I appreciate George Siemens posts, they’re often filled with lots of food for thought. His white paper Learning in Sync with Life: New Models New processes got me to thinking again about non-formal learning and metacognition.
How do learners accumulate their learning and demonstrate competence and capability?

How do learners understand and perceive their own learning, acquired competencies and capacity? I read some years ago that the skills and knowledge a “homemaker” accumulates from the myriad of duties she attends to to keep a home running, equal or exceed those of a middle manager.
I’d guess that most people have little interest in how they learn, but rather in how their skills can be transferred and applied to various situations. Resume writing and preparing for job interviews are a great vehicle for synthesizing and summarizing our competencies.
I’m not sure we can create a culture of life long learning without exposing our beliefs about what it (learning) looks like, when it happens, and how.
And I’m wondering too as I write this, that perhaps some of the fears of obsolescence educational professionals have, might be justified. Tools, games and connections continue to become more sophisticated technologically, socially and politically. We need to keep up enough to be able to guide students’ attention and co-construct what’s going on. This process might make it possible for us to model and facilitate non-formal learning and metacognition.