creating new nodes and connections..

The first three months of an employment relationship is critical. The time and cost to recruit is high – there is a talent shortage in many fields. So there is a renewed interest in how to welcome new recruits, present a positive first impression, share info, create a buddy system and get them “hooked” on the job and organization so they will stay….this thinking needs to be a 2-way communication feedback loop and not just 1-way of organization pushing info to the new recruit. Let’s leverage web 2.0 to allow easier access of both “1 to many” and “many to 1″ in informal learning.

Some initial thoughts -

that printed employee handbook – lets make it into a wiki – so the organizational community can contribute to keep it updated…

let employees introduce themselves directly to their new community through wiki and/or blog – (provide a template and guidelines of course..) – these individual spaces can grow to become their personal profiles and with some common conventions on tags and categories makes it searchable to find people in the organization network

a podcast or two…..

…..

Getting past the tools….focusing on application to learning

On our bus ride this past Tuesday, Jay reminded us to focus on going beyond the technical intricacies of how these tools work to consider how they can positively impact learning in the workplace.

I might be feeling comfortable enough to try and do so! From a learning perspective, this quandry brings to mind Bloom’s taxonomy of learning and how the first level is acquiring the knowledge – e.g. comprehension – hopefully I’ve mastered enough to move forward now. I will admit to being at the bookstore on the weekend and buying two guidebooks – one about skype and the other firefox which were helpful in setting context….(so needed to go back to some traditional print based resources to move forward).

We were also reminded to post frequently to our blogs….although I have lots of good ideas, thoughts etc., I seem to have difficulty getting to find the time to sit down and express them within the blog.

I never did like assignments of learning journals in structured classes especially when they were part of the marks. Handing it in impacted what I wrote and diminished its ability to be truly for “my own learning”. (and I like writing). Even more so in the web 2.0 of a blog as what we are writing is shared with all of the participants. That being said, I do see value in creating a blog and using it within the unworkshop to both learn the tool and explore its application within the workplace. So let’s get on with it….