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Whenever something new is introduced into an organisation it raises questions about the old ways. Should they remain? Should they be changed to accommodate the new?
Online and informal learning is a case in point. For decades, learning (whether in schools, universities or the workplace) was based mainly around the classroom. There were occassional forays into self-directed or distance learning, but primarily all learning activity was focussed on the interaction between the "teacher" and the "learner" at a particular moment in space-time.
Until the late 1990's, the closest many people got to informal learning was browsing the books at home or at the library - both of which were limited in scope.
Now, however, we have more information at our fingertips than we can handle. We have access to experts, pundits, friends and extremists in equal measure, from across the world. Lack of data is no longer an excuse.
This knowledge economy is also democratized. Anyone, with even the simplest smartphone or cheapest computer, can add into the ever-expanding global knowledgebase.
Yet our schools, universities and workplaces - the core, foundational structures of society - continue working as if nothing had changed.
Our classrooms and lecture theatres are still designed as places where knowledge is imparted, and their curriculums as the sole source of that knowledge. Anyone that strays outside of the proscribed norms of behaviour or ability is a problem to be dealt with or ignored, rather than the individual they are.
Our training departments and the dependency culture of learning they implicitly promote are unable to keep up with the pace of change, and run the risk of, at best, becoming irrelevant, or at worst, a barrier to development.
Our work is done in isolation from other people doing similar things. The freedom of communication taken for granted across the internet is rarely replicated inside our workplaces, and often blocked on work equipment...
If we were starting again, what would our learning institutions look like? What would be the essential skills, knowledge and behaviours that we would expect every school to develop? How would we organise (or allow?) learning inside our companies?
Online learning has the potential to break down boundaries between organisations and between people, and to allow knowledge to flow easily between them. Outside of our societal structures this is already happening.
Should we be seeking to make that potential a reality within our current model of schools, universities and workplace? Or do we need to rethink the very structures themselves, and look for alternative models of society that can make best use of the new knowledge networks?
To be continued...
"Neither do people pour new wine into old wineskins. If they do, the skins will burst; the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. No, they pour new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved.”
2 comments
I think that we definitely need to rethink the structures of learning altogether. E-Learning/online learning has the potential to transform our societal systems. I disagree with the statement that “our schools, universities and workplaces - the core, foundational structures of society - continue working as if nothing had changed.” Many of the societal institutions such as classrooms and workplaces have tried to implement eLearning gradually. These changes don’t take place overnight and I think the result has often been some form of blended learning. However, to be most effective and to have long-term significance, we should rethink how we are using technology to do this. I think that simply implementing our established systems to make them more current misses the mark. Thanks for your thoughts!
Hi Megan,
Thanks for the comment.
Yes, many classrooms and workplaces are implementing elearning - but as an add-on. They’ve not yet grasped the potential of what’s now possible.
For example, how many schools have changed the way they use their classrooms, because of what can now be achieved through online methods? How many have changed their teachers’ contracts to allow them to work from home? How many are accepting students on a more flexible basis? How many schools still close down all operations when there’s a bit of snow? There are a handful of places where this is happening, eg. Hollinsclough Primary School’s Flexi-Schooling, but the majority carry on with business as usual.
In the workplace, it’s more common to find organisations blocking the very tools that are used outside for learning, than embracing them. Until cooperation and communication finds a place at the heart of the work we do, organisations will remain reliant on centrally-driven elearning programmes that simply reinforce the status quo. By so doing these organisations will continue to lag behind in business and cultural environment that is changing far more rapidly than they can.
Cheers,
Mark
