Direction of eLearning - Emergence or Big System

I ran across a post by Dave Boggs - More Standards In e-Learning?.... that pointed me to some presentations at alt-i 2 -lab 2006 that look at where the eLearning interoperability standards are going in the future. This is an interesting topic because it highlights a schism that is echoed in the larger world of IT: Enterprise IT (Big Systems) vs. Emergence (see Enterprise 2.0 and emergence).

The idea of Emergence is somewhat simple. You put out small, flexible, relatively easy to use systems and you see what results. The best analogy that sticks in my mind is building a new school and not paving paths between buildings. Rather, you wait to see the dirt paths that emerge based on where people walk. Then you pave those paths.

Enterprise IT on the other hand, attempts to provide significant support for processes and business rules. A great example is accessing an eLearning course. Most LMS products (out-of-the-box) require you to search, register and then launch the course. If you want the content to be searchable through your Intranet search mechanism, most LMS products get in your way (even though the content may be easily indexed by the search mechanism).

When I looked through the discussion around the next generation of standards, it made my head spin. There are many overlapping product sets (virtual classroom, LMS, LCMS, Authoring, Assessment, Search, Collaboration, HRIS, Talent Management, etc.), standards and new technologies allowing them to interoperate (SOA, Web Services, REST). Further, the standards are becoming much more complicated to support richer kinds of interoperability. It makes you yearn for the days of SCORM 1.1 where there was pretty much an LMS that needed to talk to courses.

In many corporate environments, I'm already seeing the pendulum swinging away from Enterprise IT. Sure, we'll stick the compliance training and formal training kinds of things under the LMS. But, a lot of content and tools are now not under the LMS. It's accessible through the Intranet. We cobble these together from smaller, cheaper, lighterweight solutions such as Reference Hybrids

It would be great if the LMS could help us by tracking this, but instead, we end up using other tracking mechanisms.

It continues to feel like LMS Products are Two Generations Behind and that they are going to continue to make it such that Leading with an LMS - Harmful to Your Health (or Skipping Stages in Bersin's Four Stage Model).

Keywords: eLearning Trends

Informal Learning - Let's Get Real - Part II

I've received quite a bit of input on my blog post Informal Learning - Let's Get Real. I feel like many of us are in the same boat. We want to figure out what the process and mechanisms should look like when we are going after Intentional Informal Learning. Interestingly, Stephen Downes' new presentation - e-Learning 2.0 - Why the New Tools includes a slide that quotes my blog post:

I'm becoming convinced that folks in the informal learning realm are quite
willing to live with "free range" learning. It's way too touchy-feely and
abstract for me. If this stuff is important, then I want to:

• Know that it will work
• Know why it works
• Know that its repeatable

At first I was surprised, because Stephen is more of the "free range" approach, but once I listened to the presenation, I realized he was using my quote as a counter-example to comment about how wrong I am. Stephen's counter arguments are roughly that (a) informal learning happens all the time "so we know it works", (b) it depends on how you define "works", and (c) if your definition of "works" is that people learn what you want them to learn then you have defined it wrong.

The good news is that it actually helps in clarifying my thinking (and our differences).

Let's me define "works" for most of my projects - changes human performance in a way that achieves desired business outcomes. For example, changes how store managers work with front-line employees in order to improve customer satisfaction scores.

If I look at what I do, I often start by breaking the problem up into Intermediate Factors (see also - Elves, Measuring Results and Informal Learning). In this example, an important factor might be Knowldge of Store Layout. And when you take a look at that factor you realize that the performance in question is really all about how the front-line employee answers a particular kind of question - "Where do I find X?" Unfortunately, there's a lot rolled up into being good at answering this question (product knowledge - what is that thing, store layout knowledge, how you answer questions, helping store managers instruct and work with front-line employees). And there are many, many ways that we could use to help the store manager help the front-line employee improve their performance here.

The answer to whether it works is quite scientific, has our customer satisfaction score improved on that question (in stores where the numbers were down).

