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Anyone in the world In the military there is no doubt that training is necessary, as it addresses a lack of skills and knowledge; and no civilians have those critical soldier skills necessary for a fighting force. However, during my service in the Canadian Forces we had two types of training - individual and collective. Individual training was run by the schools and training establishments while collective training was run by the operational units. I see similarities in the business world, with formal training being mostly individual and scholl-run and informal learning being collective and local; the latter usually requires a social context.
The military knows the value of collective training, because a bunch of trained soldiers alone do not make a cohesive unit. They need to bond and learn how share information and work together. Anne Irwin, a social anthropologist, recently studied Canadian soldiers from the Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry battle group in Afghanistan and found that they learnt through storytelling.
\"When they are out in the field and return from a patrol, the exhausted soldiers relax together in small, tightly-knit groups - Irwin calls them \"nesting circles” - and recount the events of the day or the mission.
Each soldier contributes a story, an anecdote or even a joke, adding stock and spice into what becomes a collective stew of experiences, she said. They also playfully insult each other.
The storytelling not only helps forge the individual identity of each soldier, it builds interpersonal relationships that can have a bearing on how well the unit performs on the battlefield.\"
Having served in the same regiment and having been active in training and learning for many years now, I can say that this is the perfect example of the importance of informal learning. It’s a fact that these soldiers have all been formally trained in the skills of the infantry. However, the unit is not an effective fighting force until individuals have worked together. Informal learning is the glue that helps keep them together during the tough times. Support for these “nesting circles” and other ways to facilitate group learning is essential.
I think that one of the next challenges for this community should be to look at informal learning within the military. For instance, is it easy to record these important stories and then pass them on to those who need them? Can we develop quick & dirty tools, similar to \"small pieces loosely joined\" on the Web, that can make a difference in individual and collective learning on the changing, networked battlefield? I hope so. | 
