tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-120932032024-03-07T19:36:09.973-05:00The Hitchhiker's Guide to e-LearningThoughts, ideas, links, resources and other things from my journey through the nebulous universe that is e-learning. This is a forum for my observations and reflections as I learn, grow, experience and observe.
As we learn, so do we GROW...Mossy Stonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18300696588989166884noreply@blogger.comBlogger54125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12093203.post-7721525644372724432011-05-27T15:25:00.000-04:002011-05-27T15:25:12.834-04:00PKM/Network LearningI am, at long last, attending my Personal Knowledge Management/Network Learning workshop at U of T, conducted by <a href="http://www.jarche.com">Harold Jarche</a>.<br />
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I'll provide some reflections once I aggregate everything I've jotted down.Mossy Stonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18300696588989166884noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12093203.post-68294783186457511892011-04-11T15:57:00.002-04:002011-04-11T15:57:58.451-04:00John Seely Brown InterviewThanks to Jane Hart for the original link.<br />
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<object width = "512" height = "328" > <param name = "movie" value = "http://www-tc.pbs.org/video/media/swf/PBSPlayer.swf" ></param><param name="flashvars" value="video=1767466213&player=viral&end=0" /><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param ><param name = "allowscriptaccess" value = "always" ></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param ><embed src="http://www-tc.pbs.org/video/media/swf/PBSPlayer.swf" flashvars="video=1767466213&player=viral&end=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" wmode="transparent" allowfullscreen="true" width="512" height="328" bgcolor="#000000"></embed></object><p style="font-size:11px; font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; color: #808080; margin-top: 5px; background: transparent; text-align: center; width: 512px;">Watch the <a style="text-decoration:none !important; font-weight:normal !important; height: 13px; color:#4eb2fe !important;" href="http://video.pbs.org/video/1767466213" target="_blank">full episode</a>. See more <a style="text-decoration:none !important; font-weight:normal !important; height: 13px; color:#4eb2fe !important;" href="http://video.pbs.org/program/1704857027" target="_blank">Digital Media - New Learners Of The 21st Century.</a></p>Mossy Stonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18300696588989166884noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12093203.post-90312363870565426192011-03-26T21:06:00.000-04:002011-03-26T21:06:39.379-04:00A Small Planetary DiversionSadly, it lookS like I won't be able to get to see the Ruth Clark workshop in Toronto on the 29th. Sometimes circumstances just don't work in one's favour.<br />
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But I'm still hopeful to get to the mlearning workshop in Ottawa at the end of April.<br />
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I may be a little quiet for the next two weeks but rest assured I'm not going away.Mossy Stonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18300696588989166884noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12093203.post-24331461140618857792011-03-21T11:46:00.000-04:002011-03-21T11:46:10.198-04:00The Politics and "Business" of learning, Part 2Here's the second installment of some posts to my Assessment & Evaluation learners.<br />
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<i>Small-p politics is a always such a meaty subject and one that can sometimes become polarizing. So, I'm relieved on two fronts: first, that there's a real richness of commentary here; and, two, that the polarization seems to be almost non-existent. However, there are some additional things I'd like you to consider before this phase of the discussion wraps up.<br />
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[name]'s article from the <a href="http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/High+school+graduation+Grits/4407001/story.html#ixzz1GP5V17AH">Ottawa Citizen</a> does illustrate one potentially disturbing trend in some sectors of the public education system, and that is 'entitlement'. While one is entitled to an education (by law, in most cases) one is not entitled to a false assessment of one's success. (In simpler terms, "if you want it, you gotta work for it".) Indeed, I'm rather disturbed by the implication of an education system that seems to feel that a "negotiated" pass is more effective in the long run than learning from one's failure. I see parallels in some youth sports where the philosophy is "we don't keep score, and there's no winner or loser."<br />
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So consider this as you continue this discussion: What's the impact on the learner when the assessment and evaluation framework can be rendered null through negotiation and false entitlement? What happens to them when the "really" fail at something? Or...in more practical terms, would you want your heart surgeon to be someone who had Mom & Dad go to bat for him/her when they didn't get a pass score in Anatomy 101 and thus scraped through Med School? Or would you want the confidence of knowing there's some real rigour behind their lengthy training?<br />
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Now, let's extend this discussion to workplace learning and we can consider formal and informal situations. What happens to the learner or the organization where compliance is an issue, and pass rates are forced upon the educator or assessor? Or, what happens when a peer coach doesn't like telling someone they're wrong about an interpretation of a key skill? Can you think of situations where this could have longer-term consequences?<br />
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While the learning content provided for your major project doesn't have immediate life-or-death implications, consider the impact of the failure to meet outcomes. How do you support someone to "get there" and feel they have succeeded?<br />
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So, you've all hit on the nastiness of "politics" in learning. The question is: what are you going to do about it?</i>Mossy Stonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18300696588989166884noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12093203.post-25377347709493361932011-03-21T11:38:00.002-04:002011-03-21T11:46:49.046-04:00The Politics and "Business" of learning, Part 1I posted the bulk of this entry to the forum for one of the two courses I'm currently teaching. The learners were sharing their observations and frustrations about politics and undue influence in supposedly objective evaluation frameworks.<br />
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So, mostly unedited, here is the first part for your perusal.<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
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<i>I must say that I am enjoying the discussions going on here and I wanted to add a few thoughts based on some of the recent comments. These thoughts are based on my own experiences working in a number of different learning environments. I offer these thoughts with the caveat that they're somewhat of a blanket indictment; while I'm sure there are organizations who operate differently than those discussed here, what follows are my observations of a perceived norm across general corporate technical training vendors.</i><br />
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</i><br />
<i>Both [name] and [name] spoke of the idea of wanting to be "liked" as a teacher/educator/instructor, and I don't think anyone would disagree that there's a small element of "ego" at work when you're given the responsibility to train others. However, what one cannot lose sight of is the organizational interest in just how much learners "like" you. In organizations where training is provided 'for profit', customer satisfaction is huge, and rightfully so. However, it has been my experience that because many of these organizations are inserted as an "event fulfillment" provider rather than a strategic partner and stakeholder in someone's learning process, the commitment to learning is somewhat less than it would be if the learning were facilitated through an in-house resource. Training vendors, therefore, are mostly concerned with "bums in seats", preferably repeat ones. So, high satisfaction scores on the end-of-course smiley sheet become the almighty metric for vendor, buyer, and trainer/educator.</i><br />
<i><br />
</i><br />
<i>This leaves the educator in a bit of a dilemma: Do you do everything but stand on your head to chase a perfect evaluation score that tells you nothing about what you should be improving, or do you risk the wrath of those monitoring your scores by asking your learners to be genuine? Also consider whether or not the educator can really say whether or not the participant actually "learned" enough from you to put new skills and ideas into practice?</i><br />
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</i><br />
