What's great about this type of blogging is that a) encourages self-reflection and personal learning that contributes to organizational learning b) encourages a sort of peer dialogue.
It got me thinking about how to make this kind of blogging for learning a little more intentional. I think this line of thinking went with a blog post I read over the weekend about how Web 2.0 should be changing our thinking about learning:
"But except for a few small pockets of innovation, many of the technological tools we use in the classroom — from course-management systems to PowerPoint — help primarily not with teaching students to think, but with the most pedestrian (and often least effective) aspect of teaching: the delivery of content. Online course-management systems are perhaps the most pernicious in that respect, in part because IT departments across the country have made them the primary teaching-and-learning tool available to faculty members. The problem is not the idea of a course-management system itself — a basic set of tools for content delivery, evaluation, and communication — nor the various uses of such systems, many of which serve their purposes quite well. Rather, the problem is that most course-management systems were developed at a time when the Internet was seen primarily as a mechanism for information delivery. Course-management systems were not created to enhance learning, but to make it easier for a faculty member to deliver materials to students. Even though most of the systems now include basic tools that allow students to turn in assignments, take exams and surveys, and communicate with each other through discussion boards and chat programs, those tools tend to be limited in functionality, generic in form, and based on relatively old technology. Course-management systems are generally used in very basic ways. A recent study by the Educause Center for Applied Research, for example, suggests that the vast majority of students who use course-management systems do so simply to gain access to course materials and their grades. In other words, the role that the systems play most often is like that of an advanced photocopier, allowing faculty members to deliver materials to their students with greater ease than was previously possible."
This is something I've been thinking about for awhile--that the beauty and value of many Web 2.0 tools, at least when it comes to staff development, lies in the fact that these tools encourage active content creation and engagement with learning by the participants. Good learning requires students to actively interact with the materials they are learning--to reflect and apply and use this information. Tools like blogs make this possible for individuals to do much more easily than in the past.
So how to make blogging for learning an intentional process? Carter McNamara has a nice set of questions to reflect upon in maintaining a learning journal:
1. What learning have you accomplished (or are you accomplishing) lately?
a) What experience spawned that learning?
b) What learning did you accomplish from that experience?
c) How can you carry this learning forward to improve your life? Your work?
2. What learning might you accomplish in the near future?
a) What experience might spawn that learning?
b) What learning might you accomplish from that experience?
c) How might you carry this learning forward to improve your life? Your work?
And in this article, Journaling: A Learning Tool for Project Management Training and Teambuilding, the author suggests reflecting on these questions:
- What was the learning situation or event?
- What have I learned and how did I learn it?
- How do I feel (good and bad feelings) about what I've learned and how I've learned it?
- How could I have learned more efficiently/effectively?
- What actions can I take to learn more efficiently and effectively for the future?
- In what ways do I need to change my attitudes, expectations, values and the like to feel better about learning situations?
For this process to really work well, I think these questions should be considered every day or every few days. Since 80% of what we learn is informal, happening outside of a classroom or course, we shouldn't wait for a particular "learning event" to reflect on what we've learned. I'd love to see an organization that routinely used these kinds of questions to start or end the work day. That would be an amazing way to create a culture of learning.