The Slumdog Post

This post just had to be written. After hearing about Slumdog Millionaire and (both sides) of the debate surrounding this film, I finally decided to watch it hours before the Oscars ceremony. It is a gut wrenching, sad yet triumphant story for a young boy whose only source of learning was informal, connective, but which enabled him (with luck and intuition) to win the jackpot on a reality game show.

He (the protagonist) learnt in ways that I wish were not such excruciating experiences, but the movie brings home (among other critical political and social dimensions), at least for me, the fact that it is far too critical for us to ignore the power of connective learning. Rather, opportunities exist at each moment, in every space, to capture and embrace this kind of learning – opportunities that we must recognize and encourage.

Kudos, team SM! And may you win the Oscars!

Read Full Post »

The digital life

I came across two ideas today that are part of a stream of developments that continue to amaze and intrigue me immensely. Mostly because of their impact on how we will be, perhaps, 10 years or so from now.

The first was when my colleagues at work showed me www.visualcomplexity.com and the second, a few minutes later in my mail, was George’s geo-broadcasting post. I now see many examples of how to THINK NETWORK (as opposed to thinking business or learning or society). As George says:

Why shouldn’t my history of search be combined with my interactions on facebook and used as a basis to provide me with important information…

We are now envisioning a digitally enhanced life where technology augments all our senses in multiple ways (Kurzweil?). Will it still make sense to think in terms of stereotypes such as web based training and instructor led training any more? Or is it the begining of , like Fabrizio Cardinali from Giunti Labs puts it, e-Learning 3.0 – Personal Ambient Learning – which he defines as:

…wireless, broadband and mobile networks transparently delivering ubiquitous and nomadic rich media content and learning services enabling media and skills based personalization to support users’ personal knowledge development plans.

Fabrizio talks about Personal Ambient Knowledge, location based and context aware (mobile learning, wearable learning, virtual worlds, location based games, on-field performance support). And Personal Ambient Knowledge as the killer technology for the knowledge society just as electricity was for the industrial society. He re-inforces Stephen’s assertion of learning:

Rather, the idea is that learning is like a utility – like water or electricity – that flows in a network or a grip, that we tap into when we want

I think it is out there and evolving in leaps and bounds every moment, and exciting to watch and contribute to in ways we only can. We are quickly moving to another inflection point that reflects a new understanding of technology that can enhance our digital lives, that can serve us from the shadows.

Read Full Post »