Entornos personales de aprendizaje on-line. El caso de telefónica

Resumen

Personal Learning Environmentes; Learning Organization; Self Directed Learning; Adult Education; On-line Learning; Adult education and education within organizations is suffering an immense evolution during the last 25 years. Although there are many factors that are contributing to the change, we believe that technology is the most important driver for this evolution. According to Ismael Salim (2012), the digital revolution is provoking exponential change in all technologies, as a result of which, the life span of most productive entities is getting shorter all the time and therefore, the knowledge and competencies required to handle them too. According to Peter Senge (1990), in this very changing and competitive environment, the companies that will succeed will be those that have the capacity to evolve and adapt constantly to change. Adapting to change requires developing an organizational learning culture and the associated learning capabilities within all the members of the organization. That is, the company needs to become a “Learning Organization”. Those organizations that have been able to develop and implement a learning organization culture have improved their innovation capabilities and their financial performance (Richard L. Daft y Karl E. Weick (1984); Garvin, D. A., (1985); Peter Senge (1990); George Hubber (1991); James G. March (1991); Ikujiro Nonaka & Hirotaka Takeuchi (1991); Karen Marsick y Victoria Watkins (1993). To become a Learning Organization, its members have to develop essentially two types of skills: self-directed learning readiness and a collective learning culture. Now, we believe that the development and massive deployment of new open learning tools that has taken place in the Internet during the last decade, has contributed immensely to evolve the culture and mentality of individuals regarding adult learning. People and organizations are shifting from a culture of highly structured learning processes driven by the own organization, to a more spontaneous self-learning and collaborative learning culture, using Internet and open on-line learning tools as its most relevant vehicle and enabler. MOOC platforms, on-line social networks, open blogs, etc, allow individuals to create their own personal learning environments, through which they learn at an individual and collective level, allowing them to develop and adapt to the changing environment and to create informal learning networks, that contribute to develop the required learning organization culture. The present study was carried out within Telefonica, a multinational telecommunications company operating in more than 20 countries, and shows that there is a close relationship between the use of on-line personal learning environments by the individuals and the development of a self-directed learning and organizational learning culture within the organization.