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Few industry events are scheduled during the holiday season of late December and early January. But at this point, things are again kicking into high gear, so I thought it would be a good time to link back to my earlier posting from October 2008, titled "15 Tips for Making the Most of Learning Industry Conferences." For more good tips, see also the recent ASTD blog posting "How to Make the Most Out of the Expo."
I'd also like to draw attention to three major L&D industry events that Element K will be participating in during coming weeks.
Learning Technologies 2010
The Learning Technologies conference will be held at Olympia 2, London, from January 27-28, 2010. Now in its 11th year, it is billed as "Europe's leading showcase of technology supported workplace learning." It will have some 130 exhibitors, 60 free educational sessions, and some 3,000 visitors. It has a content-packed accompanying magazine -- definitely worth a look.
Element K will be in the exposition hall at booth 17, and we'd love for you to stop by! We'll have several demo sessions, with topics such as:
- How to Reduce Your Learning Management Costs With a Hosted LM
- vLabs: How to Deliver Real Experience within a Virtual Environment
- Beyond the Hocus Pocus: A Practical Approach To Building Blended Learning and a Learning Culture
For descriptions of these sessions, and to sign up for any of them, please visit our sign-up form page.
In addition, Andrew Tempest, Element K's Director of Learning Products Management, will be giving a presentation at Learning Technologies on the topic of "Challenges and Opportunities in Developing New Training Programs."
Be sure to visit our new website to meet our team and get valuable resources including whitepapers and case studies.
ASTD TechKnowledge 2010
This year's ASTD TechKnowledge Conference and Expo is being held in Las Vegas from January 27-29. This year's event once again features an outstanding lineup of speakers, as well as other features such as creation stations, tech intensives, and learning labs.
I will be attending this event, and will be speaking on Wednesday, January 27 from 1:30 - 2:45 p.m. on the topic of "Overcoming Obstacles and Objections to Using Web 2.0 in Organizations." In this session, I will be covering numerous "obstacles and objections" to the use of social learning tools in organizations, and provide valuable insights and tips on how to overcome these so you can move forward with the latest tools and approaches in your blended learning programs. In addition, I will be leading one of the Closing Session group discussions on the topic of Social Learning.
Training 2010
The annual event from Training magazine, this year's Training 2010 Conference and Expo, is being held in San Diego from February 1-3. Like the two events already mentioned, Training 2010 promises an outstanding learning experience due to its exceptional lineup of speakers and topics.
I will be also attending this event, and again will be presenting on the topic "Overcoming Obstacles and Objections to Using Web 2.0 in Organizations." (on Monday, Feb. 1 from 8-9 a.m.) In addition, I'll be presenting a brief Twitter Overview for L&D professionals later that day between 1:30 and 2:30 p.m. in the technology demo area.
Hopefully you are able to attend one or more of these outstanding industry events!
— Thomas Stone (Tom_Stone@elementk.com, and on Twitter @ThomasStone)
November is usually a very busy months in terms of the number of good conferences in the Learning and Development industry. Two big ones include Elliott Masie's Learning 2009 and the eLearning Guild's DevLearn 2009.
In addition, many regional ASTD chapters hold their full-day annual conferences during the fall. For instance, I participated in the ASTD Valley of the Sun chapter's event in October (see my report), and I'll be speaking at the ASTD Twin Cities Chapter next week as well. Consult your local ASTD chapter's website to see if they have major full-day events or other happenings coming up.
And finally, perhaps the most intriguing event this month is a virtual one: Corporate Learning Trends 2009, which is a free, online, non-profit conference on innovation in corporate learning. It’s a labor of love from industry leaders George Siemens, Tony Karrer, and Jay Cross, and will be held online from November 17-19. The theme for this year's event is Convergence in Corporate Learning, and the lineup of speakers not only includes the three already mentioned, but also Charles Jennings, Janet Clarey, Tony O'Driscoll, Jane Hart, Harold Jarche, and many others (see their pictures at Jay Cross' blog posting here.) And for more information, visit the LearnTrends social networking site.
— Thomas Stone (Tom_Stone@elementk.com)
As I've done in the past here at Element K Blog (see the Industry Events for many conference report postings), I wanted to provide a brief report on a couple of Learning and Development industry conferences.
First up was the annual Canadian Society for Training and Development (CSTD) conference
, held at the Sheraton Centre Hotel, in Toronto, Canada. I had attended and spoken at the excellent CSTD Symposium held in Halifax in May, so I was very much looking forward to this larger CSTD event. And this year's event was even more intriguing, as it was both the annual conference for CSTD and for the International Federation of Training and Development Organizations (IFTDO). In my view, this two-in-one aspect made up for any decrease in attendance that otherwise might have been apparent from the poor economy and tighter travel budgets. Every session that I attended or even walked by seemed to be very well attended!
As with the smaller CSTD symposium, I can definitely recommend CSTD events. For those leaders in the L&D industry in Canada, they are a no-brainer. But they offer much that is of interest to L&D leaders from the U.S. and the rest of the world as well—after all, most issues, challenges, and opportunities in our field are universal in nature. For instance, all of the headliners—the keynote speakers and those in the "Thought Leader" series—were well-known speakers presenting on topics of common interest to our industry (Allison Rossett, Harold Stolovitch, Patti Shank, Peter Senge, and others.)
The conference's program designers also made a brilliant move in dedicating the first day of the conference (not an optional pre-conference day) to the theme of "Research to Practice." These sessions helped to highlight the latest research in the field, but did so in a way that attendees could take those insights back to their work and apply them in practical ways, thereby reducing the common dichotomy between theory and practice.
Also on this first day was a "Trading Post" event, where about 15 speakers presented and led discussion three times, in 20-minute segments, on a very specific topic. I've done this before at other conferences (e.g., several eLearning Guild events), and I always find it effective for the attendees, as they get a high dose of information on three topics of their choosing, in a very short period of time. I was one of the speakers, and I introduced about 25 learning leaders to the worldwide phenomenon of Twitter, making it relevant for them as professionals and giving them the info they need to get started. Other tables focused on instructional design, the use of gaming in learning, the future of training departments, and other great topics.
The bulk of the program was naturally composed of the breakout sessions, and again the program committee did a great job of spacing these out by general subject area (leadership development, technology focus, etc.), so that those with targeted interests almost always had a session of interest in each time slot, but didn't find themselves having to choose between competing sessions in the same area. There were several outstanding speakers in this part of the program, including folks like Gary Woodhill, Harold Jarche, Jane Bozarth, and many others. I again spoke for 90 minutes on "Blending Web 2.0 Technologies with Traditional Formal Learning," and the audience had great questions both during and after. It is a topic that so many in L&D are struggling with, but as the many examples I shared demonstrate, a lot of real progress is being made.
Alas, I had to leave this conference early to catch a flight to Phoenix, Arizona, where I was one of four speakers at the regional American Society for Training & Development chapter known as ASTD Valley of the Sun. Their annual conference was on Friday, October 23 and had the theme "Web 2.0: A Social Learning Conference." Being a regional conference, it was of course smaller than national or international events like the CSTD event I had just come from. But this was an innovative event in its own right, as nearly 100 percent of attendees brought their laptops, and participated in a lively "back-channel" throughout the day. People were looking up resources, sending each other links, and most of all using Twitter (with live tweets displayed on a side wall for several of the sessions). If you have never experienced this kind of event, you might think this kind of approach would be distracting or chaotic. But it really isn't; instead, it was a positively energized event with greater learning occurring.
Bill Fournet, President and CEO at The Persimmon Group, led things off with a stirring keynote presentation, and then David Wilkins of Learn.com, Christy Pettit of ODScore, and myself each gave two nearly two-hour presentations each on various aspects of Web 2.0 in a learning and development context. Again, the energetic participants did not just soak up the experience and knowledge we were sharing, but fully participated with questions and discussion; it was phenomenal. The ASTD-VOS chapter is now off and running with a better understanding of Web 2.0/social media technologies, and how they can use them both as an ASTD chapter (e.g., they now have a social networking site for the group), but more importantly how they can use technologies such as wikis, blogs, and forums in their own organizations. Congrats to all involved for taking this major step forward!
— Thomas Stone (Tom_Stone@elementk.com)
It's time for another edition of the Learning and Development Roundup! (See also volumes one, two, three, four, and five).
What Every L&D Professional Needs to Know About E-Learning
E-Learning experts Clive Shepherd and Laura Overton recently provided an outstanding 20-page booklet titled "What Every L&D Professional Needs to Know About E-Learning." Available for free online (registration required), this booklet is valuable for newcomers to the learning and development field as well as more seasoned professionals. After some introductory information it includes sections for what they refer to as self-paced content, live online sessions, online distance learning, knowledge sharing, simulations and virtual worlds, and computers in the classroom. Of particular value are the case studies provided for each section. See also Clive's blog posting where he describes this booklet, their purpose in creating it, and more.
