Towards Maturity recently published the preliminary findings from their 2010 benchmark, to which 400 UK organisations contributed. Overall the message is of solid progress in the use of learning technologies for workplace learning in the face of major economic obstacles. Although the full report is not due until November, a couple of points stood out for me from a first reading of the headlines:
The use of social media for learning: Of the various components to e-learning, "over the next two years, social media is expected to show the biggest growth." It is also claimed that, "50% of organisations allow access to social media in the workplace but only 11% of organisations are proactively harnessing them for learning". I would position this rather differently by claiming that "as many as 11% of organisations are proactively harnessing them for learning." This is a small percentage but a very significant one from my perspective, because that's 44 organisations who claim to have found a way of using social media for learning. Let's find out what they're doing please.
A requirement for external contractors to be innovators in learning technology: "In terms of working with external providers for skills programmes, over 80% of organisations say that innovative use of learning technology will be a deciding factor in their selection of an external learning provider in the future." Wow! When you consider that the commercial marketplace for training is highly fragmented, with thousands of small providers, that means that an awful lot of training providers are going to have to play catch up and quickly. If you leave aside the pure e-learning providers, the majority of the players in the market have got to watch out in case they become completely marginalised. Do they realise it? Of course not, because heads are very firmly buried in very deep sand.
There will no doubt be much more fun to be had with these results when the full report is published.
"Up to 11% of organisations are harnessing social media for learning". I wonder what % of people in organisations are learning via social media. I'd guess a lot more.
ReplyDeleteThere's an inference in the report that organisations need to harness social media and I'm sure that's true. However individuals are already using social media to learn, way beyond their organisation's boundaries. An example of such is me reading your blog!
The transfer of knowledge has always been a social activity. Many years ago, workers learned skills through apprenticeship. Workers in the same location, in the same area of practice would share knowledge, and thereby, strengthen the skills of the group. Today, workers can learn as they work, by connecting with someone with the answers, who may live anywhere in the world.
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