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.
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”.
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.
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.
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!
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.
On Wednesday April 8th, at 2:00 p.m. (EST) I will be presenting a one-hour webinar on the topic "Blending Web 2.0 Technologies with Traditional Learning Approaches". Registration for this event is free.
Here is a summary of this session:
When learning leaders can successfully integrate the new with the current, everyone benefits. But how do you integrate Web 2.0 technologies -- wikis, blogs, forums, and so on -- with the traditional formal learning methods such as e-Learning and ILT? What collaborative technology is the best to use in various learning program scenarios? What are some strategies for blending Web 2.0 technologies with the learning modalities you've invested so much in over the years? What are the connections with informal learning and performance support?
In this webinar I will give you critical best practices gained from real experience, and provide a dozen actionable strategies for including Web 2.0 technologies to your blended learning solution.
I've delivered a similar presentation a few times at recent industry conferences, and have gotten very positive feedback. This webinar is not a sales pitch or Element K product demo, but rather a presentation that includes lots of key information and valuable best practices, and it gives you the opportunity to ask me your burning questions about integrating Web 2.0 into your learning solutions.
I participated in the eLearning Guild’s “Annual Gathering” conference, which was held March 10-13 in Orlando, Florida as it was last year. Attendance might have been down a bit due to the economy and travel budget restrictions, but there was still plenty of energy from the lively discussions in presentations, expo-hall demos, and more.
Personally, I had many sessions lined up for this event. On the one hand that was great: I enjoy speaking, and sharing ideas with CLOs, training managers, instructional designers, and others in the L&D field. On the other hand, I arrived in Orlando and quickly came down with a bad case of laryngitis—the one thing you don’t want to get when you have six presentations and roundtables to lead! I appreciate everyone’s patience with me throughout the week, whether you suffered through my poor voice in a presentation or just a conversation in the expo hall.
Similar to my session from Training 2009 in February, my primary presentation was on “Blending Web 2.0 Technologies with Traditional Formal Learning.” I had a good turnout of 60-70 people, and fortunately I had brought enough copies of the whitepaper of the same title this time (available online here). Thanks to everyone who attended and especially those who asked good questions during the presentation. Note that I'll be giving a similar presentation as a free Element K Webinar on April 8th!
I led one of the “Breakfast Bytes” sessions (informal sessions over coffee and pastries), and my topic was “Favorite Tools for Personal Productivity and Learning.” I had close to 20 people for this session, and just like when I did it last year, everyone had great tools and tips to share, ranging from popular tools such as Twitter and Google Apps, to more obscure or niche tools for time tracking or working with video or audio content.
I also was one of some 30 speakers who were table moderators for the Friday-morning “Espresso Learning” roundtable discussions. These were a series of three, 40-minute discussions with 10 minutes between each to get refreshment (including literally espresso) and move to another table. My topic was “Overcoming Organizational Resistance to Web 2.0.” I had light attendance, but that allowed me to have more in-depth conversations with each individual
I also teamed up for a session in the “ID Zone” with Mark Oehlert, a popular author, speaker, and blogger in our industry, who currently is Innovation Evangelist at the Defense Acquisition University, a U.S. Department of Defense university focused on improving the learning outcomes for over 150,000 acquisition personnel. The “ID Zone” was a special area in the expo hall where sessions were held with an emphasis on instructional design and the relation between the ID job role and other aspects of our industry. Our session focused on the connection between the use of Web 2.0 technologies and the role of the ID. We had about 30 people attending all or part of this session, and had some really good questions and comments from the audience. For instance, one individuals noted that IDs could benefit from learners using Web 2.0 functionality, as it is now possible to get user ratings and feedback—even on a screen-by-screen basis—that can then be useful in improving the content in the future. Further, a suggestion I made was that the role of the ID might slowly change over time: while it will likely always involve creating formal learning content, some of the ID’s time might involve facilitating—gently guiding—informal learning that is mediated by wikis, blogs, discussion forums, or social networking platforms.
I definitely noticed an increase from last year of the number of people live-blogging, or just as often, live-Twittering, during the presentations, from even the Guild’s DevLearn conference in the fall. This really is becoming a standard occurrence at industry events. While it can be a little distracting as a speaker, I find it pretty easy to ignore. What I like to do after the fact is go back and read the blog entries and the Twitter stream—known as the back-channel—of those who attended my sessions and were getting value from what I was saying.
Many people twittered both my primary session and my “Breakfast Bytes” session, and this allowed people attending other sessions—as well as people who weren’t even at the conference at all—to get some value from the presentations. While the Twitter stream is effectively long gone at this point, here are two people who blogged my primary presentation and did a good job of capturing key points: Rachel Troychock and Angie Torres. (See also the blog posts they did around the same date for their comments on other presentations they attended at the conference.)
