Informal Learning

Blogs are great for conversations, but often fall off the radar screen when they go beyond the first page and are left dangling.

One of the older conversations here is about Aliant’s connection speed. I had some woes with my ISP, which were finally addressed after a year of complaints and figuring out if anyone else had similar problems. My recent problems with Skype (last post) may be related to my ISP and it seeems that others have problems with Aliant’s service, namely that XBox live doesn’t work with their fastest service.

The homework question has garnered a lot of comments, as had earlier posts on homeschooling. Most of us have gone though the public education system and many have an opinion. I have come to believe that the core of the problem is an education system that was created for very different reasons than what we need today. Many “educational” activities are ineffective or counter-productive to learning, yet they continue based on tradition instead of sound science. If the evidence shows that an activity has little purpose, then we should abandon it. Homework is only one activity that lacks evidence to support its continuance. Subject-based curriculum, age-based cohorts and reliance on unsound models like Bloom’s Taxonomy to prescribe learning activities are other examples. This conversation on homework has been picked up in the community and we may even have a radio spot in the near future.

There also have been some comments to an older post on Education’s Three Conflicting Pillars. It’s great to see new discussion after several months of quiet, which is why I keep comments open.

This week there were some updates to the state of the NB elearning industry, thanks to Ben. Companies come and companies go, but many of us choose to stay. I’m on my third business card since I retired from the Army in 1998.

Finally, I’d like to quote Shawn, at Anecdote, on the importance of conversation, “… most learning comes through interacting with people. Learning richness increases as multiple perspectives are described, discussed, challenged and explored.“

Jay Cross refers to the March Issue of CGI Technology Viewpoints, which covers this Canadian company’s experience in implementing informal learning practices. CGI is discussed in detail in Jay’s book.

This is a good reminder for the naysayers (it can’t be done here) to see what a large corporation can actuallly implement. Here is CGI’s “bottom line” on informal learning:

1. When creating an environment that blends a rich mixture of available technologies to drive optimal collaboration, organizations don’t need to invent anything fundamentally new.
   
2. Be creative, taking advantage of what’s already in place within the enterprise, and look at open source options as an inexpensive but viable way to build a robust collaboration infrastructure.
3. Collaboration doesn’t require a large systems integration exercise when you leverage what’s already readily available and proven.

Imagine walking into a cocktail party that has been going on for a few hours and jumping in to the conversation. Blogs are like that. They flow along and different people join in the conversation from time to time. I monitor about 150 blogs and even if I don’t read each post, I have a general idea of what’s flowing by, so that I can jump in when I feel like it.

Behind most blogs lies the story of the writer and the community.  Shawn, at Anecdote, has this to say about stories, “Stories only have meaning in the context of their telling. That is, you need to tell and listen to stories to transfer (not capture) tacitly held knowledge. It’s a social process. You need to be part of the conversation.”

To use blogs for learning effectively, you have to jump in and go with the flow for a while. Understanding what is behind the writing as well as the conversations around each post then gives the necessary context.  Learning with blogs isn’t just about finding a useful fact here or there, but more of engaging in multiple stories that flow by, sometimes mixing and other times diverging. Following these flows is an acquired skill. It’s a meta-learning skill for the internet age that just might be worth developing. Jumping in is the first step.

The Web is making the spread of ideas a lot easier. Videos, online & offline, are also a great way to get ideas across. I’ve seen a few good documentaries lately and I think that it would be rather simple to set up an “uncurriculum” for global civics. This is my term for developing an understanding about our interconnected economies and societies and the forces at play, both human and natural.

First, I would recommend An Inconvenient Truth, just to set the stage that we humans are messing things up on a global scale, but that we have the capacity, though not yet the will, to start correcting things. You can rent or purchase the movie. There is also an education guide available on the website.

I would also suggest Who Killed the Electric Car?, to show how corporatism stifles progress and innovation. You can rent this video too.

Speaking of corporatism, you have to include The Corporation, in this uncurriculum. I’ve reviewed this film before, and would recommend it to anyone.

Finally, I would recommend Why We Fight, which is available as a free Google video. This movie shows the power of the military-industrial complex, and may have you questioning why we are involved in current conflicts.

