project-based learning

Reflections on “Today’s Tech Jobs: Skills More Important Than Knowledge” [Yangame]

On 06/26/2021, in active learning, Daniel S. Christian, IBM, programming, project-based learning, by Daniel Christian

Today’s Tech Jobs: Skills More Important Than Knowledge — from rtinsights.com by Kwame Yangame; with thanks to Ryan Craig for this resource
New tech jobs require workers skilled in the use of technologies and able to handle the complexities and interconnectedness of today’s world.

What then is needed in terms of tech education?
The tech education that is needed, then, is formed on the basis of active learning, project-based learning, and learning by doing: science and researched-backed learning methods, the efficacy of which has been proven, and the result of which is true preparation for work in tech jobs in the 21st century. It’s clear that companies want skills and are moving towards skills-based hiring, so it’s well past time that education moves into real skills-based learning.

The classroom-type learning was designed for high schools and universities dating back to a point in time when the most advanced technology was the printing press – before the steam engine, penicillin, the telephone, the automobile, and the personal computer.

From DSC:
I remember teaching a class called the Foundations of Information Technology. This class filled a requirement for those who didn’t major in Computer Science or some other disciplines. So several students in the class didn’t really want to be there and didn’t like technology at all. I still remember hearing some students say, “After this class, I don’t see using technology again.” Or, “I don’t see technology as being a part of my future. I don’t like it.”

My thought then and now? Good luck with that.

With a thanks to Ryan for the following resource as well:

The high school-college hybrid that jumpstarts careers — from hechingerreport.org by
Ten years on, a network of early college high schools offers industry training, two degrees and a pathway to the middle class. Despite early stumbles, it is thriving

By bridging the gap between what high schools teach and industries need, P-TECH, initially a partnership among IBM, the New York City school system and City Tech, has opened doors for thousands of students in communities with high concentrations of poverty. Its 266 schools now operate in 12 U.S. states and 28 countries…

What is Book Creator and How Can Educators Use It? — from techlearning.com by Erik Ofgang

Excerpt:

Book Creator is a free tool that allows educators and their students to create multimedia ebooks based off of class assignments and topics.

Available on Apple and Android tablets and phones, and on Google Chrome for desktop use, Book Creator is a digital resource that helps students explore their creative sides while learning.

The tool lends itself well to active learning and collaborative projects of all kinds, and is appropriate for various subjects and age groups.

Book Creator gives students the ability to upload images, vidoes, audio, and more within the ebooks they create. It also empowers them to draw, take notes, and collaborate in real-time with their classmates and instructor.

Read on to find out everything you need to know about Book Creator.

Also see the Book Creator’s website:

Addendum on 5/21/21:

Sketch, draw, and doodle — apps to unleash students’ creativity — from educatorstechnology.com
How about using arts-based approaches to engage students in meaningful learning experiences? Drawing, sketching, doodling, and painting are three expressive forms of art with huge educational potential that students can use to unleash their creativity. They can be applied in writing, reading, speaking, and in storytelling activities. Finished products can also be included in students’ portfolios to document and showcase their learning. To this end, the selection below features some good apps students can use in this regard. Check them out and share with us your feedback.

Addendums on 5/24/21:

Book Creator: Teacher Tips & Tricks — from techlearning.com by Erik Ofgang
Exciting new image updates in Book Creator — from bookcreator.com

As with all of Book Creator we have made the image search fully accessible to screen readers and keyboard navigation. But we thought we could go a bit further with the image search and make it accessible to younger kids or ELL students who aren’t super confident with their spelling by introducing a voice search.

Addendum on 6/7/21:

A rubric for Book Creator — from bookcreator.com
Sam Kary talks about helping his students elevate their work by introducing a rubric for their digital book projects, helping them focus on design and multimedia.

