What is Social Learning?

Have you ever heard of "social learning"? Learning from others has a wide range of benefits that you can enjoy both face-to-face and online.

What is Social Learning?

Have you ever heard of "social learning"? Learning from others has a wide range of benefits that you can enjoy both face-to-face and online.

Man, as we well know, is a social animal. Sharing moments with friends, colleagues and relatives is an important part of everyone's life. You can also share your knowledge with other people through so-called " social learning" (literally, social learning).

What does it consist of? Social learning is nothing more than a type of learning that is based on the exchange of knowledge through interaction between 2 or more people. It takes place both face-to-face and online. It can be a very useful system in corporate training, where employees can share their experience and knowledge with other workers.

It is not, therefore, a passive learning, what we are usually used to, but a set of social interactions in which, through communication and observation, you learn something new. In a social context, in fact, one learns better.

Social learning is based on the 70:20:10 model in which 70% of learning depends on observation, 20% on interaction with others and 10% on structured content.

Online, one of the means through which social learning can be used are social networks, since they allow a fluid communication between several people, as well as sharing different types of content. In addition, there are forums, pages like Wikipedia, chats and more that can help more people to interact to learn together.

Of course, the advantages of this "social learning" can also be applied in the eLearning sector to allow you to enhance online apps, sites and courses. You can create systems completely based on this type of learning or use some of its advantages.

How can we use social learning strategies in eLearning? Here are some tips:

  • Allow students to express themselves: forums, chats or video calls can be useful to allow students to talk to each other and exchange knowledge. Anything that allows you to create a group discussion is very useful for learning.
  • Stimulate competition: through eLearning you can stimulate competition among students. The challenge will encourage them to know at least as much as the other students in order to win prizes or rewards.
  • Question and answer sessions: it is always useful to include a section dedicated to questions in the online platform. Answers could be open to both tutors and students, so that they can share the knowledge of all students.

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