HT2

Massive Open Online Course to Explore Social Learning

Oxford (UK), February 2015 - HT2 has announced a new Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) for L&D professionals looking to explore the concept of social learning with their peers. To get the best out of the experience the organisers think participants will need to put aside two hours per week for the next four weeks. Content will be time-released, a week at a time.

Developed in partnership with PLG, enrollment in the MOOC is free and started 02 February. Participants should expect to spend an hour or two per week for four weeks, interacting with content and other users in what promises to be a highly social experience in its own regard.

Sam Burrough and Martin Couzins of PLG explained more about the experience they will be guiding over the coming weeks. "Arguably the most useful thing L&D can do is to help people develop the skills they need to solve complex, ambiguous problems. This is where social learning thrives, where there are no easy answers. But, despite years of commentary, very few L&D professionals use social-learning strategies to solve their most complex challenges".

Exploring Social Learning will cover a range of topics, including

  • the benefits of a social-learning strategy in a complex world
  • designing social-learning experiences
  • the challenges of running a social-learning experience
  • showing value from social learning
  • social learning and learning analytics

Facilitated using the Curatr social-learning platform, the MOOC will give participants a chance to play with some of the latest features of the platform, including

  • a brand-new user interface, the 'Playlist' view, which allows users to explore content level by level with a simplified user interface
  • a new real-time chat module, integrated with Twitter to stream relevant hashtags directly into the MOOC, including the course hashtag #exploresocial
  • a completely new user-profile module, powered by the Learning Locker LRS and LinkedIn, allowing users to take ownership of their learning data.

Those particularly taken with the MOOC may wish to take advantage of HT2's unique match-funding competition. The competition allows successful entrants to win up to €10,000 in match funding to design, develop, and deploy a social-learning initiative.