Show report

Online Learning

John Seely Brown

Seely Brown is the author of a thought provoking book, The Social Life of Information, which draws on his years of experience at Xerox PARC research facility. His talk drew attention to the strong role social activity plays in learning and knowledge sharing in the work place. People, on the whole, do not use logic when they make decisions at work. They don't readily read manuals. Instead they turn to a 'buddy' or colleague to ask for help and guidance. By sharing experiences, these are related to the current situation and are used to formulate a solution. Seely Brown sees knowledge sharing as a process of creating and sharing stories. This is a powerful mechanism and one that formal communication channels and procedures (including training activities) may damage if they are not designed to include and support informal networks.

A knowledge sharing process supported by technology could have the following cyclical steps:

• Capture stories
• Make sense of them (fill in the gaps and inconsistencies)
• Peer review to warrant that these stories are representative and true
• Store stories in a knowledge base to ease access
• Use stories in the field
• Change when new experiences show need for updating the story

This process inherently involves staff and so full ownership is held by those who benefit most from the knowledge base. In short, there is great value in providing social tools that demonstrably make your staff's job easier to do well.

Mini case study

Study groups learning via videotaped lectures were compared to those who attended the live events. The study group was instructed to stop the tape every 3-4 minutes in order to reflect and discuss any questions or comments. This regular focused conversation acted to reinforce the learning and led to this group completely outperforming those who attended the live events. This shows the power of learning in a social context.

So how can technology reinforce and support this learning process? The use of video conferencing to bring together a study group that is actually geographically dispersed, to collectively review a recorded lecture can generate similar results. Indeed it was found that there was no statistical difference in performance between the distributed group and the group physically in the same room. However, the key to this success is that the individuals within the group already know each other, that is, have already met physically in another context.

What are the implications for current training methods? Well, perhaps the emphasis should move further away from the classroom and instead concentrate on bringing people together in a social setting. Subsequent learning events can then be conducted successfully at a distance with staff back in the workplace, using collaborative technology.

Seely Brown concurs with Gloria Gery's views, emphasising the need to look at the natural behaviour of people before designing learning solutions. He suggested we focus on the 'workplace ecology' to design physical, social, and information rich spaces to mutually reinforce knowledge sharing and learning.

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