The surprising possibilities of online social learning

“Three reasons why to consider online social learning as an alternative to live online learning.”

Jos BerdenJune 26, 2020Editor's pick

The surprising possibilities
of online social learning

Learn about the reasons why online social learning shouldn’t be overlooked or underestimated when designing online learning, especially in times of physical distancing. We ran a course (MiniMOOC) on online social learning by using the same principles of the course itself and this is what we learned.

The measures taken due to COVID-19 have changed everything in the world of learning, but at the same time nothing has changed. Yes, physical distancing has forced many training organizations to rethink and redesign their courses and strategy on the short and (hopefully) long term. On the other hand, the basics of learning design haven’t changed, nor have the fundamental benefits of using learning technology. There are just (much) more reasons to go back to the drawing board and change courses and training into formats that work in the current and future circumstances.

No, we won’t say; we told you so…

A few weeks back my colleague Ger Driesen also shared his thoughts about a 3-T strategy: Time-out, Transport, Transform. Read about his insights on how to cope with the covid-19 crisis and to continue learning delivery without ‘face-to-face-training’.

From transporting to transforming

After the initial reflex of directly ‘transporting’ classroom training online by using webinar and video tools, training organizations are now working on ways to ‘transform’ their courses with the use of online technology. That’s smart, because you’ll make sure that the learning impact will be greater than when everything is ‘Zoom-ified’. So, in comes live online learning and the use of more effective didactical methods like virtual classrooms, interactive webinar sessions, etc. Not bad, but it’s still somewhat of an inside-the-box-approach of digitizing classroom settings instead of doing a thorough redesign.

From synchronous to asynchronous

So, what’s being overlooked?
Well, one of the alternatives is online social learning. Next to the effectiveness of learning in a group, another big benefit is that it’s asynchronous. All forms of live online learning require all participants to be in the same (virtual) place at the same time.

Online social learning doesn’t have that time restriction, so learners can truly move at their own pace and at a time it suits them. At aNewSpring, we like to practise what we preach, so we ran a course by using the principles of the topic itself: a MiniMOOC on online social learning.

What did we learn?
It deserves much more attention than it usually gets and shouldn’t be overlooked or underestimated when designing online learning, especially in times of physical distancing. We’ll explain why.

MOOC stands for Massive Open Online Course.

So, what was ‘mini’ about our MOOC? It was smaller in its duration, not in its reach or impact. It was still a massive course in the sense that there were many learners to engage with.

The course took place over two weeks and twice a week new content was made available. Learners were provided with multiple resources on a certain topic and were given assignments to discuss the content amongst each other.

For several weeks after the latest content was added, the MiniMOOC was still accessible to learners.

Interested in following the next MiniMOOC?
Fill in the form bellow

Three reasons why to consider online social learning

1. There’s more to it than you probably think

Going online with (social) learning supposedly takes away the true face-to-face interaction or the benefits of physically being together. It’s probably the most heard criticism of online learning in general and almost portraits it as the opposite of social learning. But that’s far from the truth. Giving learners the opportunity to interact with each other online stirs up plenty of learning opportunities through discussions, insights and reflections. Maybe even more so in an asynchronous form, because it gives learners the time to go at their own pace. Thought, ideas, and comments are often ‘more deeply processed’ before posted (thought, written, checked).

“Giving learners the opportunity to interact with each other online stirs up plenty of learning opportunities through discussions, insights and reflections.”

With the use of the right platform or technology, there are lots of ways of communicating with others; answering open-ended questions, replying to others, ‘liking’ comments, asking questions, and more chat-like features. The way our MiniMOOC was set up on our own learning platform made sure that interaction was very clearly centered around specific pieces of content.

Also, just like in classrooms, there’s a motivational benefit of just being part of a course. Not everyone has to speak up to learn. You can learn from reading content, thinking about it and reading what others are thinking. This also makes it very well suited for different levels of experience or knowledge. Participants of our MiniMOOC came from varied backgrounds in learning and had very different years of experience in the field.

2. You can ‘engineer’ its success

Making sure people actually learn from each other can seem more challenging, because it can feel that you, as a trainer, teacher or designer, are less directly involved in the actual learning process. It’s important to know that social learning can be designed and it needs that design to be effective. One of the first resources in our MiniMOOC came from Julian Stodd, who wrote ‘The Social Leadership Handbook’ and tons of blogs about social learning.

Check out his take on designing social learning:

“Social Learning is one approach to learning design, an approach where we combine the best of ‘formal‘ learning (the story that the organisation tells), with the best of the community (the co-created, sense making, ‘social‘ story that the community writes). Social Learning must be designed as such: it’s not simply a case of adding a forum alongside an eLearning course, or putting a workshop online.”

