A great post from Jane Knight on LMS adoption – the comments are great value too. The concept of workscapes as spaces where work practices and learning practices are enmeshed I particularly like. As the Internet Time Alliance state:
Work and learning have become one and the same. Networks rule. Nothing is certain. Simply doing things better no longer guarantees prosperity or even survival.
In my working life, I would say that a LMS has had at best (worse?) a small space in supporting my personal professional development. This reflects two factors: (a) much of my learning occurs through interactions that span the boundaries of, or occur outside, my employer; (b) I’m not expecting an employer to employ me for ever so why tie my learning (for how else to I keep myself attractive in the jobs market?) to *that* employer – doesn’t make sense. Similarly, being tied to a specific ‘product’ for my Personal Learning Environment/ Network is also unattractive. The flexibility of loosely coupling the best tools for the task at hand – be it doing, reflecting, collating experiences etc. – just seems to work in ways that I’ve never found replicated in a single ‘product’. My sense is that firms seeking a socialised LMS are looking to impose management 1.0 (command & control) on a world of working and learning 2.0 (apologies for the point zero tags but time is short ;-)