In elementary school I remember when books were passed out. First a slightly weighty math book, then what felt like a two ton history book followed. When the teacher said, “Take one and pass them back,” that was, for my generation, a calorie burning workout, especially if you sat at the head of the class. I remember in middle and high school wearing a backpack that I think any chiropractor would say was too heavy for my teenaged spine. Again, strapped down with 4 to 5 books, notebooks and supplies. Let’s not even discuss college, when I was too cool for a backpack and thought walking across campus lugging books by hand on programming, women’s lit and chemistry was a good idea that made me look more intellectual.
Books continued to be a part of my life even as I entered the workforce in late 2000. There was a thick on boarding “notebook” at the consulting company I joined. Client projects generated “books of record” and “process maps” printed out on page after page. If you were lucky the client sprang for the cost of binding all of these documents into a nice booklet eliminating the need for the three-hole-punch in my cubicle. In my home office now, all I need do is turn my head to see a bookshelf full of books and guides collected along my professional journey, like “Visual Explanations” by Tufte or Robert Mager’s “The New Six-Pack.” (yes that’s 6 books)
In my role as a Learning Development and Learning Technology manager I had the chance to put together participant and facilitator guides. We scribed page after page of these documents. I recently talked with my colleague, Jennifer Lacasse, an independent consultant and strategist in the learning space, about how times have changed. We once designed paper based learning toolkits for clients and now it is essential that these types of learning tools become multifaceted, ready for mobile delivery to the market of devices available and leveraging the social channels that engage, motivate and spark unplanned learning opportunities. It started way back with online learning, but now we have e-books, e-readers and recently Apple announced iTunes U, a comprehensive tool to help educators at all levels create and deliver courses on their Apple devices. We have social channels and tools that make learning cross boundaries of culture, language and time. I can recall having international pen pals in school who I wrote to about what I was learning, now kids today can hop on an app and share that learning in real time, while looking through a web-cam at a fellow student thousands of miles away. One need only look at what Sal Khan, our keynote speaker at last years Enterprise Learning Conference & Expo, is doing with the Khan Academy to see that learning doesn’t have to involve heavy books and can be dynamically delivered through free videos, beyond the black and white text of a workbook.
As I think of the future and see YouTube videos of two year olds playing with iPads, tablets and laptops quite effectively I wonder how education will evolve and if indeed we are in the midst of saying goodbye to books. Do teachers have to say “Take one and pass them back,” anymore or is the new lingo “Share the app with your partner?”
It’s an exciting time to be a part of the next generation of the learning and development industry. I am not personally ready to say good-bye to books, and I don’t think they will completely disappear from use in my lifetime. However, I would be blind not to recognize and embrace how trends and technology are driving us into a much different and interactive way of developing and delivering learning.
Conclusion? Learning’s E-volution is here to stay.
Find out what other leading learning and development professionals think about the future of learning in schools, government, the workplace and beyond. Join us at the Enterprise Learning! Summit March 20-21, 2012 at the Hilton in Alexandria, VA, Our speakers and panelists will appear in sessions including “Thriving in a Net-Work Era,” “Learning Technology CEO’s Power Panel,” and “Best Practices of the Learning! 100.”
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Tiffani Murray has currently added 19 articles...
