World is Open-- Informal Learning--3

In my continuing reading of Curt Bonk's, The World is Open, he identifies what I think is the most important development within educational innovation-- the expansion of informal learning.

He writes,

"There are no credentials that this worker receives from going on the Web to learn what a wiki is, or to view a map of a country she intends to visit, or perhaps to buy [Jay] Cross's book [on informal learning]-- yet each of these information searches entails learning" (p. 40).

I continue to think that the most powerful transformation in learning is taking place in this invisible process of informal learning. Just as most of us have been learning a lot informally from television we are now learning a lot informally on the web. The unfortunate part of this is that just as most educational institutions have not actively participated in the creation of television material (other than through athletics!), our educational institutions are currently missing the opportunity to create great Web material.

The Cape Town Open Education Declaration challenges educators to actively participate in the creation and use of open educational resources, authors and publishers to release their resources openly, and higher education and other institutions to make open educational activities a priority.

These are the important challenges in the creation of informal learning.