Harold:
You know that I'm as big a fan of Web 2.0 and Informal learning but I'm worried that the Unworkshop has put you a bit over the top with your enthusiasm.

For a moment there, I thought you were going to label informal learning a model of instructional design alongside ADDIE and HPT. Glad you didn't go that far.

My distress comes in the statements at the end that describe informal learning as the new salvation for the new networked world. As a field, we learning professionals have been very good at overselling whatever it is that we're excited about. Informal learning is not even close to being new. We may have the internet with blogs and wikis, but our foreparents had grapevines, old boy networks, and gossip circles.

The difference that we feel such positive feelings about is the democratic nature of the internet. The old informal learning networks were also used to discriminate and exclude "others" from what those that were networked had. While the change to anyone being able to participate is great, it it's impact on learning is not primary.

What is new is our new focus on trying to manage what happens in informal learning settings. I then come back inline with you and believe that we will have new models of instructional design which will draw upon and feed into the network effects that Benkler discusses.