Quick Clicks

We’re a little late to call this the “October Quick Clicks” — but that’s when most of these links were collected…. Watch for another Quick Clicks edition sometime later this month (or early next month… this is what happens when you’ve got a lot going on, but then, I know you live in that same world!).

 

Fun and Games and Learning

Wondering if games can actually get people engaged with the content? Why not try it yourself? The folks at Web Courseworks Ltd have developed a game focused on safe driving amidst a variety of distractions. Give it a go!

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Twitter Teaching

Ah! Here it is: “Practical Advice for Teaching with Twitter.” You knew there had to be some nut-and-bolts help out there somewhere, didn’t you? Though directed at lecturers for higher ed, you can easily adapt these guidelines for learning leaders, particularly for larger sessions. See Mark Sample’s great article in October 22 edition of The Chronicle of Higher Education  online here.

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PLN… ALN… Both Good

Thinking about a PLN (personal learning network)? Or creating a sort of ALN (association learning network)? Wondering where to start? Thanks to Carol Brown at Online College for pointing aLearning to this terrific article, “50 Great Ways to Grow Your Personal Learning Network,” with lots of nuts-and-bolts how-to information.

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Some PD on Non-Profit Topics — FREE

Guidestar is offering a great series of informational Webinars they’re calling “Lunch & Learns.” Scheduled for just 30 minutes each, these are free and focus on topics ranging from nonprofit benchmarking to charting impact to “how to read the most valuable parts of the 990 in 25 minutes or less!” You must register to attend; you can register for any one or all; Web sessions are offered via WebEx. Sessions are currently scheduled through November 22.

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How Do You Know Which Online Format to Use?

Ayesha Habeeb Omer, over at CommLab India’s Custom Training and eLearning Blog, posted a succinct guide to identifying content types so you can match that content to your delivery options. Read her “Nature of Content — A Deciding Factor for Training Design” for a brief yet thorough explanation.

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LMS Primer

Of course, we like to recommend our own “Choosing a Learning Management System” aLearning Fundamentals as your place to start with your LMS questions… but the LMS primer TrainingForce has posted online has more detail if you need additional background.

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Have a resource you’ve discovered you’d like to share? Post it in the comments or send me a note at ellenbehr@aol.com.

Tagoras Releases Second Edition of the Learning 2.0 for Associations Report

What a great way to celebrate National Distance Learning Week! Jeff Cobb and Celisa Steele over at Tagoras have updated their Learning 2.0 for Associations report — an amazing resource that every association must have! It clearly describes the key Learning 2.0 elements and includes examples (with URL addresses so you can see more) of how various organizations are leveraging social learning.

Did I mention the report is FREE!?!??

What are you waiting for?!?

Now excuse me while I go follow up on some of these great ideas….

Converting Twitter Feeds into Daily eNewsletter

Have you heard of this? Seen it? Very cool…

http://paper.li will convert the articles, videos, and other referenced resources from Twitter feed into a neat daily enewsletter. Here’s the #assnchat enewsletter: http://paper.li/tag/assnchat

Maybe this provides an alternative for your members who don’t want to follow the confusing, fast flow of Tweets.

Also a nifty way to create a daily enewsletter: choose links to Tweet based on the enewsletter you want to create on the other end. Slick, eh?!?

Check it out.

Twitter is Just the Start

Trade associations offer a lot of educational programs, don’t we?!? We provide up-to-date training so our members can meet the latest regulatory requirements, perform their job functions better than ever, get inspired by best practices and sterling examples… and so much more.

So what are we missing?

Knowledge transfer at its most basic.

But wait. Isn’t that what the listservs and forums and discussion groups and all those options are for? So our members can share their knowledge and experience?

Yes, but it’s not enough. “Sharing” isn’t enough, at least not through these mediums, nor through Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn.

Why not?

Because:

1. Peer-to-peer sharing carries in the inherent risk that incorrect information will be shared. Of course that can happen in the classroom, in a mentoring conversation, and many other ways. But why run the risk if it can be avoided?

2. Online discussions and advice that streams via Twitter or other modes is too often of the moment and hard to locate again once the exchange has ended. Too many discussion lists and listservs are hard organizationally hard to navigate when someone wants to find a past thread, so it’s easier just to post the question again… and again… and again….

Yes, it’s great to see members share so freely and our Twitter feeds scrolling like crazy when a popular topic lights everyone up.

But like I said, it’s not enough.

Make sure you have ways to capture those streams, contain the links, ideas, suggestions, and concerns. Especially those on topics or questions that come up more than once.

Vet them for accuracy (nobody likes a bad link). Summarize them. Create link lists from them. Tag them.

Put those summaries and link lists where your members can easily search them by keyword/tags.

If they need something more up-to-date, they’ll ask.

But in the meantime, you’ll have captured the knowledge they are sharing, and offering it back in a way that saves them time, and keeps your experts from being over-extended because they’re answering the same questions over and over again.

Offer this captured knowledge in easy-to-find, easy-to-access ways behind your members-only wall, and you’ll be providing a service that they can’t get elsewhere. It’s more than a free Facebook conversation. It’s more than hunting for just the right YouTube video. It’s all right there, and the only way to get to it fast and easy is through your association.

Convenience is everything these days. Make it convenient for your members to access the knowledge they embody as a group, and you’ll have cornered the market in something no freely available social networking or social media site can do as well as you can.