Equipping Youth to Change the World [Vander Ark]

On 02/06/2021, in collaboration, creativity, education, education reform, engineering, health, heutagogy, ideas, innovation, K-12 related, project-based learning, real-world assignments, vendors, web-based collaboration, workplace, youth, by Daniel Christian

Equipping Youth to Change the World — from gettingsmart.com by Tom Vander Ark

Excerpt:

Through self-directed learning and impact projects, participants build stronger mindsets, develop real-world skills, learn to code, and expand their social capital. TKS’ teachers hail from leading companies in every sector.

The TKS team works with big companies to see what problems they are facing. This creates a bank of problems students can choose to work on. “[TKS] is as much about problem finding as it is about problem-solving,” says Navid.

DC: If this chart were to be tackled within a course, it seems to me that the Jigsaw Method could be useful — if not absolutely required.https://t.co/Sx2EFMIIrv https://t.co/ehUq1BL3B2 #legaltech #legal #law #lawyers #legaloperations #lawschool #pedagogy #teaching pic.twitter.com/wVrYZF377O

— Daniel Christian (he/him/his) (@dchristian5) January 29, 2021

Along the lines of technologies’ potential impact on the legal realm — especially Access to Justice (#A2J), see:

Meet the 27 startups pioneering the Justice Tech market — medium.com by Felicity Conrad

Starting with coining the umbrella term “Justice Tech,” we’re developing a common language, a community of folks working in the space, and formalizing the newly-minted Justice Tech market.

Texas Bar and Paladin Partner to Launch Statewide Pro Bono Portal — from lawsitesblog.com by Bob Ambrogi; with thanks to Gabe Teninbaum for this resource as well as the one mentioned in the above Tweet

Excerpt:

A free online portal launched today in Texas is designed to help lawyers find volunteer opportunities and assist residents of the state find help with their legal needs.

The new portal, Pro Bono Texas, was launched as a partnership between The State Bar of Texas and the justice tech company Paladin. The portal provides volunteer lawyers and law students with a centralized location to search and sign up for pro bono opportunities across the state.

Don’t force square-peg students back into wrong-shaped holes [Lake & Hill]

On 01/27/2021, in 21st century, blogs / blogging / vlogging, Daniel S. Christian, distance education, education, education reform, engagement / engaging students, experimentation, face-to-face, homeschooling/homeschoolers, K-12 related, learning, learning ecosystem, Learning Experience Design, learning hubs & pods & microschooling, learning preferences, love of learning, motivation, neurodivergent/special needs, online learning, parents/guardians, passions, project-based learning, remote teaching and learning, social learning / networks, society, student-related, teaching & learning, traditional / tradition, United States, using teams, by Daniel Christian

Don’t force square-peg students back into wrong-shaped holes — from crpe.org by Robin Lake Paul Hill

But what gets lost in the reopening debate is the growing evidence that a significant portion of students and their families are actually happier and learn better outside of traditional schooling.

Excerpt:

Some of the “square-peg” children are the most creative and bright students in their class, but had struggled academically or socially in the traditional classroom. According to informal surveys of parents and teachers, new approaches to learning are benefiting:

Students with special needs, like ADHD or autism, who focus better on learning without disruptions from other kids, and who—when learning from home—can take breaks and calm themselves when needed, not just when the classroom schedule permits.
Students who didn’t speak up or ask questions in regular classrooms for fear of being mocked, but are now able to send private questions to teachers or make written contributions.
Socially-awkward or otherwise different kids who experienced bullying.
Kids who best learn from small-group instruction.
Students who have mastered all the regular class material and are motivated to learn advanced materials and explore on their own.
Students who learn best by hearing about a new idea and then quickly practicing or applying it on their own.

From DSC:
One of our daughters needs a team of people around her to help her learn and grow. The one-size-fits-all, the-train-stops-for-no-one type of educational system that she often encountered did not work well for her.

Homeschooling has seen her grow a lot more. She even has her own blog now — and she’s excited about it! She loves reading and writing — and she’s very creative (albeit her writing gets pretty dark at times. But come to think of it…my second-grade teacher thought that my friend Andrew’s and my 38-page book with vampires, witches, and werewolves was pretty morbid too!)

