Learning that doesn't suck

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On my drive home tonight, I saw an ad for a radio station that said “”turn up the rock…turn down the suck”.  What a perfect way to describe Dave Cormier’s live session during #change11 today.  Dave continued Nancy’s example from last week and cranked up the rock factor of his presentation with full-picture slides and numerous opportunities to grab keyboard and digital pen and jump in on the whiteboard or backchannel.  To me, this is learning at its finest:

• participatory
• always on
• jump in and ‘be’, even ‘become’
• many experts, many viewpoints
• nomads, wanderers and #socialartist (s)

By stark contrast, I spent five days in classroom training two weeks ago.  The facilitators were very knowledgeable and encouraged participation to some degree but the format was quite traditional: one voice at a time (either facilitator or participant), flip charts and markers, small groups reporting back to plenary, no mobile devices, no tweeting or backchannel.  This form of delivery was SO slow that I had to rely on the pipe cleaners and mandalas at the table to keep my hands busy and my mind occupied.

I was starving for interaction even though the topic of this training was participant-centred learning.  I felt mentally handcuffed by the design, a soldier with a nomad’s heart.  The funny thing is, two years ago I would never have known the difference. Once you have seen a mooc, lived a mooc, and embraced rhizomatic learning, it’s devastating to go backwards. Quite frankly, it makes everything else suck.

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