But Jane is not all talk, she’s all action
and has been incredibly generous with her research and knowledge. Best known
for her website, the Centre for Learning and Performance Technologies, which is packed full of useful free advice, she has, since
2005, provided a well respected set of free resources for the learning community.
Jane Hart, like Jay Cross, has taken her inspiration from the fundamental truth that most people, most of the time, learn most - informally. Yet most learning professionals, mostly deliver fixed courses at fixed times. Jane has always attempted to free us from the course mentality into a more dynamic model of learning.
Tools
Jane’s regular survey’s on tools in learning is a useful way
of polling the industry to feedback useful data on what’s new, useful and
practical in learning tools. Her Top 100 Tools in Learning has proved very
popular. Not content with just collating the list she also provides a useful
Practical Guide to the use of these 100 tools. These quick guides show you how
to use the tools for your personal learning, professional development or the
production of education and training. Although tools in themselves are only a
small part of the solution, as you don’t make a novelist by simply giving
someone a word processor, it is important to identify the most used and best of
breed tools.
What surprises many is how often the Top Tools are actually commonplace tools such as Google Search, YouTube, PowerPoint, Word, Wikipedia and Social media. This spakes truth to power and is in line with her views on informal learning.
Note that most (not all) of these tools are social media
tools or have a social media angle. She
has been tireless in her recognition and promotion of social media in learning.
Social media
Jane was among the first to recognise the important role
that social media would play in the learning landscape. She then went on to
collate a whole raft of resources to help others understand, choose and
implement solutions within their organisations.
Jane and learning
More than all of the above is her underlying effort to increase
the productivity of learning. Jane is far
from being just a tools wonk or social media evangelist. When it comes to the
jungle of real organisations, she’s more Tarzan than Jane. Her understanding of
learning in general, cultural barriers and real implementation is considerable.
She gives excellent talks and webinars on how to get this done, in a practical
fashion, within your organisation. This is all about improvements, productivity
and performance.
Conclusion
Jane is one of those people who has focus. Rather than
trying to be all things to all people she has mined a single, rich vein, which
happened to be one of the most important developments in the last 50 years in
learning; the recognition that informal learning, social media and the use of technology
tools will give us huge gains in learning. Lastly, and this is important folks
- she is also a terribly nice person!
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