What is learning?

Published on: 28/03/2011

I wanted to blog this presentation that I just prepared about learning, for an all-staff meeting at IRC as an introduction to one of our 'travel free weeks'. Travel free weeks are essentially about organisational learning. And learning we do and talk about at IRC. A quick search for 'learning' gave back 992 hits on our website (in June 2010) on a total of over 12000 items. Learning is seriously core to IRC business. But do we always refer back to the theory and practice of learning, at personal, organisational, collective and even societal level?

Anyway, for whoever wishes to work on learning, going back to the white board with the 'where are we at' question every so often is just a standard (good) practice. That is the key to becoming a learning organisation. Remember Einstein: “It is, in fact, nothing short of a miracle that the modern methods of instruction have not entirely strangled the holy curiosity of inquiry.”

So here's the presentation. I made it on Prezi, because it's a new tool I wanted to (indeed) learn about, also because I think its fresh feel may put the audience in a different seat and engage them in a different way. I got triggered to use Prezi when I first heard @Joitske (Hulsebosch) tweet about it, then when I read this great blog post by Robert @Swanwick about his own experience with Prezi and finally when I saw my first Prezi about designing an academic poster, by Adam Read.

But no more talk now, check the presentation online: What (the heck) is learning ? (the new version of Prezi doesn’t allow embedding on WordPress blogs any longer). My learning curve with Prezi?

• The logic of the presentation is very different to that of Powerpoint and it really has the advantage of focusing on one point at a time, which gives the audience a better chance to relate what you're saying with what they're seeing.
• The development logic takes a while to master, not least because it involves a lot of zooming in and out to write text in small enough a display to keep it invisible when scrolling from one bit of text to another in the presentation.
• I really like the canvas logic, the liberty and reduced linearity that you enjoy when developing and showing the presentation.
• Framing the elements of your presentation in consistent blocks is helpful but perhaps the last thing to do in the presentation because any edit on the presentation requires you to zoom in on the element you need to edit and the overlay frame tends to be the element you pick up when you try to edit a smaller element.
• I haven't yet explored the possibility to embed video and audio bits and I hope it is possible or there is a (Power)point to keep using PPTs (which can do that). There is anyway as Prezi should just complement the current offer of presentation tools and find what works for you, and most importantly what because matters in the presentation, with Prezi or else, is what YOU are saying, not what's on display.
• I found the set of backgrounds rather limited too and hope it is easy to use new/other backgrounds.
• Finally, for future presentations I will think further about the way I wish to use Prezi because there is a lot of learning (and effectiveness) potential there, but even with a simple - read: no-surprise - presentation like mine the surprise effect is there yet - I reckon!

Let's see how my colleagues react to it! This, in itself, would deserve a reply blog post, don't you think? (By Ewen)