Global Learning Framework Launch

After over 10 years of research the Global Learning Framework™ is being launched as a six part course outside of the authority of academia.

Back in 1998 when I was launching eLearning companies, ghost writing analysts papers on LMSs and running NYC technology center I had serious doubts about the theories and methods of Adult Learning and corporate learning technologies and methods. It was a time of the birth of network technology. Learning was no longer to be the trickle-down forced-indexed based drill-and-kill we were taught.  The human race had finally invented a way to for globally collaboration (learning) to take place in a way that completely bypassed corporate, academic and authoritarian structures.

As jumpstart speaker in the 1998 international eLearning conference I coined the phrase “Search Learning” that pointed out that the Web is not indexed like text a book and that both curriculum design and learning technology will have to change into a way humans naturally learn, collaboratively. This meant a massive investment in technical and strategic paradigms for the academic and learning industries, so it was simply ignored.

By 2003 I shifted my attention to the NGO world of developing transformational lessons of US Homeless Women and African groups. By 2010 an analysis of Adult Learning Theory left me stunned with substandard research filled self-justifying syntax, inexcusable poor research and generalizations that demand a Scientology like faith that came from the popular published professors of major academic institutions. Leading Institution professor were making tidy sums with research that would of gotten them fired in any of my client companies. Brookfield 1995 paper “Storming the Citadel – Reading Theory Critically” address the problems in academic learning theory however it does not cover the dire consequences of academia delivering graduates with so little moral fabric. Graduates that can fleece counties of trillions, war for oil fields, and 100,000 suicides over GMO small farm deals.

While the academic bubble continued these self-justify theories of transformation and “Relativeness” an entirely separate world in the streets using the ideas of Malcolm Knowles, Pablo Frieri and John Dewey with educators / volunteers were doing the real transformational work with literacy and life skills programs. In the streets, personal and cultural frameworks were not “relative” they were the driving motivational tools for personal development. Character development was far more important than workforce competence development. Concurrent to elites theory lectures movies such as “Freedom Writers” and “Precious” show the public what it takes for real transform needs to take place. I have replicated the methods of these movies with remarkable results. I refer this work in the Global Learning Framework course lessons.

Yet quietly tucked away is the research for Yale Baby Lab that definitively illustrates the toddler from birth understand right from wrong, values and how every piece of content is wrapped in context.

Of course while all of this is taking place by 2007 the entire world wired itself together in a Global learning collaborative experience that could care less of anything to do with academia. With no assessment or test Google served up massive content within personal context. Here the tables were completely turned, it was the content that was rated and not the learner. With US and African academic yield and a combined unemployment, or under-employment a cry for re thinking academic theory and methods is urgently now.

In the streets educators knew that common core in uncommon core was nothing more that academia as an industry. The truth was that the people of the world were well on the way evolving the Collaborative Core. We as strategic and instruction designers had better adopt to integrating our lessons into this world no matter how out of control is seems. Tragically the APA religionist pushes the replicating of mistaken theory of the past on graduate students who are forced to create thesis of religions agreement to finish a $50,000 sheepskin. The rivers of the world’s knowledge are waiting to burst through the gateways of smart boards and smart phones in every teen’s pocket.

The human race figured out how to learn collaboratively on a global bases the same way we learned in caves and mentored our young in the fields.  African learning is social, and perhaps that is hard for the authoritarian to control. Ironically it was in 1927 when Lindeman flagged the flawed subject learning curriculum should be experiential learning and reminded us the “Learning is a Social” experience.

1.    We need a Global Learning Framework that clearly defines how we learn tribally/collaboratively that any system designer, teacher or mentor can hang a lesson on that is 100% relevant to the learner.

2.    We need Personal Learning Framework that clearly defines how we take in the world, figure it out and create. We need a personal Learning Framework that embraces personal character development along with cultural and personal values, not sanitize them out. These methods must enrich the human experience in a way Blooms and other academic taxonomies deny. The human experience is not Dr. Spock world of pure intellect in denial of human emotion. Here is where clarity is needed on how context is more important than content and how we do curriculum design, something and teen with smart phone knows.

3.    We need a Transformation Learning Framework that is not for elite Ph.D. in Ivy League schools but for the people of the world who must be provided with the experience necessary to lift them selves out of trauma and poverty.

Finally we need theory to be united with methods that anyone can understand and use at any level of society. Theory and method needs to define how we personally change the global experience while at the same time the world changes us. Dewey’ democracy in learning is so spot on that the world of drill and kills is dead.

It is intentional that I launch the Global Learning Framework outside of the authoritarian academic religious institution. While I do own the copyright and trade make of names we truly open it to the field of research and people in the trenches doing the real work. Over the coming week I will publish five more lessons along with the curriculum that I used in testing the methods Africa, US schools and US urban poor. All papers are readily available without charge on Academia.edu, SlideShare and our Global Learning Framework Community.

More information and the complete course will be located at: http://globallearningframework.ning.com.

^{Global Learning Framework, Micro Learning Paths Personal Learning Framework and Transformation Learning Framework and the trademark and copyright of Richard C. Close 2010 -2014}