The landscape of learning has changed dramatically, with most workplace learning happening on the job rather than through formal courses. Knowing this, our expert Learning Experience Designers (LxDs) tap into the hidden wealth of informality when designing digital learning assets.
Below, you are offered a glimpse of their own informal thoughts on learning through extracts from their instant messages to one another. Here, Kate and David discuss 'the reluctant elearner.'
i think the idea of the reluctant learner is archaic
everyone knows they have to keep themselves 'developed' or they’ll get left behind
if they are reluctant to engage it's only because the delivery is terrible or the platform they've been given doesn't work
11:00Do you think fear is a good motivator? That's a bit archaic too. Though there's something in what you said.
Maybe the ‘Reluctant eLearner’.
11:03yes I think people need to be given autonomy first, and the freedom to find the content that is ACTUALLY relevant to them, rather than what someone else thinks they need to know
11:05Have you read Erving Goffman's book Asylums? Something about how the real stuff goes on in the nooks and crannies – people find what they need in whatever space is available to them, however small. That's where real life happens, outside of the approved, organised environment.
I'm probably totally misrepresenting his ideas there.
11:09the approval and organisation are necessary though, when a company needs to make sure employees know how to stay cyber safe etc
it was on the radio a couple of days ago that a cyber expert head of security at his company admitted he was lucky to catch a phishing email and was about to click it
it’s not so boring when billions of fines are at risk
11:15I very nearly gave my details away to claim a £1000 voucher the other day. Then I caught myself on, as they say here.
Was it the courses we've done on cyber security that stopped me? More like the ridicule I would get from folk here if I was scammed.
Or a mixture of both.
11:19there's eclairs on the table, by the way
11:31I'll be back shortly.
When was the last time you learned
something?
11:36an hour ago, when I googled informal learning and the term asynchronous learning popped up, and I clicked it
u?
11:41Today I learned that Samuel Beckett may have given André the Giant a lift to and from school in his truck.
11:44and now, I have learned that
11:47The bigger surprise for me was – Beckett drove a truck?!
That was a kitchen conversation at work, followed up by some googling to verify.
11:49i think there's a lot to be said for the 'hitch hiking learning nuggets', which I have just made up
the little things you pick up as you try and learn the big thing
which is WHY I think autonomy and exploratory learning need to be better promoted
11:51Asynchronous learning – is that what you learn when synchronised swimming goes wrong? Now you have to explain it to me. Transmit your knowledge.
11:53accessing learning whenever you need it, rather than a class of people doing it all at once so basically elearning
11:59So let's say you pick up vital nuggets of learning as a by-product of learning some big thing. How does that help us as instructional designers?
12:01it helps because we can be creating those nuggets, they just don't need to be made mandatory
if we could organise our stuff as an index rather than a presentation learners have points of need where they will probably go to Google, but that’s not verified or specific to them
12:10But somebody – the client, a SME – has to ask us to make those nuggets. It's not the learners who ask us to design what they will need. Good if you could have a wide-ranging quiz or survey to find out the learners’ known unknowns and unknown unknowns first.
12:14would you rather speak to learners before or after they take a course?
12:19Before and after. I'll skip during so that they can get on and do it.
12:24and what would you want to know?
12:36Yes exactly - that would be my question to them!
12:38Is your current elearning creating reluctant learners? Logicearth's in-house team of learning experience designers creates the content that learners want to learn. This, alongside our selection of next-generation Learning Experience Platforms creates an engaging environment that is personalised, adaptable, and reduces the need for classroom training. Talk to us today about your elearning challenges and we will will find the perfect solution for you.