In a Learning 2.0 world, where learning and performance solutions take on a wider variety of forms and where churn happens at a much more rapid pace, what new skills and knowledge are required for learning professionals? learning professional (or any learner, for that fact. What the heck IS a learning This month’s “Big Question” from Tony Karrer jolted me out of my sun-gardening-induced blogging lethargy to reply to this question: My friends and colleagues already nailed most of what I would write (see links below) , addressing the full range

After posting my 4 Meta Skills for Learning Professionals in response to Tony’s July “Big Question,” he commented: was hoping that you would provide insight into the core skills and knowledge around communities and networks that learning professionals should have? What’s the 5 minute and 60 minute learning piece that all knowledge workers should have to go through so they will be better at this? It is hard to let some Tony Karrer disappointment persist. Nancy - I was super excited when I saw that you had posted on the topic.

  It’s funny how we all associate Google with learning , rather than just s earching. But searching and learning are not one and the same. Consider After hours of related search I’m not learning much, relative to the time I put in. Why haven’t more people tried to create learning For specific information, I can see why: a single result for Oxfordian theory , for example, satisfies my needs pretty well. Not bad for a time investment of a few seconds.

Jay Cross states that 80% of learning is informal (in his book informal learning ). Personally, I buy this estimation because it links with the way I personally learn. Nevertheless, I guess other people with different learning styles may get more out of it. At a company, Sara Lee, 20 employees Well, that's a nice figure that I've seen resurface in many places and articles (I even like to quote it myself!). The 80% is backed-up by various sources.

When I was asked to facilitate a discussion on reflective learning and weblogs at the workshop on Informal learning and the use of social software in veterinary medicine I hesitated: while reflective learning is part of my practice, at the moment I’m far from the theories about it or from facilitating reflective learning in educational settings. Well, at the end it worked – we didn’t go that far into the reflective learning itself, but talked about uses of weblogs for learning of students and practitioners. [This post was in drafts for a while; posted on the actual date of the workshop, so the participants can find it.]

This morning at the ungodly hour of 4:30 am PDT (GMT -7) I shared some of my ideas about connecting the formal learning in universities to the wider, networked world to a group of learning professionals at Tartu University, in Estonia. This was part of School - From Teaching Institution to Learning Space which took place April 02 - 03, 2009 at the Estonian University of Life Sciences conference centre (Kreutzwaldi 1A, Tartu), Estonia.  During the conference you could watch the conference online [link] . First, there is always the challenge of plopping in to a conference

For a good number of years, both Knowledge Management and Learning have always been associated with one another and overlapping quite a bit. Plenty of organisations are eventually using terms like Learning & Knowledge to refer to that process of knowledge sharing and collaborating; and, in a way, with the emergence of social software within the corporate environment, I am sure we will be seeing both disciplines come together even more! To that extent, and in order to spark further conversations on the topic, while I get to finalise my thoughts on that very same subject, I thought I would share with you folks a couple of interesting links over here, rather quick, to perhaps come back to it at a later time.

I’m thinking about mobile learning - how it will work, and why it is significant. True mobile learning is personalized learning that unites the learner’s context with cloud computing, using a mobile device. Clearly, electronic devices that allow access (at least intermittently) to the information-cloud are essential to mobile learning. Gary Woodill’s recent paper provides a simple, and helpful description: Fine.

Tomorrow I'm going to present the difference between the theories of communities of practice and action learning (and between the communities themselves and action-reflection groups). CoP = community of practice, AL = Action Learning). Any input welcome! Characteristic CoP AL Is A theory, little information on methods A methodology, less detailed theory Goal Stewarding a knowledge I haven't found any materials comparing the two, so I had to do some brainwork for myself.

Tags: communities_of_practice learning Spain Etienne_Wenge Notes from Etienne Wenger's Seville presentation ...Tags: