Social learning in the virtual class

• 3 min read

puzzleThe virtual class vs face-to-face

We all know that practical and social activities are engaging for people (I have in mind the smiling faces of learners – however old, and whatever the context – when you announce it’s time to do a role play, and how their eyes and bodies respond and wake up!). We put a lot of effort into planning and designing these kinds of activities because we know that learner satisfaction depends strongly on the quality of meaningful social learning activities.

When we design an elearning course, our first concern is: how I can deploy an effective and engaging social learning activity online? While the simplest way would be to find a tool that would allow us to mimic online what we do in a class, there is another way to carry out this task successfully.

A tool for social learning or a social oriented LMS?

I want to begin by explaining why the first way – i.e. mimicking a class scenario using a specific online tool – is not so effective. Even If you were able to find a tool (web-based of course!) that allowed you to replicate online a particular social learning activity, you would still have only one piece of the puzzle because you’d have to organize the online course itself.  In the end you would have to integrate your tool for gaming with your elearning environment. Not such an easy task!

You can instead try to focus your attention not on the processes of social learning activities (the how to) but on the final results you want achieve using the online tool you already have – your LMS – and using a lego-like system to design a new online social learning activity. (Yes we can say that designing a social learning activity is like a game of lego. You have pieces – the right tools and widgets in your LMS – and a final goal. And the game is more or less how to build a solid structure with your favorite colors!)

You have to keep in mind that interactions in a virtual environment differ from real life interactions, so you should consider this difference during the development of your social learning activities. People interact in a virtual class with different dynamics, so it’s better to develop social learning activities based on those specific “rules”. Even the word “interaction” assumes a different connotation online, it’s not a minus per se but it can affect your final goals if you you’re not careful/ mindful.

There are several ways to recreate real classroom interactions in a virtual environment by using role playing games. For example you can ask people to interact as editorial staff, or as moviemakers or even as car wash team. It’s important that learners feel involved in a process where each person has a clearly defined role and has to carry out a task in order to complete the collective job. Also don’t forget to reward each learner for a job performed (if you want to dive deeper into the topic of gamification read this blog post).

Docebo social widgets and the new App for Gamification

To implement these kinds of learning activities you need to design a social environment into your elearning course, that means adding one or more social widgets to your LMS (such as forum, blog, comments, assignments, wiki and so on). And in order to reward people you will need a Gamification tool. This kind of set up could accommodate all social learning activities.

Docebo has developed a set of widgets that you can use for effective social learning, and a new app for Gamification to enrich your learning environment.

You can test-drive all these features yourself by activating a free 14-day trial!


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