Podcast #6 - Anti-social learning: the legal risks of Web 2.0

Blogs, wikis, and video sharing sites to name but a few are now common daily haunts for millions of people, so it's no surprise organisations want to leverage these services for people development. The user generated content and social interactivity that characterises these so called 'Web 2.0 technologies' is ideal both for formal and informal learning.

But before your organisation rushes in with a Web 2.0 based solution, make sure anyone who intends to launch a participatory web service for learning, communications, or knowledge management is aware of the legal aspects.

Get an overview of this hot topic by listening to Doing E-learning's latest podcast.

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E-learning - for all?

Just a week or so on from the CIPD's annual survey stating that 39% of the UK's small businesses wanted to 'do e-learning' (at least for those linked to the CIPD), a study from Germany states 1 in 2 small businesses "wants to invest in e-learning in future".

All indications point to a shift towards e-learning, but this venture for small businesses has to be cost efficient. It'll be interesting to see which route(s) they go down - if they want true effectiveness then surely not just off the shelf courses. Formal DIY courseware, and informal web 2.0 content seem the most likely alternatives. But which will come out on top? Will the great revolution in 'learning 2.0' be driven by 'the little guys'?

In the States wikis do appear to be flavour of the moment for sales training, with one success story even making it into The Wall Street Journal last month.

But will this approach be limited to organisations who have highly motivated individuals?

Open Science... let's properly evaluate

Here's an interesting little article on games and learning in schools in the Guardian by Outer Hebridean blogger John Kirriemuir. John writes about teachers blogging "their good and bad experiences". If this is correct, then if sufficient numbers took to the cause and blogged their results, we'd have sufficient data that backs up the need for an educational revolution. (Our fingers are crossed here - much needed analysis, problem solving, and other higher cognitive skills learnt from games would be a coup.)



It got us thinking at Doing E-learning that the blogosphere should be an invaluable way of relaying empirical evidence on learning in organisations, especially around efficacy. A whole new community of web 2.0 L&D researchers could emerge off the back of analysing published data and findings.

This idea's been around for a number of years now in academia. Open Science - aka Open Source Science - is about making research data publicly available, and not 'hiding' it in costly journals. Surely it's only a matter of time with the mass usage of wikis and blogs until researchers publish their data openly, and build on web 2.0 philosophy.

It'll be interesting to see how the likes of the One Big Lab blog take off.