Learning how to work more effectively across sectors and building new skills is an ongoing requirement for professionals. As a community and youth worker (and now a social media consultant) I believe people want to be feel connected, they want to belong, they want to feel valued and competent, contributing to their own development and the development of those close to them. Using social media tools help me feel this way and I recognize the same benefits coming to others who publish online and use web 2.0 tools in their work.
A colleague with an International NGO organization asked me if I had suggestions for using video along with a a web authoring tool in her work with K-12 youth. The audience is pre-high school and grades 9 – 12 students and staff, mainly in Canada but with potential for international use.
Barring constraints within the the different school boards she is involved with, my first choice is the Ning Networks. I’ve recently been involved with 3 online learning experiences involving hundreds of people around the world using the Ning Network and I’m very impressed how well this tool works.
For educators, I’ve being told that advertisements will be removed and that their support is excellent. Ning allows you to upload video from YouTube etc.; share photos and slide shows, create discussions forums and groups, add widgets to increase overall site functions and much more. You can see all the features on their web site.
I’m including a link to Jeff Utecht’s Ning Network that connects to the Learning 2.008 Conference held in Shangai. I think she will see the potential applications by browsing this site. I recommended that the best way to learn about the features is to set up a Ning Network for practice (who knows, you may decide to launch it).
I stumbled across Sir Ken Robinson’s talk at TED a few years ago and I thought it timely to include in this post as well. His 15 minute presentation is titled “Do Schools Today Kill Creativity”. It’s a must see for those in the edu sector.
Michele Martin, along with Tony Karrer and Harold Jarche facilitated the Work Literacy experience. This post comes from Michele. I’m very pleased to have been part of the course and these comments by Michele are so helpful in my work with local groups in my area (Greater Toronto Area). I’m going to put together a Ning community especially after reading your endorsement of this software Michele. Being part of this work helped me see what could work in my community so the course is definitely a valuable building block for me.
The Work Literacy online learning event is over and Harold Jarche has posted some of what he learned from our facilitation of the course. Time for me to share some of my thoughts. . Read Michele’s full post here.. it’s well worth it especially for those interested in community organizing using online tools.
A social non profit is attuned, responsive and adaptive to the complex factors affecting its constituents and communities. In a social non profit there is an alignment between staff, services, governance systems and online communications. Social non profits value learning and innovation and believe in working smarter by using social tech tools to enhance communication, collaboration and learning amongst staff, volunteers, partners and service users. These organizations believe that strategic use of social media empowers staff, improves services and strengthens governance practices.
Recent and Current Projects
Faith Community
• Social Learning & Collaboration
• Return to Rural – Alberta;
• Film Development Council of York Region;
• Delisle Youth Services - Toronto;
• York Region Alliance to End Homelessness;
• York-Durham Association of Museums & Archives ;
• Streetjibe – York Region Youth Poverty Program, Street Kids International.
Contact
brent@socialmediatools.ca
Social Web Partners
I'm very pleased to have a number of very capable and talented consultants as friends and partners that work with me from time to time.
Alain Hurtubise (iAutomate.ca) designs and developments web 2. 0 platforms. Alain has over 20 years experience in web design and enterprise systems programming with large corporations. Alain's passion is paying it forward through his work with me in the non profit sector.
Peter Levesque's company, Knowledge Mobilization Works (based in Ottawa) is dedicated to building the capacity of people to create value through knowledge mobilization.
Mark Holmgren (Mark Holmgren Consulting - Edmonton AB) contributes his extensive organizational change expertise along with an array of social media integration expertise.
Social Media – a definition
Social media are works of user-created video, audio, text or multimedia that are published and shared in a social environment, such as a blog, podcast, forum, wiki or video hosting site. More broadly, social media refers to any online technology that lets people publish, converse and share content online. (via Socialbrite)
Social Learning – a definition
Social learning is participating with others to make sense out of new ideas. What's new about this is how powerful social media works together with social learning.
Marcia Conner, Tony Bingham: The New Social Learning, A Guide to Transform Organizations Through Social Media.
Deconstructing the Work Literacy Learning Event
Flickr/brentmack
Linkedin/brentmackinnon
Twitter/brentmack
YouTube/brent44mack
Del.icio.us/brentmack
GMail/brentmack
Recent Comments