Ambient learning

Photograph from Pexels

One of the most valuable properties in any organisation is intellectual capital - the intangible value of a business generated by its people. Companies that ignore it do so at their peril. But how can an organisation build upon its intellectual capital? The answer is to value staff by providing them with relevant learning opportunities as they work.

In the past, budgets were set aside for corporate training, and in a traditional sense this was conducted in specific areas designated for this purpose - usually a training room or computer suite. In many large organisations today this is changing, with learning and development now conducted largely while employees are on the move, or sitting at their work stations. This approach to ambient learning (some might also refer to activity learning) proves to be more authentic, and the learning can be applied directly to tasks in situ - real learning for real contexts. 'On the job' training has always existed - but has been based upon the apprenticeship model (see yesterday's post for elaboration).

Now, ambient learning can be driven by the learner - as they encounter problems or challenges, they can gain instant access to content that helps them to learn more about the issues and how they might be resolved. Learning occurs in the authentic context of the activity, rather than as a detached concept or set of procedures which one has to apply later if and when the problem arises. Ambient learning also relates to people adapting their technologies and environments to suit their working practices.

There is less requirement for direction from others, because the actor is in the best position to carry out the intervention, based on their personal tools and social connections. They can draw upon archived content written by experts, or upon the live expertise of knowledgeable members within their professional learning network. One clear example of technology supported ambient learning can be seen in the increasing use of Augmented Reality (AR) tools in the workplace. Viewing work contexts via a smartphone camera while superimposing additional digital information has multiple benefits that are still being explored.

Clearly, it is vital that large organisations that wish to capitalise on ambient learning promote good practice around the use of social media and personal devices. Freedom to use these tools will enable workers of the future to drive their own learning around authentic, real-time problems, and thereby increase the intellectual capital of the entire organisation.


Ambient learning by Steve Wheeler was written in Plymouth, England and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.