Self-learning – "Applying" for Mega-Trend

A few years ago, the big buzz was about e-learning, but in a certain way we can say that e-learning has failed.

Following someone else’s process over the internet is somewhat demotivating for a generation who is highly individualist and wants everything instantaneously. And according to experts, we lose 60% of the communication witch is non-verbal.

B-learning (blended learning) on the other hand is proving to be a perfect combination. The student learns over the internet the main concepts, and in a classroom he practices everything he learn in an interactive environment. Related to this is the transformation of the teacher from a speaker into a facilitator.

On the other side of this puzzle we have the “google it” culture. Young and most dynamic professionals like to learn from themselves searching for meanings and tutorials. Individualism and a knowledge society demands it from us.

Self-Learning is not about learning about one specific theme, but to grab knowledge from as many sources as possible. Why would someone pay to receive a learning program, when he can learn at his own speed and taste for free?

The biggest driver for self-learning is the complexity of knowledge.
One or two decades ago, the traditional courses in universities where a good answer for learning needs. One could learn physics, or law, or engineering. But today’s and tomorrow’s job demands that we know a little bit about various unrelated areas.

And each person is learning from a very specific topic in a highly specific point of view. Even if universities allow students to build their own curriculum they can’t attend to each specification, and the student finds himself loosing time and resources learning from something that is not appealing or adding value.

So we have, in new generations, individuals with outstanding learning abilities, desire for control, individualist values in an extremely complex context and ever-changing reality.

We can see some strong signals for this trend in very practical areas like design or programming, where students who were in college for more than 5 years are often run by those who never went to college, but learn a lot by tutorials, internet forums and professional experience.

Of course this doesn’t mean we should stop sending our teenagers to college. What it means is that universities will have to adapt making their teaching skills more interactive, the contents more adaptive, encouraging self-study, reducing the time for courses and interacting more with personal and professional experiences.

The self-learner is not someone who learns from one topic, over Wikipedia during 3 years. He is instead, someone who learns about very different and complex topics, on diferent platforms: Small courses, search engine, wikis, books, seminars, conferences and workshops, debating with colleagues and in forums. He may as well go to college, but he doesn’t limit to what teachers give him.
And let’s not forget, that as he jumps from job to job he is constantly learning new skills with different people.

In this context, High School and basic training in general, doubles it’s importance as it needs to prepare teenagers to learn from themselves in a very competitive environment. So the need for focus in Languages, computer skills and thinking (mathematics, philosophy, debate) is even greater.

For Self-Learning to be considered a mega trend it has to obey 3 criteria:
Deep Impact
Transversal Impact
Long lasting Change

It certainly has big impact, has it is changing the way we learn, thus the way we look at the world.

It’s changing our learning life, our professional life and our personal lives. It’s breaking barriers between different academic backgrounds and is creating the new professionals for the workforce of the future.

This trend is still starting, as not so long ago, the internet had a reputation for poor knowledge, and books and universities were considered to be the only trustworthy sources for knowledge. Now we are finally seeing internet as a channel, with access to many different sources; some more trustworthy than others.

The new and the next generations are the ones that will live this trend, as they grow in a information-rich environment. They will have learning and scanning capabilities that we just don’t understand. The next generation of teachers will not fight against internet, but instead they will encourage it, and teach their students to produce knowledge out of the abundancy of information at everyone disposal.

The XXI century will be the stage for the constantly increasing world of the Self-Learners.