What is The Learning Explosion?

The Learning Explosion is the perpetual explosion of learning into countless learning fragments. Fueled by recent technological advances, this explosion is resulting in the worldwide distribution of ideas, innovation, and learning.
               
Technological advances are taking the traditional learning model and breaking it into billions and billions of pieces of information that we now call learning fragments. Learning fragments can be found through many different sources such as social media sites, training workshops, video documentaries, online communities, blogs, or mobile-device apps.


In fact, all of us have probably discovered new learning fragments today. Fragments like these are being created and discovered every minute of every day. Learning is everywhere and accessible to nearly everyone. This is the new learning mind-set. This is how learning takes place today.


With tools like mobile phones and the Internet, information and knowledge is easily accessible to all classes of people worldwide. The Learning Explosion has no boundaries. This omnipresence of learning fragments allows for limitless opportunities to learn, grow, and increase knowledge.


It is our mission to seek out learning fragments, learn from them, innovate, and share our insights with the world.


Matt and Treion

When we say global, we mean it.

For the first time ever, when we say “global” we really mean “global”. I remember the first day we conducted a webinar with a group of people from Korea. The following week we held one with people from Germany. Then Australia. Then Brazil. I specifically remember when we conducted a webinar that had people joined from four continents simultaneously. It was like magic.

But now it’s almost become commonplace. Not a day goes by when webinars are not being attended by someone sitting in another part of the world. All that’s required is an internet connection.

In 2008 23.9% of the world was connected to the internet—up from 12.5% just five years earlier. This means 1.58 billion people have access to the Internet. Iceland leads the globe with 90% of their population with an internet connection. However that’s less than 300,000 people. Compare that with China who has only 22% of their population connected equaling 300 million users. (Here’s a great resource we found to see the percentage of each country’s population that have access to the web: http://tinyurl.com/countries-internet)

The world is getting wired very, very fast. You can now reach a global audience rapidly, effectively, and cost effectively. Your training efforts can be expanded to people you typically could never have reached before. Put on a global mindset and try and reach beyond your physical borders. You can now teach those distributed workers that live on nearly every corner of the globe.

Have you conducted a webinar to a someone outside your own country? What went right? What went wrong?

Authors: Matt Murdoch and Treion Muller

What has your online learning experience been like?

FranklinCovey has been known for its world-class instructor-led training (ILT). But a few years ago we realized that we also needed to provide our training online, or we would be trampled by the digital revolution that was steadily moving across the globe.
We were faced with a big challenge. We needed to create an online experience that would accomplish our goal of maintaining world-class instructional design and a high quality learning experience. We started our make-over with just a handful of team members, including a couple of marketers, an Instructional Designer, a Facilitator, and a techie, and a proven platform. (We also had a wonderful support group of internal and external experts to help us)
A few years later we now have a successful business that is growing substantially. We believe we have successfully created an online alternative without compromising the quality of the product or interactive end-user experience. How we did this is a whole bunch of other blog entries, which will be coming shortly.
While we believe we have created a terrific online learning product, we also know we have a lot still to learn and improve. So, in this spirit of continual improvement, we would like to ask you knowledgeable and experienced online learners “out there” the following two questions:

1. What are some great webinars you have attended? What made them great?
2. What are some bad webinars you have attended? What made them bad?

We look forward to sharing what we learned, and also learning from you.
 Happy surfing…

Authors: Treion Muller and Matt Murdoch