So, while our solution allowed for limited bottom-up content creation (best practices capture), this was controlled and closely monitored against metrics - certainly not "free range." I'm not sure that I buy that we would have had nearly the same effectiveness by providing a more open environment. I think the initial seeding of best practices, the on-going follow-up and the control structure we put on top of this system where critical to driving the numbers at the end of the day.

Finally, back to Stephen Downes' comment that if you define "works" as "learning what you want them to learn" ... Well I didn't define it that way, but it was awfully important at the end of the day for the managers to learn certain things about how to affect positive change around the numbers and important to help the managers help employees improve their performance. Maybe it's the difference between corporate environments and academic environments, but I think there's more to it than defining "works" ... there's a fundamental difference in eLearning 2.0: Informal Learning, Communities, Bottom-up vs. Top-Down.

Keywords: eLearning Trends, eLearning 2.0, Web 2.0, Informal Learning, Collaborative Learning

Dashboards - Performance Intervention Opportunity

Found this via a post on Column Two - Productive dashboards. Definitely worth a read since we've been seeing this trend as well and there is a definite opportunity to tie performance interventions to dashboards. The approach we've used with various clients is to tie each KPI to a set of performance suggestions, learning opportunities, etc. In some cases these are static lists, in other cases these are composed into action plans that must be approved.

The beauty of the Action Plan approach is that we can then do follow-up (based on the dates in the Action Plan) to ensure that the plan is worked. We have also been able to track the effectiveness of each performance suggestion based on the delta in the KPI after the plan is worked. It definitely surprised us what worked and what didn't in some cases. We pulled down stuff that didn't work and created more interventions using approaches that did work.

The end result of this kind of process is that you are able to impact performance that has a tangible effect on numbers in the dashboard. These have been my favorite projects!

Pew Survey on Blogging - Training Professionals Far Behind

Found via Joho Blog - Pew has a new report on a national survey of bloggers and blogging (PDF Link Directly). Interesting information:

• Eight percent of internet users, or about 12 million American adults, keep a blog.
• Thirty-nine percent of internet users, or about 57 million American adults, read blogs – a significant increase since the fall of 2005.
• 37% of bloggers cite "my life and experiences" as a primary topic of their blog
• More than half (54%) of bloggers are under the age of 30.

The 39% seems very high to me. It especially seems high because my experience at Training 2006 suggested that very few people in Corporate Training read blogs.

Question asked of 200 Training Professionals - "Where do you learn about what’s new in learning?"

• Publications, e.g., Training Magazine, CLO, etc. – 99%
• Blogs – 2.5%

Granted that much of what is being blogged these days is by teenagers telling their friends what they did today. But still it makes us seem a bit behind?

Why is our writing and readership level so low? A comment on a previous post by John Cleave:

I "use" blogs frequently via Google searches, but have never managed to integrate them into my daily practice, because there are only so many hours in a day.

I would suspect that John has hit the nail on the head. We are all so busy, how much time can we spend on Scanning/Reading as a way to stay up on what's happening? An hour a week? Two hours? If so, then what sources should I look at? CLO Magazine or a blog?

Personally, I've come to find that my Scanning/Reading activities are equivalent across magazines and blogs. Further, while I'm still a person who sits on airplanes reading trade magazines, I find myself doing more and more of my Scanning Online so that I can take advantage of Personal Learning Strategies.

Keywords: eLearning Trends

Informal Learning - Harold Tells Us Where To Put It - Now What

Great post by Harold Jarche - Informal Learning and Performance Technology responding to my post - Informal Learning - Let's Get Real. His post is the kind of reasoned thinking that helps make sense of different approaches. It's interesting how Harold has broken up the world, and, frankly, I'm not sure how universal this is, but I think it helps.

* Performance Interventions
** Learning Interventions
*** Instructional Interventions (e.g., Training)
*** Non-Instructional Interventions (e.g., Job Aids)
**** Informal Learning Approaches
** Other Interventions
*** Long list here including things like Career Development, Feedback Systems, ...