All About Subject Matter Experts
Most content developers or instructional designers who have developed training materials—whether for classroom use or for e-Learning—have likely worked with SMEs: Subject Matter Experts. Such experiences can be a mix of frustration and rewarding moments. The ASTD Learning Circuits Blog "Big Question" for September was on this subject: Working with Subject Matter Experts. This has generated over a dozen comments and over a dozen blog postings in response, so if you are interested in this subject you've now got a wealth of great reading to do. And if you want even more insights and didn't participate in the live event, see the transcript of the recent "Learn Chat" Twitter session on Subject Matter Experts.
Roger Schank on What Can Be Taught
In September, the always provocative Roger Schank wrote a two-part article for eLearn Magazine titled "What Can Be Taught." (This was a follow-up to his equally thought-provoking July article titled "What Cannot Be Taught.")
In describing what can be taught, Schank analyzes the subject into 16 types of learning. In Part 1 he considers conscious processes, and in particular prediction, judgment, modeling, experimentation, describing, and managing. Then in Part 2 he covers subconscious processes (step-by-step, artistry, and valuing), analytic processes (diagnosis, planning, causation), and mixed processes (influence, teamwork, negotiation, goals.)
Josh Bersin on "From E-Learning to We-Learning"
On September 25, industry analyst Josh Bersin wrote a provocative posting at his blog The Business of Talent, titled "From E-Learning to We-Learning." He begins by noting what we all have recently witnessed: "The corporate training industry is undergoing some major changes. Over the last few months we have been involved in many discussions with organizations about the tremendous needs to build, manage, and formalize their social and collaborative learning programs. This is being driven by many factors: the slowing economy, the "always-connected" nature of the workforce, and the explosion of social software tools and platforms now available."
He then proceeds to give a quick history of the development of the e-Learning industry, concluding with "So this 12-year evolution of "e-Learning" has been exciting, innovative, and transformational. Today many corporate clients tell us that 70% or more of their corporate training (measured by instructional hours) is done online. Such a concept was unthinkable in 1998."
He then states and defends five predictions about what he calls "We-Learning" (a.k.a., social learning, collaborative learning, and learning 2.0):
- We-Learning will shift some focus away from traditional training, and create a need to learn new disciplines.
- e-Learning did not, despite predictions, kill traditional training and education. Nor will "We-Learning" totally replace carefully designed training programs.
- We-Learning will create markets for many new tools and platforms.
- We-Learning will change our behavior in corporate training.
- We-Learning will demand a change in culture and leadership.
McKinsey Survey Data on Business and Web 2.0
On a related note, in September, the McKinsey Quarterly provided an impressive interactive tool that provides interactive charts of the data from their three-year survey of business uses of Web 2.0 technologies. Their survey examines the business use of 12 technologies and tools: blogs, mash-ups, microblogging, peer to peer, podcasts, prediction markets, rating, RSS, social networking, tagging, video sharing, and wikis. One interactive also contains a nearly five-minute audio guide from Michael Chui, "A consultant with McKinsey and one of the drivers of the Web 2.0 research initiative." In addition, see the related McKinsey Quarterly article that provides insights into this data, "How Companies Are Benefiting From Web 2.0: McKinsey Global Survey Results." See also the earlier McKinsey Quarterly item, "Six Ways To Make Web 2.0 Work." (Premium membership needed to read these two articles in full.)
LearnTrends Event and Innovation Awards
Corporate Learning Trends 2009 is a free, online, non-profit conference on innovation in corporate learning. It’s a labor of love from industry leaders George Siemens, Tony Karrer, and Jay Cross, and will be held online from November 17-19. The theme for this year's event is Convergence in Corporate Learning. For more information, visit the LearnTrends social networking site.
In conjunction with this online conference ,the group is also holding a LearnTrends 2009 Innovation Awards competition. As Jay Cross notes at his blog:
"The awards will recognize products, projects, and companies that represent significant innovation in corporate/workplace learning and performance. Winners will be announced and will be asked to do short presentations during the LearnTrends 2009 event. ...There is no entry fee. (And no fancy plaque either.) We very much want to get nominations from all corners. (Innovation occurs at all levels.)"
Updates from Element K
I'll again end this roundup posting with links to our newsletter service that we launched in June. Each newsletter includes several articles of relevance to the Learning and Development field, as well as updates about Element K events and our latest product releases. You can see the latest newsletters here: June, July, August, September, and October.
— Thomas Stone (Tom_Stone@elementk.com)
Earlier this year, an interesting new event in the Learning and Development industry started taking place every Thursday evening from 8:30-10:00 Eastern Standard Time. Various L&D professionals, from instructional designers, to training managers, to expert independent consultants, started to gather on Twitter for a live "chat." There are many of these Twitter gatherings for different topics and areas of interest, but this particular one is called Learn Chat and is denoted on Twitter with the hashtag "#lrnchat."
I've participated in most of the weekly lrnchat sessions, and I've generally found them to be a goldmine of insights on the selected topic of the day. As these sessions have grown in popularity, the Twitter messages now come fast and furious, so it can be hard to keep up and read them all. I definitely wouldn't recommend trying to multitask on other work while trying to get value from a lrnchat session!
In any given week, you'll find notable experts from our industry participating, such as Jay Cross, Clark Quinn, Mark Oehlert, Jane Bozarth, and many, many more. If you are going to give lrnchat a try, I strongly recommend using a tool such as Tweetdeck (set up a search column on #lrnchat) or the website tweetchat.com to help you manage the messages.
If participating in the live session is not for you—whether because you haven't started to use Twitter yet, you aren't comfortable with the speed of the exchange of such chats, or you aren't available at the Thursday evening time—you can always read the transcript of the session afterwards. See the website for lrnchat located at http://lrnchat.wordpress.com/ for transcripts for the recent lrnchats on topics such as:
- Social learning
- Working with SMEs (Subject Matter Experts)
- Folklore and myths about e-Learning
- The importance of mentoring
For some of the participants' perspectives on recent lrnchats, see these blog postings:
So if you're looking for a invigorating way to connect with other L&D professionals to discuss your experiences and share best practices, then #lrnchat on Twitter may be perfect for you.
— Thomas Stone (Tom_Stone@elementk.com)
It's time for another edition of the Learning and Development Roundup! (See also volumes one, two, three, four, and five).
What Every L&D Professional Needs to Know About E-Learning
E-Learning experts Clive Shepherd and Laura Overton recently provided an outstanding 20-page booklet titled "What Every L&D Professional Needs to Know About E-Learning." Available for free online (registration required), this booklet is valuable for newcomers to the learning and development field as well as more seasoned professionals. After some introductory information it includes sections for what they refer to as self-paced content, live online sessions, online distance learning, knowledge sharing, simulations and virtual worlds, and computers in the classroom. Of particular value are the case studies provided for each section. See also Clive's blog posting where he describes this booklet, their purpose in creating it, and more.
All About Subject Matter Experts
Most content developers or instructional designers who have developed training materials—whether for classroom use or for e-Learning—have likely worked with SMEs: Subject Matter Experts. Such experiences can be a mix of frustration and rewarding moments. The ASTD Learning Circuits Blog "Big Question" for September was on this subject: Working with Subject Matter Experts. This has generated over a dozen comments and over a dozen blog postings in response, so if you are interested in this subject you've now got a wealth of great reading to do. And if you want even more insights and didn't participate in the live event, see the transcript of the recent "Learn Chat" Twitter session on Subject Matter Experts.
Roger Schank on What Can Be Taught
In September, the always provocative Roger Schank wrote a two-part article for eLearn Magazine titled "What Can Be Taught." (This was a follow-up to his equally thought-provoking July article titled "What Cannot Be Taught.")
In describing what can be taught, Schank analyzes the subject into 16 types of learning. In Part 1 he considers conscious processes, and in particular prediction, judgment, modeling, experimentation, describing, and managing. Then in Part 2 he covers subconscious processes (step-by-step, artistry, and valuing), analytic processes (diagnosis, planning, causation), and mixed processes (influence, teamwork, negotiation, goals.)
Josh Bersin on "From E-Learning to We-Learning"
On September 25, industry analyst Josh Bersin wrote a provocative posting at his blog The Business of Talent, titled "From E-Learning to We-Learning." He begins by noting what we all have recently witnessed: "The corporate training industry is undergoing some major changes. Over the last few months we have been involved in many discussions with organizations about the tremendous needs to build, manage, and formalize their social and collaborative learning programs. This is being driven by many factors: the slowing economy, the "always-connected" nature of the workforce, and the explosion of social software tools and platforms now available."
He then proceeds to give a quick history of the development of the e-Learning industry, concluding with "So this 12-year evolution of "e-Learning" has been exciting, innovative, and transformational. Today many corporate clients tell us that 70% or more of their corporate training (measured by instructional hours) is done online. Such a concept was unthinkable in 1998."
He then states and defends five predictions about what he calls "We-Learning" (a.k.a., social learning, collaborative learning, and learning 2.0):
- We-Learning will shift some focus away from traditional training, and create a need to learn new disciplines.
- e-Learning did not, despite predictions, kill traditional training and education. Nor will "We-Learning" totally replace carefully designed training programs.
- We-Learning will create markets for many new tools and platforms.
- We-Learning will change our behavior in corporate training.
- We-Learning will demand a change in culture and leadership.
McKinsey Survey Data on Business and Web 2.0
On a related note, in September, the McKinsey Quarterly provided an impressive interactive tool that provides interactive charts of the data from their three-year survey of business uses of Web 2.0 technologies. Their survey examines the business use of 12 technologies and tools: blogs, mash-ups, microblogging, peer to peer, podcasts, prediction markets, rating, RSS, social networking, tagging, video sharing, and wikis. One interactive also contains a nearly five-minute audio guide from Michael Chui, "A consultant with McKinsey and one of the drivers of the Web 2.0 research initiative." In addition, see the related McKinsey Quarterly article that provides insights into this data, "How Companies Are Benefiting From Web 2.0: McKinsey Global Survey Results." See also the earlier McKinsey Quarterly item, "Six Ways To Make Web 2.0 Work." (Premium membership needed to read these two articles in full.)
LearnTrends Event and Innovation Awards
Corporate Learning Trends 2009 is a free, online, non-profit conference on innovation in corporate learning. It’s a labor of love from industry leaders George Siemens, Tony Karrer, and Jay Cross, and will be held online from November 17-19. The theme for this year's event is Convergence in Corporate Learning. For more information, visit the LearnTrends social networking site.
In conjunction with this online conference ,the group is also holding a LearnTrends 2009 Innovation Awards competition. As Jay Cross notes at his blog:
"The awards will recognize products, projects, and companies that represent significant innovation in corporate/workplace learning and performance. Winners will be announced and will be asked to do short presentations during the LearnTrends 2009 event. ...There is no entry fee. (And no fancy plaque either.) We very much want to get nominations from all corners. (Innovation occurs at all levels.)"
Updates from Element K
I'll again end this roundup posting with links to our newsletter service that we launched in June. Each newsletter includes several articles of relevance to the Learning and Development field, as well as updates about Element K events and our latest product releases. You can see the latest newsletters here: June, July, August, September, and October.
— Thomas Stone (Tom_Stone@elementk.com)
As I've done in the past here at Element K Blog (see the Industry Events for many conference report postings), I wanted to provide some reflections on the conference I participated in recently. The Society for Applied Learning Technology (SALT) held their "Interactive Technologies Conference" in Washington DC Aug. 19-21 (PDF of their program). I had never been to a SALT event before, so it was great to finally participate in one.
As I mentioned in an earlier posting regarding the CSTD Symposium held in Halifax in May, there are some definite benefits to attending smaller conferences: many are aspects that boil down to quality over quantity, ranging from the program itself to the lack of feelings of "getting lost in the crowd" and the ability to have deeper conversations with people. That said, the program at this conference provided ample choices for sessions to attend. What I really found helpful was how the sessions were organized into tracks, and then each session in each track was held in the same room throughout the day. This provided continuity that I sometimes find lacking at other industry events.
The tracks included at this conference were representative of both traditional learning technology topics and the common "hot topics" (the top four in the list below) that I've noted in earlier blog postings:
- Gaming and Simulation (18 sessions)
- Web 2.0 (14 sessions)
- Mobile Learning (7 sessions)
- Virtual Worlds (7 sessions)
- Compliance (6 sessions)
- Design (10 sessions)
- E-Learning (10 sessions)
- Training (11 sessions)
- Knowledge Management (4 sessions)
My own presentation was again on "Blending Web 2.0 Technologies with Traditional Formal Learning" (It was a shortened version of what is available here as a pre-recorded Element K webinar.) I had a good audience of 50+ people, and I appreciated the follow-up conversations as well.
The attendees at this conference were more of a mix of L&D leaders from government, academia, and corporate than many of the other conferences I've participated in that were dominated by folks from the corporate world. So this mix definitely gave this conference a different flavor than what I've experienced in the past few years. I attended excellent presentations by people from or representing the U.S. Department of State, the U.S. Department of the Interior, NASA and NOAA, the U.S. Department of Labor, and others (including academia and corporate organizations, of course).
In addition, the keynote speaker was from the government sector as well, in that he is a member of the military getting ready to retire: Major General Vincent E. Boles. He gave a lively and interesting presentation of the massive training operations and challenges that the military has, and some innovative approaches they have taken to meet those challenges. In particular, he stressed one of their guiding principles as being that you can't train on everything, so you should train on a few tasks, but to standard, and do it well -- something I think applies to any large enterprise with broad training and learning needs but finite resources. He also emphasized the famous quotation which speaks to the importance of training and preparation: "The more you sweat in peace, the less you bleed in war." To the extent the analogy of business to war holds, I think this quote applies to the world of corporate L&D nicely.
The SALT organization is also moving ahead with the use of social media. During the event, they announced that they will soon have a LinkedIn presence, and I suspect a Facebook page won't be far behind. And if you are on Twitter and following various folks in the L&D world, you might have seen some of the many "tweets" that came out of this SALT event, tagged with the hashtag "#salt09”.
In summary, if you are considering attending a SALT event in the future—the next major conference is March 3-5 in Orlando, Florida—based on this one experience at least, I highly recommend them.
I'll wrap up this report with two other points about my trip to Washington DC:
- In addition to the SALT event, I also attended a meeting of the regional ASTD Metro-DC's chapter. This evening event had about 20 stations set up to demo various technologies that can be used in L&D contexts, and our station was focused on "wikis, blogs, and forums." Thanks to all who engaged with us in good conversations—your ASTD chapter certainly is a thriving group!
- My trip wasn't all business, as my wife came along and we spent four days doing lots of typical tourist activities in and around DC. Obviously, the Smithsonian museums we visited have changed a lot since I last visited them nearly 20 years ago. Most notably there are countless multimedia exhibits now, and many mixed exhibits as well. One interesting thought from a "learning" perspective occurred to me though: the most interesting exhibits, now more than ever, are those that revolve around unique (or nearly unique) physical artifacts. Why? Because of the Internet, and especially resources like Wikipedia, so much general information is now at our fingertips. While providing some such information about important events, people, etc., is helpful in a museum, having entire exhibits that provide only information that we can get easily online is no longer very valuable in my opinion. I suspect many museum-goers agree, and so I expect to see continuing changes in museums as a result.
— Thomas Stone (Tom_Stone@elementk.com)
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)
In March, I did a post on Jane Hart's impressive work in pulling together information on the top tools used for learning and personal productivity (and much more). Now I'd like to put my spotlight on another leader in our industry who we all owe a debt of gratitude for the many resources he provides: Tony Karrer.
I'll start with Tony's website eLearning Learning. This site describes itself as "Community assembled resources to learn about eLearning." The core purpose of the site is to aggregate and categorize content from many of the top blogs and other sites in the world of e-Learning. Many of my favorite industry blogs are included, such as Clive on Learning, Bozarthzone, and ASTD’s Learning Circuits Blog. Earlier this year, Element K Blog joined these and many other blogs as part of eLearning Learning's impressive dataset, allowing our postings to appear there and show up in the search results. I recommend this resource as one of your first resources to try whether you are searching for information on e-Learning tools, platforms, best practices, or just about any related topic.
In my view, just as valuable is Tony's own blogging at eLearning Technology. Tony is prolific, writing a combination of well-crafted essays and shorter, provocative entries. He also provides weekly lists of the most popular articles from eLearning Learning and other sources, which can be a great way to make sure you don't miss any of the past week's industry highlights. In fact, he has provided so many great posts at his blog over the years that he has taken the time to provide a First Time Visitor Guide, that takes you through the many topics he has covered. Tony's blog has quite a following, so the comments his posts generate often have some great insight as well. This is all why, in my posting in February, I included this blog in the several dozen I pulled together for quick importing into your RSS feed reader.
In addition to his e-Learning resource site and e-Learning blog, Tony is also one of the industry experts you'll want to follow on Twitter. You can follow Tony himself via his account @TonyKarrer. But, you can also get the latest posts from eLearning Learning by following @eLearningPosts.