Overall, I found the program for this conference to be similar to last year’s in terms of the range of topics discussed. The same things remain popular at industry conferences that I’ve noted in earlier conference blog postings: the use of Web 2.0 technologies in learning contexts, the use of “serious games” and robust simulations, virtual classrooms as a replacement for expensive ILT, and both the potential and reality of mobile learning today. The “ID Zone,” as well as a few regular sessions, helped bring some increased attention to instructional design aspects of the use of all of these hot technologies and approaches. And as I’ve mentioned here before, I saw a continuing re-emphasis—and indeed redefinition of—our industry’s notion of “Blended Learning.” This concept now goes beyond just combining ILT and traditional e-learning, and includes the targeted use of Web 2.0 and other technologies to enhance our traditional formal learning techniques.
For my comments on other recent conferences, see also:
A few weeks ago I attended Training magazine's Training 2009 conference, held—as it was last year—in Atlanta, Georgia. Attendance might have been down a bit due to the economy and travel budget restrictions, but there were actually more people there than I was anticipating. The expo hall, including our own booth and that of our parent company NIIT, had ebbs and flows of activity as all conferences do. Every conference session I went to was well-attended and had vibrant discussion, and the main hall was full for each keynote presentation. Indeed, even my primary presentation—in the very last time slot on the last day—drew a crowd of 40 (more on that in a minute). I also participated as part of a lunch-time panel on Web 2.0 in learning contexts, and this probably had a crowd of 50 or so.
Training 2009's program is a bit broader in the range of topics covered than some of the other conferences I've participated in, with some emphasis on the cutting-edge technology topics, but also coverage of traditional and business-level aspects of learning and training.
As I've done for most major L&D conferences in the US for the past 18 months, I tracked the topic coverage for Training 2009's program. Comparing Training 2009 with Training 2008 (an apples to apples comparison), I noticed a bit of a decrease in traditional ILT and classroom learning topics, though there were still some sessions in this area to be sure. There was an increase in the number of sessions on Web 2.0/collaboration/social learning, and also an increase in sessions on mobile learning. Other "hot areas," such as gaming and simulations, 3D virtual worlds, and rapid e-learning, seemed stable according to my analysis. Not surprisingly, there were a few more sessions this year on the use of rich media in learning programs, such as audio and video (sometimes in the form of podcasts and vodcasts). And I also noted the continued emphasis on leadership development programs.
One area that definitely seemed to be talked about more this year than last year, and seems to be getting increased attention at each conference I attend, is a renewed interest in "blended learning" (see also my comments in Part 2 of my blog posting on the Learning 2008 conference). This term has been used for a decade or more, but what had become a cliché for some is seeing a re-birth for several reasons. Organizations have invested a lot into various learning modalities, and given the current economic situation, they must get as much value from each approach as possible. Cost reduction is a key factor, so many will shift away from classroom ILT towards various forms of e-Learning, but often they'll do so in a way that retains some strategic face-to-face learning experiences in the blend.
And most of all, the explosion of new technologies has meant the very notion of blended learning has been altered. I'll resist using the term "Blended Learning 2.0" (just as I resist "Learning 2.0" or "e-Learning 2.0"), but there really is a sea-change in how people are using the term "blended." My primary presentation at Training 2009 spoke to this directly: "Blending Emerging Technologies with Traditional Formal Learning." This was the first time I gave this particular presentation, but overall I thought it went well. I was a bit rushed in spots, and didn't have as much time for discussion and Q&A as I'd like. That said, the consensus from my speaker evaluations was that the session was quite valuable, and several even indicated it was their favorite session of the entire conference. I'm glad I could end their conference on a high note!
I also handed out my new whitepaper, "Blending Web 2.0 Technologies with Traditional Formal Learning" at this show. In fact, between our booth and my two presentations, I ran out of copies (why do I never bring enough?). If you missed the handout at the conference and are reading this blog post, the whitepaper is now available online so you can get it here.
I enjoyed other aspects of this conference, such as the three keynote speakers. Chester Elton, author of The Carrot Principle, gave one of the more lively keynotes I've ever seen, while Jeffrey Zaslow gave one of the more emotional (no surprise, since he is co-author with the late Randy Pausch of The Last Lecture). And Dan Pink is always fascinating, this time speaking on the explosion of manga's popularity in the United States (following other areas of the world) and how this comic format might one day be used in creating learning content.
Overall, even with all of the current economic difficulties and uncertainty, most attendees seemed relatively upbeat and happy to be talking about their learning and training challenges, and the innovative solutions that are possible today.
This is Part 3 of my comments on the eLearning Guild's DevLearn 2008 conference that took place a few weeks ago in San Jose, California (see also part 1 and part 2).
