E-Mosaics: agile learning for the workplace

The following post was first published on the Brightwave website.

Brightwave’s recently published green paper, E-Mosaics: agile learning for the workplace, provides a fresh take on blended learning and emphasises the importance of high-impact communications, bite-sized e-learning, social media and user-generated content.

We ran a seminar on E-mosaics at the Learning Technologies conference in January which generated lots of great questions and discussion. One of our audience members asked: ‘Why do you think so many people are self-directed learners at home but not at work?’ This question really hit the nail on the head. Most of us are active learners at home, whether it’s doing quick research on Google/Wikipedia or going to YouTube for ‘how to’ videos on DIY, cooking, sports, video games, playing a musical instrument – or whatever your hobby or interest might be. But something changes when people return to work.

Obviously motivation and incentives are a factor (and cumbersome Learning Management Systems can be a barrier!) but I think the culture of many organisations, sometimes unwittingly, discourages people from taking learning into their own hands. The traditional command and control structure of the corporate world results in many people equating ‘learning’ exclusively with ‘training’ i.e. something that is done to them, rather than something they can do for themselves. Hopefully the E-Mosaics concept and the work that Clive Shepherd, Jane Hart and others are doing will help organisations improve how they support work-based learning and development.

E-Mosaics green paper: E-Mosaics: agile learning for the workplace

E-Mosaics seminar slides: E-mosaics: agile learning for the workplace in 2012