Engaged Learning

Archive for October, 2008

Why #6: Liberating Knowledge

Oct 30, 2008 Selling Social Learning, Verbs of Social Learning

Wordle Cloud of the Internet Marketing Blog - ...

Image by DavidErickson via Flickr

WHY #5: Liberating Knowledge

There are reasons, but for the most part, why stick perfectly good information in email? No one else can learn from what you just learned when it is in email. Here is a simple example. I know one person who was looking for a corporate template. He was about to email the marketing department and knew it might take a couple days and a few routed emails before he saw it. Instead, he did a quick search and found that someone had shared it with everyone. Problem solved.

What if we could do that with other knowledge? As a general rule, I use email only when it needs to be 1:1 or is sensitive. Other than that I try to use anything but email.

Next time, instead of asking a question in email, ask a question using a forum, or a blog, for exameple. When you do, the question doesn’t go to just one person, it goes to potentially thousands of people. Anyone can answer it. And the beauty of this is that everyone has a different perspective. Sure, there may be one basic answer to a question, but we all have our own view. My view of it may not match yours - it may be just a bit off. But someone else may share your view and give you the exact answer you are looking for. Also, if the answer can be debated, you get a wealth of knowledge in the exchange of ideas.

Make it your quest - make it easy to for others to find information and learn – the easier the better. If the process is difficult others will either 1) not use it or 2) put up with it and grumble the whole time.

Social Learning liberates knowledge.

Related Posts:

Why #5: Adapting to a New Learning Structure
Why #4: Distributing Ownership (Cont’)
Why #3: Discovering Experts
Why #2: Personalizing Learning
Why #1: Focusing on People (Part 1) (Part 2)

Tags: liberate, why

The Conundrum of Colorblindness & Creativity

Oct 29, 2008 Social Learning SIG

Image via Ishihara Test for Color Blindness

What number do you see? The answer is below…

Colorblindness has been a wonderful blessing for me. There are so many things I would like to do - so many areas to explore - so many interesting and mind blowing fields of study to dive in to. Yet, not only am I a man with limited resources, but I am colorblind. This wipes out being an Airforce pilot, correctly matching my clothes in the morning or becoming a designer of any sort. I don’t even have that choice. I know that if I did have that choice that my life would be even more complicated with new areas of interest to explore. But, thankfully, I was born not seeing all the colors of the rainbow.

This is made known unto you, my dear reader, as an apology for the pain you have gone through as you have tried to read this blog. The colors, admittedly, have been horrible. I keep trying, but I give in. Christine Martell, last week, showed me a trick to match colors which was very helpful. YET, there is so much more to it. Shades, accents, and colors being interpreted as and arousing feelings (which colorblind people just don’t understand because we, for the most part, ignore color altogether).

So, after looking at hundreds of designs over the last few months, I finally found one that, in my estimation, looks semi-modern and sports shades of gray. I can work with gray. Sometimes I see gray as green or other colors, so even though it might be gray to you, I see so much more!

But, again, I apologize for any pain I have inflicted upon any of your eyes. Although I will continue to tweak it slightly (oh, ever so) I don’t plan on changing it any time soon.

Simplicity is what I am destined for in a color confused world. My wife would say that gray is so boring. That might be true, but that is all I can do.

Recently I read slide:ology, a fabulous book on presentations (if you don’t own it, repent). Unfortunately, the color part of that book went right over my head.

Even though it may be boring, I hope the posts aren’t (I hope).

Answer to the colored dots above:
The individual with normal color vision will see a 5 revealed in the dot pattern.
An individual with Red/Green (the most common) color blindness will see a 2 revealed in the dots

Tags: Color, Color blindness, ColorBlind, Web design

Why #5: Adapting to a New Learning Structure

Oct 27, 2008 Selling Social Learning, Verbs of Social Learning

WHY #5: Adapting to a New Learning Structure

Wow. We haven’t figured this out yet. When we work, we learn. As I have looked into this, I have been surprised at how we just don’t get it. We are constantly learning as we work, but we don’t think of it as learning. We think of it as working and we separate the two.