Creative problem solvers needed!

On 01/18/2021, in future, game-changing environment, geography / geology, global / globalization, health, project-based learning, real-world assignments, research, science, STEAM-related, student-related, by Daniel Christian

2020 ties for hottest year on record, says NASA and NOAA — from bigthink.com by Kevin Dickinson
In a joint briefing at the 101st American Meteorological Society Annual Meeting, NASA and NOAA revealed 2020’s scorching climate data.

Excerpts:

2020 is tied with 2016 for being globally the hottest year on record.
The year’s hotspot included the Arctic, which is warming at three times the global mean.
The United States endured a record-breaking year for billion-dollar natural disasters.

Best Month Of Code 2020 Coding Kit Products — from techlearning.com by Luke Edwards
The best kits to get the most out of the Month of Code 2020

Saving — and Enhancing — Music Education With Online Learning [Washington]

On 11/24/2020, in attention, CMS/LMS, collaboration, content development, aggregation, repositories, digital audio, digital learning, distance education, education, education technology, engagement / engaging students, experimentation, future, game-changing environment, global / globalization, Google, homeschooling/homeschoolers, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, innovation, instructional design, K-12 related, learning, learning ecosystem, Learning Experience Design, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, love of learning, media/film, multimedia, music, new media literacies, online learning, online media, productivity / tips and tricks, project-based learning, student-related, teachers, teaching online, tools, United States, vendors, web-based collaboration, by Daniel Christian

Saving — and Enhancing — Music Education With Online Learning — from edcircuit.com by D. Travis Washington

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

I teach Choir and lead the Young Vocal Scholars Program, and before COVID arrived, we were excited to move forward on the culmination of learning through live performances. With school closure, all that changed, and we were forced to adapt to virtual learning. Through the initial transition, we discovered that online learning options such as Soundtrap could not only extend projects we were currently working on but expand music learning to previously unimaginable heights.
…
When Covid hit and we couldn’t continue with the traditional choir program, my school looked for remote solutions. Soundtrap was exactly what we needed. We began conducting Young Vocal Scholars choir sessions remotely through Soundtrap and filled our extra Soundtrap seats with students from the District 8 Choir who weren’t being served music at all — doing similar projects that we had been creating previously in my classes. It was incredible to suddenly recognize that there were far more students interested in music who could connect via their laptops and tablets at home.

Also see:

Soundtrap revolutionized my classroom in a virtual setting. Students became more engaged than ever before. My “4-star artists,” as I refer to my highly motivated students, kept making songs. I recall one of them saying to me, “Music class was cool because we sang together, but Soundtrap is cooler because it allows us to make projects together and they sound good.”

Many students complain that online-based learning doesn’t engage them. Well, check this idea out! [Christian]

On 10/22/2020, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, 3D, A/V -- audio/visual, active learning, adjunct faculty, Adobe, Apple, architecture, art, attention, biology, business side of he, career development, collaboration, colleges, communications, communities of practice, community colleges, competency-based learning/education, computer science, content development, aggregation, repositories, creativity, Daniel S. Christian, design, digital audio, digital learning, digital photography, digital storytelling, digital video, distance education, drama/theater, economics, education, education technology, educational games / serious games, engagement / engaging students, engineering, entrepreneurship, experimentation, face-to-face, faculty, future, game-changing environment, geography / geology, global / globalization, graphics, higher education, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, immersion, innovation, instructional design, interaction design, interactivity, interface design, journalism, learning, learning ecosystem, Learning Experience Design, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, liberal arts, love of learning, maker movement, mathematics, media/film, Michigan, MOOCs -- Massive Open Online Courses, multimedia, music, online learning, online media, participation, passions, photography, platforms, project-based learning, reinvent, research, student-related, teachers, teaching & learning, teaching online, United States, universities, vision/possibilities, writing, XR - extended reality, by Daniel Christian

From DSC…by the way, another title for this blog could have been:

WIN-WIN situations all around! The Theatre Departments out there could collaborate with other depts/disciplines to develop highly engaging, digitally-based learning experiences!

