With the growth of online chat areas and the use of social media platforms such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Yammer, YouTube, VKontakte, Instagram, Snapchat, Pinterest, MySpace, Tencent QQ, WeChat, Renren, Youku, Xing and various others; you would think that by now, we’d all be quite adept at sharing information online with our friends and work colleagues.
If that’s the case, then why is it so difficult to encourage academic students to use a private discussion board inside a University firewall to support the learning process, share knowledge, ideas and information? For the last five years, I have tried to encourage HR students, on the modules that I teach, to use this medium to discuss, ask questions and share knowledge and information with each other ~ all with varying degrees of success.
So why doesn’t this work as well as it might?
It’s true that exposing your thoughts, and perhaps even your lack of understanding in writing might be disconcerting and worrying for some however, the sharing of information with each other? Less so, I would have thought. And surely, sharing such information behind closed doors aka a firewall, is better than sharing on an open public space where everyone can see what you’re writing?
Click here to review the world’s 21 most important social networking sites and apps as reported in 2015.
Until next time ~ happy learning!
Józefa Fawcett
Professional Trainer, Learning Specialist Designer & Voice-Over