#WorkingOutLoud on Learning Science - Learning Ecosystems
This week we are working on a section of the?Learning Science Guidebook?that deals with ‘Learning Ecosystems’. I say ‘we’: so far it’s mainly Sae Schatz and Geoff Stead who have actually worked on it. I’m coming to it late and starting with an illustration.
The term ‘learning ecosystem’ is quite in vogue these days, but we will be exploring what Learning Science can tell us about what it actually is, and what it gives us. We will publish a draft next week), but in our notes we are considering what a Learning Ecosystem actually is, how can we structurally define it, which parts fall under our control, and what this understanding will give us in terms of the design and delivery of more effective learning.?
Sae wrote this as her definition,
领英推荐
“a learning ecosystem is a diverse assembly of learning experiences – varying across time, subject, platform, institution, and scale – that are intentionally tied together to improve learning outcomes”
And Geoff added this, “Traditional learning platforms (LMS, VLE etc) only represent a small subset of these experiences. Which makes them poor guardians of the wider ecosystem of learning experiences. Instead, a future facing system would need to be able to support, and understand the many myriad of future learning experiences and activities that learners may need to include in their path, and build ever deeper insights on their impact and effectiveness.”
I have not committed to a definition yet (and remember, this work, which will culminate in the publication of the Learning Science Guidebook is not about us finding one voice, but sharing our differences and discussions, emerging understanding and challenges as well), but i would tend towards the following:
The learning ecosystem is the?landscape?in which we individually and collectively learn. It has both hard and soft elements, which may include technologies, Organisations, and formal assets, as well as folklore, tribal structures, and aspects of?belief. It’s not a landscape we hover over, but rather one that we walk through, changing it as we go.
More on this next week.
Leadership | Culture | Learning
2 年Intriguing topic Julian , as you say alot written that I find quite “technical” to date , looking forward to your social lens
Learning Executive, CLO; 20 years enabling companies, teams and individuals attain their maximum potential | Google, Novartis, Microsoft, Accenture, Oracle | Harvard Learning Fellow | Start-Up Advisor, AI Author, Dad
2 年Love this Julian and team. From a learning and tech perspective I often think about my elementary school science classes talking about food chains and food webs. Food Chains showing colorful drawings of plants (producer) being eaten by grasshoppers (primary consumer), eaten by frogs (secondary consumer), then snakes (tertiary) and hawks etc. Food Webs being less linear and more of a varied set of interdependent systems of producers (plants, plankton and oxygen...) and intermingled primary and secondary etc. consumers. This Producer and Consumer relationship is fairly similar when constructing learning ecosystems I think: content or expertise asset produced, value calories consumed. Tech allows the interdependence to be accelerated, and more intelligent approaches (AI, web3...) to redefine learning value and learning calorie accuracy. Pushing it. I know. What's beautiful is the accuracy and relevance of the Value of a learning asset or chunk of expertise (chains and web, structured supply/demand and unstructured learning communities) is now capable of serving more diverse people, diverse economies, and diverse needs. Keep pushing and growing our ecosystem team Sea Salt! https://images.app.goo.gl/eqPTigy4B6qo7UjV7