The future of drama and the theatre — as well as opera, symphonies, and more — will likely include a significant virtual/digital component to them. While it’s too early to say that theatre needs to completely reinvent itself and move “the stage” completely online, below is an idea that creates a variety of WIN-WIN situations for actors, actresses, stage designers, digital audio/video editors, fine artists, graphic designers, programmers, writers, journalists, web designers, and many others as well — including the relevant faculty members!

A new world of creative, engaging, active learning could open up if those involved with the Theatre Department could work collaboratively with students/faculty members from other disciplines. And in the end, the learning experiences and content developed would be highly engaging — and perhaps even profitable for the institutions themselves!

[DC: I only slightly edited the above image from the Theatre Department at WMU]

Though the integration of acting with online-based learning materials is not a new idea, this post encourages a far more significant interdisciplinary collaboration between the Theatre Department and other departments/disciplines.

Consider a “Dealing with Bias in Journalism” type of topic, per a class in the Digital Media and Journalism Major.

Students from the Theatre Department work collaboratively with the students from the most appropriate class(es?) from the Communications Department to write the script, as per the faculty members’ 30,000-foot instructions (not 1000-foot level/detailed instructions)
Writing the script would entail skills involved with research, collaboration, persuasion, creativity, communication, writing, and more
The Theatre students would ultimately act out the script — backed up by those learning about sound design, stage design, lighting design, costume design, etc.
Example scene: A woman is sitting around the kitchen table, eating breakfast and reading a posting — aloud — from a website that includes some serious bias in it that offends the reader. She threatens to cancel her subscription, contact the editor, and more. She calls out to her partner why she’s so mad about the article.
Perhaps there could be two or more before/after scenes, given some changes in the way the article was written.
Once the scenes were shot, the digital video editors, programmers, web designers, and more could take that material and work with the faculty members to integrate those materials into an engaging, interactive, branching type of learning experience.
From there, the finished product would be deployed by the relevant faculty members.

[DC: Above images from the Theatre Department at WMU]

Colleges and universities could share content with each other and/or charge others for their products/content/learning experiences. In the future, I could easily see a marketplace for buying and selling such engaging content. This could create a needed new source of revenue — especially given that those large auditoriums and theaters are likely not bringing in as much revenue as they typically do.

Colleges and universities could also try to reach out to local acting groups to get them involved and continue to create feeders into the world of work.

Other tags/categories could include:

MOOCs
Learning from the Living[Class]Room
Multimedia / digital literacy — tools from Adobe, Apple, and others.
Passions, participation, engagement, attention.
XR: Creating immersive, Virtual Reality (VR)-based experiences
Learning Experience Design
Interaction Design
Interface Design
…and more

Also see:

What improv taught me about failure: As a teacher and academic — from scholarlyteacher.com by Katharine Hubbard

In improv, the only way to “fail” is to overthink and not have fun, which reframed what failure was on a grand scale and made me start looking at academia through the same lens. What I learned about failure through improv comes back to those same two core concepts: have fun and stop overthinking.
…
Students are more engaged when the professor is having fun with the materials (Keller, Hoy, Goetz, & Frenzel, 2016), and teaching is more enjoyable when we are having fun ourselves.

DC: For those involved in Theatre, here’s to such innnovation in the future!

