Open Online Courses, the education revolution.

There is a revolution happening in education. One of the revolutions is online.

More and more people do not want to take expensive, old fashioned and only directed to, or based on, the ratio courses, programs at high schools and universities.

And the learners, the students are getting the learning back to themselves. Via I-Tunes U, Wikipedia and all kind of other services they find themselves what they need to learn. And, they create their own communities online, via Facebook, Ning, Google Hangouts etc. 

Students are crafting their own learning experiences, online and offline, through projects, apprenticeships and hands-on real life projects.

The learning is going out of the traditional institutions. Towards new environments like this one's. 

Or, as a graduation speech will look like in the near future:

Motivation in schools.

People learn best when they are intrinsic motivated. Without fear from the outside, fear of tests or expectations of parents, friends, bosses etc.

Wanting to find out how things work. This is the starting of learning. Curiosity. 

The only external factors which have an influence are the bumps in the road along the path of learning. And, reality always has a safety net. 

Also, when you grow older, you have learned in school, in life, that not succeeding = failing. But this is not true. If you keep having that belief, you will never learn something.  

Maybe failing = succeeding, because you win you are learning. You gain.

I’ll give it another try.

Everyone has this thought. And it is a very good starting point.

If you try something, no matter what, you already achieved something. Forget failure, or whatever outcome. By trying you are achieving and trying is always enough. (Not that it should be a reason to keep on trying, but look around you: how many people keep on trying? And if f not, what life do they have?)

You can also be proud that you tried. You gave it, hopefully, your best shot. And when the result is not good enough, try again. Because every mistake teaches you something. About if you still want to achieve that goal, and it teaches you a lot about yourself.

The biggest failure is never trying again. In the end what counts is the courage to continue.

Today you inspired me.

Yesterday and the day before we had half year presentations of Tribe 6 of Knowmads Business School Amsterdam 

It was amazing. These young people, searching and digging into themselves, who they are, why they are like they are, what they see in their surrounding, what they want to change in themselves and in the world. 

In front of their tribe-members telling about it. What their dreams are, their ideas, their perspectives, their pain and their goals and needs for the coming time at Knowmads.

Inspiring stories. That's where it is about. When you hear young people telling about what they want to do, to change, where they dream of, this inspires. 

I can feel the power of these stories, and I get inspired by that myself. There is this feeling of going into the field of possibilities. Without any boundaries. 

Or, as Nikolaj Sahlstroem put it in his saying goodbye moment today: Thank you. You inspired me.

Education should not be a dress rehearsal.

I talk a lot with people who work at big companies. The first thing when it comes to how they see university students coming in is that they say: " we have to re-educate them". Why is that?

Suppose you study, for 5 years, marketing, on a regular university. The program is a fixed program, for 5 years, and when entering the program, one already knows what the theme is in the 2nd semester of the third year. Strange if you don't even know how the world will look like, lets say in one year.

And, worse, the most studying and work in project groups, is done with cases. Written for an educational setting, based on cognition only, and most of the time, because they are out of printed books, outdated.

At Knowmads we only work with real life stuff. Real clients, with real problems or challenges present to the students what keeps them busy in real life. Today and tomorrow. And they don't get written reports as a result. But real life stuff, like a website, a brochure, a film, a visual booklet, whatever is needed. 

Once we worked for a client, who first asked Mc. Kinsey to do the job. They came with a report of 300 pages, with on page 300 5 solutions, of which 3 where not implementable. We did the same assignment, came out with a workshop for the management, and presented 3 solutions, of which 1 is implemented, and the 2nd one is in the making. 

Life is not about cases. Working also is not. Education also not. Why not to combine life and work with education, instead of pulling off a dress rehearsal at university?

More passion into the education system.

In regular education the starting point is often control. It paralyzes the teachers and the students. 

Once I heard a great story of a friend of mine. He was overhearing a talk between two old ladies during breakfast in a hotel. One lady said to the other she still had to manage her luggage. The other one asked if it was managing or organizing her luggage. The lady asked what she meant. "Organizing is something you do because you feel like, it comes from an inner drive. Managing is something which comes from the outside, it is a have to, driven by demands from the outside" she answered.

Most of our educational institutes are being managed. By managers or administrators. From an outside perspective. I call it spreadsheet management. If it fits in a cell of a spreadsheet it will work. To quantify it. Not start from the inside, or try to organise it. Because there is a big lack of passion.

Passion for the individual student, for the individual learning curve. Passion for young people who are, regardless of their lack of experience, driven to try stuff. Driven from inside to organize it the best they can.

We, as teachers and educators need to indoctrinate passion into the system. By organizing the things we think can be beneficent for our students. Show them where to look, not what to see. 

