Lead the Charge?

Tuesday, July 01, 2008 - by ASTD Staff

Send to Kindle

I'm trying something a little different this month. I'm taking a bit more of a position in the question (maybe you could even call it a rant). I'm hoping this will spark some discussion ...

Karl Fisch - wrote the Edublog post of the year in 2007 with Is It Okay To Be A Technologically Illiterate Teacher? - a wonderful post that concluded with:

In the first few years of the 21st century, you can still be successful if you're technologically illiterate, but it's getting harder (and those that are literate have many more opportunities available to them). And by the end of the next decade, I think there will be very little chance of success for those that are technology illiterate.

In order to teach it, we have to do it. How can we teach this to kids, how can we model it, if we aren't literate ourselves? You need to experience this, you need to explore right along with your students. You need to experience the tools they'll be using in the 21st century, developing your own networks in parallel with your students. You need to demonstrate continual learning, lifelong learning - for your students, or you will continue to teach your students how to be successful in an age that no longer exists.

Back in March - we asked about the Scope of Learning Responsibility and received a lot of response. Most (if not all) respondents felt that we have fairly broad responsibilities that go beyond formal learning opportunities.

So, if we have responsibility for informal learning, social learning, eLearning 2.0, long tail learning, etc. then ...

Don't we have to conclude that learning professionals must be literate in these things?

If so, then what should learning professionals do to become literate?

I personally see this as much bigger. Work Literacy is trying to figure out how knowledge workers can be helped to improve their skills to take advantage of things like social media and new forms of informal learning. This leads me to ...

Should workplace learning professionals be leading the charge around these new work literacies?

Shouldn't they be starting with themselves and helping to develop it throughout the organizations?

And then shouldn't the learning organization become a driver for the organization?

And like in the world of libraries don't we need to market ourselves in this capacity?

To me, these are substantial issues facing all learning organizations and workplace learning professionals. It is THE big question today. It represents a shift in responsibility. A revolution in workplace learning. We can't be training organizations. We must become learning organizations. As learning professionals, we must lead the charge by being in front.

How to Respond:

Option 1 - Simply put your thoughts in a comment

Option 2 -

Step 1 - Post in your blog (please link to this post).
Step 2 - Put a comment in this blog with an HTML ready link that I can simply copy and paste (an HTML anchor tag). I will only copy and past, thus, I would also recommend you include your NAME immediately before your link. So, it should look like:

Tony Karrer - Safety Training Design

or you could also include your blog name with something like:

Tony Karrer - Safety Training Design : eLearning Technology

Posts So Far: