The first thing we need to do, is think differently about the word “learning” itself. Learning doesn’t just happen when we are trained or taught or study something – that’s definitely the traditional view of learning: sitting in a school classroom or university lecture hall or in a corporate training room or working through an online course on your computer. Of course, training is important – but it’s not the only way we learn at work. Research shows that people use digital tools to learn in 4 different but interconnected ways: 1) People learn through Discovery – that is by finding things out themselves (mostly on the Web) through searching or serendipitous browsing. We might also refer to this as Informal Learning 2) People learn by Interacting With Others (whether it be in their professional social networks (like Twitter or LinkedIn) or with their work colleagues. We can refer to that as Social Learning. 3) People learn from from their Everyday Work
A Compendium of Concepts