<i>(As a sidebar, consider a different environment like military training. Based on my own experiences on both sides of the equation, I know there were very few instructors that I "liked", in fact, there were a number of them that I cordially detested...but I learned something from each of them. As an instructor and later an instructor coach/monitor, I knew that my role was not to be "liked", but to be an effective trainer/coach, and to be a positive role model, and to inspire the people I was responsible for. In that environment, instructor "likes" aren't the metric of the day. Successful performance of the trainee definitely is.)</i><br />
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</i><br />
<i>So when we look at the "business" of training, and what it means in terms of evaluation practice is that evaluation and assessment really tend not to happen through a full cycle of any kind. Most of these folks are living at Level 1 of the venerable Kirkpatrick model for evaluation and are either unable to proceed deeper or unwilling because of the business model. Ultimately, the learners are the ones who lose. Because there's such a limited awareness of other frameworks, the Linus-blanket of the smiley sheet prevails to the detriment of all.</i><br />
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<i>One of the aims of this course is to show people that there's more to evaluation and assessment than just sticking a survey form under a learner's nose and asking for their opinion, or giving them some multiple choice test that doesn't really reflect what they need to know. This discussion should really help to hammer home the fact that putting an effective framework in place AND following through with it is what will really give you the full picture on learner success and the direct impact on the organization.</i><br />
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</i><br />
<i>For some additional reading, if you can get your hands on it, I would draw your attention to Mann & Robertson (1996) for a thought-provoking discussion on evaluation of training initiatives. For example, the survey cited in this article says that over half of the US companies surveyed (52%) used trainee satisfaction as the key metric, 17% assessed transfer of knowledge to the job, 13% examined organizational change, and 13% didn't evaluate any element of their training initiatives.</i><br />
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Reference:<br />
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Mann, S. & Robertson, I. (1996). What should training evaluations evaluate? <span style="font-style: italic;">Journal of European Industrial Training, 20</span>(9), 14-20.Mossy Stonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18300696588989166884noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12093203.post-87491268236385792402011-03-18T14:40:00.004-04:002011-03-21T12:21:48.036-04:00S2 Q9) Best bottom-up learning implementation. Or, at least, my most memorable one. (apologies to @LnDDave)I pondered the answer to this question for a while because it's been some time since I did any real bottom-up learning, but I drew on one of my experiences in the Army Reserve as an example, and arguably the one I am most proud of although I won't lay claim to the original idea, only its implementation for some of my soldiers.<br />
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In my 'trade' in the Army (Armoured Reconnaissance, "recce" to the Brits and Aussies/Kiwis, and 'armored cavalry scouts' to the Americans), Armoured Vehicle recognition was a key skill required at all levels. At the time, we were still training to operate in a Cold War-type, conventional environment as opposed to the regional and sectarian strife going on today.<br />
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The 'traditional' method of AFV recognition was through slide decks. In this case, real photo sides, because PPT wasn't widely used in field training at that time. One of the problems with this training environment is that many of the photos weren't realistic. Many of them were like "dealer" photos. The other problem was that the photos didn't represent what these vehicles might look like at a distance or what it might look like from different angles, or half-hidden, etc., etc. In short, success in AFV recognition in training scenarios came down to slide memorization and an ability to draw on a few memorized characteristics in case you got stuck.<br />
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On one exercise, some Regular Force folks put a few of us into a mock observation post, gave us binoculars and had us peer out to see what we could see. The Reg Force guys (being better funded than us part-time soldiers) had some 1/76 scale models laid out in a few areas and wow, were they ever hard to spot. It made recognition more of a challenge and at that point I had the germ of an idea.<br />
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So, long story short, a year or so later, I was teaching the on-weekends version Corporal's Qualifying Course in Recce and I talked the Course Officer into letting me handle the AFV recognition portion. Fortunately, I was (and sometimes still am) an avid scale model builder and I had a very large array of 1/35 scale vehicles. But, rather than using those instead of slides, I booked the indoor range as my classroom. Through a little bit of math, I set up a simulated environment where the soldiers were looking at vehicles that appeared to be 800M to 1100M away. I set up some 'terrain', borrowed some camouflage nets and a few other tricks and laid out a pretty challenging scenario for the students.<br />
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After a general briefing on the principles of recogntion, the soldiers were taken down to the range, handed binoculars, told that there were almost 40 vehicles out there, and they had 15 mins to identify them all from their 'distant' vantage point.<br />
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While the scores were lower than the slide memorization, the activity was a big hit with them. They felt it was far more realistic, and understood just how hard it could be to accurately identify these vehicles at a distance...because reporting a fleet of jeeps is one thing, but it what you really saw was a fleet of tanks heading in your direction, the implications are a little different. ;-)<br />
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The real confirmation of that success came when an officer I knew from an infantry regiment at our Armoury happened to be in on that weekend. He was downstairs and saw what I was doing on the range. He asked to sit in and simultaneously asked if I would run the same training for his Anti-Armour troops and then cleared it with my CO.<br />
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So while it wasn't e-learning at all, I like to think that I set up a good environment for learning and it wasn't something that would have come from the top-down.Mossy Stonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18300696588989166884noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12093203.post-59175948264376700072011-03-17T21:17:00.000-04:002011-03-17T21:17:50.120-04:00You know it's been a productive day, when......when you realize your initial LrnBk Chat <a href="http://hootcourse.com/course/1163/">posts</a> from the night before for Section two were really well-received (as the day starts)<br />
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...when you manage a course-correct with a client who was about to deliver some very disappointing e-learning to <i>their</i> customer and get them turned around in 90 minutes. (in the morning)<br />
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...when you find yourself unexpectedly in a sales discussion with two ex-Veeps from your former employer who sought you out to maybe build some solutions for them (over a long lunch, and you're not even in a sales role)<br />
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...when you really catch the attention of a "Big 4" client on a new e-learning pilot (in the late afternoon)<br />
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...when you look at the time and realize that you have no synapses left to fire to participate in the weekly <a href="http://lrnchat.wordpress.com/">#lrnchat</a>.<br />
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That, dear reader(s), is a productive day.<br />
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(now if I could just turn off my buzzing brain....)Mossy Stonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18300696588989166884noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12093203.post-59143341578913721722011-03-15T21:26:00.001-04:002011-03-15T21:26:21.246-04:00KvetchThere are times when I would really like to have the ability to make some posts private, like almost every other blog platform can do.<br />
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(and yes, I acknowledge the irony of private posts on a public blog, but...)<br />
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OK, rant over. Moving on. Nothing to see here.Mossy Stonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18300696588989166884noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12093203.post-49611722619470066572011-03-15T19:45:00.003-04:002011-03-15T21:29:50.749-04:00Q7) "doing stuff " at work or "learning"? A longer post, just for @LnDDave.When I read this question (which I mean to answer last week), I was reminded of an interview I had after getting out of my college Graphics Program about a million and a half years ago - long before I considered my part-time training work to be anything other than just that.<br />
