Emergent Learning Forum

On Tuesday, January 27th, eLearning Forum became the Emergent Learning Forum.

Is the eLearning Forum abandoning eLearning? Heavens, no. eLearning needs a broader stage. We are trying to push eLearning out of its silo so it can conect with the outside world. We are intent on positioning Emergent Learning as a core business process.

When our group started meeting back in 1999, eLearning was an infant. Then, as now, our enthusiasts, volunteers all, saw themselves as pioneers, not homesteaders. We've always thought of "ourselves as innovators and provocateurs."

Baby has grown up. eLearning has reached adolescence. We elders have to let it get out of the house to make its own friends. The action is moving from eLearning itself to how eLearning relates with others. The excitement is in what comes next. It's evolving now. It's emergent. More on this theme at Emergent Learning Forum.

A personal catalyst for the change was recognizing that so many things that have my attention don't naturally come under the traditional definition of eLearning:

Meta-Learning Social network analysis Expert location Real-time learning Rapid production JIT knowledge management Learning as business process Bottom-up processes Content management Engaging storytelling

Contextual collaboration Web services Open source Self-organization Informal learning RSS, search learning Smart software Semantic web Hyper-organizations Workflow integration

Appreciative inquiry Mass personalization Visual learning Meeting process Avatars & agents Multidisciplinary approaches Organizational readiness Business inangibles metrics Process mapping

If these techniques and technologies help people lead more productive and happy lives, and relate to learning, I don't intend to exclude them from discussion because they don't comfortably fit under the common definitions of eLearning.

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This morning I called up the PowerPoint slides I used when announcing the Emergent Learning Forum earlier this week in Mountain View. Using Macromedia Breeze, I narrated the presentation, clicked to upload it to the web, and started to the kitchen for another cup of coffee.

The cord from my headset had caught in my belt. I realized this when my little Sony laptop came crashing down on the floor from it's 4' perch on my drafting table. "Oh, no!" I picked up the computer and various doodads attached to it and gently opened the cover. Low and behold, it's still uploading. I don't want to try this ever again, but it's comforting to know that you can bounce a Sony VAIO off the floor without obliterating it.

Posted by Jay Cross at January 31, 2004 11:44 PM | TrackBack