The Amsterdam Diary: An Exploration of Learning Culture

Julian Stodd

10/2012 · Julian Stodd

Táto e‑kniha

 In September 2012 I took a week out to explore learning culture with my social learning network. I talked to a range of people and conducted a popup learning event around some key questions and, alongside the community, produced a narrative of our findings.
These were presented across a series of blog posts throughout the week, which form the foundation of this booklet.

First, we explored who creates the learning culture within an organisation: what is the interaction between learners and leaders and how does this result in an identifiable culture? Within this culture who owns the space, the learning? As we see an increasingly rapid move away from pure, formal learning events towards far more informal and semi-formal social learning, the question of who owns and moderates these spaces, and who shapes the learning becomes ever more significant (I introduce and explore social learning in more depth in my recent book 'Exploring the World of Social Learning').

Next, I posed several questions to the group and we talked around these through a range of social learning channels.

Finally I tried to narrate the learning of the group, before moving on to explore some areas that fall outside the learning culture: forbidden learning.

O autorovi

 Julian Stodd is a learning and development professional based in the UK, specialising in elearning, mobile learning, social media and learning theory. As founder and co-captain of SeaSalt Learning, Julian is heavily involved the strategic and operational development of learning solutions in a range of areas, working at a strategic level with global clients to understand how their learning needs can be met.

Julian started out volunteering in museums at the age of twelve, doing every job imaginable, from conserving artefacts and cataloguing collections, through designing exhibitions, and into giving guided tours and working with school groups. He loved the opportunities to work with stories, to meet people, and to walk with them along a learning journey.

Via a conservation sciences degree with archaeology, this led him into postgraduate research around educational theory, communication theory, psychology and design. Julian is grounded in understanding how people learn, whatever the technology, and what the barriers are that can prevent them from learning.

Today, he writes widely in his learning blog around various aspects of learning: mainly e-learning, social learning and learning technology. Asked recently what the most important skill was for an aspiring e-learning specialist, Julian's answer was ‘storytelling’. At heart, everything revolves around the clarity and coherence of the narrative.