There has been a pause in my blogging - my computer crashed and had to be replaced and over the holiday's I spent free time configuring my new computer. I did not realize how important my software and productivity tools were until I had to start over configuring a new machine!
While I have not been posting I have been observing my thoughts. When thinking about learning, when I am aware of my informal learning process (and I am discovering that I am learning all the time!) I find myself smiling. I catch myself thinking in blog entries! It is becoming a fun way of becoming more conscious about my learning process - and that was the goal for starting this blogging process.
Some learning described in an earlier posts is starting to connect. A recent issue of Time Magazine had a cover story on education. I read the article with a new focus developed by my encounter with the Map of Future Forces Affecting Education. Oh the power of perspective - I am reading the Time Magazine article and my mind is saying, "Something is not right about this article." The map fundamentally changed my perspectives on how I think about education. The Time Magazine artical focus was on educating the 
individual child. It was well written, very thoughtful and from it's perspective offered some challenging ideas about the challenges of education in the 21st century. After I finished the article my mind was full of conflicting challenges. I went and got the map and sat there looking at it. The two pictures did not fit together at all. And then I noticed something very interesting, I was starting to talk about the Time Magazine article, with my wife, with friends, with anyone who would listen. Some comments here, some discussion there. Something was significantly out of place and I was working new ideas in my head.
individual child. It was well written, very thoughtful and from it's perspective offered some challenging ideas about the challenges of education in the 21st century. After I finished the article my mind was full of conflicting challenges. I went and got the map and sat there looking at it. The two pictures did not fit together at all. And then I noticed something very interesting, I was starting to talk about the Time Magazine article, with my wife, with friends, with anyone who would listen. Some comments here, some discussion there. Something was significantly out of place and I was working new ideas in my head. Then one morning over the holiday's I was visiting Jay Cross's Internet Time blog. I found a very interesting post on Learning for Individuals and Communities too. When I viewed the slide show, Everything is Relative, I went "yes". The struggle I was having was the focus on the individual. The traditional way of thinking about education is the individual, yet the product of a good education is the ability to work in a group. Skills in isolation have limited value. We use our skills in work groups, organizations, family groups, friendship groups, social groups.........!
Clearly there is a lot of new thinking going on in my mind about learning and education. The point I want to share in this posting is that coming to a new understanding about focus - individual vs organizational and how it can affect how we frame and think about an issues is the learning for the moment. My inner dialogue has shifted from struggling with a new idea to realizing that shifting the perspective can change the entire way you explore the story.
