social

I just spent a few minutes checking in on the LinkedIn web site - sort of a facebook for the working world. I had signed up as a member several months back, but didn't really "get it". Then, I saw the company featured this month in both Business 2.0 and T + D magazines, so I took another look.

In a nut shell, you set up a user ID and add your professional profile. You then seek out and link to other registered colleagues and begin creating your professional network of co-workers, clients, etc. The idea is that your professional network can blossom based on the old fashioned "friend of a friend" good word of mouth concept. Through existing and prior professional relationships, you can reach new professional contacts.

Good in theory, right? No clue if it actually works, but the folks at Business 2.0 seem to think it has some merit and the site's registration has doubled from 4m this time last year to almost 8m now. I searched under "instructional design" and found oodles of contacts in the NYC area. Who knows? It may be work a closer look?

technorati tags:LinkedIn, social network

Referred by: Boling

In one of my online classes, a few of us have been having a sidebar discussion on the human interaction that we feel as "missing" in an online learning environment.  We've had some great back and forth "conversations" in the asynchronous discussion forum that began when a fellow online classmate made the statement, "I can't help but think someday no one will attend class and there will be no 'campus'." This was followed by a thread of posts noting the human interaction that some feel can't truly be replicated in an online environment.  Here is a partial list of of missed interactions noted by members of my class:

• hearing people laugh (and I'll add, without net lag), 
• watching people discover things, 
• having a whole group of people excited about something at the same time (I'll add again, without net lag),
• real handshakes, winks, facial gestures (I'll add, not emoticons)
• Potlucks: great coffee, popcorn, whatever you like to eat or drink

I pointed back to my "Being Spaces" posts from back in June which prompted a referral to the book The Ape in the Corner Office: Understanding the Workplace Beast in All of Us. So, even for us distance students who are putting our hearts, minds and hard earned tuition dollars into this new learning environment, there is still a longing for what I often refer to as "the water cooler".  This theme will be part of a free webcast today hosted by the folks at Innovate  with Robert Sanders, the author of "The 'Imponderable Bloom': Reconsidering the Role of Technology in Education"  (see details below).  In the article, Sanders notes: