My wife is Canadian, hailing from the Cambridge area, west of Toronto. She moved to the United States when we were married in 1998, and a few years ago she obtained her dual citizenship.
When we were dating in the 1990s we used to joke about which country was ahead or behind on each particular trend, fad, fashion, or technological development. I was reminded of this pastime recently as I've been spending a lot of time north of the border in the past several weeks, delivering my presentation "Blending Web 2.0 Technologies with Traditional Formal Learning" to a variety of audiences in Canada, including:
- On May 14, in addition to speaking on this topic for a banking client in the Toronto area, I also was the speaker for the eLated.ca group's May event. This is a vibrant Learning and Development organization that holds its meetings in the Distillery district, and provides ample opportunity to network and talk about the evening's presentation afterward in a more causal setting.
- On May 21, I was a speaker at the two-day CSTD Symposium held in Halifax, Nova Scotia. This was a very well-run conference, with high-quality presentations. My session's standing-room only audience asked me many provocative questions, and I learned from the other sessions I attended. Although smaller than their fall conference, there is something to be said for smaller conferences that allow for interaction with a greater percentage of participants: they can create an emotional atmosphere that larger conferences sometimes lack.
- On June 12, I spoke to a Toronto-centered insurance industry group. Although some of the organizations attending were competitors with each other, they all talked as colleagues about the best ways to move forward with using Web 2.0 technologies for learning and development at their respective firms. Indeed, this session went for nearly two hours with my spending as much time facilitating discussion between the members as I did giving my formal presentation on the topic. The positive energy of these learning professionals is a testament to the leaders of the group.
At all of these events, the audiences asked me penetrating questions that kept me on my toes. Clearly, Canadian organizations are interested in the potential of Web 2.0 technologies in learning and development contexts.
With that said, there is on strategic issue that is perhaps of greater concern in Canada than in the United States. While many U.S.-based companies have localization needs -- whether due to Spanish-speaking workforces here in America or due to simply being a global enterprise -- there is often a more focused requirement for localization in Canada due to both English and French being recognized official languages. In many instances, this means that all learning programs must be provided in both English and French, and that one language cannot be treated preferentially over the other.
This requirement can be more problematic for the use of Web 2.0 technologies than for traditional e-Learning. For instance:
- Wikis and forums are updated dynamically and grow organically over time. To expect to translate each change in a mirror wiki would not be realistic.
- Blogs and podcasts are typically more one-way, and so it would be possible to translate such content into the additional language and thereby provide the same experience for all learners. However, comments to blog postings can be posted at any time, so this raises the same problem that wikis and forums have.
- Computer-based translation of content is improving every year, but in my view is still not of high enough quality to be relied upon in this context. Further, even if perfected, this would only help for content that was purely text-based.
A key question that many Canadian organizations need to ask is: what is the requirement and what solution will be sufficient for meeting that requirement? That is, does the requirement mandate the exact same content be made available for every learner? Or only the same opportunity? Are the Web 2.0 tools being used as an optional part of the overall learning solution, or are they critical to meeting learning objectives?
For instance, Web 2.0 tools such as wikis and forums often provide greater value when more people are using them. If a company has far more English-language speaking individuals than French-speaking individuals, then we might reasonably expect (assuming all other factors are equal) that the English-language wiki or forum will provide more content and more value than the similar French-language wiki or forum. If it is a requirement that the content or even the overall experience must be equal, then this could be a problem. It would not be a problem if simply providing access to a wiki or forum in both languages is the requirement.
I don't see any easy solutions to this added wrinkle that Canadian organizations face. But based on the conversations I've had recently, I'm confident that over time the learning leaders north of the border will figure out what L&D uses of Web 2.0 technologies will both provide value and satisfy the language requirements. Given their need to focus on this issue, I hope American organizations can then learn from our Canadian colleagues when similar issues arise in the U.S.
— Thomas Stone (Tom_Stone@elementk.com)
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