Have you seen the show “Hole In The Wall“? If the contestants don’t fit into the holes cut out in the wall (which is coming at them) they are knocked into a pool of water. Not surprisingly, these guys made it in the pool.

Within traditional organization learning, you have presenters, instructional designers, researchers, eLearning specialists and more. And then you have models like ADDIE or the such to help you start at the beginning and end at the end and then loop around. But (I was about to say ‘new’ but it isn’t new) this structure of learning doesn’t have a beginning or an end. It is always. For example, when you get up in the morning, when do you start breathing? There isn’t that beginning to your day. It is always happening.

Again, going back to the water cooler example, how would you organize the water cooler talks? That is absurd. You wouldn’t. Not that there isn’t organization, because there is. You let those who are in the conversation organize it, not try to impose one.

This learning organizational structure is created by the learner. Every person organizes it differently according to their own construct. Yet so much of information is rigidly organized in a hierarchical form that may or may not make sense to each individual person.

QUESTION: What pros/cons do you see in this type of self-organization?

Related Posts:

Why #4: Distributing Ownership (Cont’)
Why #3: Discovering Experts
Why #2: Personalizing Learning
Why #1: Focusing on People (Part 1) (Part 2)

Tags: ADDIE, organization, water cooler, why

Friday Musings - Do I Care?

Oct 24, 2008 Social Learning SIG

Image via Wikipedia

Watch this short video which features Seth Godin and think about this question: Why does the person who you want involved in social learning care?
The webinar from last week recorded. Yet, I can’t get it to run. Technical (maybe user?) difficulties. When I get it worked out I will post it. I am getting the below error. Anyone know what this is about? (Click on it for a more clear view.)

Sign up for this webinar. I attended last year and learned some great stuff. It is after the eLearning Guild’s DevLearn 08 so you should have time.
Speaking of DevLearn, I am getting excited to go and learn and meet new people, meet those I know only online and see old friends. Make sure you and I meet if you are there.
Honestly, I don’t have very high expectations for my session. Not that it won’t be GREAT but it is at the worst time (last day, last time) and at the same time as a second of a two part series on pretty much the same thing. Oh well, we will still have fun and learn a lot from each other!

Tags: DevLearn08, Seth Godin

Live Blogging the Learning Technologies Conference

Oct 23, 2008 Social Learning SIG

The Learning Technologies Conference in Portland, Oregon is happening as I type. Christine Martell, Michele Martin, Dave Richards and I are hosting. There are a few things I wanted to point out as we are going through this:

Learning and working are not exclusive. They can happen at the same time. We have such a tendency to separate them.
Social Learning IS NOT training. Unlike #1, we absolutely must separate these two. Until we do we cannot grasp the advantages of using Web 2.0 tools for learning. They fit very nicely together, but are not synonyms.
Training = Delivery. Social Learning = Creating the learning with others. Training = 1:many. Social Learning = many:many or many:1 where the one is you. Creating an Articulate module or using Captivate is not Social Learning. Ask: This piece of learning I am thinking of - will I create it with others or deliver it? We must be clear what it is and what it isn’t.
Many people worry about using Web 2.0 tools. Many of them are false concerns - worries that are not even real worries. Sometimes we work ourselves up against unseen and unrealistic monsters (and we lose every time).
Content does not need to be perfect. Look at Youtube. The videos are horrible, but how many people watched and loved the fire eating rabbit? Not that we want content to be trashy, but it doesn’t need to be perfect.
Social Learning is not THE solution - it won’t solve all your problems. There must be a balance with other tools and methodologies.
You are accountable for your learning. Not the training department, not your teacher, not your mother - YOU. Flip that, and you are not accountable for another’s learning. They are. Let’s not try to take that upon ourselves.

Tags: articulate, captivate, christine martell, learning technology conference, michele martin, social learning, training, Web 2.0

Why #4: Ownership Cont’

Oct 21, 2008 Selling Social Learning, Verbs of Social Learning

From a purist standpoint, my last post could be read as if all information could be owned by everyone. Well, that isn’t quite true. For example, HR may have a list of holidays they give the company. They don’t want anyone going in there changing these days (although I think they may like that!). Also, management may have information that they don’t want everyone to see, let alone play with.

There is plenty of information that either you don’t want people to change or even see. In either case, almost all Web 2.0 products allow you to have some type of permissions: Read only, Read/Write, No rights, and more. You can assign those out to particular people or groups of people depending on how your software is set up.

This allows for maximum control at the same time. Now this may seem like a contradiction, but we can’t be cavalier about the proprietary information our companies have, either. As a general rule, If the only answer you can come up with is “control” than you better look for something different. In the case of HR or management, there are legitimate reasons for limitations. There is nothing wrong with this. But, if communication and learning can be enhanced by sharing, let it fly!

photo credit: ~~Jen~~

Why #4: Distributing Ownership

Oct 16, 2008 Selling Social Learning, Social Learning SIG, Verbs of Social Learning

Image via Flickr.com:tymesynk

WHY #4: Social Learning Distributes Ownership.

Think of a water cooler discussion you have had lately. Or maybe an email you sent out where there was a string of responses. Who owns those conversations? That is actually a silly question to ask because we all know that no one owns the conversations – they just are and we all might be participants in them. This is different from training and traditional organizational learning where someone or organization or department owns the learning and its delivery and content. Here, in the social world, no one owns them. There are exceptions, but for the most part they are not owned.

It is in our nature to own content - information. If you create a document or PowerPoint or Excel spreadsheet, you own it. If someone wants to change it you email it to them, they change it, email it back and you approve the changes. That is a traditional model of content ownership. If another comes along and changes it without the owner’s knowledge - well watch out! I have seen too many people get upset about that.

But with social learning, if I put out information and it is changed by someone, I should only be thankful and not get upset. I relenquish control and ownership to everyone. S ure, I may be very interested in the information and may be the most active one in the document, but It is not mine. The more who are willing to contribute, the better. More views/perspectives and the more we can all learn.

If we combine this principle with the “Focus on People” principle, you can see how we would look at content differently.

Oddly enough, this is a difficult point for many to overcome. In my research I found that people still have a file mentality. They created a file and it is theirs. If someone wants to change it or add to it, they have to ask permission. It isn’t the same here.

After I implemented my first social learning environment I did some ethnographic research on how it was being used. I wasn’t expecting it, but I found that people would still put information in a wiki and expect that the information was theirs. They didn’t want others changing it nor did they want to change others’ without their permission. Over time this has disappeared, but it a ‘gotcha’ we all need to be aware of.

Spread the idea that it is GREAT to add to or change information. This may catch people off guard, but be ethusiastic about this point.

In the end, we all own it. Again, like BarCamp, no one person owns it. They may have someone driving it, but they don’t own the conversations or organization.

The UK government did some research and found:

Pupils feel a sense of ownership and engagement when they publish their work online and this can encourage attention to detail and an overall improved quality of work. Some teachers reported using publication of work to encourage peer assessment.

Dawn Foster mentions:

The community “owns” the community, and the employees of an organization or other people hosting the community are an integral part of that community. If you think of yourselves as an equal member of the community, it might be more natural to have conversations about negative criticism and work to resolve them together. Maybe this is just semantics, but I think it can help people think about the community in a way that facilitates collaboration and cooperation.

Why is this important? Because the more that anyone can add or clarify, the more information you have and the more accurate it becomes. The ownership isn’t an exclusive ownership, it is an inclusive ownership. Everyone owns the community, thus everyone owns the content.

What does “Distributes Ownership” mean to you?

How have you seen this principle work?

Tags: ownership, why

Why #3 - Discovering Experts

Oct 13, 2008 Selling Social Learning, Verbs of Social Learning

WHY #3: Social Learning Discovers the Expterts.

Social learning also discovers the experts instead of experts being appointed. Some authority doesn’t come down and say “Hey you there, you are going to teach a class in PeopleSoft and you need to be an expert at it.” This just doesn’t happen because there are already the experts out there that most people didn’t know about. If they see a need for someone to learn, they can help out, for example, in a forum by answering a question.

We are all experts at something. Now we can let that expertness out and let others take advantage of it.

Again, back to the BarCamp example, experts automagically emerge from the croud. This happens online as well. Those who know often speak up. Those who don’t listen and ask questions and start great conversations. But no one is dictated an expert. They just are. It is like being a leader. If you have to say you are a leader for other people to understand that, chances are that you’re not a leader. Here, no one appoints an expert or SME –they just are and are socially recognized as such.

Traditional training can - not always, but often does - drown out the experts so they are not discovered on a larger scale. They may be know very locally, not on that larger scale.

What is the benefit from this? Your company is already paying these people. You don’t have to hire more to help others learn. And even better is that they will automatically help each other – often times without prompting from you or another higher power.

Example: Our Customer Support doesn’t know all the answers - they already admit that. But what was happening before is that the customer voices were not heard on a larger scale. As soon as we gave them a way to interact, they started answering each other’s questions! Our customers are some of the best experts. They use our product every day in ways we may not realize. We learned from them, they learn from us, they learn from each other. Experts are discovered.

5 Ways to Sell Social Media to your Boss

Tags: expert, why

Monday Morning Musings

Oct 13, 2008 Social Learning SIG

Image by luc legay via Flickr

I came in this morning and as I jumped into life I had a number of things I wanted to share:

1) As a reminder, we are doing a webinar this Friday at 11am Pacific. TOPIC: Informal Learning in the 21st Century. Go here to register: https://admin.acrobat.com/_a791885149/octslsig/event/event_info.html and HERE for more details (but use the link above to register).

2) Twitter: Want to learn more ways to use it? Check out this post full of great information on how you can expand the use of Twitter.

3) Go view the Directory of Social Networks for Learning Professionals. The Social Learning SIG NING site is on there. If you haven’t joined in the discussion, join us now!

And last but most importantly: We had some tragedy involving a coworker this weekend. As I have learned too many times, life is too precious to take for granted. Don’t pass up the times to be genuine with every person you meet. Forgive as much as possible - it is not worth holding the grudge or stereotype which might limit compassion. Remember the people around you are people, too. And don’t forget that your family is the most important organization you will belong to.

Our thoughts and prayers are with the family and friends of our coworker.

I hate to end a post on a low note and start the week this way. Please - make the best of your week and focus on what is truly important. The rest has a habit of working itself out.

Why #2 - Personalizing Learning

Oct 9, 2008 Selling Social Learning, Verbs of Social Learning

Image via Wikipedia

WHY #2: Social Learning Personalizes Learning.

The next verb of Social Learning is that it will personalize your learning. I don’t know how many training classes I have been to that I was told what I was going to learn instead of learning what I felt I needed to learn to do my job. Some of the instruction I definitely needed – other instruction I didn’t. But in the end I may not have received the answers to my questions.

Learner distraction often is high in training classes because their mind is on their work, yet they are being pulled away to learn something that is not relevant to them at that moment. No wonder they only take away and use 10% of it! (or so)

So we need to ask ourselves, who’s agenda is it that a person learns a particular subject or information. If the answer is not ‘the learner’ then it is not social learning. Instead of forcing someone to learn a subject, it is discovered by the learner.

Like BarCamp, social learning is personalizes the learning to the individual, not to the training class or even to the company as a whole, but to the individual. I want to know something - that topic now becomes my quest for information instead of it being spoonfed. And I want it in the amount I want it, not through some large training class. Training classes have their place, but I learn MUCH more outside of them than I ever do inside.

Experience:

My clothes washer was leaking. In order to skirt the Maytag repairman coming out, I went online and found a forum. It not only let me to the problem, but let me to the solution. I followed the steps and solved the problem. In the steps it said that one task would take two people. I figured out how to do it in one. That is something that I can give back.

