learning species


idea of looking at your learning age or, come to that, your e-learning age. As they age, people get used to doing familiar things in familiar ways. It might be a comforting thing but it isn’t necessarily a good thing. Henry Ford’s advice that “anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps learning stays young” has been proved correct time and again anecdotally but neurology tells us that our brains respond particularly well to learning new things by making new neural connections. Learning helps to keep our brains young. They say you know you’re getting older when policemen are looking younger.


In our own work we are able to watch successive intakes of inductees embark on their new careers. This is a tremendous privilege but it does make you think about age, aging and change.


And when we think about change we might also think about how change


happens in the natural world. Charles Darwin proposed that all species arise and develop through the natural selection of small, inherited variations. These variations increase the individual’s ability to compete, survive, and reproduce. Although this process is referred to as ‘the survival of the fittest’, what Darwin actually said was that it’s not necessarily the strongest or most intelligent species that survive, but those most responsive to change – the most adaptable. And because we’re all interested in learning, we should particularly like the following quote: “In the long history of humankind (and animal kind, too) those who learned to


collaborate and improvise most effectively have prevailed”. What does this have to do with social media, business and learning? Quite


simply this: we are living in an age of Digital Darwinism – while evolution is a series of tiny, tiny changes over unimaginably long periods, we are experiencing massive changes in our personal and professional lives really very, very quickly and they are driven by digital technologies. Having been largely the same for the last few centuries, the world of learning


is now changing between – and even within – generations. Unlike evolution, we can see it happening in front of our very eyes. MOOCs, for example, have only been around for a handful of years but scored their first 10 million enrolments in 2014. As technology, society and learning evolve, so must business – and Digital Darwinism favours those companies that try to evolve and rewards those that successfully evolve. It favours innovation and rewards successful innovation.It favours those that acknowledge that there are new sources of competition and rewards those that change in response. Consider the rise of what are called the ‘millennials’ – those born between 1980 and 2000. Members of this generation are very different as customers, different as employees and different as learners. It’s estimated that there are 75 million millennials in the US alone and as well as being younger, obviously, they have a recognisably more participative outlook. For example, millennials:


n are relatively unaffiliated politically and religiously n have an average of 250 friends on Facebook n send an average of 50 texts a day n care about workplace satisfaction more than monetary compensation


22


Digital Darwinism D


Tim Gibson and Peter Thomas claim you’re only as old as you learn


o you look younger than you really are? Older, perhaps? How old do you feel? How old do your friends think you are? As psychologists tell us, there’s a big difference between your biological, perceived and social ages and we’d also argue for the


n consider work-life balance essential n use social networking to broadcast their concerns n are tolerant of religious, racial, gender, sexual orientation differences n learn from others and find sharing natural n will account for 75% of the global workforce by 2025 n like to work in teams on projects to accomplish goals n want to work remotely and on their own clock n embrace video conferencing over face-to-face interactions n look for transparency in their leaders.


In other words, they make the people only a few years older than themselves look like dinosaurs. They might not be a new species exactly but they are certainly a new learning species.


Businesses are beginning to cotton on. Lots of companies have cultures and processes built on models from the 1950s rather than those around millennial culture but smart companies are now evolving, especially those that have millennials as workers and millennials as customers. They are avid users of social media, for example and create workplaces that millennials can relate to. Following the millennials – who have now started on their careers – are


Generation Z, those born between 1995 and 2005. They share many of the characteristics of the millennials but also have some differences. They are, for example, more independent: while a third of millennials are still living with their parents, Gen Zers are growing up in a healthier economy and appear eager to be cut loose; they don’t wait for their parents to teach them things or tell them how to make decisions; Gen Z are curious and driven, investigating how to obtain relevant professional experience before heading to university; and through social media Gen Zers are accustomed to engaging with friends all over the world so they are well prepared for a global business environment. All this adds up to a more mature generation that will be in management positions much younger than previous generations. And that has implications for learning. Gen Z learners live with open books, read shorter pieces but read more widely, and live a digital existence based on video and images. They expect personalisation and learner centricity: anything else won’t compute. “What do you mean, I can’t access it via my iPad?”, said one of our students recently. It wasn’t a challenge, nor even a moan – it was incredulity. Companies that don’t adapt to generational changes, especially in their use of social media and social learning, will find themselves disrupted by those who do, by companies that use Digital Darwinism to win. One of the major obstacles


Lots of companies have cultures and processes built on models from the 1950s rather than those around millennial culture but smart companies are now evolving, especially those that have millennials as workers and millennials as customers.


e.learning age april 2015


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