Be passionate ourselves. About the things we love. I find a lot of fulfillment in students who are making things happen. Starting from their believe that they can make it. This is a great return on the passion I put in.

What's you passion? What makes you cry, die or fly?

(and, did you ever meet a real passionate manager?)

The bloody truth about schools.

Stop making cool ideas and start creating solutions.

That's the feeling I often get when I am going to conferences, TED(x) events and other inspirational, mind blowing events.

There are cool ideas enough out there. If you check Springwise or Trendwatching or every night one talk on TED you will get inspired on the spot. But where it is all about is action. Creating solutions.

Ideas worth spreading is great. And the next day everybody goes back to his usual work scene, with deadlines, targets, colleagues who where not at the conference who do not get it where you talk about and more daily stuff. 

I want to change this. How?

Lets say we organise a TED like event, call it Ideas Worth Doing, invite 200 bright minds in the room and let somebody give a talk about something which inspires him or her and that needs to be made in to action. And after 20 minutes talk ask the people: What action can we take NOW to make it happen. Together. In the coming 3 hours. With our phone's, our tablets, our laptops, go out there and shoot a movie, interview people, live stream it and there you are: Creating solutions, on the spot. Together with 200 people, live. 

And then ask who wants to take ownership to take it further. Because, individuals don't win, teams do. Cool ideas also don't win, actionable solutions do.

Education: Vulnerability & Enthusiasm.

Yesterday I wrote about Rhythm & Attention as being two of the four themes important in education. Together with Vulnerability & Enthusiasm these are according to me the four words basic for educational settings.

When people feel that they can be themselves, that there is a basic safety guaranteed and also felt, people allow themselves to show who they are. When you feel that you can show your vulnerability and not being seen as weak, or unable, but as a human who also has feelings, this is really strong. It makes the people see their own vulnerable sides, and makes them want to help to co-create a different reality.

Then enthusiasm is a good starting point. When being surrounded by enthusiastic people who see you for who you are, who you are as a being, as a person (and not a student-number), things are looking differently. All of a sudden one can see the possibilities of bringing you, as also a vulnerable person to a next level. 

One of the best (enthusiastic) talks on TED about this is from Brene Brown, the power of vulnerability. 

So for me the starting points of a good learning environment are these four themes: Rhythm & Attention and Vulnerability & Enthusiasm. Facilitating a good rhythm, giving the needed attention, being vulnerable and being enthusiastic works. Think about it and try it.

Education: Rhythm & Attention.

These are, amongst two other themes, two words central in my approach to facilitating a learning environment. 

In a learning environment my starting points are that these two words, as a combination, need to be in the center. When working with groups of people, I need to be able to work with the rhythm of the group. So I think, when one wants to have a good, flowing rhythm, the group needs to be small. Working as a facilitator with a group of people of maximum 15 people is the best I believe. Or with two facilitators and then with max 30. That's it. By keeping this limit in numbers, everybody has an overview of what is happening.
(I don't understand that in universities and colleges nowadays there are lecture-halls where up to 200 people are sitting and listening to a professor. Every week, they have to be there, at a fixed hour. Why not to put it on YouTube? So that students can watch it in their own rhythm, on the time which is best for them?)

Because, when the rhythm is good, also the attention is better. From the facilitator towards the attendants, vice verse, and amongst the attendants. Then one can really listen, look each other in the eyes and see and feel the communication, verbal and non-verbal. Attention is it what we want as humans, and by giving and getting it we learn much faster and better. For sure.

Everybody remembers the teacher who gave you real attention, don't you?

Education. A big word nowaday's. Education is hip. Mayb the new bubble? A hype? Or, because there are manny people involved, it is business. And, everybody, including me, thinks he knows something about it. Or has an opinion about it. How it should be. What works, and what does not work. Mostly the 35/40 plus generation. What about the students themselves? Are they in the lead?

I believe that we are learning all day.Every day. By seeing, listening, doing, smelling, hearing, touching, with all our senses we do learn. From each other, out of books, magazines, television, You-tube, Google etc. We get everything in our system. In our heads, and in our hearts. And in our hands. We do stuff with it. Or do not. Which is also learning.

Who needs big campus for that? Libraries? Universities? Big debts by taking an education which only focuses on the head? I saw the other day a great quote from a graduated student, saying: Thank you Google, Wikipedia, MSN and Crtl-C/Ctrl-V for my graduation.

My question is: how can we make our daily invisible learnings visible. How to get learning into the awareness of ourselves, that what we are doing, now, is based on something we did, saw, felt, learned before. Which experience, learning, knowledge might have worked, or is working out, or not. And how to build on that experience, knowledge and feeling in a fruitful way so it starts working for ourselves. And for others. And the world.

How visible is your invisible learning?