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When the rather terse interviewer asked me what I expected out of the job, one of the things I said was that I wanted an opportunity to learn something. His response was something along the lines of "oh, you're not here to learn. You should know everything you need already to get started."<br />
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Needless to say, I didn't get the job...and thank heavens for that.<br />
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With respect to Clive's statement, I (sorta) disagree, but let me first talk about the leaders.<br />
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<a name='more'></a>In a number of environments, including some that should know better, there is a "culture of execution" among Sr. Management, and very little consideration given to what I now know is "informal learning", or even continuing education. What I find ironic is that if something goes wrong and someone gets hauled on the carpet, invariably one of the questions that gets asked is "well, what did you learn from this?" I worked as a promoted-from-within Manager for a national technical training provider and I had to fight an uphill battle to get management to realize that their trainers needed time to prep for new courses as well as improve existing parts of their repertoire. It took me quite some time to get them to lower the "utilization" metric (meaning, days in the classroom) so that the trainers weren't being forced to prep entirely on their own time.<br />
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So, I see a bit of a divide between the knowledge worker and the manager in that the knowledge worker will often be forced through circumstance to "learn" in order to "do stuff", and is frequently left to their own, likely inefficient, devices.<br />
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For me, I know that I used to go to work to 'do stuff' and gave very little consideration to the learning involved, but as I've become more aware as a learner, I am trying to be more conscious of the things I learn along the way of 'doing stuff', even the painful or frustrating things. <br />
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So, I disagree with the statement because I'm not convinced that 'doing' and 'learning' should be two separate things.Mossy Stonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18300696588989166884noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12093203.post-23763893743940516212011-03-10T16:32:00.003-05:002011-03-15T16:30:22.948-04:00Q6) Courses, not resources: where not to do it, and Q6a) What are we doing to change?<i><span style="color: black;">Q6) BBC turned away from courses and toward resources. Are their organizations where this would not be effective</span></i><br />
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I can see organizations that are heavily regulated or have strong compliance requirements remaining largely in the course model. I'm thinking of organizations where lack of "training" may translate into a genuined risk to individuals, organizations, or the environment. So, orgs like Airlines, some primary Healthcare providers, or maybe even the military, although I'd love to eventually be proven wrong on all counts.<br />
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<i><span style="color: black;">Q6a) If you are working towards this vision, what steps are you taking?</span></i><br />
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<span style="color: black;">Our catalyst was the change 2 yrs ago to partner as a reseller for a rapid e-learning development platform. It gave us some serious flexibility in asset development that wasn't present in our previous dependence on tools like Flash. I know I am also trying to influence the decision-makers, select clients, and our account execs on how we can position these resources as a stronger service offering that reflects a more realistic model for how people want to learn in the workplace.</span>Mossy Stonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18300696588989166884noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12093203.post-23765830802654840712011-03-09T21:30:00.001-05:002011-03-09T21:32:48.189-05:00Lrntect Q1 ResponseQ1) Shepherd says “As none of these [learning methods, learning media, the science of learning] is intuitive and obvious, the client cannot be expected to have this expertise. And for this reason, it is neither sufficient nor excusable for the learning architect to act as order taker.” What are some ways you avoid being an order taker<br />
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Our first defense against order-taking is knowledge and ongoing learning. It has been my experience (personally and from observation) that if you get to a plateau with skills or execution, you can only respond by "filling orders" based on previous, apparently similar requirements. So if you don't bother staying abreast of new developments or alternate approaches, you will be stuck in a world of "thats the way we've always done it.<br />
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I also believe that order-filling is a result of a failure to fully understand the nature of the needs of the client and/or the learner. In these situations, our desire to give the client "what they asked for" in the chase for billable services outstrips our responsibility to give them "what they really need".<br />
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On a more aggressive stance, at what point do we decline these "McCourses" when the client cannot be swayed from their stance? Do we simply bite our tongues and do it, or realize that the relationship is not going to be a win-win and walk away? I realize this gets into a whole other topic of client influence and business development, but do we keep perpetuating bad practice for the sake of revenue?Mossy Stonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18300696588989166884noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12093203.post-1058911149398476112011-02-21T19:18:00.001-05:002011-02-21T19:19:10.788-05:00The reading list grows...Disillusioned with my shipping experiences with Clive Shepherd's book from Lulu, I decided to take the (almost) revolutionary step of ordering Clark Quinn's new book <i>Designing mLearning</i> in ebook format for the kindle reader on my PC. Now I've had ebooks on my computer before, but mostly in the Microsoft .lit format -a holdover from my days as an iPaq user - and those were usually Project Gutenberg editions.<br />
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(Side note on Fiction titles: I appreciate that people usually want to make money from their book sales, but I have to say that I really object to the extortionate prices that some people want for audiobooks or even for e-books. At this rate, I'll hold out for paperbacks.)<br />
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So within seconds of having my order processed, I had the pages of Clark's shiny (shiny from my screen?) new book gracing my laptop screen. So far, Kindle seems to be doing a reasonably good job of letting me make those 'oh yeah, what about...' notes inside the book. Trying to figure out of I can sync it to the iPod as well, but that may need more exploration.<br />
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No review planned because I'm certainly not an expert, but I may provide some reflective commentary once I get through the book.<br />
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Really wish I had a tablet... :(Mossy Stonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18300696588989166884noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12093203.post-45674390974861380562011-02-20T22:44:00.001-05:002011-02-20T22:50:56.434-05:00A wholly unqualified book review (WIP)It took a while (no thanks to Lulu's dreadful low-cost shipping options), but I finally got my copy of <a href="http://clive-shepherd.blogspot.com/">Clive Shepherd's</a> <i>The New Learning Architect</i>. Sadly, it's taken me until now to be able to read more than one page of the damn thing (sick child, workloads, yadda, yadda).<br />
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So I'm going to keep this blog entry (started Feb 20) as my own mechanism for reviewing the book and making my own observations and comments along the way. I also learned today, after setting up my new personal Twitter identity, that there's an <a href="http://hootcourse.com/course/1163%20">online "book club" chat</a> happening as of March 7. If I'm lucky, I'll be more than 20 pages through the book by then (although at this rate, I wouldn't put money on it). <a href="http://www.blogger.com/goog_1844051871"><span id="goog_1844051868"></span></a><a href="http://learningzealot.blogspot.com/">Mark Britz</a><span id="goog_1844051869"></span> is acting as the facilitator/guide for the chat and I'm really looking forward to it.<br />
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I had some initial thoughts as I forge into the first chapter. <br />
