Reconciling Web 2.0, KM & Learning Technology

Here we are in 2008, and the unification still hasn't happened yet? Why not? Why isn't standard operating procedure to combine Knowledge Management, Web Collaboration & Learning Technology solutions together into unified Enterprise Learning scenario ?

Let's go over the pieces again to this artifically separated puzzle in an attempt to perhaps explain what might be taking so long...

Knowledge Management - Traditionally, this has assumed the form of complex DBMS driven solutions with some minimal collaborative capability (in most cases never exploited). KM has never been viewed coherently within the context of the larger family of enterprise processes, hence few have understood how to gain value from it.

Web 2.0 - For the purposes of this discussion, Web 2.0 refers to the collaborative knowledge revolution brought about by use of blogging, wikis and other digital knowing / information sharing technologies combined with previous and emerging collaborative communications technologies / applications.

Learning Technology - This is still being separated into formal and informal flavors with the informal approaches making slow gains but not achieving their proper recognition. In many ways, informal learning overlaps with Web 2.0 technology, however what it has been lacking is the pedagogical pedigree that is currently only being extended to formal learning solutions (which are still very much LMS and SCORM-centric).

Is there overlap across all three areas ? yes...

Do all three areas serve a larger enterprise goal ? yes

Would all three be more effective combined than separated ? yes

so, why isn't it occuring ?

Answer # 1 - The field of E-learning has never yet developed a practice framework that encompassed the whole process of learning - and more importantly the necesary scope - i.e. across the entire enterprise while simultaneously focusing more on individual needs.

Answer # 2 - The thought leadership of the field of e-learning was coopted early on by a small handful of COTS vendors and thus lost their focus. They then left a void which users are now filling themselves, this however has signicantly slowed the progress which otherwise would be occuring.

Answer # 3 - The traditional educational community is still somewhat unsure of how to deal with Web 2.0 - the first reaction was merely to view it as a medium for potential plagiarism - an unbelieveable knee-jerk reflex but one we've still not recovered from yet.

Until we understand that blending is about more than integrating a small subset of learning technologies we're not going to realize the full potential of e-learning.


copyright 2008, Semantech Inc.

Knowledge, Information & Content are Learning

There is an odd process of specialization at play in most enterprises that takes what essentially is the same set of resources and divides them across separate delivery and storage mechanisms and then associates them with different workflow processes. The simplicity of our alternative is staggering in its implication – ALL of the systems now referred to as: knowledge management, collaboration, content management, document management, knowledge bases, help systems, learning systems and courses, discovery portals are all essentially extensions to one core process – enterprise knowledge assimilation, i.e. Learning. Knowledge without the ability to assimilate it is like pouring water into a desert.

The purpose for all of the information is clear yet usually ignored – it must be accessible and integrated into the living fabric of the organization through the only mechanism that can accomplish such a feat, learning. Once the premise is accepted at the conceptual level, a number of obvious possibilities begin to emerge:

• Redundant systems can be eliminated

• Nearly a dozen or enterprise processes can be merged, greatly simplifying both the day to day operations of most organizations and their information infrastructures as well.

• Discovery of information becomes greatly simplified as the unnecessary tangle of conflicting workflows, methodologies and philosophies are replaced by a single Learning-based paradigm.

• Learning and information management becomes interactive; the enterprise is no longer the elephant graveyard for long-lost bytes never utilized or assimilated. A living culture emerges where learning content is created as regularly as it is consumed – the organization finally discovers its collective memory and builds a collective consciousness.
  

• A sense of context is imbued to both the learning content and the process that finally grounds education in everyday reality, rather than perceived reality. Learning becomes a routine aspect of everyone’s job in the organization; allowing for more agile organizational evolution while reducing risk and backlash against new technologies and techniques.

Knowledge is captured in content—content can be complex or simple, the level of complexity determines the unit production cost...

Copyright 2008, Semantech Inc.