Last week at the Trainers & Developers Network , I led a series of activities and discussions about Web 2.0 and its impact on learning. A fascinating day. What did we conclude that you could expect to see over the next few years?
1. The trend away from centralised information to collective information will have a significant impact on business leaders, L&D departments and learners.
2. With the vast range of learning resources and communities available, learners will have far more consumer choice. To make best use of their time they will need to become more skilled at metalearning i.e. being more aware of how they learn best and choosing the appopriate learning approach.
3. L&D’s role will be more to facilitate the process of self-managed learning rather than being the monopolistic provider of training courses.
4. As learners will also be the same people who are publishing expertise back to the web, an understanding of how to help others learn is important – “good citizenship” in a learning community.
5. The prevailing culture of web 2.0 is to share knowledge and remove hierarchy. Companies and their leaders will feel the need to focus on defending their borders through more draconian security, IP protection and active reinforcement of the company culture. The most rigid organisations will snap (metaphorically), whereas the most successful organisations will flex.
Embracing the best of the technology will need learners to demonstrate significant learning maturity. Are the people at professional services firms best placed to exploit this?
