learning species
is the inability of industry veterans to recognise that Digital Darwinism is driving changes in the way business is done. Chief information officers (CIOs) wrestle with managing legacy departments. Managers struggle with dated procedures and skill sets. Marketing, sales and service teams are missing customer touch points because they’re unaware of new customer expectations. Executives focus on shareholders who are also out of touch with market changes. HR directors are still suspicious of e-learning and more or less secretly believe the old ways were better. Classrooms were originally designed to keep distractions out and the worst thing we could do as kids was look out of the window. Nowadays, thankfully, a growing proportion of our children’s learning is negotiated through virtual windows that provide access to endless learning and sharing opportunities. Teaching is less and less about providing information but more about scaffolding – helping students make sense of information, supporting the development of critical appreciation, and supporting students in working out how to apply it all. And here’s another change: when we were at school (us older ones, at least), most of the “work” was broadcast during the day and homework was set to see if we’d learned anything. We now see that that’s going through a 180 degree change: homework is often to research the basic knowledge and skills, and school work is for discussion, application, engagement, sharing and fun. Much better. Much more effective. Where have we seen the least change? In precisely those organisations that
have most to lose. In institutions which have invested massively in bricks and mortar, fixed salaries, hierarchy and time-honoured ways of doing things. Such places can often seem more like fortresses than places of learning.
Connectivity is changing society and changing the way we expect to learn.
For example, we are beginning to see more young people teaching older people – actually, make that coaching or mentoring, rather than teaching. And how long do you think we’ll continue to use the word teaching anyway? If teaching can’t throw off its top-down shackles – wisdom passed down through hierarchy and authority - then the word may well be unlikely to survive. It would be nice to think that by the time Gen Z gives way to whatever the next
generation is called (one proposal is Generation Alpha, so called because they are the first generation to be born entirely digitally immersed), virtually every last person walking the facing of the earth will be able to connect to the internet and, if we are to survive, we will see the dawn of a new species, homo collaborans.
Tim Gibson is Head of L&D at SSCL Professor Peter Thomas is COO of the Leasing Foundation.
e.learning age april 2015
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