<a name='more'></a>I will preface my comments by saying that I may be taking more of an academic view of the book out of habit. One of the things I tend to look for is a list of references from which the book is drawn - unless the book's content and approach is more fact based and where the approaches are not necessarily subjects of extensive research. So, Clive, that's the lens at which I initially looked at this book.<br />
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At first glance, the book reads like an Op-Ed piece, because there's nary a citation to be found until page 18! While there's nothing wrong with that kind of approach for a beginner, I was gettinc concerned that the book was going to be too superficial for my needs when I finally saw some footnotes and then some of the User Profiles. I breathed a small sigh of relief and if my little guy wasn't in need of TLC I could have forged ahead with renewed interest. Fear not, however, I'm reading and making notes as I go along.<br />
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If nothing else, Clive has given me significant food for thought as I re-examine my career path and options down the road.Mossy Stonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18300696588989166884noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12093203.post-62734408022747458802011-02-20T16:25:00.001-05:002011-02-20T16:26:40.750-05:00New Tweet Space Done...well, sort of.<br />
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I realized after my last post that I should probably separate my business and personal tweets and other activities. So I've set up a new identity that will point followers here, but it will take me a while to replicate my list of those I follow to the new ID, and I can but hope that a good many business followers will make the trek over to this side of the house.<br />
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Also, thanks to my PLN, I learned how to establish Pages/Tabs at the top of the blog. So I can have my lengthier profile attached as a page, rather than chewing up too much real estate on the sidebar.<br />
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Still much reading of posts to do for my College learners. My Adult Learning group is a gregarious bunch and the activity has been astounding. My Assessment & Eval learners are quieter, although I suspect the traffic will pick up today and tomorrow.Mossy Stonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18300696588989166884noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12093203.post-71076725237992242852011-02-19T23:33:00.002-05:002011-02-19T23:37:35.144-05:00Design a Planet, or just my little piece of it?<blockquote><i>"The chances of finding out what's really going on in the universe are so remote, the only thing to do is hang the sense of it and keep yourself occupied... Look at me: I design coastlines... I'd far rather be happy than right any day."<br />
"And are you?"<br />
"No, that's where it all falls down, of course."<br />
"Pity, it sounded like quite a good lifestyle otherwise."</i></blockquote><div style="text-align: right;"><blockquote>Slartibartfast to Arthur Dent.<br />
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Book 1 </blockquote></div><br />
As a small foreward to this (probably) disjointed post, congratulations to <a href="http://www.jarche.com/">Harold Jarche</a> for his 7 years of independent and thought-provoking blogging. He gives me hope that maybe another ex-soldier can make good in the learning world.<br />
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As I was participating in the most recent <a href="http://lrnchat.wordpress.com/">#lrnchat</a>, I commented to <a href="http://www.informl.com/">Jay Cross</a> that I wanted to be able to participate in more things like MOOCs and other readings, etc. (for example, Clive Shepherd's most recent book is still mostly unread) but scheduling was a challenge. While he agreed he suggested prioritization, although I said to him that negotiating that kind of regular effort would likely require some coordination with those who sign my cheques. He does, as he says, have the benefit of being his own paymaster and secretary. Of course, as I pondered that exchange, I imagined Peter Block telling me that I just wasn't committed enough. ;-)<br />
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For all the time I'm spending on what is (relatively speaking) a pretty aggressive and innovative front, I feel a tremendous dissatisfaction that my own development is taking a distant back seat. Part of that, I think, is the post-Grad School hangover, where all of a sudden after 2 years you're not scrambling to read a journal or write a paper or engage in a discussion of some kind. The other part of it is perhaps being in a role where - for whatever reason - there's no overt or explicit encouragement to keep skills sharp or even to participate in events, conferences, or the like. Even my participation in #lrnchat feels slightly ilicit under what is nominally a vendor/reseller banner, but I wouldn't trade my experiences there for anything (although I am considering a separate handle for more of my PLN/personal commentary and only using the main handle for work-specific purposes).<br />
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Now I know that part of the recent time issues are of my own making with my agreement to teach two online courses for the College. With 35 learners in one course and 13 in the other, I definitely have my hands full, and - of course - having an active 2 year old does tend to have an impact on remaining time.<br />
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So the question is: what to do if I want to keep current or ahead of some of the trend demands? Do I just say, 'screw it' and book my own time to read books/articles/blogs and seek out the brains of my PLN and abandon more event-driven activities? Or do I take a more forthright stand and seek more control over my allowance for T&D and seek out some better Dev opportunities? I genuinely envy some of the folks in my PLN who are in either the right career space or right geographical space to take advantage of conferences, but for us Canadian practitioners who are not self-employed in lucrative thought-leader practices, its a different logistical challenge. Since very few of these big events come to Toronto, one has to travel larger distances and frequently across borders to attend. As an employee in a smaller org., it's also logistics and a certain amount of proposal and rationalizing to convince someone to agree to pay for a flight, accommodations AND conference fees, all the while being generally unavailable for paid work for the duration. While I know that self-employment does have its advantages in <br />
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Maybe have a plan?<br />
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Ah, there's the rub. Saint-Exupery - I think - said that a "dream without a plan is just a wish". For me, a plan needs to have a goal and some kind of practical outcome. Can I really learn to plan my own T&D for its own sake? I suppose the educational purist in me says, 'well, Duh', but the practical and pragmatic Me has to raise some doubts. "Life", as they say, "is what happens when one is making plans".<br />
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But as time goes on, this T&D issue is going to hit critical mass and I can't risk getting left behind in my career. I've put way too much into it over the past few years to put it at excessive risk. I'd much sooner be an in-demand resource than "just another training generalist". Selfish so-and-so that I am, I think I want to be right AND happy.<br />
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So, let's see....Social Media, Informal Learning, mLearning....wow. Looks like I have my work cut out for me. Now, where did I put Clive's book...?Mossy Stonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18300696588989166884noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12093203.post-10843002057014922322011-02-15T20:24:00.000-05:002011-02-15T20:24:06.396-05:00Shameless self-promotionI just had my <a href="http://www.opensesame.com/blog/thoughts-controversial-approach-rapid-elearning-development">blog commentary</a> on the excellent video-based rapid e-learning approach article posted by the good folks at OpenSesame!<br />
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Nothing like a little additional exposure to motivate you!<br />
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(I'll offer a small w00t!)Mossy Stonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18300696588989166884noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12093203.post-89676550246831221902011-02-12T18:21:00.001-05:002011-02-12T18:27:14.217-05:00N00b Management 101While I kept telling myself that my new online courses were College-level and not Graduate level, I realize now that I had confined my assumptions to the level of language used in assignment instructions and forum introductions. I hadn't really counted on people entirely new to e-learning or even people who were not very familiar with computers at all.<br />
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(Okay, so I now have some ideas on an e-learning 101 asset, or series of assets, but I digress)<br />
