How to incorporate digital when designing learning

How to incorporate digital when designing learning

Where do you learn? Have you ever really thought about it? I learn everywhere. I learn on the bus to work, in the car, when I go for a walk, when I listen to podcasts, when I talk to other people, when I watch a video on YouTube or when I chat to someone on WhatsApp. So why is it when most people design learning their "blends" are generally face to face learning with some preparatory e-learning before the course, maybe even a conference call or two thrown in for good measure?

10 years ago, people would talk about blended learning as being a face to face course with some e-learning tacked on to it. The digital world has advanced and evolved so much in the last 10 years, so why are we so desperately stuck in the past?

In some cases it can be put down to a lack of understanding, or worse still tradition. But one of the primary functions of L&D is to inspire people to go out and try new things, experience new ideas and evolve themselves and their practices. How can we encourage this mode of thinking whilst simultaneously producing learning which is stuck in the digital dark ages? Which lacks innovation and experimentation?

Firstly we need to reexamine our values and beliefs surrounding learning.

1. Learning isn't something which can be scheduled to occur at one fixed point in time in one classroom location. Learning can, and defintely does, happen anywhere and everywhere. So we need to design to allow learning to take place anywhere and everywhere.

2. Learning is not an individual pursuit. People learn best collaboratively through great unbounded conversations. We need to embrace collaborative and social learning in the design of our programmes.

3. Learning is not something we can control. We can sign post and direct people to it, but we can't force them to consume it. Our role is to provide relevant and engaging content which spans a range of media and platforms and then let the learner direct themselves to access what they need for their own development.

Once adopted, these new values of learning can act as our learning compass by which we navigate our design of courses. We can then start to really examine the make up of our current blends of learning and explore and pioneer new learner centred methods.

We're fortunate that we are now at a point where if you can imagine a new way of learning digitally, there will undoubtedly be an app out there that can make it happen. It's just a case of finding it. And if there isn't an app for it then it's an opportunity to innovate! Some great work has been done in repurposing the likes of snapchat and Instagram to create learning experiences. Apps which aren't necessarily designed with learning in mind but are all about sharing personal stories - which, when you think about it, is actually what learning is all about!

So next time you're creating a learning programme think about how you'd like to learn it and what learning experience you'd like to have. Whether this is through online curated libraries or the use of other technologies and platforms.

You could try any or all of the following:

Podcasts and audio files so people can learn on the go, even on their drive to work allowing them to access source data so you can make use of the flipped classroom as part of their learning.

Whatsapp, YouTube, Padlet, Trello are all ways to share course information and files. Learners can also use these platforms to share and collaborate with each other and work in teams.

Padlet and Trello are great collaborative working tools for people to work asynchronously on projects and share knowledge and learning.

You could use Wix or Weebly for your learners to create websites and portfolios of their work, or YouTube so learners can create videos as part of their courses.

Make use of G-suite - Google docs, Google forms, Google+ to work and share information and learning collaboratively.

Use LinkedIn to build personal networks and learn from a real variety of sources and opinions.

Use Instagram or Wix for learners to build portfolios and show examples of their skills so you can assess them and record their learning.

There are now so many possibilities when it comes to creating a really innovative and engaging blend of learning, wouldn't it be a shame not to try?

Over to you - what digital platforms do you use in your courses and programmes? Any that work really well that you'd recommend?

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