Next to design, there’s an important role for moderators. A platform is only the technical part of facilitating conversations and discussions. You will need people that connect learners, stimulate interaction, remove any technical or procedural issues and keep comments on topic. The MiniMOOC provided lots of resources on techniques, do’s and don’ts for moderators. An interview with two experienced moderators about their experiences was one of the most valued content pieces of our course.

“To get the most out of online social learning, you need some ‘engineering’.”

The key takeaway is that to get the most out of online social learning, you need some ‘engineering’. This means that even though the people are the platform, without putting effort in building, designing, facilitating, etc., it won’t work. Use the right methods and you will increase the effectiveness. That may sound counterintuitive to the freedom of social interaction, but it creates a framework wherein that freedom can thrive. This also gives back control over the learning impact and ultimately, its success.

3. It creates engagement on a large scale

Engagement is essential when it comes to learning, but it can be tricky to measure. You can imagine that (very) roughly speaking, engagement decreases when the amount of learners increases. Next to that, the progress of learners and the number of discussions can say something about engagement of a MOOC. Below are some numbers from our MiniMOOC.

Engagement results of the aNewSpring MiniMOOC on Online Social Learning

» view the complete infograph here «

The general rule of thumb of MOOCs is that around 50% of attendees actually join and 5-10% completely finish a course. You can see that our MiniMOOC behaved quite similar: 51% (between 45% and 59% per course) actually started the course and 9% (7-12%) of all sign-ups received their certificate, or 18% (16-22%) of those that started.

With close to 900 sign-ups, we had to create multiple groups. Imagine 900 people in one group chat… So, we divided them into five equal groups with about 180 learners each. In hindsight, we could have gone with larger groups. This is also reflected in the lower score for the value of the interactions, which differed across groups. See more results from our evaluation below.

Evaluation scores of the aNewSpring MiniMOOC on Online Social Learning

» view the complete infograph here «

A final benefit of this asynchronous form of learning is how well it’s suited for different time zones. We had participants from all across the globe; from the USA and Canada to Europe, South Africa, Oman, India, the Phillipines and all the way to Australia and New Zealand. This brings together many perspectives and examples.

Underestimated, but still a one-trick pony

Online social learning (or a MOOCs) isn’t new, but now that the world is taking a fresh look at the possibilities of bringing learning online, it’s not the first method that comes to mind. By running our MiniMOOC, we wanted to show it can be a viable alternative to more traditional solutions like webinars or virtual classrooms. Looking at the overall scores, the participation, the interactions and many positive reviews, we can recommend that it shouldn’t be overlooked.

Still, like all great learning designs, online social learning is just one of the tools you have at your disposal. It’s not an all-in-one solution for every learning goal. Match the strengths and benefits of this method with your specific learning objectives and combine online social learning with other methods to create the best solution for your situation. In the words of one of our moderators, Ger Driesen: Why choose a one-trick pony if you can have a circus?

What exactly is social learning?

Social learning can be a bit of an ambiguous concept. Learning with and from other people happens all the time; intentionally and spontaneously, explicitly and implicitly, big or small. Learning without any involvement whatsoever of someone else is rare.

That leads some to argue that ‘all learning is social learning’. On the other hand, in more formal settings, social learning can be seen as specific instances where learners are brought together to do an assignment, discuss a topic or practise a skill themselves.

Lessons learned from the moderators

“As the content curator of this MiniMooc I selected the resources based on my own ‘filters’. It’s very insightful as a moderator to see how the resources make sense and are relevant in different ways for the participants and their specific context. It is so useful to learn form all these different perspectives.”

Ger Driesen
Learning innovation leader

“It was amazing to see all these different nationalities and different points of view come together. I loved interacting with people from all over the world and hearing their stories on online social learning. It also made me feel happy that we were able to connect so many people this way, I didn’t really expect that when we started.”

Roy de Vries
Customer Success Manager

“Being a moderator is about timing and balance. Being involved and enthusiastic, but also letting go. Asking sincere and open questions at the right time to extract more insights without steering too much and know that silence doesn’t mean nobody’s learning.”

Jos Berden
Blended Learning Pro

Jan Jilis
Managing Director UK

Interested in joining our next MiniMOOC?
Fill in the form bellow to stay informed.

About the author

Jos Berden

A thinker, questioner and listener. The perfect combination of a pragmatic and idealist.

On the wish-list to learn: soccer tactics, flying a helicopter, reading other people’s minds.

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“Three reasons why to consider online social learning as an alternative to live online learning.”