On 08/21/2020, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, active learning, attention, career development, change, collaboration, colleges, communities of practice, community colleges, computer science, content development, aggregation, repositories, creativity, Daniel S. Christian, digital audio, digital learning, digital storytelling, digital video, distance education, drama/theater, education, education technology, educational games / serious games, elearning, engagement / engaging students, future, higher education, ideas, innovation, interaction design, interactivity, interface design, learning ecosystem, liberal arts, media/film, multimedia, music, online learning, participation, platforms, programming, project-based learning, real-world assignments, remote teaching and learning, society, storytelling, student-related, surviving, United States, universities, user experience (UX), user interface design, using teams, Virtual Reality (VR) / worlds / learning, vision/possibilities, web design and production, web-based collaboration, writing, XR - extended reality, by Daniel Christian

From edsurge.com today:

THOROUGHLY MODERN MEDIA: This spring, a college theater course about women’s voting rights aimed to produce a new play about the suffrage struggle. When the pandemic scuttled those plans, professors devised a new way to share suffragist stories by creating an interactive, online performance set in a virtual Victorian mansion. And their students were not the only ones exploring women’s voting rights as the country marks the 100th anniversary of the Nineteenth Amendment.

…which linked to:

The Pandemic Made Their Women’s Suffrage Play Impossible. But the Show Went on— Virtually — from edsurge.com by Rebecca Koenig

Excerpts:

Then the pandemic hit. Students left Radford and Virginia Tech. Live theater was canceled.

But the class wasn’t.

“Neither of us ever said, ‘Forget it,’” Hood says. “Our students, they all wanted to know, ‘What are we doing?’ We came to them with this insane idea.”

They would create an interactive, online production staged in a virtual Victorian mansion.
…
“Stage performance is different than film or audio. If you just have audio, you only have your voice. Clarity, landing sentences, really paying attention to the structure of a sentence, becomes important,” Nelson says. “Students got a broader sense of the skills and approaches to different mediums—a crash course.”

From DSC:
Talk about opportunities for interdisciplinary learning/projects!!! Playwrights, directors, actors/actresses, set designers, graphic designers, fine artists, web designers and developers, interactivity/interface designers, audio designers, video editors, 3D animators, and more!!!

Creating remote communities of learners; recent resources from “A New Way Forward”

On 08/20/2020, in collaboration, communications, communities of practice, education, project-based learning, remote teaching and learning, student teaching/teacher education, student-related, teachers, teaching & learning, teaching online, by Daniel Christian

Recent resources from A New Way Forward:

10 Things To Do in the First Weeks of School to Connect with Learners in Distance Learning — by Katie Martin
Doing Project-Based Learning at Home by Jon Larmer
(Source: Getting Smart)
The 12 Shifts for Student-Centered Hybrid Environments by Kyle Wagner
(Source: Getting Smart)
How 13 Educators are Strengthening Their Communities by Lindsy Ogawa
(Source: Education Reimagined)
6 Ideas for Creating a Remote Community of Learners by Dr. Katie Martin
(Source: Altitude Learning)

A few creative ways to use student blogs — from cultofpedagogy.com by Jennifer Gonzalez

Excerpt:

Since those early days the blog has really evolved as a genre: People have taken the basic framework of the blog and used it to build all kinds of useful, interesting things online. This evolution has given the blog limitless potential as a form of writing, and that’s just as true for student writers as it is for everyone else. So if you’re looking for a nice, meaty assignment, one that in previous decades might have been a research paper or an oral presentation, consider assigning a blog instead. It’s not only a highly relevant form of writing, but because it’s done entirely online and worked on over time, it would also lend itself beautifully to remote or hybrid learning.

A blog is part of a larger website, and what makes it unique is that it is dynamic. It changes. It’s regularly updated to provide new material.

Top Education Trend of 2018: Active Learning Spaces [Vander Ark]

On 01/04/2019, in accreditation, active learning, collaboration, competency-based learning/education, credentialing, face-to-face, ideas, K-12 related, learning, learning ecosystem, learning hubs & pods & microschooling, learning spaces, microlearning, project-based learning, smart classrooms, tools, trends, United States, by Daniel Christian

Top Education Trend of 2018: Active Learning Spaces — from gettingsmart.com by Tom Vander Ark

Excerpts:

The top learning trend in K-12 learning in 2018 was active learning spaces–from double classrooms in old buildings from California’s Central Valley to the west tip of Texas in El Paso and multiage pods in new spaces from Redwood City to Charlottesville.

