Seb Paquet and Lilia Efimova have both noted a good piece by Eva Kaplan-Leiserson called We-Learning: Social Software and E-Learning that discusses how social software is/can be used for learning
Seb likes the way that Eva pulls together three explanations for the growing popularity of social software, including a reference to our own paper on the subject. In summary, Eva cites three main factors

• “[the availability of] low-cost tools and … critical mass … of people who are now connected to the Internet”
• “workers are relying less on traditional company structures and more on their own personal social networks”
• “people are searching for a feeling of community that�s been lost as many �third places� … have closed down”

The rest of the piece is a good introduction to the use of social software tools to connect people for learning purposes, and we look forward to part 2 in January
It is also quite timely, because we enjoyed a thought-provoking lunch yesterdaywith somebody who is closely with the modernisation of online knowledge sharing services in a major UK public sector organisation – he also previously worked for an e-learning provider – and we were discussing precisely the ways in which these techniques can improve upon the “shovelware” of yesteryear.