CLTI07 - George Siemens creating organizational learning

This session of CLTI focused on the need to change learning infrastructure. Learning and development that is up to the newest realities of today.

Learning at somepoint faced death by acronyms and buzzwords. Learning = learning, it does not matter what you call it.



There is also a mismatch: what learners need to do, what we taught learners to do.
We forgot context (situation of knowledge they will need, the technology they will use, ...) we have put context of design above context of use.
Which led to neglecting the learner.

Strategy: learning is the live blood of any corporation.
Intent of learning: advance the capacity of both learners and the organisation they make.

So where are we as companies?
- information growth will enhance even more;
- different people: we will need to task shift quickly (not really multitask);
- different competitors: competition is unclear and
- market disruptions unclear;
- value for corporate functioning = ability to function in this space;

What do we need: an infrastructure of adaptability complex environments will have tension between different view points, but that adds to diversity. But how do we keep a certain stability?

Decision tables understand:
- metrics;
- ROI;
- competitivness;
not the jargon L&D use.

All sorts of cultures will be able to implement their thinking into the learning equation.

Up until now the impact of web2.0 was minor in the organisational environment.
The toolboard should be designed so different tools can be put on them, not like now that the tools seem to dictate the board. (really good point!)

different paths lead to different directions => the importance of case studies is sometimes overstated. Organizational background, context can be so fundamentally different that those cases do not translate well at all.
Every corporation needs to go through three stages: conceptual => experimental => implementation. No matter what there core business is.

Learning needs that we face:one approach won't work, you need a learning ecology.
It is important to make a learning structure/ecology that is dynamic and that can cope with new evolutions and learners needs.



The concept of deep smarts is again increasing, based on the expertise and the experience by a mentor. Different smarts are getting ever more important => thinking holistically. More information is in George Siemens's book KnowingKnowledge (see links underneath).

Things to do
- we need to reflect: on the model, the learning
- evaluate context of learning and recognize the diversity;
- experiment aggressively: this leads to thoughtfull implementation;
- function in gradients: learning has many nuances, that demands nuanced approaches.


My thoughts
death by jargon is so correct;
I like the concept of self-learning :-)
A great idea was the use of task-switching instead of multitasking. Really like that idea and use of words. Will use this.


links that were posted
http://www.lsda.org.uk/files/PDF/1543.pdf
The book of George KnowingKnowledge
A definition http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accretion_(science)