December’s Big Question from the Learning Circuits Blog is “What I have learned About Learning in 2008?” Well, because I am a learning professional, I give a lot of importance to my personal learning. And owing to my profession, I am fortunate to understand and appreciate the value of learning.
I started my learning this year on the perfect note - I wrote my first blog! I think this simple activity brought me closer to most of my learning this year. After I wrote my first blog, I found myself interested in exploring the world of Web 2.0, social networking, and collaborative tools and technologies. I started to write atleast one blog every month and use you tube, slideshare, twitter, delicious, and joined many online discussion forums to read and share my views. Through all of this, I felt completely responsible for my own learning.
I extended my best practices to my training sessions and my trainees. I incorporated you tube videos in my classroom training sessions, referred to multiple e-learning and instructional design blogs to update my 'legacy training' in Instructional Design, incorporated online reading activities as pre-work and post training reflection activities as blogs for my trainees, subscribed to second life and shared the experience with many others, reviewed some powerful Brandon Hall E-learning Awards nominees (e-learning courses) as an independent judge, used many free web tools...and...developed my personal learning network.
I also felt very satisfied and energized during the entire learning process. This learning was mostly self-directed. Blogging helped me reflect on the things that I was doing and allowed me to articulate my learning with each activity. It helped me connect with many other people all around the world. It helped me break the shackles of my own mind.
To sum it up, in the year 2008:
- I learned that Web 2.0 is not about tools and technologies - it is about a new way to learn.
- I learned that the more I shared, the more I learned.
- I learned that the world is indeed a small place and its very easy to connect, if you want to.
- I (re) learned that to learn, I need to reflect, apply, make mistakes, and learn from those mistakes.
- I (re) learned that learning is limitless.
I really like the way you've articulated your learning for the year.
ReplyDeleteWould love to see this cross posted on eCube.
Kia ora Taruna
ReplyDeleteI am impressed that you believe learning is limitless. I also believe that you're right. One of the strangest things I've learnt about learning is that so much of it has gone before. In fact, it has nearly all gone before.
To learn something that no one has ever known or experienced before is really quite rare and it is often not recognised for what it is. I believe that it is for this reason that 'civilisation' has progressed so slowly.
My hope is that development in the way humankind learns, goes up a supportive and constructive pathway. It appears that the new technologies, perhaps those that have arisen in the last 15 - 20 years, have the potential to assist humankind to travel on this route.
Catchya later
from Middle-earth
Thanks for your comment. I agree with you view on learning. I believe that much has been learnt and yet forgotten…. or not captured and therefore lost. Yes, the current tools and technologies support ‘knowledge’ management and allow many people to benefit from each other's learning and gain access to learning from the past - thus keeping it alive.
ReplyDeleteInfact, I have interesting example from Indian Mythology where, in the Sanskrit epics of ancient India, some of our Hindu Gods travelled on what was called the puspak viman or flying machine. The Sanskrit term "vimana" is usually translated "airborne chariot," "aerial car," or "celestial car" (or sometimes simply "car") by the Hindu translators.
Some of my research shows that even Ezekiel somewhere around 600 B.C., as recorded in the Bible, may have encountered some of these unique airships, which he took to be "visions of cherubim".
In the context of our conversation, what this example means is that the knowledge or learning needed to make airplanes existed much before the Wright Brothers ‘invented’ the flying machine.
Would you believe it if I go one step further and state that in India, a large-scale research project has kicked off to unravel the facts about the “fuel” used in the puspak viman. The research work has been started with the cooperation of the Madras Lalit Kala Academy, with Indian Research Centre also playing an important role in it.
Isn’t this strange, all along we want to learn what others before us have learnt….and this is in perfect synchronization with your comment that “To learn something that no one has ever known or experienced before is really quite rare.” How true!
Hello Taruna, thank you for summarising your learning journey in 2008. It helped me reflect on my own attempts to break out of the mould. I, too, have only started blogging recently, and find that my shared personal reflections help me and my friends to help each other learn. I look forward to reading your future updates. Simon Brown.
ReplyDelete