Learning is a Lifelong Process

The pandemic highlighted just how flexible learning and training can be with many schools and universities moving seamlessly to online learning. However, formal education usually covers the early chapters of a person’s journey – education is a lifelong endeavour.

People should never stop learning. I once heard someone say, ‘you’re only as old as your ability to process new information’. This is very true, especially when you consider the differences between childhood education and adult learning.

I’ve seen how excited my kids get before school. However, if they’re anything like their old man, that sense of wonder and enthusiasm will probably wane during adolescence as the novelty of school and education begins to interfere with their other ambitions.

Sure, they may get a second wind when they reach university – I know I did. However, education doesn’t need to be restricted to lecture halls and costly textbooks that result in crippling student debt.

A Childlike Wonder for Learning

At Go1, our purpose (and passion) is to rekindle people’s love for learning, reigniting their childlike insatiability for new knowledge and experiences.

How do we do that? By making learning simple, accessible, convenient, and comprehensive. Our platform consolidates all the types, topics, and formats of learning material available, making it easy to access and use in an intuitive way.

We also help people scale down the size of online learning available, ensuring users have access to quality content that’s relevant, engaging, and aligned with their unique needs.

This is important because everyone learns and retains information differently. However, one important thing that businesses need to recognise is that all learning has value – not always from an organisational perspective, but certainly for the individual.

That’s why digital learning works so well; it offers variety and autonomy that traditional learning had previously lacked. Learners are more engaged when they can set their own learning path, determining how to tackle content in a way that suits them, rather than being told how and when to attend classes.

Digital learning encourages more accountability, giving learners ownership of their learning content, consumption method, and the pace of their learning experience.

I can’t help but get excited by this shift in how learners connect with educators. The way our industry is changing is for the benefit of everyone – from individual learners and content creators to small businesses and enterprises looking to upskill their talent.

However, while it’s easy to get swept up in the hype of new technologies and digital solutions, the focus should always be on people rather than processes.

It may seem ironic when we live in an age of technological saturation, but while digital technology gets more pervasive and immersive, it should serve as an enabler for human skills, abilities, and connections. It’s about humanising the learning journey and the technology behind it.

Digitally Enabled Choice and Convenience

Whenever I’m discussing Go1 with new people, I often refer to our business as the ‘Spotify of learning’. Much like the music-streaming platform, we aggregate the best of what’s available to provide a more concise and customisable experience for users.

Also, much like Netflix or Spotify, we use AI to offer user recommendations based on users’ preferences and needs. This not only helps learners get more value from the content but also ensures they always have access to new courses that are aligned with their goals.

Imagine you’ve completed a collection of learning courses on our platform. You can then share this ‘playlist’ of content with people on a similar learning journey, which helps them find their own style while offering recommendations that support their interests or career path.

Sure, every learner has their own unique needs, preferences, and goals – but giving them recommendations is a good way to discover what works for them.

This method is also valuable for helping us engage with content creators in meaningful ways. Equipped with data about user habits and consumption rates, we can help our content partners refine their offering, helping them understand how their content is being received by different types of learners.

A variety of formats is especially important in this digital space. Not everyone learns effectively through lectures and textbooks. I can empathise with this, especially as someone who always vows to read more, but usually opt for the audiobook instead.

Whether it’s by reading, watching videos or in-person presentations, or even through kinaesthetic learning – everyone has their own preference. There’s no incorrect way to gain new information since every mistake is an opportunity to learn, grow, and innovate.

The Freedom and Flexibility to Fail

As Thomas Edison once said, “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that will not work.” Irrespective of whether you see him as a genius or a thief, Edison’s logic is undeniable. Much like the problem-solving method of Ariadne’s thread, there can be value in exhausting every possibility on the path to the right answer.

Fear of failure can be more damaging than failure itself. If viewed with the right mindset, even the most damaging failures can be teachable moments. There is no shame in trying again since it’s not about starting over repeatedly but beginning each time with a little more experience and understanding.

To truly humanise the learning experience, we need to understand that getting things wrong is more about the attempt than the results. It’s about learning what works, what doesn’t, and how to do better next time.

Education is a dynamic, ongoing, and expansive experience, which has traditionally been restricted to very rigid methods and settings. Just as digitalisation has changed the way we work and communicate; it has also changed the ways we discover and engage with learning content.

At Go1, we believe in giving people the same choice and flexibility they expect from other digital services. We provide them with the resources, support, and freedom to only select content that’s interesting or relevant to them – learning at their own pace and in their own way.

After all, learning is a lifelong process; we’re just here to make it more simple, measurable, convenient, and rewarding.