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Monday, February 19, 2007

Numbers and Informal Learning

Donald Clark has been discussing in the LCB The Numbers Behind Informal & Formal Learning and also on TrDev. I'm a little surprised that Donald didn't correct the graph which shows that 67% of learning comes from informal - which is based on some faulty analysis. I won't bore you with the details, but the basic answer is that no one has really accurate numbers on the amount of learning and amount of spending on these two things.

So, while there's a debate going on in terms of what the amount of spending vs. amount of learning going, I think that somehow the more important point is being missed. I guess I would ask:
How much time do YOU spend working on improving the informal learning in your
organization?

If you are spending all your time building courseware and not considering a variety of other strategies, then you are missing a golden opportunity.

2 comments:

Lorne said...

eTony: we should have an opportunity to communicate utilizing various forms of communications rather than just text and asynchronous opportunities.

thanks Lorne Parker PhD
www.ELIupdatedblogspot.com

Harold Jarche said...

Our informal survey (pun intended) at TechKnowledge showed the average was 80% informal. I had conducted a workshop in Ottawa the same week with about 25 participants, mostly middle managers and government employees; the figure was closer to 90% informal. Not valid, but indicative.