Last updated: 10 March 2010
SOCIAL MEDIA & LEARNING
What do we mean by "learning"?

When many people think about "learning", they think about courses, workshops, online courses, etc - in other words formal learning.  However, in recent years it has become common practice to describe learning as being either "formal" or "informal". What is the difference between the two?

Formal v informal learning

Jay Cross, the leading proponent of the term "informal learning", explains the difference between formal and informal learning in this posting on Informal Learning 2.0 on his blog (8 August 2009):

"Learning is formal when someone other than the learner sets curriculum. Typically, it’s an event, on a schedule and completion is generally recognized with a symbol, such as a grade, gold star, certificate or check mark in a learning management system. Formal learning is pushed on learners.

By contrast, informal learners usually set their own learning objectives. They learn when they feel a need to know. The proof of their learning is their ability to do something they could not do before. Informal learning often is a pastiche of small chunks of observing how others do things, asking questions, trial and error, sharing stories with others and casual conversation. Learners are pulled to informal learning"

In his seminar book on Informal Learning,  Jay also points to the mismatch between the amount of informal learning that takes place in an organisation and the amount spent on formal learning.  

The "80-20" meme is often quoted, that is. that 80% of all learning that takes place in an organisation is informal, yet it’s the 20% (the formal part) where most training departments concentrate their efforts. A number of people have questioned these numbers, so here are Jay's thoughts on where this 80% meme came from.

Although there is a lot of value in differentiating learning in this way - formal and informal, because it helps to explain that learning doesn't just take place in a classroom or when taking a formal course, the two terms have now become rather confused, mis-used, and even abused, e.g.

• Josh Bersin, suggested that the importance of informal learning within corporates is now being recognised, in a posting, entitled Informal learning becomes formal.
• Vendors are now trying to market their products using these new buzzwords, so we see promotions for systems that will "manage informal learning information" - which is clearly a contradiction in terms.

There is a need to be more specific about where and how learning takes place.  When analysing examples of use of social media in learning, I identified 5 different ways that social media can be used within a learning context.

5 categories of learning

1. FSL - Formal Structured Learning -  formal education and training  like classes, courses, workshops, etc - both synchronous and asynchronous - which is pushed to the learner.
2. PDL - Personal Directed Learning - individuals organising and managing their own personal or professional learning - that is access and use of both information and instruction to address their own learning and performance problems.
3. GDL - Group Directed Learning - groups of individuals coming together, e.g. in work teams, on project or in study groups - to share information, resources, experiences, for example.  Or just two people working together in a coaching and mentoring capacity.
4. IOL - Intra-Organisational Learning - for organisations there is the bigger picture, where employees share information and resources with the whole organisation, and keep each other up to date and up to speed on strategic and other internal initiatives and activities
5. ASL - Accidental & Serendipitous Learning - individuals learning without consciously realising it (aka incidental or random learning)

(Social) learning activity therefore take many forms within an organisation, as the following diagram shows ..

For a closer look at each type of learning, select from the left-hand menu - in the Applying Social Media to Learning section.

The following video has been produced and shared by Harold Jarche, my colleague in the Internet Time Alliance, which extends the conversation about social learning even further.

Reading List:

• Informal learning
• Improving performance and productivity