This experience we very personal to me. I didn’t have to take a class on repairing washers. The learning happened how I needed it, when and in the amount I needed it. No more, no less, perfectly personalized for me.

Have you had similar experiences in a professional setting?

Tags: Maytag, why

Rethinking the Traditional Learning Model

Oct 7, 2008 Selling Social Learning, Verbs of Social Learning

This video is about schools, but at the heart it is about learning. Chris Lehmann has created a spectacular Ignite presentation. My key take -aways:

Learning can be much more immersive
Live in a “Life Long Kindergarten”
“We teach kids, not subjects”
Student centered learning
“It’s about what they can do - about what they can make”
Give them a project (or let them come up with their own
“Technology needs to be like oxygen”

It really is about focusing on the learner.

Tags: Ignite, why

Why #1 - Focusing on People: Barcamp (Part 2)

Oct 6, 2008 Social Learning SIG

Another great example of focusing on the people is Barcamp.

Barcamp focuses 100% on the learner – it is a participatory conference. There might be a main theme, but when the attendees show up for the first day there isn’t an agenda for the most part. No one knows what the sessions will look like. At the beginning of the conference thy all sit down and create an agenda based upon the needs of the participants.

The picture shown here shows how the BarCamp in Austin was organized. As you can tell it is very off the cuff. They came together and decided, right there, what they wanted to talk about.

And a beautiful part of this whole thing – a part that I just love – is that the participants become the presenters based upon needs and expertise. In fact they try to get EVERYONE to present something. They don’t force them, but they highly encourage them. This is totally focused on the people. Again, it is not focused on the presenters, nor handouts or tests or even what an organization makes them learn. It is all driven around the focus on the learner.

This is a great example. We will keep coming back to Barcamps as we move through the ‘11 Whys’.

If conferences can do it, so can organizations.

Have you ever been to a Barcamp? What was your experience like?

BIL, An Open, Self-Organizing Alternative to TED

Tags: Barcamp, why

Needed: A Company to be a Case Study on Web 2.0

Oct 3, 2008 Social Learning SIG

Image by ____federico____ via Flickr

Jim and I met earlier this year. He is doing his doctoral dissertation by creating a case study examining the use of wikis and podcasts for training and performance improvement within an organization. The company he was working with changed leadership and decided not to participate in the research. In fact, their commitment to using Web 2.0 tools was in question. (Boo!)

From Jim’s email:

I am looking for help in locating a potential company to participate in a case study. Although I had been targeting both wikis and podcasts, I can easily modify my research to focus on one or both of these tools. The key is, I need to find an organization that is using these tools in a collaborative nature, and not just as a content management system.
As I said, this is case study research. The results of my research will be published. But I am wiling to work with the company that participates to package the findings in a way that may be helpful to them. Further, I will work with the subject company to finalize details regarding confidentiality and protection of proprietary systems, processes, and services and products.

Wouldn’t it be cool if, through Web 2.0 methods, we could help Jim find a partner for his Web 2.0 research?

So, could you be that company? Do you know one that would be willing to participate?

Please pass this on. Use the EMAIL or other linking features below to spread the word.

Tags: dissertation, dr, research

Why #1: Focusing on People (Part 1)

Oct 3, 2008 Selling Social Learning, Verbs of Social Learning

Photo from Flickr by Thomas Hawk

WHY #1: Social Learning FOCUSES on People.

What this means could be different for everyone. But I think that there are many similarities. (ASIDE:For some reason, whenever I think about this, Barbara Streisand starts singing in my head.)

This is what it means to me.

First, social learning focuses on people rather than focusing on a presenter or instructor. This may be a little scary to some, and others see this as threatening to their job. Instead of being a presenter we need to become a true facilitator of learning no matter what the mode. It is a slight change of wording, but a large paradigm shift. It is not a one way street – the instructor to the pupil. Instead of the main contact being from teacher to student, it is student to student. Because we focus on people, we want to help them exchange ideas and learn from each other. We facilitate conversation, share resources, share information.