And if that wasn't enough, Tony organizes virtual events that bring together key industry leaders. One recent event was the eLearning Tour, which brought together Judy Brown, Bob Mosher, and Karl Kapp to present on mobile learning, performance support, games and simulations, and more. If you missed this event, you can still see the videos of the sessions since Tony has made them available for free at his blog. Another such event was the latest LearningTrends virtual event, which took place today and involved many well-known leaders in our industry such as George Siemens, Will Thalheimer, and others.
Much thanks to Tony for all of his on-going efforts!
— Thomas Stone (Tom_Stone@elementk.com)
Conferences are still being held in the Learning and Development industry as in past years, and generally they have the same level of quality presentations, hallway discussions, vendor demos, and much more. But, from what I can tell, the economic recession and the constraints on budgets that it causes (especially travel budgets) seem to be resulting in lower turnouts—and also leading some in our industry to think about alternative approaches to obtaining the same or similar benefits.
Single-presentation “webinars” (such as those provided by Element K) have been around for many years, as have multi-speaker “virtual conferences.” An example of the latter would be the “online forums” that the eLearning Guild does each month. These are two-day virtual conferences on a particular theme or topic, with around 10 speakers presenting with breaks available between each time block. They use Adobe® Connect™ as the software platform, and Karen Hyder and Bill Bateman do an outstanding job of preparing the speakers and moderating the sessions. I have been a speaker at two of these, first in September of last year when I spoke on “Using Wikis in a Corporation,“ and then last month when I spoke on “Blending Web 2.0 Technologies with Traditional Formal Learning.” Both sessions had great Q&A and went very smoothly, and I can say the same for many of the other sessions from Guild Online Forums that I have attended. See their list of upcoming online forums—highly recommended. And Member Plus- and Premium-level members of the Guild have access to on-demand recordings of all the past online forum sessions, which include an amazing 500+ sessions.
I also recently participated in some events that involved different approaches, ones that are quite innovative and really pushing the envelope. One was a variation on the standard “virtual conference” idea, put on by the good folks at LearnTrends, a social networking site started by Jay Cross. See the listing of topics to get a sense for the scope of the event.
This virtual event had periodic presentations from dozens of people in the L&D field, but it was far less formal than a webinar or a typical virtual conference. The conversation was not mostly one-way, but rather many-to-many. There was a chat window for people who preferred typing text to speaking, but many people used their headsets to literally hold a group discussion over the Internet. Each time block had one or more moderators, to help keep things going and to integrate the text messages into the audio discussion.
To be sure, there were numerous audio issues—so apparently the Internet, our various audio microphones, and so on are not quite there yet for this to be a 100% smooth event. But it was worth participating in and I encourage readers to give it a try—there certainly was no lack of lively discussion, great ideas, and even some debate on issues of importance to learning leaders. Oh, and did I mention it was scheduled as a world-wide event, so rather than having it be two days focused on U.S. time zones, it went on for 24 hours straight? Granted, participation was light at some times, but that is still an impressive thing to even attempt, so kudos to Jay and team for putting it together. See also Jay’s thoughts about the event as well as Tony Karrer’s remarks.
The other innovative approach to online conferencing is a variation on a group IM chat. Rather than use traditional IM clients, the completely open Twitter platform has been used several times to bring people together to discuss learning and development topics.
These chats are held on Thursday evenings, usually around 8:30 EST, and last for 90 minutes or so. They are called “lrnchat” (pronounced “learn chat”), as that is the hashtag used on Twitter to mark the posts that make up the chat as such.
Typically, a lrnchat moderator asks a series of questions that people give their thoughts on, but others are of course free to raise other topics. It can be a little hard to track at times, but using the TweetChat.com site helps. I have found this discussion to be quite interesting. The one thing to keep in mind is that while you are intending your messages in this Twitter chat for the others participating, they will actually be visible to everyone who follows you on Twitter. So you might want to send out a brief tweet at the outset to warn people of this, so that those who follow you and aren’t interested know they can skip any of your messages that are marked with #lrnchat.
See the lrnchat blog for more information, and even transcripts of the discussions so far. And for some additional perspective on the LearnTrends event and the lrnchat Twitter discussions, see Tony Karrer’s insightful posting Learning Goals.
— Thomas Stone (Tom_Stone@elementk.com)
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