Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
Learning methods have evolved a great deal
over the past 10 years.
But in different directions.
The way we learn notions, concepts, definitions
and reasoning have evolved in one direction,
and how-to training and personal development
have evolved in another direction.
What has really evolved,
what has changed a lot,
is the way we learn notions and concepts.
Today, we are one click away
from whatever we want.
If you don't understand a concept,
you Google it and get 15 words, 15 pages, etc.
But we learn to do things
by doing them
and watching others do them.
Of course, we have simulators, YouTube videos
and modules to learn anything we want.
They are changing the way we learn,
but we still learn to do something by doing it,
not just by watching a screen.
There are new personal development options, too.
Social media and e-mail are changing interaction.
But you learn that in real life, at the office,
in a classroom, with your family,
by the coffee machine, etc.
There is a huge change
because things are instant
You are wondering about something:
you don't know what a fuel cell is
or how a machine works, for example.
So you open a page.
But then you have 2 problems:
1. You don't know how good the information is
or who wrote it ,
so we have a real problem
with information qualification.
2. The information is compartmentalised.
You can find out all about Egyptian pharaohs
without knowing where Egypt is,
when exactly the pharaohs ruled,
and what was going on at the time.
Information is more and more fragmented.
New technology effectively
delivers information instantly.
It provides that one-click access we didn't have.
But new technology doesn't provide
a proper frame of reference, a benchmark
to qualify and compare information.
The system in secondary schools
and universities today
is completely out of touch
with these new learning options.
We learn head-on,
even if we also do exercises.
The programmes are all cut up.
We don't learn to learn.
We take in knowledge they feed us directly.
We will have more and more
instant access to
information and knowledge,
as expertise-building tools
will develop more and more.
So we will need to know how to connect
and use all those bits of information
we pick up here and there.
The goal for schools and universities today
is to prepare learners for life-long learning.
They aren't doing that today.
Many people can't do that yet,
or aren't even interested
in what Philippe Carré calls "apprenance"
So peers, families and other circles
have a huge responsibility there.
At work,
you often hear people say,
"I see you don't really understand this,
I know about it, check out this website
and you'll find the information you need."
We don't do that automatically yet.
But it would be extremely useful if we did,
to transform the way working environments
relate to learning
and make them much more proactive.
We talk a lot about e-learning.
I think e-learning is one of the many
tools available today.
There is always information you can find
somewhere else,
and information you can find nearby
by asking someone, for instance.
E-learning, or access to knowledge
that is somewhere else is essential.
But you can't separate it from everything else.
At any time, you need to be able to say,
"I have an e-learning opportunity here,
I'm going to use it,
I don't have time right now,
but I'll use it next week,
or next month, or whenever."
Or, of course, "I'll do it right now."
without understanding the universe's hierarchy
People need to see e-learning
the fundamental laws of the universe, etc.
as part of a range of options
to solve problems.
It we look 10, 20, 30 or 40 years down the road,
and imagine a system where people only train
on projects, only look for information they need
for the project, there is a real risk
of losing that shared frame of reference.
We could go out hunting for fragmented,
scattered scraps of information, concepts, etc,
but never build a proper frame of reference
and, more importantly, never get everyone
working within the same frame of reference.
If you are into astrophysics, for instance,
you can find very specific information about
spotting extra-solar planets. You can know
everything there is to know about that,
There is a real risk of dashing head-first
into project-based learning across the board,
and losing the frames of reference.
So the real question
is how e-learning or the other tools
can help us share the same frames of reference.