The flexible spaces facilitate project-based learning and competency-based progressions. Students move from project teams to skill groups to activity centers building skills and developing agency and self-management.

…

Competency: The Trend to Watch in 2019
A year from now people will be talking about competency frameworks–how learners progress as they demonstrate mastery.

The shift from marking time to measuring learning will be generational in length, but our landscape analysis suggests several interesting signs of progress that will be evident in 2019:

In the most interesting merger of the year, LRNG, the leading youth badging platform, joined forces with SNHU, the leading online university. Look for badges capturing in and out of school learning that stack into college credit.
More schools, like Purdue Polytech, will embrace project-based learning and competency-based progressions with support from XQ, NGLC funds, and NewSchools Venture Fund.
More platform partnerships where districts/networks are working in development cycles with platform providers (e.g. Brooklyn LAB and Cortex, Purdue Polytech and Course Networking, Lindsay USD and Empower).
More artificial intelligence is showing up in learning platforms improving personalization, formative feedback, and student scheduling.
More demand for interoperability will be evident as a result of efforts like Project Unicorn.

It’s going to be a good new year. Find a couch or pull up a bar stool–your choice. Work on a badge or microcredential, it’s likely to be more widely recognized next year.

Also see:

Top Ten Makerspace Favorites of 2018 — from worlds-of-learning.com by Laura Fleming

Brickstuff is the perfect way to light up Lego builds. This starter kit includes everything you need to get started. No electronics or soldering knowledge is necessary to set up these lights and start using them right away. Each flexible 2-LED Light Strip has a self-adhesive backing, which allows easy mounting to almost any surface. The strips are flexible, allowing you to mount them even on curved surfaces. This kit also includes a battery pack, so you can be up and running right away. This kit is ready to use with any microcontroller or robotics project too.

Top Trends in Active and Collaborative Learning [Hammett]

On 11/06/2018, in active learning, attention, blended learning, Bring your own device (BYOD), change, collaboration, colleges, communications, community colleges, digital learning, education technology, engagement / engaging students, generational differences, higher education, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, innovation, instructional design, K-12 related, learning, learning ecosystem, learning hubs & pods & microschooling, learning spaces, library / librarians, maker movement, participation, platforms, project-based learning, second screen apps, smart classrooms, smart/connected TV, social learning / networks, student-related, teachers, teaching & learning, technologies for your home, technology (general), tools, trends, universities, user experience (UX), vendors, web-based collaboration, youth, by Daniel Christian

Top Trends in Active and Collaborative Learning — from thesextantgroup.com by Joe Hammett

Excerpts:

My daughter is a maker. She spends hours tinkering with sewing machines and slime recipes, building salamander habitats and the like. She hangs out with her school friends inside apps that teach math and problem solving through multi-player games. All the while, they are learning to communicate and collaborate in ways that are completely foreign to their grandparent’s generation. She is 10 years old and represents a shift in human cognitive processing brought about by the mastery of technology from a very young age. Her generation and those that come after have never known a time without technology. Personal devices have changed the shared human experience and there is no turning back.

The spaces in which this new human chooses to occupy must cater to their style of existence. They see every display as interactive and are growing up knowing that the entirety of human knowledge is available to them by simply asking Alexa. The 3D printer is a familiar concept and space travel for pleasure will be the norm when they have children of their own.

Current trends in active and collaborative learning are evolving alongside these young minds and when appropriately implemented, enable experiential learning and creative encounters that are changing the very nature of the learning process. Attention to the spaces that will support the educators is also paramount to this success. Lesson plans and teaching style must flip with the classroom. The learning space is just a room without the educator and their content.

…
8. Flexible and Reconfigurable
With floor space at a premium, classrooms need to be able to adapt to a multitude of uses and pedagogies. Flexible furniture will allow the individual instructor freedom to set up the space as needed for their intended activities without impacting the next person to use the room. Construction material choices are key to achieving an easily reconfigurable space. Raised floors and individually controllable lighting fixtures allow a room to go from lecture to group work with ease. Whiteboard paints and rail mounting systems make walls reconfigurable too!.

