Hao jiu bu jian ni! Guess what. I’m back in Hangzhou, China teaching English and working on my Mandarin. I saw your blog via CHinesepod. How exciting that you’re learning Chinese too. That’s great.. Why don’t you send me an email. We can meet up if you come to China or when I come back to Toronto.

Mariama (you’re ex trainee from Legend)

You are right. I am undertaking the ChinesePod experiment from the perspective of the learner. And I am learning a lot about what works and what doesn’t work for the learner.

You make a great point: “This represents a semi-radical approach to instruction for most companies- to see learning from the student’s point of view first and foremost.”

Most organizations design learning from the top down. I believe that the challenge for corporate learning designers is to find effective ways to incorporate Web 2.0 user behaviours into our more traditionally designed training programs. Perhaps we can call it Learning 2.0.

Thanks for posting. I look forward to hearing from you again.

Paul

I agree with your observation that “e-learning (particularly blended e-learning) Informal Learning, and Communities of Practice seem to be coalescing into a perfect storm to create a new era of learning”.

I believe that you and the team at ChinesePod are on the cutting edge of what we can do with learning design. I am having a great experience as a learner.

We seem to have shared professional and research interests. I look forward to keeping the conversation going!

Paul

You talk about Blended Learning rather than blended instruction. The difference I think is a matter of who is in the driver’s seat- the teacher or the student. In your case I feel you undertaking this experiment from the position of the learner.

This represents a semi-radical approach to instruction for most companies- to see learning from the student’s point of view first and foremost. It seems to me that this revolution isn’t only about technology and tools but fundamentally about a sift in perspective by first centering things around the learner which is something Chinesepod does quite well.

I’m delighted to see you fellows do the blended learning thing with ChinesePod AND blog about the whole thing. Let’s stay in touch.

Ken Carroll

I wish you the best of luck in your studies and let me know if there’s anything I can do to help. I’m very interested in how e-learning (particularly blended e-learning) Informal Learning, and Communities of Practice seem to be coalescing into a perfect storm to create a new era of learning.

I think you’e touched on a number of key issues in your post. These are things I’m thinking about myself, so let’s stay in touch. My blog is here:
http://blogs.chinesepod.com/

Interestingly, one other ChinesePod learner started a blog just yesterday on the same type of topic – http://podlearner.com/

Ken Carroll