The boundaries are different with learning 2.0

One of the key issues currently being debated by information professionals is the validity of Web 2.0, writes Peter Williams.

Gurus are suggesting that the new use-driven web environment is spawning a new form of learning, learning 2.0. Learning 2.0 is the antithesis of learning which those of us who pre-date the Google generation would know as formal learning. Indeed learning 2.0 even seems to throw away the rule book that learning over the internet (e-learning) or the mixture of internet-based learning and traditional face-to-face learning (blended learning) were prepared to obey.

Learning 2.0 seems to be approaching anarchy, it is open, distributed, networked complex and fuzzy. Speaking at the recent Learning Technologies 2008 conference, Stephen Downes – one of the leading proponents of Learning 2.0– shared his thinking on what learning 2.0 is and what it might be. Those of you who tut tut at the old fashioned idea of  a leading guru on Web 2.0 giving a one-to-many presentation will be pleased to know that he did not deign to hit the delights of Olympia in West London, instead staying in his homeland of Canada and joining the audience virtually. Downes argues that learning is moving from a centrally controlled provision to a barely controlled group activity. In many spheres the internet is seen to be switching our behaviours from ‘push’ to ‘pull’ and this in one place where it is actually happening.

Individuals are using Web 2.0 technologies to interact and learn with whatever is available whether it is designed as learning content or not (and many times it will be not).

The question for information professionals working across all types of sectors and organisations is what will the impact be on them and their work is learning 2.0 in all its proliferations does turn out to be something more than marketing hype. One cast-iron reason why it may stay the course is the simple reason that people (and especially younger learners) appear to enjoy the freedom, interconnection, and interactivity that is on offer. A few years ago one of the ways that the internet was fostering learning (especially informal learning and knowledge sharing) was through communities of practice (CoPs). These CoPs are individuals which technology could connect and bring together so that they could share knowledge and improve both individual and organisational performance through sharing of experience in an unstructured way. Just by belonging to the community your experience, knowledge and expertise was assumed and accepted. Learning 2.0 can be seen as the young cousin of CoPs. Learning 2.0 is social network transformed for a learning purpose.

Part of the attraction of learning 2.0 is the barriers that it breaks down. We are usually defined as learners by the class we are in, or the educational institution or corporate learning activity to which we belong. Forget those sorts of boundaries with learning 2.0: the group is infinite, self-selecting, open and self-defining. The breaking down of these boundaries – a deconstruction which in learning terms some see as significant as the tearing down of the Berlin Wall – does raise some serious questions. For information professionals the question has to be what does this do to the use of the library resource and the scholarly approach in the process of learning?

Downes says we should think of learning as something that flows rather than static, with the use of tools such as Twitter and Facebook learning is partly about being immersed in a community. Crucially he says that learning 2.0 is not based on objects and contents – the sort of elements we may expect to find stored in a library and which therefore may not be immediately accessible. Instead learning 2.0 is learning where you need it and when you need it. This is more than just in time it is just in time PLUS what you want. It is learned-centred because it is both owned by, and of interest to, the learner. As learners we are moving away from being passive consumers to creating learning as we learn. Who could argue against such an appealing vision of learning? Learning 2.0 may have some of the answers to learning in the digital age but it does not yet offer the complete answer.