How are people using social software to support learning?

Who the hell knows? A zillion people ask and get answers to that question everyday…usually using the very tools in practice. I’m using it to write this post. And you’re reading it. And you may interact with it in some way.

Someone asked Jay Cross via email how people are using social software to support learning. The writer of the email said she agrees “there is an important social dimension to learning” (!!!) but doesn’t see how her own use of popular social networking services support her personal learning.” She sees (accessing and writing for) Wikipedia as mostly a solitary activity and sees some (future) potential in social bookmarking and tagging. That’s cool. We’ve all felt that, right?

Jay reminds her that the very catalyst for the conversation the two of them are having was a social networking service and then he expands her definition of learning beyond that “activity.”

Read Jay’s post. My opinion: no one is going to give anyone easy answers on how exactly people are using social software to support learning. It’s  not an action (getting salmonella by eating chicken) because it (sickness) happens to you, it’s not something you do intentionally (get sick)…if that makes any sense. Probably not. But I can tell you social networking doesn’t taste like chicken and it probably won’t give you salmonellosis. (JC)

First, kill all the instructors | Informal Learning Blog | Jay Cross | 30 March 2009

Tagged as: social learning, Social Media