Open Your Mind to the Open Learning Revolution

I’ve been a passionate and curious learner for as long as I can remember. As a very small child, maybe 3 or 4 years of age, I created by own “office” is my grandparents’ house by opening the kitchen door and nestling down in the gap between the door and the gas heater. There I would spend hours reading, drawing and discovering.

When I had the opportunity to teach at university, I leapt at the chance. I loved the whole process of designing courses, engaging interesting and challenging “guest lecturers” and seeing the light in eyes of students when “everything clicks”.

But it wasn’t until I reached the corporate world that I understood the power and importance of learning. After my first 12 months with IBM, I realised that I had learned more in that year than I had in the previous five. It was a pressure cooker that made me bring all my experience, knowledge and capacity to new challenges – and to reassemble this in new ways. It was my own personal learning revolution – and helped me begin thinking about The Social Way.

Fast forward a couple of years and it’s clear that the opportunities, risks and challenges are social. I put together this presentation and speech on social learning back in 2009, presenting it along with my colleague Joe Westhuizen in Singapore, the US and Europe. But exactly how will social learning impact us all?

David Price is an education consultant, project manager, strategic adviser and public speaker. In 1994 he helped establish Sir Paul McCartney’s Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts, where he was Director of Learning for 7 years. Since then, he has led national projects in arts and education in the UK and advised companies, NFPs and govt departments internationally. The focus of his work is primarily about finding innovative ways to engage learners through more democratic and more relevant forms of education. He is a Senior Associate at the InnovationUnit.org.

And tonight – if you happen to live in Sydney, you can find out more about The Open Learning Revolution in a talk and workshop led by David Price. It’s bound to be fascinating … hope to see you there!

Comments

[Ben Werdmuller]

Hi David -

As the co-founder of one of the most popular platforms for social learning, I'm excited that you're diving into social and open learning.

One thing to note is that rights and licensing remain important in this new model, and should be incorporated into any social training. The photo you've used in the post is mine, and has been embedded without permission. Its presence on the web, including on a site like Flickr, does not automatically imply the right to embed it. I hereby give you permission to retain it in this one case, as long as you retain this comment on the post, but it's a really important aspect to this whole change in how we communicate.

[Gavin Heaton]

Thanks Ben ... I remember seeing this image and thought it had a CC license. Sorry for the mistake - it's certainly something I need to take more notice of.