We live in an era marked by extreme, volatile and complex change, and increasing reliance on digital, online technologies that combine to generate a new system-wide order – socially, economically, and environmentally. It is also clear that within this change, the individual needs, preferences and goals of today’s learners (regardless of age, race, and culture) are distinctly different from those of the past. Viewed as a whole, education as we have known it over the past two hundred years is poised on the verge of new realms of possibilities that will revolutionise accepted views on the role and purpose of learning and teaching. For these reasons, a (holistic) systems-focussed revision of learning and teaching is essential to explain the emerging complexities and implications for how humans will learn and act on such learning-teaching in the future.
The next frontier in education is moving us away from ‘content’ to a rediscovery of the natural unconditioned state of the mind and its limitless capacity to learn and teach. Our forced, compulsive appetite for ‘information’ and the endless cycle of cram-test-grade and forget is no longer productive. In its place, a new state and a new culture is emerging, present, passionate, relational, networked, curious, open, forward looking, adaptive, and sharing.
New thinking on the purpose and design of learning environments is needed where the focus is not just on what to learn, but also the methods that enhance the individual’s capacity to learn. Our research to date has aimed to move beyond the traditional transmissionist model where it is assumed the recipient will passively absorb and understand the given information in a linear manner. Learning Worlds incorporate the fact that we live and learn in holistic learning environments (or Learning Worlds) embodied by a living, complex system comprising a diverse array of people, events, artefacts and networks that act as a catalyst for transforming the learner’s awareness of how knowledge is constructed, absorbed and acted upon. Such thinking represents a basic shift in the focus of teaching and learning that vastly adds to the accumulation of information and knowledge to learning as a self-directed, life shaping and changing experience that is augmented by active, cognitive engagement in the learning process. For organisations responsible for teaching and learning this provides constructive direction as to how the complex tasks of knowledge construction, attainment, and application can be facilitated.
An emphasis on networked communities further extends the individual’s knowledge construction skills to encompass multi-level, interconnected, social learning systems that expose the learner to a diverse array of perspectives, practices, interests, and knowledge domain idiosyncrasies. In the Learning Worlds’ model, the learner is encouraged to negotiate pathways (either pre-set or self determined) through a multiplicity of contexts whilst simultaneously being ‘monitored’ through consensus from peers or community members who analyse and provide feedback on the strategies and assumptions employed during the learning process. In this way, learning capability is considerably enhanced both individually and collectively.
Ultimately, there is great scope for developing next generation online and offline tools for teaching and learning, both inside and outside of existing educational contexts. Students personalise their learning experiences, engage the wider community in that learning journey, and along the way develop rich and rewarding lifelong relationships.
The realisation of a Learning World reinforces the capability that exists in a learner’s reality. To leverage a person’s innate learning world as the foundation for lifelong learning and teaching must be the primary goal. The educational value of this thinking is most evident in its capacity to explain how to exploit the depth of learning that can be derived from the interplay of individual, group and community activities, as a complex system.
Where social progress is concerned, the question to be resolved is how to engage individuals, education institutions, and support groups in communal discourse and mutual co-operation in which experts and organisations define, capture, and facilitate the transfer of learning capability, knowledge construction, and expertise to other individuals and groups. All with the goal of leveraging the whole system of community knowledge that exists, is used everyday, and grows faster than any other source of accessible knowledge, information, or experience.
From an economic and business perspective, the challenge is to align with how non-school teaching and learning happens: it happens within the world that the learner lives and works; it happens in a lifelong learning and teaching engagement and commitment; and with innate learning models that reside with the learner, their community, and their cumulative work experiences as they personally develop and adapt to what they learn, and so build a Learning World capability for their life’s journey. Such a model may include formal learning where formal learning is not the exclusive source, but could also be a critical partner. In a knowledge driven economy, community knowledge is a critical capability and foundation for sustainable and robust economic development, as well as a vital resource if tapped into as part of a learner’s and their learning community’s learning world.
Within this context, we then begin to explore how technology might support such improvements? In the Learning Worlds context, we ask how the right technology applied to specific conditions might support a learn-teach agent in their Learning World. Abundant as online technology is and has grown over the past twenty years, the coming five years will bring an exponential ‘kick’ in this possibility. The likes of ubiquitous broadband, fibre to the home (FTTH), cloud computing, Moore’s Law, breakthrough chip technology and IPV6 (the Internetting of Everything) are due to become household norms within a short time. While this may be a positive addition, it will not be the existence of these types of technology that will improve teaching and learning, but more what is used, why it is used, and how it is applied in specific situations.
This combination of a new learning process with the most appropriate technology applied to the conditions in which the learner lives, is what Learning in the World is about.
Learning in the World 