Pathways : a Blended Learning

Clive Shepherd wrote this two books, and on his name is the link to his one hour speech given a few years ago, just before he finished More then blended learning book. Clive worked for more then ten years to arrive to explain his methods.

I just got the More than Blended Learning, in a book format: it is thick and square. Now, I can also see the images well and they do add to my understanding.

I begun to read again his book, without need my eyeglasses, and I decided to lookup the Videos on youTube but also, if he has written any other books. 

He has! I acquired on Kindle his book called The New Learning Architect written years before. The two books, together help me understand better the New Learning Theories and Practices. They also helped me to appreciate more and understand better the building of Toastmasters New Education Program. So many things to balance and decide!

Clive published "The new learning architect" in 2010. Reading it, I begun to understand better the Blended and More then Blended learning. How many important decisions a "Learning Architect" has to take!

A Professional, not only at the order of the client, who does know the results the time and money, but does not know the different learning methods available, the different new possibilities in media, and other special Learning Theories of the day and of centuries. 

For the moment, what remained most in my mind is that we do not have to accumulate all the knowledge in our mind. We can find them, use them, when needed, the wisdom found on Web from experts, forums, videos, pals. But, we do have to get to that level of understanding, and learn how to find them, where to find them in need. 

Before, methods of discovery were not so different, as, we did reach out in the libraries, did reach out to ask specialists. I did when I prepared my PhD! At the end, I resumed my learning: "I learned to learn". 

I also learned to combine two domains to find something new at the border, that no one yet, or not many, searched or tried out yet. At that time, combining it with different new searching methods in chemistry. 

When I begun my first Level of first Path, it was combining Transition with Pathways. In fact, I am still on that research, even by studying this books. They explain me a lot strangely, about Pathways and how it is now and how it got there.

Yes, to whom we teach has to be decided. Beginners and experts do not need the same! 

I believe that the new paths will address this issue better, but already I can tell: I did learn something new with every path I went through. I also learned of course, how I can take a path and "bend it" to my need and my passion. Use it to tell better what I want to get known and wanted for long time: the importance of personal storytelling. 

I will have to write a lot more about what I am learning from the two books, from Cleve Shepherd, who, of course, begins his speech with a story. A personal story. Even if he adds somewhere in the beginning, "it is invented", it sounds so true, so personal, that I have difficulty believing him. He speaks often of "my wife and me then..." in first person. And of course, his story to which he goes back again and again, illustrates perfectly the "blend" and the need of blending different ways of learning as we go along to learn a skill.