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I think that part of the battle will be won by sticking with Salmon's best practices for "weaving" and "summarizing" threaded discussions (but I will need to go back and explore different examples), but the other part of the battle is just getting people to realize how to work through an online course so that it's not a "finish all 14 weeks' content in a few days" event. I will definitely need to take things slowly, use smaller words, and try not to leave anyone behind. I am also going to have to be very careful with showing people the requirement for group work in an online course....I have a feeling that's going to be a rough road for some at the outset.<br />
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A challenge for sure, but one I definitely signed up for.Mossy Stonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18300696588989166884noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12093203.post-47518911593373850102011-02-11T15:58:00.001-05:002011-02-12T18:27:37.980-05:00LRNCHAT Reflections from Feb 10.Tonight's #lrnchat posed an interesting and completly hypothetical 'what if' scenario: What if you could wipe the slate clean for corporate learning and do it all over again?<br />
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Well, I can say that this one definitely sparked some serious interest among the participants, especially those who decided to join #lrnchat for the first time. The transcript of the chat doesn't really show what a number of us were likely thinking: something a long the lines of, "ooh, so many ideas, and so little time", but then some of the neat ideas really came through....of course these are all the ideas that we L&D professionals keep in our personal wish lists, but it's nice to let them our for some fresh air once in a while.<br />
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<a href="http://www.jarche.com/">Harold Jarche</a> (@hjarche) was probably the lone voice of dissent and asking why we would wipe the slate clean, equating some of the theoretical concepts of the chat to, as he said, "throwing the baby out with the bathwater", and that we might work more effectively on changing behaviours and other similar efforts.<br />
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It really was a neat thought, even though it was counter to the intent of the discussion (of course, that's really the point of these things. If we all agree, then we'll never see the counter-arguments that are likely to smack us in the face like the handle of a stepped-on rake. While I didn't actively pursue Harold's line of inquiry (I was having too much fun thinking up new ideas in the fantasy land we'd created) but I had cause to think of it later. Although, upon relfection, I didn't really see anyone step up and say "hey, wait, we already do this stuff!"<br />
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Maybe the sum total of what Harold and the rest of us were saying is this: we really do need to do things differently if we're going to drag mainstream corporate learning out of the weeds and make it more efficient. So perhaps we stipulate to the <i>status quo</i> and make the commitment to changing how learning is perceived, created, managed, and delivered. While there was a good focus on the processes and the approaches that need to change, there was also - not surprisingly - a lot of interest in the technology components. What I found interesting about that was, it wasn't a "this tool sucks" kind of polarization (and I studiously avoided any "Death to PPT" slogans) but it was more conceptual. We need tools that are accessible and easier to manage both in terms of generating content (note I didn't say "course") and also in terms of hosting, distribution, and access. Clark Quinn suggested that you should pilot small, then "leverage the hell out of the results", but I think this is where the @Quinnovator and I may differ on approach. While pilots are a good idea, the risk you run by limiting the pilot by business unit (or "silo") is that while you may have convinced one set of stakeholders of the wisdom of your approach, but then you may have to start the whole process over again to get the rest of the organization on board. So, limit the scope of content, but I'd suggest not limiting the reach.<br />
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I could see shades of Tony Bates in some of the commentary about openness and lack of barriers. Learning should, I think, be something that people don't have to fight for and has to be embedded at all levels. We also threw ideas around about creating networks and communities, and gaining access to experts "at the moment of need". We also recognized a need to ditch the concept of a "course" and just replace it with regularly available informational and instructional assets that are easy to keep up to date.<br />
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On that note, @LandDDave posted a good picture that reflects what he thinks e-learning should look like...and I can't really disagree conceptually. For your own version, go to google.com, and do a print screen. Save it, and think about it.<br />
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So maybe the path to success involves a little bit of revolution. A key member of my PLN, Holly Macdonald (@sparkandco) posted a neat little blog entry asking whether you want to be a <a href="http://sparkyourinterest.wordpress.com/2011/02/11/are-you-a-victim-or-a-learning-activist/">victim or an activist</a>. If you ignore some of the G20/WTO-type imagery and think more along the lines of Ghandi, you might just be onto something. It may take a slightly subversive approach to makign the kinds of changes we really want to see....without wiping the slate clean and having to build it all over again.<br />
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All in all, another inspiring and thought-provoking #lrnchat.Mossy Stonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18300696588989166884noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12093203.post-44822819265769348232011-02-11T15:31:00.002-05:002011-02-14T10:51:17.045-05:00Thoughts on a "controversial" approach to rapid e-learning development.One of the things that popped up in the Thursday #lrnchat was a note from the folks at @OpenSesame about a blog post talking about <a href="http://www.opensesame.com/blog/educational-big-bang">using video as a rapid content development method</a>. I chimed in because I've had some success creating some quick & dirty assets to support our own rapid ID/Dev ecosystem. So with their permission and encouragement I am recording a few thoughts on the post and what it could mean to organizations and individuals.<br />
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The author, Tom Carter, is a senior Insructional Designer in the UK and - like my own employer - his has a genuine interest in rapid e-learning, so as I read through the post, I actually wasn't surprised by what I read, in spite of the caveat that his opinions might be "controversial". In fact, I didn't find it controversial at all. Of course, that makes me wonder whether or not I'm as much of a "disruptive" innovator and experimenter as Tom is, or perhaps his ideas really aren't as controversial on this side of the pond.<br />
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An emerging trend in workplace learning (not a new one by any means) is making use of the tools at your immediate disposal to create quick, low-cost, or no-cost learning assets & resources, and Tom uses a great example in YouTube. The sense that I get is that he's really not pushing people to start broadcasting Jackass-type videos into the workplace, but more about using it as a delivery and hosting mechanism. In the same way Terrence Wing has been <a href="http://bit.ly/fjVYaJ">promoting the use of Facebook and Twitter</a> as a delivery mechanism, Tom promotes this easy and accessible community portal and content in a similar fashion. As he notes, one of the benefits of this approach is that you can really stop thinking about learning as an event-driven and exclusive or restrictive phenomenon, and start enabling continuous, regular access to knowledge assets for your learners. Done correctly, you can also take advantage of the social aspects of this approach to engage and stimulate your learner community.<br />
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I shared a similar experience when looking for solutions to the platform certification we were putting together. While we had a number of quite handy reference guides, we wanted to try something faster. Tom's comments about storyboarding and process remaining relevant but less intrusive certainly ring true in this case. As the resident platform expert I knew it was going to be my expertise captured and published for new platform learners.<br />
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Through a fortunate happenstance, I came across Jing: a very simple screencast tool that would incorporate voiceovers. The other nice piece of that equation was the ability to host through screencast.com for a ridiculously low annual license fee. And so, a screencast star was born. The process was kept pretty simple. I had already created the standards and exercises for the various certification tasks, so my next step was to create a very simple script to use as my voiceover. The challenge with the free version of Jing is that you have to keep it to less than 5 minutes of recording. While I thought that might be really tough at first, it's amazing just how much you can get through in that time and still make it effective. It also satisfies what I consider to be a basic requirement of e-learning for the modern knowledge worker: it has to be short, focused, and concise. The learners who have been participating in our certification program have indeed made good use of these video demonstrations and are capable of producing some really high quality e-learning content. We also use them for general learner support issues (the certification elements are really the exercises and the coached feedback provided).<br />
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So there are some drawbacks to this kind of method and where I think Tom's post may fall a little short for an in-house implementation, and that is how we tie metrics and achievement back to business objectives, or even how we make use of relevant data from the platform(s). We may be able to get some raw, basic data on views, comments, etc., but there's no direct interchange (that I know of) between YouTube and people management systems. So while metrics exist, it's hard to make sense of the data when you're doing it all manually. <br />
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We also have some limitations with respect to the video format because they are not as flexible for editing purposes. Now, with a 5-min limit in the tool I use I suppose it's not that ponderous to re-record, but if you had a lot of assets that required editing to reflect a process change, interface update, or something similar, you may have a lot of work on your hands.<br />
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This isn't a criticism of Tom, but more of an observation as I ponder the topic: the other acknowledged weakness of this approach as a sole source of instruction is that it's demonstrative only. Learners will still need an environment where they can "fail" and still learn something. The screencasts and videos are great for showing "the right way" to do something, but it is still up to the learner to roll up their sleeves and try it out. So unless that kind of environment exists in concert with the informative or instructional assets, it may lose some of its effectiveness; particularly if you're trying to use this method to support business-critical applications, systems, and practices.<br />
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With all that said, Tom is to be applauded for sharing what may be - to some - a radical idea. But if you strip it of the brand and any associated criticisms, the approach and process are sound. When you need to get some knowledge and skill demonstrated to your learner community, you could do far worse than to engage in this form of digital storytelling. If the social and "connective" aspects are in place, then you may have the foundation necessary to break the cycle of "death by PPT" or overly expensive solutions to simpler problems. Just be mindful that it's only one tool at your disposal and that the other supporting elements need to be present in some fashion so you can truly make on-demand assets a reality.Mossy Stonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18300696588989166884noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12093203.post-38574686329505282662011-02-02T18:30:00.000-05:002011-02-12T19:16:52.833-05:00Power to the PLN!<blockquote style="font-family: "Courier New",Courier,monospace;">"When it comes down to it, there are really only two fundamental human activities. Learning is the other one."</blockquote><br />
PLN, you ask? What the heck is a PLN?<br />
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Well, according to those in the know, it is a "Personal Learning Network". Yeah, it's a nice term and all, but let's put this into perspective.<br />
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For those of you of a similar generation as me, think back to the people in high school that you might study with, or lean on for help in Calculus, Chemistry, or Physics. Or maybe you <i>were</i> one of the bright ones who had people coming to you to explain things that made no sense when coming from your <strike>so close to retirement they could taste it</strike> teacher? Well, that's a simple Personal Learning Network.<br />
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Fast-forward to this century and the idea of the PLN has regained some traction. We live in an astoundingly connected world and we have access to more information than we could possibly process in a lifetime, but we can create and nurture a Personal Learning Network and take one more essential step towards becoming lifelong learners. Okay, so that might be an idealized state, but I'm not talking about being a permanent student and out-living your professors. I'm talking about keeping your grey matter engaged and working for the long haul because - let's face it - when you decide to stop learning, you might as well drop yourself off at the service entrance of the nearest mortuary because you're done. Like, "stick a fork in you, you're done."<br />
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In simple terms, a PLN is a network of individuals (friends, colleagues, thought leaders, etc.) who are in a position to be actively or passively sharing ideas, thoughts, solutions, or sometimes acting as <i>avocatus diaboli</i> and swimming against a particular currrent. Some PLNs are more formalized, and others tend to be stealthy and organic. If you're one of those rare birds who isn't on Facebook, you probably have a group of "friends" from whom you might learn a few things on the fly or upon whom you could lean on. Savvy business types have been using LinkedIn for similar purposes. So why not expand that circle to people <br />
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So the next time someone says to you, "figure it out for yourself" you're not necessarily alone for that task. If you're smart, you will already know who to go to and ask some intelligent questions.Mossy Stonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18300696588989166884noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12093203.post-9604991145144911372011-02-02T17:39:00.000-05:002011-02-02T17:39:38.279-05:00Taking (Online) College Instruction by Storm!Well, I admit that I never thought it might happen, but as of today I am officially a College-level instructor because my two courses started today.<br />
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I found myself in this position by the purest of chance. The backstory is that I live in a relatively major center with a nearby Community College. As a product of the College system I have a certain amount of affection of the methods and approaches used therein. This College runs a number of continuing education courses, including a certificate in adult learning (similar to the one I did years ago). So, I figured I'd send out a general inquiry to say, "ya know, if you ever want/need part-time instructors for this gig I'd be, you know, interested.". Based on my history with unsolicited resume submissions and the like, I didn't hold out a lot of hope for what I usually consider to be a pretty closed system.<br />
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Fate decided to keep me on my toes and I actually got a response to my query and eventually got an offer to teach not one, but two of the online editions of said certificate program. That was back in October and I wasn't slated to teach until Feb., so it didn't seem quite real.<br />
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But, that was then, and this is now. I've completed the edits to my course, and when I checked in last night I was pleasantly surprised to see that I even had learners enrolled! So, things kicked off today. In my Adult Learning course I have 32 (!) learners, and in the Assessment & Evaluation course I have 12. Of course, these numbers are likely to change as the course goes on, but I'm thrilled. Lots of eager (and maybe not-so-eager) learners to mould, mentor, and guide.<br />
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I dug back through my online communities course from grad school and re-read Gilly Salmon's fine book, e-Moderating. I tapped into some of my recent expertise and inspiration and I filled in what I thought were some of the gaps in one course, and worked with another new instructor to re-purpose and re-format another one because neither one of us could make head-nor-tail of the original approach (we also had learner feedback from a previous iteration to support our efforts).<br />
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So, I gave them a video introduction and I plan to do some of Salmon's "weaving and summarizing" as the content discussions progress. I may even tap into some other activities through the 14 week run of the course, just to give the learners some other kinds of engagement.<br />
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While I find the thought of having to mark that many assignments a little daunting, I'm still excited about this new side activity. I'll blog more as the courses progress.Mossy Stonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18300696588989166884noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12093203.post-74480468723940673272011-02-02T15:59:00.001-05:002011-02-02T16:04:29.000-05:00The Unexpected leads to EnergyI probably should have written this post last night but sleep and prep took priority.<br />
