Mopsos

In Learning communities and learning networks, posted on September 30. and commented on by Sebastien Paquet, George Siemens opposes two learning environments: course work and learning communities.

As I strongly support the development of CoPs in my company, I cannot argue against his idea that learning communities and learning networks are becoming the core social setting for learning. However, I would tend to adopt a more balanced perspective. The traditional professor-student relationship in a classroom setting, with grades, diplomas and the like still makes sense as a prerequisite to entering a learning community. It is a question of managing time and attention. If we start bringing in newbies who haven't acquired the fundamentals required to participate in the learning activities of the community, we might end up annoying the top experts of the community, who might then leave for better places where people will make better use of their precious time.

I have tried two years ago to represent how different learning activities complement each other, as seen from a individual perspective. It looks like this:

Here, the "action learning" activities are only accessible to people who have been admitted in the community, through graduation or cooptation.

I believe learning economies (and the web is definitely one) are economies of access and not economies of transaction, meaning that you had rather pay, and very dearly sometimes, to obtain free access to a community of people that you would like to resemble, than for some of the discrete services that the best of these people could offer you. Or to put it differently, you may be prepared to work like crazy to graduate from MIT, but going through MIT's courses without being recognized (a.k.a. branded) as an MIT student is worth far less.

In learning environments, there is always some form of exclusion. C'est la vie.

how does motivation help learning

Posted by: adie at January 16, 2004 11:07 AM

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