Learning Conversations

Patrick Dunn has raised the point that much of what we produce as elearning receives very little positive reaction, and many elearning professionals (myself included) rarely, if ever, use elearning as part of our own development.

By "elearning", I'm talking about corporate online products that are explicitly designed to fulfil certain learning objectives.

Thinking about my own experience, and the types of resources that I do go to for my own development... Here's what I do, with some examples:

I use Google to find things out, when I know what I'm looking for.

I listen to talks and conversations on my mp3 player when I'm looking for inspiration or challenge.

eg. Presentation basics - from Manager Tools
eg. Stephen Downes on Community Blogging

I watch videos on Youtube, or from TEDtalks. Some are practical how-tos, others more inspirational like the one below.

I read blogs from people I respect and from whom I want to learn. Here are the current posts from my current a-list. These often lead onto viewing or listening to other resources such as presentations, like this one:

I use w3schools to solve programming problems or to get started with new programming languages.

I've given up on Twitter as a learning tool. It's just too disjointed and distracting.

I can't remember the last time I worked through a corporate elearning module of my own volition.

So are there any common features to what I do use?

• Recommendation: I learn from sources that I respect or have been recommended by people I respect. Is that true of corporate learning resources?
• Search: Corporate learning resources that cannot be found by searching are missing a huge chunk of their potential.
• Social publishing: "Approved" corporate learning resources are often out-of-date by the time they get released and have all the appeal of an old, wet fish. Materials produced by my community of practice are fresh, slightly rough around the edges, mostly relevant and immediately useful.