Harold then gives a sample list of non-instructional performance interventions:

1. Electronic Performance Support System (EPSS)
2. Workplace Design
3. Knowledge Management (KM)
4. Just-in-Time Support
5. Communities of Practice
6. Multimedia
7. Internet and Intranets
8. Corporate Culture changes
9. Process Re-engineering
10. Job Aids

Learning Professionals I think would say that they commonly use: EPSS, parts of KM, Just-in-Time Support, Multimedia, Intranets, and Job Aids as part of their tool set. And realistically, we are beginning to see all of these be parts of the solution mix. And realistically, this is part of the challenge today, the broadening to look at a broader solution mix.

What is curious though is that much of the discussion around Informal Learning seems to center on Communities of Practice. I like that Harold has gone back to the more classic definition of HPT and just includes these kinds of solutions as part of his overall mix.

Harold states:

I think that informal learning is a way of categorising a whole range of strategies that we now have available with the advent of cheap web access, powerful personal computers and low cost applications likes blogs, wikis, tags, etc. Informal learning offers a new array of tools for the learning professional’s tool box.

So, it sounds like Harold positions this in with non-instructional learning interventions and sees the new array of tools (blogs, wikis, etc.) key to informal learning solutions.

I personally like Harold's direction on this because it is hopeful that we can find more systematic ways to think about where, when and how Informal Learning solutions can fit into the overall mix. I personally think that there's a disconnect between the design and implementation of HPT solutions and the "free range" approach that many in the Informal Learning community take.

Of course, even if we tend to agree with Harold's positioning of Informal Learning and his assessment of some of the kinds of tools used in Informal Learning, it still leaves us with an awfully blurry picture. A comment on my last post by Guy L. Levert provides a telling picture of how most of us feel on the subject:

my take on informal learning is a little blurry but I think there is value in there ...

I have more questions than answers - hence the blurryness of my understanding of that informal learning beast. Lots to find out - but that's good, it's informal!

So, I want to go back to my challenge in the last post:

But, are we collectively making progress in this? Where are the resources for learning professionals that help us learn? Where's our great examples of informal learning support? Please don't tell me it's TrDev and ASTD. Is that all we've got?

Let's get real... If supporting informal learning is the wave of the future and a critical capability for learning professionals of tomorrow, we had better come up with something more than "unclear process" and based on a "rough end target."

Better Questions for Learning Professionals

If you've been reading my blog, you know that I often discuss Personal Learning:

• Improving Personal Learning - A Continuing Challenge for Learning Professionals
• Tools and Strategies for Personal Learning
• More Effective Conferences for Learning Professionals

A big part of what I've come to realize that the barrier to us moving beyond being The Worst Learners are:

• We (like many people today) lack the intrinsic motivation to systematically improve our personal learning capabilities. We already have too much to do.
• We lack the right questions.

While the motivation question is certainly a big question, I want to skip over this for now. I'm going to assume that since you are reading this blog post, you must be in the top few % of motivated people.

What is more concerning is that I don't really think we know the right questions to be asking.

The Value of Questions

Now, let me start this diatribe with a brief rant on the importance of asking the right questions. In my mind, it is THE most important skill or ability to have. Maybe it's just the whole brainwashing they give you as part of a Ph.D. program, but the biggest aha while getting a Ph.D. is that it's the question that is most important. The answer is often easy once the question is formulated correctly.

As a funny aside, I will carry to my grave a memory of one meeting with a potential client. They were a start-up run by a strong Type-A CEO. As part of initial meetings, there is considerable value provided by any consultant in terms of the questions that help frame exactly what the problem/need is. After asking two hours worth of questions to help the CEO go from a hopelessly vague initial concept to a much better defined, more realistic product concept, the CEO looked at me and said that he was hoping that our next meeting we would come prepared to show some real value. After all, he had spent two hours of his time answering all of our questions and expected some value in return. It was a truly eye-opening experience.

In past writing about More Effective Conferences for Learning Professionals, I realized that the most important aspect of making sure you get the most you can from the conference is determining what the questions are that you should use to focus you during the conference. Otherwise, you will swim through the sea of sessions and vendors and will not get nearly as much from the conference.

