Couple of links for this. Informal Learning is covered in a recent publication -
Formal vs. Informal Learning
Educators—whether in K12, higher education, or corporate spaces—tend to focus on formal learning that involves such things as content delivery, practice, feedback, assessment, and evaluation. However, learning is a natural human cognitive process that is constantly occurring whether someone is in a formal learning setting or not. A simple example of this is how toddlers learn to speak their native tongue. They may be “coached” by parents and family members but barring physical deficits there are no formal classes necessary to learn to speak. This type of learning has been defined as informal learning.
Make, Share, Find: Web 2.0 and Informal Learning
Phil Antonelli
2009 CU Online, University of Colorado Denver
e-book version, available at http://cuonline.ucdenver.edu/handbook/
also there has been nocomment on my post from awhile ago on the Orkut group about Quality Management-
Learning with quality systems, is this obvious?
I have just found this group so the topic may have come up previously.
Is it obvious that learning is a large part of what happens through people in a quality system?
I have tried to get interest in quality theory from people who study management learning. In the UK the people who know about learning tend to have a critical opinion about quality. Perhaps their experience in UK universities has not been pleasant. See "Making Quality Critical" by Wilkinson and Wilmott for example.
So far there has not been much UK academic interest in relating quality theory to researching learning organisations. Peter Senge recognises the connections, see his mentions for Dr Deming in the update for The Fifth Discipline.
My guess is that for most practitioners the links between learning and quality are obvious. Maybe academics just have to be organised in disciplines. Maybe it is just an issue in the UK.
So I think learning can be considered as part of quality practice. I have been looking at previous writing and a lot of it is on how to pass go where the connection is accepted. Still a lot could follow if the learning organisation and quality were considered together more often.