Week 7: Informal Learning Discussion

This week’s discussion centered around the topic of informal learning. During the first part of the week, everyone in the class answered 5 different questions, and then during the 2nd half we had a discussion on what we found out about informal learning from those answers. The 5 questions were about what we talk about at home, what topics we would like to see covered in the class, what questions should be asked in this course to relate to our own lives, what is interesting about us outside of class, and what we might know more about than the instructors.

My best contribution came in the 2nd part of the week when we got into the discussion and how our answers related to eLearning. We had been just talking about things that are important to informal learners, such as how the learning will benefit them and how they can fit it into their busy lives. Motivation is one of the biggest factors that I noticed in the answers to the short questions. Many people said that the questions they wanted answered included something along the lines of “how will this benefit me?” or “what career opportunities will this afford me?” Then Joni asked how we can take what we have learned and apply it to the Web Conference that we are doing as groups. I answered:

“Joni, I think it's very important to remember what we learn here when planning the Web conference. These are not people signing up for a whole course, but they do hope to learn from it if they are going to the trouble of signing up and logging in. The top thing I see is to make it interesting and relative to them, or else what is the point? And using short segments will keep us from losing interest as these are probably busy people like us with other things going on. My EdWeb will be for students at the school I teach at, so it will not be informal, but I think that I will still need to use some of the same aspects, like making it interesting and using the shorter segments to keep the kids involved.”

This is an idea I can take back to my group as we work on our Web Conference, deciding what information to include and how to develop the discussions there. We had been thinking of doing several lessons, but one thing I know we have to do is be considerate of the amount of time these learners have available. The fact that they will be visiting 7 different topics is also something to pay attention to. They will not have a lot of time to devote to one particular topic if they are interested in more. This will be very useful in determining how much we should put out there, so I am glad we had the discussion and were able to focus on informal learning this week.