Sebastian Weber - Bookmarks

A new challenge for e-learning is to create collaborative learning spaces in which informal learning can thrive.
As organizations rapidly move their training focus to virtual environments, a proliferation of methods to support formal learning has appeared: teleconferencing, videoconferencing, e-meetings, and online courses
On a parallel track, however, there's a growing recognition that valuable learning often takes place through informal learning. Informal learning is based in conversations, social interactions, and team projects, in which learning is part of the interactions between people.
Informal learning isn't limited to a predefined body of knowledge, but rather emerges from the interaction of people. At the heart of it is the transfer of tacit knowledge--knowledge that's not articulated but is acquired by individuals through experience.
Informal learning
is based in conversations, social interactions, and team projects, in which learning is part and parcel of the interactions between people.
Through forming relationships, knowledge is diffused. He alludes to the image of the village square, where people hang out in a social space. That social space is the setting in which social relations are reinforced, trust is developed, and informal learning takes place. In sum, informal learning is that which allows the tacit knowledge resident in a group to emerge and be exchanged, sometimes by serendipity, sometimes in the course of accomplishing a specific project, through the construction of spaces that support learning.
Temporary learning systems: groups of people brought together for a short period of time to learn about a specific topic
Communities of practice: groups of people that share "ways of working" or professional or personal interests and who meet together to exchange knowledge and share resources

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At the Water Cooler of Learning by David Grebow :: Ageless Learner

Tags: informallearning, mupple08, learning, benefits on 2008-06-01 and saved by2 people -All Annotations (0) -About

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Learning makes brains physically bigger.
Learning also makes them smarter. Smarter translates into faster, newer,
better, and more competitive. And the competitive advantage of smarter
in a Darwinian business ecosystem eventually leads to more profits.
If
people in your company learn what your company needs to know and do, you
can get smarter. You can have a higher corporate IQ than some other
company, and you can win. The only problem is that we have very little
idea how real learning occurs. We spend billions of dollars on formal
training and education, and then we wonder, where is the payoff?
Real learning, the kind of “aha!” moment that signals the brain has
connected the dots, is an absolutely wondrous and amazing mystery. It
involves memory, synapses, endorphins, and encoding, and, more often
than not, those accidental and serendipitous moments we call informal
learning.
Informal learning is what goes on around our formal learning
process.
Formal
learning happens when knowledge is captured and shared by people other
than the original expert or owner of that knowledge. The knowledge can
be captured in any format—written, video, audio—as long as it can be
accessed anytime and anywhere, independent from the person who
originally had it. Examples of such formal knowledge transfer include
live virtual-classroom courses with prepared slides, self-paced
off-the-shelf instructional CBT courses, books, video- and audiotapes,
team rooms in which documents are stored, digital libraries and
repositories, a real-time seminar on the Web (or webinar), electronic
performance-support tools, programs accessed during a job or task,
instructor- led courses that follow an outline, repeatable lecture labs,
a recorded Web-based meeting, or even e-mails that can be forwarded.
Formal learning often requires prerequisites, pre- and post-assessments,
tests, and grades, and it sometimes results in certification. It is
often presented by an instructor, and attendance and outcomes are
tracked.
Informal learning is what happens when knowledge has not been
externalized or captured and exists only inside someone’s head. To get
at the knowledge, you must locate and talk to that person. Examples of
such informal knowledge transfer include instant messaging, a
spontaneous meeting on the Internet, a phone call to someone who has
information you need, a live one-time-only sales meeting introducing a
new product, a chat-room in real time, a chance meeting by the water
cooler, a scheduled Web-based meeting with a real-time agenda, a tech
walking you through a repair process, or a meeting with your assigned
mentor or manager.
We all
need that kind of access to an expert who can answer our questions and
with whom we can play with the learning, practice, make mistakes, and
practice some more.
In the early days of the personal computer,
we would all go to the same course to “learn” how to use an application
or operating system, and then we would go back to our desks, usually
with a thick how-to manual. The problem was that we never used those
manuals. Instead, we found the local “power user,” the person who for
one reason or another had spent more time playing with the computer, or
had taken more courses, or had learned directly from an expert, and we
began to pepper that person with phone calls and show up frequently at
his or her doorway or cube entrance. Two things quickly became apparent.
First, the power user was teaching what people had not managed to learn
in the class, and second, the power user had learned how to use the PC
in a very different way: what he or she showed you was often not the way
it had been taught. But it was the time I spent huddled in front of the
power user’s screen when I really learned the word processing and
spreadsheet and graphics programs I needed in my work. My learning may
have started in the course, but it ended in the huddle.
To illustrate the difference between formal and informal learning, let’s
consider the game of golf. If you want to learn to play golf, you can go
to a seminar, read a book about the history and etiquette of golf, watch
a videotape of great golfing moments, and then you can say you know
something about golf. But have you really learned to play golf?
From your first tee shot on your first hole, it takes hours of adopting
and adapting, alone and in a foursome, in all sorts of weather and
conditions. You discover what you know and can do, swing all the clubs,
ask all sorts of questions, fail and succeed, practice and practice some
more, before you have really learned to play golf. Real learning, then,
is the state of being able to adopt and adapt what you know and can
do—what you have acquired through formal learning—under a varying set of
informal circumstances.
I call this the 75/25 Rule of Learning. We get only about 25 percent or
less of what we use in our jobs through formal learning. Yet the
majority of companies are currently involved only with the formal side
of the continuum. Most of today’s investments in corporate education are
on the formal side. The net result is that we spend the most money on
the smallest part of the learning equation.
The other 75 percent of learning happens as we creatively adopt and
adapt to ever changing circumstances.
We need to factor those
accidental, informal intersections of learning and performance into the
process.
We need to
foster informal moments of knowledge transfer.
If we want to become smarter
companies, we need to encourage informal learning. We need to create
what I have been calling collaborative learning environments, where we
seamlessly knit together formal and informal learning. We need to use
technology to facilitate the informal as well as the formal transfer of
knowledge by including expert locators, e-mail connections with
instructors, real-time Internet meeting places, virtual-learning support
groups, instant messaging, expert networks, mentor and coaching
networks, personal e-learning portals, moderated chats, and more. We
need to start taking advantage of the tools and technology that exist
today and those coming online tomorrow. We need to create the 100
percent learning solution, in which the proscribed formal learning
events and the serendipitous learning moments are given equal value.

