Your personal learning map

Yesterday I attended an interesting seminar about drawing your personal learning map by Jan Weverberg (@janweverbergh) at VOV (www.vov.be). I would like to share some of the ideas, mixed with my own insights.

We learn all the time. We observe, we gather information, we discover, we talk & listen and we learn. I agree, we are not always aware of the fact we are learning, but I believe we always learn from our experiences.



I distinguish 5 groups of learning sources :

1. Me & the world : we learn by observing what is going on around us. As a toddler this was the most important source of learning. We look at mum & dad, big brother or sister and we try to copy them. As we grow older, we also interact with other people in the world. We contact certain people more easily if we want to know something about a certain topic. 
2. Seminars : at the age of 5 we go to school and learn what teachers tell us (and try to repeat it, to get good grades). Later on in life we keep on doing this, although we don't need the grades anymore. 
3. Books and magazines : not everybody, but many people read books and magazines. Depending on the source the quality of the book or magazine might vary. Reading is definitely a good way to learn. I can only recommend it.
4. e-World : ever since the invention of the internet, a load of information is coming at us. This gigantic maze of information can serve as a good source, but it is a maze. You have to find your way through it. 
5. Social media : I draw a line between e-world and social media. To me e-Worlds are more static sources like Wikipedia, websites, ... Social media are dynamic sources like blogs, twitter, linked in, ... 

My advise to you :

To be more aware of your learning sources, you can draw your personal learning map. Discover who you contact when you need information on a certain topic, what are the sources you'll search through, who are the twitter-guru's you follow, ... ? Doing this exercise, will help you become more aware of how you learn, which creates more focus and better results. 

Take a piece of paper and write down :

Who you gonna call ? to get information ? 

What were the best seminars ever ? 

Who are the authors / magazines I learn from ?

What are my e-sources ? (websites, ...)

What social media sources do I use (twitter sources, people on linked in, ...)

Have fun !