I'm surprised to see such a strong post supporting Instructor-Led Learning only, in times when Web 2.0 reigns and the learning trend is slowly changing. Tony Karrer makes very good arguments in his post Long Live? and I suggest reading his views.
I don't agree when Saul says that people in the community claim that ILT is dead. I am quite in touch with most of the posts on the community and that is definitely not what people are trying to say. From what I understand, we are in a transition stage where in people are exploring other possibilities of learning, and the means provided by informal learning was a welcome change for several reasons:
- Accessibility to classroom training when you need help on the job
- The cost of attending an ILT is high
- Online courses were not sufficient to cover all that a learner needed
So, I think, the whole initiative is coming about as an attempt to make information accessible to the larger group, and enable them to learn on their own, by writing their perspective and sharing information from their experience. How often have we always wanted to know how another organization did the same job that we do, and what their priorities are? I always was curious.
All of this only gets an individual to understand the bigger picture, and whats happening outside their own world. You are simulating an environment of group discussions amongst your community, by blogging your opinion/ideas and hearing what others think. You are allowing the learner to think and understand aspects on their own, stimulating the thought process and allowing them to create and build their own solutions after reading a bunch of related articles blogs etc. I think informal learning is about:
- Broadening your horizon.
- Learning actively rather than passively.
- Being open to listening to others in the community and hearing their point of view.
- Making your point after having sufficiently researched the topic you have in mind, keeping in mind that there are more perspectives and views that matter, not just your own.
- Being open to appreciation and criticism without being biased.
- Stimulating yourself to think rather than being spoon fed with everything on a golden plate.
- Willingness to accept that there is lot more knowledge to be learned and researched, than what we already know, that the world is big and we can never know every single thing in our lifetime. In short 'Knowledge is an ocean'.
- Doing what is best for a situation and working continuously towards improvement, knowing there is no limit to how much better you can do your job.
- Knowing there can be more solutions to a problem, than what is given in books.
- Exploring new possibilities, and reaching higher levels of cognition on cliched topics.
- Accepting that what we have been doing in the past was a good solution then but not anymore!
Coming back to the post we're talking about, I'd like to reiterate and agree with Tony that, no where does one say that informal learning replaces the ILT process. ILT is here to stay and so is elearning. But informal learning is the way to get on-the-job assistance, solve problems by questioning and debating, rather than accepting what a single individual source can tell you. It has more to do with the fact that there isn't any limit to how much you can learn.
But then again, it was nice to have someone challenge what we all believe in, and have us rethink and validate our initiative on informal learning once more. Isn't that was informal learning is all about?
I don't agree when Saul says that people in the community claim that ILT is dead. I am quite in touch with most of the posts on the community and that is definitely not what people are trying to say. From what I understand, we are in a transition stage where in people are exploring other possibilities of learning, and the means provided by informal learning was a welcome change for several reasons:
- Accessibility to classroom training when you need help on the job
- The cost of attending an ILT is high
- Online courses were not sufficient to cover all that a learner needed
So, I think, the whole initiative is coming about as an attempt to make information accessible to the larger group, and enable them to learn on their own, by writing their perspective and sharing information from their experience. How often have we always wanted to know how another organization did the same job that we do, and what their priorities are? I always was curious.
All of this only gets an individual to understand the bigger picture, and whats happening outside their own world. You are simulating an environment of group discussions amongst your community, by blogging your opinion/ideas and hearing what others think. You are allowing the learner to think and understand aspects on their own, stimulating the thought process and allowing them to create and build their own solutions after reading a bunch of related articles blogs etc. I think informal learning is about:
- Broadening your horizon.
- Learning actively rather than passively.
- Being open to listening to others in the community and hearing their point of view.
- Making your point after having sufficiently researched the topic you have in mind, keeping in mind that there are more perspectives and views that matter, not just your own.
- Being open to appreciation and criticism without being biased.
- Stimulating yourself to think rather than being spoon fed with everything on a golden plate.
- Willingness to accept that there is lot more knowledge to be learned and researched, than what we already know, that the world is big and we can never know every single thing in our lifetime. In short 'Knowledge is an ocean'.
- Doing what is best for a situation and working continuously towards improvement, knowing there is no limit to how much better you can do your job.
- Knowing there can be more solutions to a problem, than what is given in books.
- Exploring new possibilities, and reaching higher levels of cognition on cliched topics.
- Accepting that what we have been doing in the past was a good solution then but not anymore!
Coming back to the post we're talking about, I'd like to reiterate and agree with Tony that, no where does one say that informal learning replaces the ILT process. ILT is here to stay and so is elearning. But informal learning is the way to get on-the-job assistance, solve problems by questioning and debating, rather than accepting what a single individual source can tell you. It has more to do with the fact that there isn't any limit to how much you can learn.
But then again, it was nice to have someone challenge what we all believe in, and have us rethink and validate our initiative on informal learning once more. Isn't that was informal learning is all about?
IMHO - When it comes to the requirement of fresh/detailed learning, I think ILT is the best resource to begin with. This should be followed by a series of informal trainings (as per one's need) to "increase the expertise" in the given area.
ReplyDeleteTo start with, one wouldn't have required/sufficient knowledge to judge the relevance% or the authenticity of the content from an informal training source.
On the other hand (as happens most of the times) at workplace, we need to deal with knowledge on demand. In this case ILT is not an option at all.
So looks to me that, people who already have enough knowledge vote for "informal learning" because they are just looking at "improving their expertise". On the other hand I think the vote% would certainly differ if we check with freshers in a company. They would better trust a tutor than getting random ideas from random informal sources to begin with.
PS: I always prefer getting introduced to a subject through F2F/OILT and later master the subject through one or other informal sources. That works well with me.
Good points here. It's not an either/or situation as you say. One point that I think is important is the pervasive assumption that ILT is necessary for new hires or inexperienced workers and that informal learning only works for experienced employees. This post shows otherwise:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.jarche.com/2009/03/informal-learning-works-for-new-hires/