In my second DevLearn posting I discussed the exploding use of social networking platforms, most notably Facebook and LinkedIn. Going beyond Facebook, a major buzz item at DevLearn 2008 was another Web 2.0 phenomenon—Twitter. This is by far the most popular example of what is variously called "microblogging" or "micromessaging." This is different than regular blogging in that you are limited to 140 characters per "posting." And it differs from instant messaging in that you aren't carrying on a synchronous conversation in real time—like blogging, you are posting short items (sometimes called “Tweets")—for those who "follow you” to read the next time they log on. People can read the postings of those they are following from their computer, but many also keep up with friends, colleagues, and associates this way via their smartphones or iPods.
For a long time I resisted giving Twitter a try, because it seemed so much of what was posted were trivial updates about what people happen to be doing at that moment (shopping, surfing the web, and so on). But at DevLearn many people were "Live-Twittering" during sessions they were attending, I think often to describe what they were learning to their friends and colleagues who might be interested but who couldn’t attend. And most of all, I attended a session by the Learning industry’s Twitter-Queen, Michelle Lentz (see one of her blogs), that really gave me all the info—and justification—that I need to give Twitter a try. Just to give you a taste, with Twitter you can quickly (far faster than from traditional blogging) do the following and much more:
Share ideas, info, and news with a large number of people.
"Carry your friends in your pocket, and ask them all a question via phone—all at once."
Get to know people you are interested in prior to meeting them face to face.
Provide students/learners a means to communicate after a formal learning event, follow-up on a topic, etc.
Get faster, informal tech support.
Provide customer support and improve customer satisfaction (examples of companies using Twitter are Comcast, Whole Foods, and Southwest Airlines).
Become more social if you are a natural introvert.
Flatten the org chart in your organization.
There are some downsides to Twitter of course, including:
It can be a waste of time if you let it be.
You can miss important information in the flurry of “tweets” you are following (hence critical information should probably also be sent via more traditional means).
As with phone texting, you can be overwhelmed by “abbreviation hell”.
There can be a lack of full thoughts and sustained narratives.
You can inadvertently release information you might have preferred to keep private—as Michelle says “Don’t angry-tweet, don’t drunken-tweet, and in general Think Before You Tweet”.)
I'll probably have more to say on Twitter at this blog in the future, but for now I wanted to introduce readers to it and at least note its appearance at events in our industry.
This is Part 2 of my comments on the eLearning Guild's DevLearn 2008 conference that took place a few weeks ago in San Jose, California (see also part 1).
While the program had several explicit themes, if I had to pick out one topic or theme that struck me the most about this conference it was the exploding importance of social networking platforms, such as LinkedIn and Facebook. Indeed, the conference itself made use of several of these platforms; see here for details.
Most professionals by now have LinkedIn accounts. Until recently though, LinkedIn was used mostly for very serious networking—finding a new job, finding candidates for an opening, and so on. I've noticed LinkedIn has been growing in the past year though, adding more elements that make it, well, a bit more engaging like Facebook is.
I have noted on several occasions recently that far too many business professionals still consider Facebook to be something that "kids" use (and sometimes get into trouble with). While many organizations still block their employees from visiting sites like Facebook (not to mention YouTube, Wikipedia, and even LinkedIn), they do so at their own peril. I predict that soon having a Facebook account will be considered just as "normal" for business professionals as having a LinkedIn account—which is itself becoming just as imperative as having business cards. By connecting with someone on Facebook you can learn a bit more about them—to whatever extent they want to share and to whatever extent you want to learn. This is great for people you meet as part of your professional life—at conferences, at local events, even people within your own organization when it is a large enterprise. Why? Because business cards get stored away and memories fade. But Facebook can serve as a "people memory booster” that fosters ongoing relationships between people in a way that exchanged business cards and even email simply can't do.
This "memory boost" property of Facebook is similar to the principle of reinforcement in learning, or what I’ve heard referred to as the “Forgetting Curve”: unless you use a new skill on the job, or have a good reinforcement event, information and skills "learned" from classes or other formal learning is mostly, and quickly, forgotten. Similarly, former colleagues you no longer see regularly, people you meet at events, and others will be remembered more vividly if you occasionally get a status update from them via Facebook. Your next meeting with them will automatically have some topics of conversation, and you can perhaps bypass the standard "getting caught up" portion and get right down to business. When you realize just how much business value is dependent on relationships and connections between people, the importance of these platforms for professionals becomes clear.
And what about their use in a Learning and Development context? The most obvious use is for performance support, as internal social networking platforms can serve as an excellent "expert locater" service. But beyond that, as described above these platforms help create stronger relationships between people in an enterprise organization. Consider that much of what is called "informal learning" happens through interactions between people: cubicle and hallway conversations, quick IM chats, reading each other's blogs, and so on. In simple terms then, a technology that strengthens relationships further enables these sorts of interactions, and therefore further enables informal learning.
