I was scanning my timeline on Twitter and saw a tweet from Ian Perry asking who was attending the World of Learning event. Not being an attendee it had no obvious relevance for me but it did make stop & think. You see, I’m in a “world of learning” most days. Every day I discover something new & interesting. Sometimes it comes from the Internet (including the broad church that is social media) but some days it comes from random sources such as people on the street or friends and family.
I decided to look back and put my theory to the test. I was kind of pleased with what I’ve learned in the last few days alone
- I’ve been learning to meditate via an app – day 4 tomorrow.
- I’ve learned some stretches for my cycling recovery
- I’ve learned you can make cookies to a recipe from Sesame Street’s Cookie Monster (& as I typed this post on my phone I’ve just learned that Apple autocorrect recognises Cookie Monster – which was nice)
- I’ve learned of the death of a close friend of my mothers and in that sad moment have also learned much more about maintaining a friendship through time, some 50 years.
- I’ve learned that my next charity challenge is going to take a whole lot more planning & some very fancy mapping software. (Note to self, email Garmin & find out what they might do to help).
- I’ve also realised I need to brush up on Powerpoint as some training design has taken longer than hoped.
So yes a fairly frivolous exercise and a simple list but it strikes me that none of these learnings came about in a traditional classroom or indeed in a “learning intervention”. I picked these things up just by going through my life and looking around me. I guess it helps being a bit of a magpie, attracted by shiny new things but it also made me realise that I rarely stop to reflect on all the things I have learned.
Have you stopped to reflect on what you have learned recently? So few of us either notice the increase in knowledge or if we do we fail to act on the insights – which brings me to this week’s challenge.
Take some time to look over your learning and ask yourself.
- What did I learn?
- What have I missed?
- What could I use?
Have fun and remember, every day is a school day……..
P.S. That conference I mentioned at the start looks pretty interesting. If anyone who reads this actually goes, maybe let me know what you learned.