Stephen Downes points to this fascinating article on learning, Change or Die from Fast Company. Make it past the rather long beginning, and you'll get new perspectives on what we need to do to achieve meaningful and lasting change.
I'm pleased to see it echoing the importance of emotion in learning, a topic I'm keen on (see also Chapnick & Meloy's book on using drama in learning). Part of the reason I work on games is to try to bring in emotional motivation; we need to start getting the heart involved, not just the mind!
It also talks about supporting tranformation (see also Cross & Dublin's Implementing eLearning), something else we need to incorporate into elearning. (I had a great lesson on this from a course on speaking to the media, where they had a formula for how to create an effective message, and suggested using it on your kids to keep the skill active!)
And it talks about research on how continuous learning keeps your mind more active later in life. The old 'mental exercise' stuff about why you were supposed to learn Latin (before even my time) may be right after all! See Marcia Conner's book Learn More Now for some more on this.
In short, it's a great article for those of us interested in successful learning and meaningful change, and that should be all of us!