All of these movies can help to start some good conversations and they’re better than almost anyone’s lecture could be. With this suite, you can start your Global Civics 101 informal learning program.

Any other recommendations would be appreciated, as this will be part of our unschooling for next year.

Jerome Martin responded to my last PKM article with an excellent reference document. Several years ago, Jerome wrote a chapter on Personal Knowledge Management (PDF) for the book, Managing Knowledge: Case Studies in Innovation.

Even though it’s seven years old, I would recommend this 10-page chapter as an introduction to PKM. I don’t think that many people were even using the term at the time, but Jerome has a great list of random thoughts, namely:

1. Spend time with creative people
2. Go to conferences that are fascinating and apparently irrelevant
3. Learn about a new area
4. Travel
5. Read voraciously
6. Create a private personal knowledge web resource
7. Tell your story

The first five points can be done while unplugged from the Net, so don’t think of PKM as a web-only affair (just look at the good books I’ve read in the past few years) . Today, I would slightly disagree with #6, because I have found that you get more value with a public than a private knowledge resource, but then these recommendations were made in 2000. Finally, #7 is much easier today with blogs.

I will be presenting a 90 minute online session to the Calgary eLearning Network on April 18th. The theme will be Personal Knowledge Management (PKM). Barb Krell, an alumna of one of our informal learning unworkshops, is the chief organiser of this session.

I thought it would be best to put my session info online so that participants could link to it, ask any questions in advance or review some of the references.

This post from Lilia Efimova, best sums up PKM:

To a great extend PKM [personal knowledge management] is about shifting responsibility for learning and knowledge sharing from a company to individuals and this is the greatest challenge for both sides. Companies should recognise that their employees are not “human resources”, but investors who bring their expertise into a company. As any investors they want to participate in decision-making and can easily withdraw if their “return on investment” is not compelling. Creativity, learning or desire to help others cannot be controlled, so knowledge workers need to be intrinsically motivated to deliver quality results. In this case “command and control” management methods are not likely to work.

Taking responsibility for own work and learning is a challenge for knowledge workers as well. Taking these responsibilities requires attitude shift and initiative, as well as developing personal KM knowledge and skills. In a sense personal KM is very entrepreneurial, there are more rewards and more risks in taking responsibility for developing own expertise.

Here are my perspectives on PKM from 2005 and later revised in June 2006. My latest reflection on PKM was in Aug 2006, following an unworkshop.

For the April 2007 session, I intend on covering the two main tools – Social Bookmarks, like del.icio.us; and Aggregators, like Bloglines. If there is time, I’ll discuss blogging in general terms. These three tools, in my mind, form the basis of PKM on the Web.

Comments and suggestions are always appreciated.

If someone asks me what’s the best learning management system, my initial response is – Google. Donald Clark describes the top five global brands (Google, Apple, YouTube, Wikipedia, Starbucks) from the perspective of learning, with this comment:

Could it be that powerful, everyday “e-learning” has crept up on the world, separate from all the academic and institutional noise, and in a consumerist fashion?

All of these brands enable informal learning, grassroots knowledge management or collaboration on a local or global scale.

With Google you can find most information that you need. YouTube is a quick and easy way to get “learning objects” to the world. Apple gives the essential tools for knowledge workers, and in a nice package. Wikipedia has shown that the wisdom of crowds is just as good as the wisdom of elites. Starbucks gives free-agents and road warriors a place to meet and work. These top brands provide the equivalent of the interstate highway system for the creative age.

Enabling DIY (do-it-yourself) on the Web appears to be a good business model. Even on the fringes, such as wi-fi from a café. This is the power of informal learning, if organisations decide to enable it. It has to be DIY, user-driven and uncontrolled. People will figure out what’s best for them, as they have for millennia.

If you’re in the learning business, don’t try to build another LMS or portal. Instead, figure out ways that enable DIY. Believe it or not, learners can, and will, do the rest. They already are.

Jay Cross has been hard at work remodelling the Informal Learning Commons into an Uncommunity. Take a look around and since it’s a wiki, add your two cents worth. I must say that I find the new structure much more accessible.