"This isn't the Information Age, it's the Learning Age; and the quicker people get their heads around that, the better" Professeur Stephen Heppell
Heppel's remarks appear in this short video on the future of learning which asks the key question "What do we want to do" (with all of this networked information technology).
With the development of social networks, the integration of learning and work is not some ideal; it is a necessity in a complex world.
There is little doubt that we need systemic change to prepare for the Learning Age, the signals are everywhere and the conversations are getting louder. Here's an example - I recently met with some people in a large organization who are working on some new learning network initiatives. I mentioned that I was connected on Twitter to a person working on similar things and that I could introduce them. On checking the name, we discovered that all of these people worked in the same organization but didn't know what the others were doing. One limiting factor was the iron fist of the IT department, which doesn't allow access to a wide variety of web sites and platforms. In this organisation people could not easily connect and therefore they could not learn from each other. The silence between the silos was deafening.
