Why is a digital learning company interested in 70:20:10?
It might seem odd for a digital learning organisation to be interested in a 70:20:10 learning model. Most of the time digital learning and elearning is seen as formal learning. However, digital learning has much more potential in enabling learning culture within an organisation.
Businesses are often a mirror of their founder’s viewpoint. I spent the first part of my working life running a web design business during the dotcom era. When I started my first corporate job, I was amazed at how bad the staff learning experiences were. This educational organisation aspired to innovation and yet our learning involved information dumps and workbooks. It still surprises me that most workplace learning has still not moved beyond this. I also have strong personal preferences for experiential, social learning and a deep belief that digital learning can make learning more personalised and social and in so doing transform it to be more effective.
When I came across the 70:20:10 model I found it to be a great base on which to design work-focused blended learning. The 70:20:10 model is an elegant, simple way to explain how learning at work really happens. As Sprout Labs has begun to work more with the 70:20:10 learning concept we have become more interested in how to design and foster continuous learning and learning cultures in organisations.
All work is becoming digital in some form. Digital learning has a huge amount of potential but in many organisations that has not yet been realised – most elearning course are simply an information dump and were designed for performance improvement. The use of digital learning is often driven by cost and not by how it can accelerate and improve how employees learn. Its potential for integrating social learning has largely been ignored. Social learning is beginning to grow into a separate discipline, with different specialised tools and a growing number of consultants offering their support. Another missed opportunity is the application of digital technology to enhance and increase how much an employee reflects on their work.
The 70:20:10 learning concept is a great way to enhance blended learning. It's more descriptive than the term ‘blended learning’, which has come to be associated with online and face-to-face sessions in an educational setting. 70:20:10 is more workplace and performance focused.
Sprout Labs’ focus on the 70:20:10 learning concept provides us a solid structure upon which to design and implement integrated performance-focused learning solutions.
