The Race to Develop the Future of E-Learning Communities--Part III

In the race to create global E-Learning communities, there are two main societal institutions that are affected by these changes which makes them majority stakeholders in how these global learning communities are designed. As pointed out in the last post, because of the new age of learning and information we are living in, it is reasonable that both these societal institutions share a symbiotic relationship because a change that impacts one also has ramifications for the other. These two institutions are:

• Global business organizations
• Formal education organizations

Credit: www.ahmannmartin.com

The Shape of Learning Cultures in Business Organizations

How a business organization handles change determines the future health of the organization. When you listen to the concerns of businesses, the following are some of the most often repeated:

• We want to be an innovative company but we are afraid that it will be too disruptive to our client base, our product and service lines and to our employees.
• We want to fully engage our employees so that there is visible growth and improved performance for our company but it seems that the external motivators that we use such promotions, pay raises...etc does not seem to take us where we want to go in terms of being globally competitive within our specific sector.
• Our budgets are stretched to the max and each department guards its allotment jealously. By the time the smoke clears, there is very little capital left for L & D.
• Too often when we have to decide between compliance training and innovation initiatives, compliance training wins hand down

"What is wrong with this picture? What is really going on here?"

The mindset that seems to be at the core of these concerns is that of maintaining the model that we have had for decades and "add on" these new ideas that seem to be the trend. This is a mindset that says:" lets keep doing things the way we have always done things and just tweak it with these new ideas!" When questioned about how to meet the new challenge for companies to become more innovative, companies with the present mindset will claim that they are innovating "incrementally".

The mindset that should be adopted by business organizations should be one of empowering transformation to meet the needs of societies that are transforming because of the exponential changes in technology and information. Business has to ask itself the question:

"In light of the greater emphasis on knowledge building and life long learning for all people, including everyone from the CEO down to manual labourers within a business organization, what framework do we need that will fit these goals?"

The 70-20-10 Learning Culture Framework

Charles Jennings is one of the world's most leading thinkers and practitioners in innovative learning and capability development. He is also a leading supporter of the 70-20-10 learning framework for business organizations.

 

Credit:www.ryan2point0.wordpress.com

Essentially, the learning framework which has been around since the 1990's suggests that learning within a business organization happens in three interconnected paths:

• 70 % of the learning that employees are engaged in is experiential (learning by doing)
• 20% of  the learning that employees are engaged in is informal (learning through social means)
• 10% of the learning that employees are engaged in is through formal means (learning through formal classroom training)

In the 21st century, an age that emphasizes life long learning, exponential growth of knowledge and societal needs for effective change agents, innovation and global collaboration, this framework leads to some very thought provoking questions such as:

1. Given the rise of the Internet, does this framework still fit?
2. Does this framework really take into account the increasing growth of informal learning, the rise of social media and mobile learning?
3. Should the interconnecting percentages be agile and fluid rather than set as they have been from the beginning? 
4. Given the fact that this learning framework is not based on well established empirical evidence, does this framework itself need to be transformed to fit the new realities in the use of technology, current research on learning from cognitive science and the growing emphasis on creating global business networks?

[ Sorry for the odd font changes in the article. Sometimes the technology is more temperamental than me!]

Next----Forms of informal learning, Pervasive learning and creating links between Global Learning Portals and Specialized learning and innovation networks