Put Your Learners in the Driver’s Seat with Learning 3.0 Strategies

• 3 min read

Learning 3.0 breaks teacher-learner wall and makes learning a shared, social responsibility

The eLearning community has talked about the emergence of Learning 3.0 for just over a year, and like a lot of things coming to eLearning in 2017, it’s going to be big. Here at the Docebo Blog, we’ve touched on the Learning 3.0 idea before, but we haven’t really explored its genesis and meaning. In this post we’ll step back and look at where it came from and what it means today.

So what are Learning 1.0 and 2.0 anyway?

Though all of these theories of learning are not universally embraced and loosely defined, the models of Learning 1.0 and 2.0 have their roots in generally accepted approaches to getting information and skills from the teacher to the student.

In the Learning 1.0 model, learners can be thought of as children with few resources for learning, externally defined motivations for learning, and a dependence on their “teacher” as a guide in their journey towards learning. We tend to bin this under pedagogy, broadly, and can be thought of as a more unilateral, top-down approach to teaching.

Learning 2.0 takes this a step further. Often associated with the term andragogy, it is commonly linked to the teaching of adults specifically. Learners in this model seek autonomy in their learning journey and use their own experience as well as the experience of others to develop their learning and performance goals. Here the teacher still plays a vital role but becomes more of a mentor or facilitator for learning and development. Of course they play an instructional role, but here the learner is more active, engaged, and driven in their learning journey.

Learning 3.0 puts the learners at the centre of the learning ecosystem

The whole idea of Learning 3.0 is taking the control and definition of learning content and processes out of the hands of experts and giving them to learners themselves. In this “heutagogy” — I know, sounds fancy, don’t it — teaching and learning is neither driven by a teacher or curriculum but instead by the learner and learner community themselves.

So, what does that mean practically? Well, Learning 3.0 goes hand in hand with many of the things we talk about here, namely eLearning itself, microlearning, MOOCs, social learning, and more. Here are some elements essential to know about the Learning 3.0 model:

  • It’s unconstrained by the limits of time: Since it embraces so many outlets and methods of L&D, Learning 3.0 can take place any time as users consume content through modes such as videos and other microlearning-oriented mechanisms, at their own pace.
  • It is unconstrained by space: Similar to the above point, just as Learning 3.0 adopts tools that can be used at any time, it also embraces learning that can occur anywhere. Learners on one side of the globe might be ready to co-learn with other learners ten time zones away. It’s the nature of the modern economy that such things occur, and eLearning has set us free from the shackles of having to learn in one place, at one time.
  • It’s really, really community based and socially driven: Just as a large part of the 70:20:10 learning methodology we talk about so often here at the Docebo blog centres around social learning, Learning 3.0 is very much focused on how learners decrease their reliance on “teachers” in the traditional sense and instead become their own community or self-improving ecosystem of learners.

Learn more about other emerging trends in 2017 by downloading our essential report on eLearning Trends and Forecast: 2017-2021.