Knowledge
Management and E-learning
by Donald Clark
E-Learning
is closely related to knowledge
management. While knowledge management attempts to ensure that
the survival of the organization is guaranteed by capturing the
knowledge of its workers, e-learning attempts to ensure that the
workers can quickly retrieve the knowledge that they require and
to help them grow as individuals. Organizations and its workers
are synergic in nature, for when one grows, the others grows. On
the other hand, if one or the other fails to grow, then it most
certainly means failure for both in today's competitive environment.
A
lot of organizations will waste money on knowledge management and/or
e-learning. Why? There is a lot of knowledge and skills to be found
in most organizations. So much, that even the best knowledge management
systems will fail to capture even half of it. And the knowledge
and skills that they do go after and capture is a guessing game
- "will it help us to grow or will a new paradigm emerge that changes
the knowledge structure?" Knowledge management is not just about
capturing the knowledge within its ranks, its about capturing the
correct knowledge and skills that will grow the organization
during present and future paradigm shifts.
e-Learning
faces similar consequences. A lot of e-learning is just conventional
training delivered through electronic means. In fact, it could be
taught through c-learning with very little consequences. But the type of learning that will
help the individual grow the most, and in turn, the organization,
is developmental in nature as discussed in Communities of Practice.
Although e-Learning is Not Knowledge
Management, they are both going to grow into very similar
concepts (E-Learning's
Straight Shooter). A lot of what knowledge represents involves
oral and dynamic experiences, so it never written down. This has
dire consequences. For example, people leave organizations, and
with them they take years of knowledge and skills. The day a person
says she is leaving the organization, her job should immediately
change from performing duties and tasks to capturing what she knows
so that the organization and her successor knows what she is doing
and how do do it. Even better yet, the organization should capture
the skills and knowledge before a person even considers leaving.
This would be the convergence of e-learning and knowledge management.
For
more information, see:
Knowledge
Management
Knowledge
Management (history)
Resources
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