Readings - Seely Brown

Readings Week 1 - Seely Brown 

Nearly 10 years have past since the first article was presented at a conference. What has changed?

They key changes are the everyday reliance and the infiltration of the Internet into people’s lives whether they know it or not (the Internet crash video on Ning is a good parody of our codependency). For example I am sitting in a unit in Sydney where three computers are all online. My husband is talking on Skype to a client in Japan, his flatmate is doing some Net Banking, whilst my 8 year old step son is on his favourite gaming site. Not sure if this is your typical household?

Other changes include Web 2.0 , the growth of user generated content, online social network and virtual worlds.

The digital kids may still not have the technologies in school in Australia to the degree that Seely Brown was envisioning. My six and eight year old stepchildren have limited access to computers at school and their education is conducted in the traditional fashion. It is only after hours that their appetite for online learning is stimulated.

How do you see the issues raised by Seely Brown et al. being adopted?
What might be some of the challenges?

After reading the article it seems a logical step to integrate work and online learning and extend formal education through online social learning. The major challenge in the university context would be the divide between students and teacher uptake of new technologies. An aging workforce at senior academic level may still be challenged and not see the relevance of online social media. In the workplace a similar scenario exists with senior manages who either make decisions on the training budget or need education themselves still cannot use basic software applications.

Cost is also an interesting determinate – a recent promotion through one of my industry associations promoted three online learning modules for fifty dollars each or all three for ninety-nine dollars (topics included time management performance management and recruiting). They were promoted as snapshot modules, which could be done at work at your own pace. I was intrigued, as it sounded cheap but cheap can also infer lesser quality.

How do these relate to your own context of learning in your workplace?

The Xerox case study was of interest particularly the notion of social learning and teammates learning from each other as oppose to studying manuals and attending formalised training sessions. Observations in my workplace include managing staff across four remote work locations where they have little formal training in IT but are expected to learn and trouble shoot a retail IT application MYOB Retail Manager. If ever they encounter a problem they work it out amongst themselves – phoning or emailing each other for the solution. It is very similar to what was encountered in the Xerox situation. We have recently introduced an extranet to our workplace, which would be the ideal location to log the dialogue and solutions to the problems they encounter.

Ramblings |