, just like Amazon does for books. Amazon, their such innovations, has had a huge impact on book retailing (things aren’t like they used to be anymore). Another way to utilize this Amazon tool is to create a referral service so you can begin to capture which books your managers and staff are reading that may be of interest to you.
Develop a private online community for the learning organization staff to share the latest ways Web 2.0 can improve the design, development and/or delivery of a program.
Create a wiki of company acronyms and invite everyone to contribute. Also, create a wiki for the vision and goals of a new product/project so that all can comment about them in a regular and easy way.
Add a search engine connected to your Learning Management Services (perhaps Goggle).
Let anyone in your organization build a course in Second Life and then create a blog about their experience. Encourage comments by offering prizes so you can create a buzz in your group for trying these new tools.
Identify experts you are reading about in the media (political figures, university presidents, etc.), and then reach out to them to see if they will link their blogs or websites to your site. Adding lots of interesting links will increase usage.
Remember: the goal is to make learning accessible, engaging, and fun.
[tags]Web 2.0, Wikis[/tags]