Active Learning, Flipped Classroom, SCALE-UP, TEAL Classroom, whatever label you choose to place before it, the classroom, learning spaces of all sorts, are changing. The occupants of these spaces demand that they are able to effectively, and comfortably, share ideas and collaborate on projects with their counterparts both in person and in the ether. A global shift is happening in the way humans share ideas. Disruptive technology, on a level not seen since the assembly line, is driving a change in the way humans interact with other humans. The future is collaborative.

What is a learning ecosystem? And how does it support corporate strategy? [Eudy]

On 07/24/2018, in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, active learning, adjunct faculty, blended learning, business, career development, change, colleges, communities of practice, community colleges, competency-based learning/education, content development, aggregation, repositories, corporate / business world, corporate universities / corporate training, Daniel S. Christian, digital learning, distance education, education, education technology, elearning, face-to-face, faculty, flipping -- inverted learning, heutagogy, higher education, homeschooling/homeschoolers, hybrid learning, ideas, instructional design, K-12 related, law schools, learning, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, learning hubs & pods & microschooling, learning spaces, library / librarians, lifelong learning, microlearning, MOOCs -- Massive Open Online Courses, New "Amazon.com" of Higher Education, online learning, personalized/customized learning, platforms, play, professional development, project-based learning, relationships, RSS, simulations, smart classrooms, social learning / networks, social media, staying relevant, streams of content, student-related, surviving, teachers, teaching & learning, technology (general), tools, training / L&D, universities, virtual tutoring, web-based collaboration, workplace, youth, by Daniel Christian

What is a learning ecosystem? And how does it support corporate strategy? — from ej4.com by Ryan Eudy

Excerpt:

A learning ecosystem is a system of people, content, technology, culture, and strategy, existing both within and outside of an organization, all of which has an impact on both the formal and informal learning that goes on in that organization.

The word “ecosystem” is worth paying attention to here. It’s not just there to make the term sound fancy or scientific. A learning ecosystem is the L&D equivalent of an ecosystem out in the wild. Just as a living ecosystem has many interacting species, environments, and the complex relationships among them, a learning ecosystem has many people and pieces of content, in different roles and learning contexts, and complex relationships.

Just like a living ecosystem, a learning ecosystem can be healthy or sick, nurtured or threatened, self-sustaining or endangered. Achieving your development goals, then, requires an organization to be aware of its own ecosystem, including its parts and the internal and external forces that shape them.

From DSC:
Yes, to me, the concept/idea of a learning ecosystem IS important. Very important. So much so, I named this blog after it.

Each of us as individuals have a learning ecosystem, whether we officially recognize it or not. So do the organizations that we work for. And, like an ecosystem out in nature, a learning ecosystem is constantly morphing, constantly changing.

We each have people in our lives that help us learn and grow, and the people that were in our learning ecosystems 10 years ago may or may not still be in our current learning ecosystems. Many of us use technologies and tools to help us learn and grow. Then there are the spaces where we learn — both physical and virtual spaces. Then there are the processes and procedures we follow, formally and/or informally. Any content that helps us learn and grow is a part of that ecosystem. Where we get that content can change, but obtaining up-to-date content is a part of our learning ecosystems. I really appreciate streams of content in this regard — and tapping into blogs/websites, especially via RSS feeds and Feedly (an RSS aggregator that took off when Google Reader left the scene).

The article brings up a good point when it states that a learning ecosystem can be “healthy or sick, nurtured or threatened, self-sustaining or endangered.” That’s why I urge folks to be intentional about maintaining and, better yet, consistently enhancing their learning ecosystems. In this day and age where lifelong learning is now a requirement to remain in the workforce, each of us needs to be intentional in this regard.

Learning Ecosystems

Reflections on “Today’s Tech Jobs: Skills More Important Than Knowledge” [Yangame]

DC: The Jigsaw method would be required here I think. #legaltech #legaloperations #vendors

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