Now that banks are being nationalized in countries formerly known as capitalist nations, it seems appropriate to introduce a variation on the Communist Manifesto:
A spectre is haunting universities and companies: informal learning networks transform organizations, subvert hierarchy and work hand in hand with disruptive technologies.
This is my much less eloquent version of the original text of the Manifesto: “A spectre is haunting Europe – the spectre of Communism. All the Powers of old Europe have entered into a holy alliance to exorcise this spectre: Pope and Czar, Metternich and Guizot, French Radicals and German police-spies.”
So, what are those spectre-like networks, and is there an (un)holy alliance trying to exorcise the spectre?
We will be able to meet some fine representatives of the spectre in London, during the Virtual Worlds London Conference (20-21 October).
Keynotes will be delivered by Mark Kingdon (CEO Linden Lab), John Hengeveld (Senior Business Strategist Intel Corp), Victoria Coleman (vice-president Samsung Electronics), Jeffrey Pope
(Exec. VP ngi US Group Ventures/3Di), Sibley Verbeck (CEO The Electric Sheep Company), Bruce Damer (Executive Director Contact Consortium – Virtual Worlds Roadmap SIG), Niniane Wang
(Lively Engineering Lead Google, Inc.).
I will be focusing on the spectral part of the gathering: the Future of E-Learning (Monday), a panel I have the honor to moderate. What will we talk about? For instance, its already evident that the intersection of Virtual Social Worlds and User-Generated Media is transforming E-learning. The panel will discuss the path for integrating Web 2.0 and Web 3D media to fundamentally transform enterprise collaboration, informal learning, and knowledge democratization, which drives organic growth within the enterprise.
“Webvolution” is breaking down the organizational and informational silos and structured training is giving way to more nimble organizations, so experts in the field want us to believe. Webvolution describes how the web is evolving from Web 1.0, which was about the democratization of access, to web 2.0 which is about the democratization of participation, to web 3D which is about collaborative co-creation to drive new economic value.
Panel members are
- Rob Edmonds, senior consultant, eLearning and virtual worlds,
SRI Consulting Business Intelligence
- Dick Davies, Executive Producer, Ambient Performance
- Hanno Tietgens, TUEV NORD 3D Consultant, Buero X
Media Lab
While I prepare the London panel conversation, I will publish some more articles about e-learning in the next few days. I also hope to use some insights from the Connectivism course in preparing the event.
Why am I that interested in e-learning, being a financial journalist and not a professional educator? Well, first of all, I think the whole point is that learning is no longer limited to schools and universities, where young people get a formal education.
Learning is essential to survive on the labor market or as a company. It never stops. Of course, people say this for ages now, but this time we actually have the means to continue learning: not only free online documents and videos, but also electronic networks and platforms which help to link up with others in order to discuss what we learn.
We not only read and watch, but we write and produce. We do this together with others. Professional educators tell me that they learn most by reading and producing blogs and vlogs and by participating in the blogosphere communities.
There are striking similarities with my own profession, journalism. Journalists are trained to be ex cathedra people: telling a passive audience what they think is relevant. They are bewildered by the new media, where they are confronted with forums, blogs, wikis, smart and not-so-smart mobs etc. They are in a similar situation as the old school professors, who are not used to project-based education for instance. Well, maybe media are also a form of education and learning, which should adapt to the new paradigm of knowledge production.
Roland Legrand