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One occasional part of my job is that I get to go on-site with our clients and work with them. In the recent past this has manifested itself as a mentoring/coaching session for our Rapid ID/Development platform because I'm <i>ex-officio</i> the resident platform expert and arguably the senior Instructional Design resource in-house.<br />
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Yesterday was a case in point. I was tasked to do an on-site session for a client (something they were actually paying for as a professional service within one of their projects). The original plan was to do some coaching on some specifics for managing updates to the courses we built for them, but through some fortunate happenstance, it didn't work out that way.<br />
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So instead of playing trainer/coach, I got to play Learning Consulant for the first half of the day. The L&D Manager at the client decided that we should take a look at a Harassment & Discrimination document instead to see what we could or should do with it. <br />
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I felt like an old war-horse pricking up his ears when hearing the sound of bugles or distant musket fire. Excited, and chomping at the bit to get going!<br />
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So....as a small group we took the time to dissect the source content they were planning to put online, and I got the participants to mentally free themselves of constraints and put out different ideas. (What I said to them, was this, "make your ideas so far out of the box you can't see the box with a telescope.")<br />
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And, wow...did we get some great ideas.<br />
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What did I get from it, you may ask?<br />
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Energy. HUGE amounts of energy. I revel in this creative process and stepping past the basics of content development and moving up a level to examine things as a program or continuous process. We stopped thinking of this e-learning content as an event and they started seeing all the contributing pieces that support the learning (formal and informal). I'm also encouraged when L&D professionals don't get all freaked out when the concepts of internal discussions or polling, or Social Media get raised as possibilities. I'm equally encouraged when they see that there are other players in the learning process, like Internal Communications to promote and generate awareness/interest.<br />
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Yesterday reminded me that sometimes we do need to get away from event-based thinking and get way, way outside of the box. Sometimes the "impossible" is really just "difficult, but do-able if we really work at it because it's worth it."<br />
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As Peter Block says, "change the conversation."<br />
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I felt inspired...and it was a day when I really needed it. Thanks to my clients and a little un-planning, we turned a predictable day into an energizing morning with lots of momentum for a focused, practical afternoon.Mossy Stonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18300696588989166884noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12093203.post-54243957888010479942010-11-30T19:17:00.000-05:002010-11-30T19:17:52.761-05:00Dr. Fastbuild, or, How I Learned to stop ADDIE-ing and Love the RIDI admit, a cheesy and arguably weak take-off on the Stanley Kubric doomsday classic, but the sentiment is there.<br />
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There's an almost tragic community (including those who should know better) who espouse the beliefs and all the wonders of ADDIE. I see it time and again in job postings where an "understanding of the ADDIE model" is an <u>essential</u> job requirement.<br />
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For an instructional designer planning e-learning solutions.<br />
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From organizations claiming to be on the leading edge of innovative solutions and technologies. <br />
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Really, guys?<br />
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So, maybe it's time to look at what ADDIE is and what it isn't.<br />
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What it definitely is NOT is a model for instructional design. There's no evidence amongst educational theorists and researchers to support the claim that it *is* a model. (For more info on that subject, I'd invite you to read <a href="http://www.unco.edu/cetl/sir/clt/documents/IDTf_Bic.pdf">Barbara Bichelmeyer's treatise</a> on the issue, along with some interesting commentary in the <a href="http://eet.sdsu.edu/eetwiki/index.php/Constructivist_alternatives_to_ADDIE#Criticisms_of_the_ADDIE_model">Educational wiki at San Diego State University</a>.)<br />
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In practical terms, it's also NOT designed for scalability, because it's really a waterfall/cascade kind of approach to design. If you have high volumes of content to produce, or a really broad spectrum of stakeholders, you'll get bogged down pretty quickly. We're under constant pressure to <br />
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But, let's talk about what it is.<br />
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ADDIE is something that really reflects a flow of events and actions when designing and managing the build of instructor-led training content, and it can still work effectively in that sphere. And, let's face it, it's a familiar process....but it's just that: a Process flow. ADDIE is also a good reminder that we need to close the loop on the training cycle - e.g. you don't just "do some training" and call it a day. You need to evaluate and then start the process over again and engage in some continuous improvement activities...but we know that continuous improvement tends to get less attention than it should (a subject for another post at another time).<br />
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I know that the next question to emerge from this discussion is something along the lines of, "<i>so if you're dissing ADDIE, what do YOU use, smart guy?</i>"<br />
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I thought you'd never ask!<br />
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The model I prefer to adopt for building e-learning content follows the lines of Rapid Prototyping (Tripp & Bichelmeyer, 1991). You see, in 'traditional' e-learning development settings, people are spending a lot of time on storyboards and other flat planning tools. In principle this is a great idea because you can get things hammered out on paper before you commit to the challenges of development. But that was of more use in the days before rapid e-learning development tools made things easier for the instructional designer.<br />
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So what this means for me (and for clients) is that we can start working on the design and course structure right away. While we have a web-based environment, I'm pretty confident I could accomplish the same thing with the right desktop tool. The client can see the basic structure of the course developing in real-time, and we can even get into the details of selecting screen layouts, assessments, and other course-level parameters. What used to take days and weeks to do back & forth via email and paper now can be accomplished in a matter of hours. More importantly, because we get to work in the design environment right away, the client immediately has a sense of the learner's visual experience - rather than waiting for a "beta" developed from a long storyboard document.<br />
The other advantage of this rapid prototyping method is that we don't have to wait for objectives to be completely defined before we develop content because the development environment is flexible enough for us to make incremental adjustments to suit the evolving outcomes instead of making a wholesale transformation of the course.<br />
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So...long, slow method with asynchronous client contact and difficult-to-manage review cycles? Or a collaborative, real-time development of a prototype that evolves and grows through incremental changes that allows us to go from concept to production in a fraction of the time?<br />
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I know which one I'd choose...how about you?Mossy Stonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18300696588989166884noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12093203.post-65404441648461066452010-11-21T14:46:00.000-05:002010-11-21T14:46:56.072-05:00CSTD Reflections - Mentoring/Coaching and Appreciative InquiryIf anyone asks me what one thing I took away from this session, I'm almost embarassed to admit that I'd say, "Damn, it was hot in that room."<br />
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Fortunately, that wasn't the only thing I took away, but it wasn't the most comfortable setting, nor was it really conducive to the kinds of learning that Ann Naymie & Maureen Hannah were trying to get across. (According to them, Peter Block was in the room before them and wreaked a little havoc on the dreadful theatre style seating that the MTCC seems to think is a good idea for conferences.<br />
