Donald Clark, CEO of Epic Group plc, was selected to appear
as the guest columnist for the Spring 2005 issue of QL Magazine.
Here he outlines the requirements of workflow learning.
Informal, casual, instant, spot, embedded or workflow learning
is now recognised as perhaps the most important form of adult learning.
We all know that, over a lifetime, most of what we learn is not
within the context of a college, classroom or course. We develop
daily through natural exploration. Informal learning is learning
that is free from learning events, learning professionals and learning
institutions.
Learning used to be almost totally informal in pre-industrial days
– either within a family or being a trade apprentice. The
industrial model of learning then created schools and colleges.
This model continued in training, where classroom instruction became
the norm.
Then along came technology and networks. This devolved power to
individuals with PCs allowing them to send email. Every person is
now a portal with the capability of planning, producing and distributing
the fruits of his/her labour. We all know that time is wasted waiting
on the computer to boot, attending meetings, commuting – a
lot of time, even today, is still unproductive. Real-time learning
will have to be always on, anywhere, anytime.
E-learning delivered through an LMS, VLE or intranet is getting
there but workflow learning must free itself from the tyranny of
time and location. We’ve already had the appearance of the
ultra-long courses. Jay Cross points out the paradox that training
budget is spent on formal learning when much of the received learning
is, in fact, informal. Why is this?
In research commissioned by the Ufi, e-learning has grown from
15 per sent to 29 per cent of all training. All companies expect
e-learning to grow over the next two years, largely displacing classroom
activity. Similarly, the CIPD 2004 survey suggests a 42 per cent
increase in the use of e-learning with more of a focus on ‘training
means business’ through the direct improvement of skills related
to job demands and the need for a shorter and more flexible approach
to delivery.
This, in turn, has led to learning objects, designed for just-in-time
consumption. EPPS delivers task-driven learning when the learner
needs to learn. This has turned into workflow learning where the
learning is part of the workflow, sometimes called embedded learning.
Beyond this is invisible learning, where little is explicitly delivered
as separate learning.
One of the problems with informal learning is that it is difficult
to pin down. It evades capture because it is a fluid process and
is easier to define by what it is not: namely formal courses.
Invisible learning will discard the traditional language and structure
of formal learning in favour of newer techniques around capture,
search, retrieval and sharing. This, in turn, will lead to viral
techniques accelerating learning through populations of learners.
All of this will require better, faster and cheaper technology but
that is the easy part. What will be difficult is getting people
to discard the old ways of thinking, to wean themselves off a culture
of dependency on spoon-feeding methods of learning. We are moving
so fast that discarding the past is now harder than creating the
future.
