Support for “Self-Service Learning”

Ivan Illich’s vision in his 1971 book Deschooling Society was that groups of people would form “learning webs” to support each other in studying whatever they wanted or needed to learn. (This was before the rise of personal computing, and before computer networking had become widespread.) With the development of social media tools, such a vision can now be implemented, and we are seeing the rise of platforms for communities to decide what each person wants to learn and what each person wants to teach.

Two new platforms for “self-service learning” have been offered recently. One is a Canadian-based effort called LearnHub, a site that hosts learning communities and courses/learning materials that members want to post to anyone interested in their subject. You can start your own community, or offer “lessons” on any subject to anyone that wants them. Already thousands have signed up, and the amount of material available to study is wide-ranging. The site has a Facebook feel to it, and is not at all intimidating. But the use of the word “lessons” still evokes a school-like experience.

The second example was launched yesterday by four well-known learning consultants – Jay Cross, Jane Hart, Harold Jarche, and Clark Quinn. Called “togetherlearn.com“, it is an open source platform that this group wants to deliver to corporations who want their own privately branded community of learners. They describe it as “battle-tested web software [that] provides online space for conversation and collaboration, personal and professional profiles, following group activities in real time (online and/or by mobile phone), sharing insights and developments, building and retaining collective intelligence, scheduling and conducting meetings, monitoring subscriptions to industry and community news, tracking competitive information, collaborative writing, and more.” This is a configurable platform designed for corporations, where the principals will charge yet undefined fees, and sell a variety of services to participating companies.

It will be interesting to see how these business experiments fare over the next year. (GW)

Support for “Self-Service Learning” | Brandon Hall Research | Gary Woodill | 13 November 2008

Tagged as: Learning Communities, Self-Service Learning