Learning communities

Stephen Downes comments on the same article about learning communities

…The article correctly identifies the need for online learning communities as a means of capturing the informal or tacit knowledge that circulates within an organization or group. But then, like most accounts of online learning communities, it describes a fairly structured or formal approach to their creation, so much so that the resulting product would resemble a classroom much more than a community…

…I think there are two major things to remember, things that dictate a very different approach than is recommended here. First, informal learning is informal, so don’t try to structure it with roles and behaviours. Second, informal learning is not separate, but rather, integrated into day-to-day activities. The learning is a part of and a natural outgrowth of other activities. Putting it into a nice formalized box somewhere separate from everything else simply ruins it…

Something to add to my question about “can we support informal learning”. Supporting often means formallising…

Archived version of this entry is available at http://blog.mathemagenic.com/2002/08/24.html#a162; comments are here.

• Knowledge is a noun, learning is a verb
• I’m not alone :)
• Virtual Communities as Learning Networks

Tagged as: KM & learning