Social Learning Interest High in India

The topic of Social Learning has been a keen and hot conversation in four different meetings we have held with Learning Professionals around India.

There is shared recognition of the limitations of eLearning content that is "just" authored information and remediation. As the speed of business increases, there needs to be alternative ways of enriching and extending the content - while drawing on collaborative efforts.

Here are a few of the conversational threads from our discussions:

• Context from Intentional Communities: Building social learning right into traditional programs from day 1. Whether these be onboarding/induction sessions for new employees or higher education programs - provide learners with communities that include experts, slightly more senior peers and full peers.
• Shift to Video Content and Context: Desire to bring the primary delivery mode from text to video. While the production quality does not need to be "Hollywood or Bollywood", there can be significant value from user created content and authored video content.
• Scalable Mentoring: Great conversations about the role of mentoring in learning and how it can be scaled for HUGE learning projects.

Some of our colleagues also see ways in which traditional instructional design programs can be evolved to include the competencies to facilitate and maximize the social learning dimensions of learning resources.