Web. Www.evernote.com/shard/s4/res/fdda50cc-6eb9-49f6-a113-8ab28c012399/Exploring+Teachers%27+Informal+Learning+for+Policy+on+Professional+Development.pdf. Understanding Technology Adoption: Theory and Future Directions for Informal Learning (Straub, 2009) Minds on Fire: Open Education, the Long Tail, and Learning 2.0 (Seely Brown & Adler, 2008) New Technology Supporting Informal Learning (Downes, 2009) Abstract We often talk about games, simulations and other events in learning, but these technologies support only episodic learning. Equally important are those technologies that provide a context for these learning episodes, an environment where students and interact and converse among themselves. This paper described experimentation in the development of distributed online courses and in software - particularly, the personal learning environment - that support the formation of connections between the far-flung pieces of such courses. This work, in turn, is suggesting and supporting the model of learning described in the first section, that of a course network supporting and informing an ever-shifting set of course episodes.
This in turn suggests a pedagogy of participation rather than retention, and even suggests distributed and locally-based forms of evaluation and assessment. Context Why is this necessary? Second, learners themselves are changing. Current Future. Informal learning in an online community of practice (Gray, 2009)