I love that old cliché that references the “less academic” offerings that many institutions of learning have offered over the years. Although the actual course may never have existed, as an idiom it carries a good amount of meaning for us as a society. The courses to which the term “Underwater Basket Weaving” refers offered some guilty pleasures for many of us in our educational journeys, and sometimes they may have even turned out to be genuine learning experiences. I took a number of painting courses in graduate school, and although they did not fulfill any core requirements, nor get me much closer to the goal of graduation, they did offer a tremendous outlet, and an opportunity to use other portions of my brain (even if for just a few hours a week). But somewhere along the line I also learned how to paint.

Today’s internet is headed in a direction where there are sometimes more “Underwater Basket Weaving” distractions than there is “Core” (read as “Important” or “Valuable”) information. Web 2.0 (or the “Read/Write Web”), with all of its interactive and user-generated content opportunities seems to be taking even further down that path. It’s incredibly easy to find information about, gather instruction on, watch videos pertaining to, and join discussions dissecting just about anything anyone is interested in. Heck, I could learn enough about any hobby of mine to research, write and publish a virtual book in an afternoon (and yes, this is me presenting a pure, unadulterated plug for my April 23rd post).

With all these distractions, your might ask, how can I really learn anything truly important? Well, that actually might be just the point–although formal learning certainly needs to have goals, objectives and even assessments to make sure you everyone’s getting where we’d hoped they would, perhaps the informal learning opportunities that present themselves in life could also be just as real and just as important to us. Perhaps “getting lost” in topic we love on the internet, and drinking in content and sharing thoughtful feedback about that content really . . . is . . . learning. And what if that learning could be done with a subject matter expert as a guide by our side? That should be, I believe, one of the major goals with the next evolution of eLearning. And that’s just the kind of experience I hope my kids get during the course of their education, and if it takes me turning my head to the occasional “Underwater Basket Weaving”-type of experience that I may at some point believe that my children are engaging in, then so be it.

*Originally posted May 22, 2009 on discoverchampions.com