| Date: Tue, 30 Oct 2001 12:52:41 -0800 | 03 00050 61 01103002 |
Ms. Pam Buck
917 Arrowhead Terrace
Clayton, CA 94517
| Subject: | Future of Learning in Summary |
Dear Pam,
Responding to your letter requesting a summary, sorry about sending a long letter; will not send any more.
Summarizing the future of learning explained in the copy of the letter submitted to you on October 29, 2001, for a mom, the big idea is that traditional curriculum in school can be strengthened by giving kids the new skills to convert information using alphabet technology (like this letter) into useful knowledge by adding organization, analysis, alignment, summary (what you requested) and feedback (what you provided). Without these skills enabling a new way of working, hi-tech causes information overload that makes communication a cause of continual problems, rather that an engine of progress.
For an adult, out making a living, the big idea is that learning continues past school by taking stuff we get in an email, books, magazines, hear on television, the phone and in meetings, and connect it up into organizational memory. Adding "intelligence" to this new resource using new skills learned in school, per above, enables continual learning over a lifetime about correlations, implications and nuance normally overlooked because we are too busy. Working only from summary causes cursory, erroneous understanding that causes productivity, earnings and stock prices to fall, despite working hard. Individually, from day-to-day we may not sense a deficit, but multiplied across an organization, and across the nation, the weight of continual bumbling impacts economic performance.
So, the future of learning means enabling people to work smarter not harder by transitioning from a culture of information to a culture of knowledge, explained more fully in the earlier letter.
Again, sorry for such a long winded letter, and for a lengthy summary.
Thanks for the feedback.
THE WELCH COMPANY
Rod Welch
rowelch@attglobal.net