Second, it is not focused on content because we are not the ones creating it anymore. It’s the learner who is creating the content. For example, if you go out on a public drive at your company, you can learn a lot. But how do you find it all? And which folder do you look in? Which version of the document that you found is the correct one. And who ‘owns’ it? This lesser approach focuses on the content itself and on the document instead of the person. This is why I am not a fan of Microsoft’s SharePoint - it centers on files and content. I prefer systems that focus on the people, and there are plenty of them (a shortlist here).

Another thing it does not do is focus on the legal or corporate mandates. For example, being forced to take sexual harassment training. In our new of environment we are not focused on what one MUST do, but on what they CAN do according to their individual needs, not according to the needs of the organization. And that is really the crux of it. Focusing on what the learners want and need, not on what the organization wants or needs. (Not that there shouldn’t be mandates from a company on training, but this is not the focus in this context.)

What it DOES do, is it gives the “power to the people” and allows them to take control of their learning. This may seem like craziness at first, but hold on to this thought: They already have control. As much as we learning professionals like to think we have control, we don’t. Influence, yes. Control, no. For example, how many of you have created (in your estimation) the best training and still had someone give you a bad Level 1 score or they fell asleep? It has happened to us all. Yes, they have control.

In my next series post I will give you a fabulous example of this and talk about the ramifications of focusing on people.

Until then… What does “Focusing on the People” mean (or not mean) to you?

Related Post

Corporate Community Trend: Focus on People

Tags: people, TED

Verbs vs. Nouns

Oct 1, 2008 Selling Social Learning, Verbs of Social Learning

Image by Steve Keys via Flickr

One thing I am not is a natural salesman. I have given it the old college try in past lives, but it was not my cup of tea. Until I found that if I LOVED the product (like I do this) I can sell anything.

At the beginning, after having this social learning idea in my head for awhile, I realized that what I needed to do was sell it. So, I tried. I told people what social learning was, how it might work and why they would like to use it. It took some time, but I realized that I had this all backwards. Let me explain…

The first time I tried to introduce social learning to an organization, I created a plan and took it to my boss. He asked a few questions and said, “I like it. I like it a lot. But we would need to explain this to the president. He wouldn’t get it like this. Redo it and come back.” So, I did. I tried to explain it a different way and went back. Again, his reaction was, “Still good stuff, but the president won’t get it.” So, for the third time I restructured it, tried another way of explaining it and gave it to my boss. His reaction this time surprised me. He said, “Oh, now I get it! I love it! That is exactly what we need. Let’s talk to the president about this.”

I suddenly realized that my boss was just being nice the first two times. He could tell there was something there, but from my explanations he couldn’t put his finger on it. It wasn’t until I talked about something that was near and dear to his hear and applied social learning to that, that he finally got it.

The first two times I explained WHAT it was, HOW it worked and WHY we should do it. What I needed to do was the opposite: WHY / HOW / WHAT. But to even deliver the first part I needed to understand why he wanted to hear about it. Only at that point could I deliver an effective ‘WHY’.

When we talk about they WHY, they listen. Then we tell them how we can help them with the “HOW”. Then comes the “What”. But often times we don’t even need to tell them the ‘What’ at this point because they make up their own ‘What’. I don’t care what they call it. Just as long as they know why it will help them and how it may work.

Previously I approached explaining social learning leading with a noun instead of a verb.

When we start with a verb we are stating what it is doing, the action, state or relation this thing may have. There is the real value. Nouns don’t intrinsically have value. That something is expressed by a verb.

I know this almost seems like a rudimentary grammar or sales lesson, but it is an important point. We must teach the WHYs behind social learning. Teach the verbs. Then let them apply it to their situation and their circumstances and they will understand it. Too often I have watched people get caught up in the ‘What’ only to find that they are not having success.

So to help you articulate what social learning is, we will cover the 11 WHY’s in the following posts, all focused on the verbs – focused on what social learning does.

Do you have any short “I did it wrong” stories you can share?