Formal learning is only the beginning of the challenge, not the end.

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The Power of Informal Learning

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Although more formal forms of instruction such as the classroom and e-learning will be around for years, it’s becoming more and more important to watch and harness the more informal methodologies that our students are utilizing. Most of these methods have been around for years, but have gone unnoticed by the training community.
Informal methods of learning are often found right in the work environment. They are seen as techniques that a learner can take advantage of right away and with work-related resources. Another reason these methods are so popular is because they are often very short. Advanced learners tell us that they don’t have the time or budget to attend more formal learning. Even the immediacy of e-learning is seen as something that will take too much valuable time. Finally, learners have matured to a point where they want to drive their learning in a more meaningful and self-directed manner. These informal methods are seen as more student-driven and job-relevant than most formal options.
Two of the most common informal environments used today are e-communities and, of all things, the learners’ neighbors sitting all around them. E-communities, often called communities of practice, are made up of threaded message boards, frequently asked question (FAQ) Web sites and chat environments. They have existed under the radar screen of most training programs for years. Many have grown to have huge followings of subject-matter experts (SMEs) and super-users.
The easiest way to control and encourage these communities is to sponsor them within the corporation itself. “Brown-bag” lunches and meet-the-expert days are some examples of ways organizations are formally tapping into what used to be an ineffective and costly method of learning.

