From me to we - or it's a blogger

Ok, so you’ve heard all about the new generation of learning? ! That’s Learning 2.0 to you and me! Well it’s all built on Web 2.0 so that’s alright – isn’t it? Oh, Blogger, here he goes again – talking more gobbledegook.
Last month’s rant was about getting back to the basics of what makes good learning rather than talking up a new technical fashion. Well this month more of the same. I said before that the way I learn doesn’t change just because the technology makes it possible to do it at a new time or place. Cognitively that may be true but in reality it DOES affect from who (or is it whom) I am able to learn. And this is the real value of Learning 2.0.

It is all driven by the evolution of the web from being a massive haystack of information to being a vast matrix of conversations about any conceivable topic you can think of (and many you cannot). It is also driven by the digital natives who are much more at ease with going online to talk to their friends, or having conversations - often highly personal - with people they hardly know: it’s blurring the boundaries between public and private and it’s what the MySpace generation are used to. And they are happy to continue doing it as they enter their working lives; indeed they are expecting their employers to support it. If organisational L&D doesn’t capitalise on it then the old saying of ‘It is not necessary to change. Survival is optional’ (anon.) is so appropriate. So what is it that our MySpace generation is experiencing, expecting and happy to work with?

Why is it significant? MySpace registered its 100 millionth member in the summer and was the #1 site ahead of Google in the US in July. YouTube grew in 18 months to be valued at nearly £1 billion as Flash videos become the language of communication. Nearly 80% of British youths are using instant messaging. Half that amount in the US will respond to a message from someone they don’t know. Socialisation, not information, is the killer app for the Internet.

The major reason why people blog is cited as being able to express themselves. In the hands of the knowledgeable that is powerful – so get your subject experts writing blogs, not learning programmes. Leave that to learning designers. Conversely, in the hands of the disgruntled, open blogs could be a nightmare.

How does all this impact on the world of online learning? Recent research has shown that the boundaries between online learning and other life activities are becoming increasingly indistinct because technologies are becoming seamlessly woven into work, leisure, shopping and banking, social activities and other domains of people’s lives. Further, it recognises that self-directed learning is one key way in which people keep up with change and, since we are currently experiencing an unprecedented level and pace of change on a global scale, it is plausible to expect the demands of a changing world to lead to greater amounts of self-directed learning.

However, what really excites me about all of this is how we can harness the opportunities Learning 2.0 (L2.0, seems appropriate – and shorter) for better and more personalised learning experiences. Of course, the challenge is to blend these informal, virtual, unstructured experiences into something that actually is focused and accurate. It really concerns me that just opening up knowledge bases, providing collaboration tools and expecting meaningful learning to happen is missing a BIG trick. It might happen if the learner is tenacious - or lucky - but serendipity is not a word your compliance officer recognises. It’s all very well jumping on the L2.0 wagon and expecting your people will be properly trained ‘because they all had access to the knowledge and the experts whenever they wanted’ but I wouldn’t bet (your) next year’s salary on it...

What we advocate is proper integration of blogs, Wikis, discussion forums and even RSS feeds into the learning programme, and then ensuring they are properly maintained and managed so that they remain topical, up to date and focused. Mix that with a definition of the expected performance measures and some process of evaluation that proves the impact the solution is having, and you are getting close to having that optimum solution (sometimes known as THG).

A modern blend should be about the process of merging and structuring a mix of the formal and informal, reaching the social connection, and ensuring the self-directed, lifelong learner is catered for, irrespective of their learning style. This matters so much more than blending the online and the offline. So that means... we have a topic for next month’s article. Look forward to catching up with you again then.

For an initial discussion on how our consulting service could help your organisation, please contact: consulting@epic.co.uk