What can learning and development learn from education technology?
The title of this piece begs another question and that is: why does it matter what's happening in the education technology sector?
I'll answer the second question first. Our next generations are in education currently and are starting to use technology in ways that will significantly change the way they learn. With this experience and expectation, these children will enter the workplace. Will we be ready?
Second, there is currently a lot of innovation in education technology which provides learning professionals with inspiration for what could be possible in the workplace.
Take for example two networks that reflect hugely popular social networks. Learnist has been described as the 'Pinterest for education'. Pinterest is a social network in which users can create boards and pin images, links, videos and infographics. Similarly, Learnist users can create - and curate - and share boards but the focus is on learning.
Lore has been dubbed the Facebook for education and similarly provides Facebook like features for students and teachers.
The key point here is that these networks provide users with functionality that was previously only available on the big, more general, social networks such as Facebook and Twitter. And at the heart of these networks is sharing, collaboration and easy communication. They are easy to use, which for technology in the education space is a big leap forward.
Technological innovation doesn't stop there. We see increasing use of augmented reality in education - from virtual field trips to geo-tagging maps. Apps are used to overlay content through devices such as mobile phones to provide a richer content experience. This is something Steve Wheeler, Associate Professor of Learning Technology, Plymouth University highlighted in a recent session on learning trends at the Learning Live conference 2012.
The devices children use at school and college are also shaping how learning is delivered, shared and consumed - here's a great list of 100 ways to use ipads in classrooms, for example.
Students studying car technology at Northwest Kansas Technical College in the US watch video demonstrations of repair techniques streamed wirelessly by their instructors from iPads to a large flat-panel display. And a respiratory therapy instructor uses an iPad to highlight lessons in a collaborative textbook app that students can access in the classroom or from remote labs and clinical sites. These are just two examples of how tablet devices are integral to the 'learning flow'.
So what can L&D learn from all this? There is undoubtedly lots of innovation in technology within the education sector and employers can learn from these innovations to help provide more learner-centred, timely content as well as access to colleagues and other networks that can provide support.
Learning is always on and, in terms of the devices being used, always on or with the learner. This is game changing and challenges the need for some of the traditional methods of training delivery such as classroom-based training.