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http://www.clomedia.com/content/templates/clo_col_effectiveness.asp?articleid=277&zoneid=104

Tags: jay, cross, mupple08, informallearning, learning, organization, work on 2008-06-01 and saved by2 people -All Annotations (0) -About

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Workers who know more get more accomplished. People who are well connected make greater contributions. The workers who create the most value are those who know the right people, the right stuff and the right things to do.
At work we learn more in the break room than in the classroom.
observing others, asking the person in the next cubicle, calling the help desk, trial and error and simply working with people in the know.
Informal learning is effective because it is personal. The individual calls the shots. The learner is responsible. It’s real. How different from formal learning, which is imposed by someone else. Workers are pulled to informal learning; formal learning is pushed at them.
Many learners today are not self-directed—they are waiting for directions. It’s time to tell them that the rules have changed. It’s in their self-interest to become proactive learning opportunists.
- Ineffective negative reinforcement.
- Unmotivated learners.
- Learner disengagement, unrewarded curiosity, spurned creativity.
- Training instead of learning.
- Focus on fixing the individual rather than optimizing the team.
- Provide time for informal learning on the job.
- Create useful, peer-rated FAQs and knowledge bases.
- Provide places for workers to congregate and learn.
- Supplement self-directed learning with mentors and experts.
- Set up help desks 24x7 for informal inquiries.
- Build networks, blogs, Wikis and knowledge bases to facilitate discovery.
- Use smart tech to make it easier to collaborate and network.
- Encourage cross-functional gatherings.

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Informal Learning :: Ageless Learner

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Often, the most valuable learning takes place
serendipitously, by random chance.
To truly understand the learning in your organization you might want to
recognize the informal learning already taking place and put in practices to cultivate and capture more of what people learn. This
includes strategies for improving learning opportunities for everyone
and tactics for managing and sharing what you know.
Most learning doesn't occur during formal training programs. It happens
through processes not structured or sponsored by an employer or a
school. Informal learning is the term I use to describe what happens
the rest of the time.
Formal learning includes the hierarchically structured school system
that runs from primary school through the university and organized
school-like programs created in business for technical and
professional training.

Informal learning describes a lifelong process whereby individuals
acquire attitudes, values, skills and knowledge from daily experience
and the educative influences and resources in his or her environment,
from family and neighbors, from work and play, from the market place,
the library and the mass media.

Intentional learning is the process whereby an individual aims to
learn something and goes about achieving that objective.

Accidental learning happens when in everyday activities an individual
learns something that he or she had not intended or expected.
reading journals or magazines, reading
book(s), talking with experts, talking with peers, email or other
written correspondence, and through a coach or mentor.
"Still think learning means school? Expand your
definition of learning to include conversations with your peers and your
children, from books, articles, informal networks, Internet searching,
television, and what you learn through trial and error. Use everything
that happens in your world as a resource to learn more now." Learn More
Now, Informally. Marcia L. Conner, May 2005.

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Lösungs- und Gestaltungsansätze für Informal Learning

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How to Create Knowledge via Formal and Informal Learning?

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Erfahrungslernen

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Definitions Informal Learning

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Was ist informelles Lernen?

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What is Informal Learning? — Informal Learning Blog

Tags: informallearning, learning, education on 2008-05-31 and saved by3 people -All Annotations (0) -About

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People acquire the skills they use at work informally — talking, observing others, trial-and-error, and simply working with people in the know.
Informal learning is the unofficial, unscheduled, impromptu way most people learn to do their jobs. Informal learning is like riding a bicycle: the rider chooses the destination and the route.
Formal learning is like riding a bus: the driver decides where the bus is going;
Mature learners, typically a company’s top performers, never show up for the bus. They want pointers that enable them to do things for themselves.
Many a knowledge worker will tell you, “I love to learn but I hate to be trained.”
Knowledge workers thrive when given the freedom to decide how they will do what they’re asked to do.
Images+words communicate twice as much as words alone. Pictures translate across cultures, education levels, and age groups.
This informal, spontaneous, vernacular knowledge sharing is not just for surfers. Imagine having an in-house learning and information environment as rich as the internet. You’d have blogs and search and syndication and podcasts and more. You’d also have a platform just about everyone knows how to use. Some companies are already doing this
As work and learning become one, good learning and good work merge to become a single activity.
Formal learning takes place in classrooms; informal learning happens in learnscapes.