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(Sidebar: Is there not anyone willing to stand up to MTCC and tell them that this sort of thing is just not acceptable? At over a grand a head for admission, you'd think the organizers would have a little pull. But, I digress)<br />
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The focus of this session was on mentoring/coaching and the concept of appreciative inquiry. One of my immediate thoughts (echoed by my exercise partner Jackie) was that mentoring and coaching are two separate disciplines and one should not try to confuse or blend the one with the other. If you take <a href="http://www.coachingandmentoring.com/Articles/mentoring.html">this site as an example</a>, that belief seems to stand up.<br />
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During the opening few minutes of the session as I began to schvitz from the press of bodies, I was a little non-plussed by the positioning of the session and I thought it might turn out to be a little too superficial. But once we got past the few slides, we had the chance to do some role-play and inquiry practice with a partner or two. As we got through the exercises, I began to see more uses for this kind of inquiry and I was also seeing more reinforcements of the mentoring/coaching differences. It was also good - albeit in a personal/practical kind of way - to practice active listening along with the inquiry and questions. I also tried to take a small page from Peter Block's book and change the nature and shape of the questions I was asking, so that was a small benefit in and of itself.<br />
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So, the session had some interesting possibilities for me, even though it started a little weakly, and I'm glad I stayed. I can see ways in which I can change the nature of my inquiries when making those initial contacts with potential clients. I can also see how I'd like to be able to build on my coaching strengths to help (PB) "share my gift" with other people. But I honestly don't know that I'd want to be a mentor for someone. I'd significantly critical of my own shortcomings and painfully aware that my career path that I wouldn't want someone to try to emulate me along either path. Besides, I wouldn't want to take away from someone experiencing the joys of forging their own path.<br />
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Lesson learned; stick around...things might just get better.Mossy Stonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18300696588989166884noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12093203.post-23573696402428994022010-11-20T21:36:00.001-05:002010-11-21T14:49:50.650-05:00CSTD Reflections - Saul Carliner and "Staying Relevant"One of my laments about things like CSTD is that when you get a speaker whose content hits you right *there* you're so engrossed that you find yourself not taking notes and having to reflect on the experience from memory. That's not to imply that if you're taking notes then the speaker must be bad. I enjoyed other sessions and still managed to take notes. For whatever reason, I was listening to Saul Carliner and didn't want to divide my attention/distribute my intelligence.<br />
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His talk was about how we go about remaining relevant as Training & Development professionals. iThere's a certain degree of showmanship and panache in his presentations that I appreciate. He opened with one of those Paul Harvey-type stories about how the biggest challenge for him as a T&D professional was not about education, or technology, or changing philosophies, but it was about finding the right luggage when he travelled. I won't try to replicate the whole tale here because I don't want to diminish the magic of that particular metaphor, but I want to jot down the things that I were most profound for me.<br />
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He spoke of 10 key things we can do to stay relevant (and I'm really hoping to get access to his deck so I can remember them all) but there were a few tidbits that caught my attention along the way.<br />
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First, he echoed some of my suspicions about the decrease of instructor-led training and spoke of the increase in SME-developed content and SME-delivered training. I think both of those things are critical, particulary because of the nature of what I'm doing day-to-day. SMEs have lots and lots knowledge that just doesn't always make it to a new hire or a someone in a new role, or even to other colleagues in the same department. So the question(s) for me become(s): how do we create a culture of SME knowledge sharing, how do we equip them with the right "tools" to share that knowledge, and how can we measure the effectiveness of that knowledge transfer? I definitely think there are opportunities for us to start looking at our SMEs and ask: if they all retired tomorrow, would we still have enough corporate "intelligence" to be able to function?<br />
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Second, he spoke about informal learning. I was sad to have missed Bob Mosher's session on Informal Learning, although one kind soul (thank you @mellissalast for the RT and @cammybean for the liveblog on Performance) kindly sent me notes from a different session of Bob's. But Saul said that informal learning shouldn't have to be teaching the things that should have taken place during formal learning. So, loosely translated, informal learning is (to me) more about knowledge transfer while you're on the job, learner support, and some of the self-directed learning efforts that (should) take place on the job.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.marciaconner.com/images/mlc-infgb09.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="280" src="http://www.marciaconner.com/images/mlc-infgb09.gif" width="320" /></a></div><br />
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Marcia Conner's graphic simplifies things, somewhat. ;-)<br />
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So I think there's a huge opportunity for us - as Learning & Development or Training or Education professionals to be doing a couple of things that will contribute to relevance.<br />
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First, I think we need to find ways to educate SMEs on things like storytelling, sharing, guiding and coaching. We also need to spend some time with these SMEs doing some targeted 'downloads' of their expertise. I think we also need to develop the right kinds of processes and systems to regulary gather this expertise and identify new SMEs. Of course, part of this challenge will be identifying the owners of this new process and discipline. The first instinct is OD, but what about organizations with a distributed HR function? Is this now part of the skill set of a line manager? (assuming, of course, that we're not all immediately jumping on the <a href="http://www.peterblock.com/">Peter Block</a> bandwagon and taking the sovereignty/patriarchy out of our organizations...)<br />
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Second, organizations need to develop the strategies and expertise necessary to influence organizations to put more emphasis on (and resources toward supporting) informal learning. I really think this is a hugely untapped market for consulting organizations, but only those that can see beyond just pumping out questionable and mind-numblingly expensive and inflexible e-learning content. In a lot of cases, informal learning represents as much of a state of mind as it does a strategic imperative for organizational effectiveness.<br />
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Okay, I'd better tone it down a bit.<br />
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The other thing that Saul mentioned had to do with how we manage our careers. It paralleled some of Peter Block's comments about not necessarily worrying too much about climbing any corporate ladder, but he said that someone told him years ago that nobody will care as much about his career as he does; and he's right. He also said some really interesting things about how sometimes people can outgrow a "job" without necessarily outgrowing a "role". I really felt a kinship with that comment because I've been in that situation before and I remember the conflict I felt in those moments...even thought I didn't really have a way to decribe it until I hear how Saul phrased it. To quote him, "...and maybe that's OK."<br />
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OK, indeed.<br />
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Anyway, Saul's relevance story about Luggage, Hong Kong Airport shopping and Samsonite reinventing itself was a very effective wrapper for his story. It tells me that it's always worth reflecting upon and regularly examining your career directions and choices, rather than waiting to be considered passé by the industry and the consumers you're trying to reach.<br />
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Kind of a nice way to head to the end keynote on Day 2, knowing that the world can still be your oyster if you're willing to work at it.Mossy Stonehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18300696588989166884noreply@blogger.com3