What Questions Are We Asking

So, before going on, consider what the most important questions are that you face as a learning professional?

At training and/or eLearning conferences where this question was asked of the attendees, the common kinds of responses are:

• How do I get more interactivity into my courseware?
• How do I reduce the attrition rate in my course/courseware?
• What's the best authoring tool to use?
• What are other organizations doing?

One conference organizer told me that eLearning session descriptions with "interactivity" in the title would draw larger audiences. Clearly people are trying to get that question answered.

But, is that a good question? I think we can all step back an critique the question - it presupposes that I need more interactivity. Likely the person asking it wants more interactivity because they've been producing courseware that is basically "Click Next to Continue" type learning. The reaction is that this is boring. Or, they've not produced anything, but they know they don't want to only do that.

Better Questions

My guess is that just as most learning professionals can tell you the problems with the interactivity question, they can similarly suggest lots of much better questions that might be appropriate instead:

• Is courseware appropriate for my audience and topic? What are some alternative blends that might work?
• Does interactivity make a difference in terms of learning? What does the research actually show? Is there demonstrable return that I can use to justify greater budget? Where's Will Thalheimer and can you introduce me?
• Can I reduce the duration of courseware and still get an effective result? How would I supplement that with reference? What's the cut-off point?
• What are some possible ways I teach topic a process topic so it sticks? What are the pluses and minuses of those interactive styles?

As we drill down on any one of these we can successively improve the questions until we arrive at much more meaningful types of questions.

Going back to my example of preparing for a conference by formulating better questions, I think you'll get a much better conference experience if you are prepared with questions such as the above when you go into a booth or go to a session. But, even better would be to start with the underlying issues that your company, your organization, your team faces and formulate questions starting there:

• What are other organizations who have an aging, highly skilled workforce doing to train the next generation of professionals? How are they getting them up to speed?
• How are organizations handling the cross-over between management, knowledge management, learning?

An Industry Challenge

The good news is that for most individuals, coming up with much better questions for your particular situation is not necessarily that hard to do. If you are having a roadblock, start with the desired performance. If you are still stuck, drop me a note.

But, what I've been finding is that as an industry we seem to have landed on some basic questions that get answered over-and-over and we are not necessarily moving things forward. Maybe that's just because I've heard the same sessions given at every conference for the last 10 years. It is also that some questions in learning are hard to answer such as "Does the media make a difference?" (Although you normally can redefine the question to make it answerable and hence much more useful.)

I think the challenge of the right questions today is also because we are in the midst of a fundamental shift away from course as the unit of learning, a shift towards on-demand and at-work learning, a dramatically different technical landscape, a move towards business results and performance as the focus ... the world is allowing us to look at things in a very different way ... and we don't necessarily know that questions that we should be asking.

So, to get us started towards some better questions, here are some that I might ask of other attendees, presenters, vendors, etc.

• Informal Learning - How can I provide a development process, tools and systems that foster informal learning in a way that I know will have impact on the performance that I care about and that is repeatable? What can I borrow from KM, collaborative learning, and management practices? What does this look like in practice? When do I use it? When are you using it? What effect is it having? How do you know?
  
• Personal Learning - What systems, tools, techniques can I use to make myself a better learner?
  
• Reference Hybrids - How have you organized landing pages to support both reference and learning modes? How do you define what will be treated as reference and what as learning? What tools are you using today? What do you expect to use in the future? How do you track this kind of learning? Do you have metrics on impact?
  

So what are your questions?

Informal Learning - Let's Get Real

I recently read an article by George Siemens - Changing Models where he points to the changes that necessarily need to happen in our understanding of how to support learning. I think he's right on the money (as usual), but then he points out:

ISD can be very effective for learning that has both a clear end outcome and
process. Often, today's learning has neither. We have a rough end target (solve
this problem, innovate, adapt, etc.)...and we really don't have a clear process
(other than teams, meetings, and emerging collaborative spaces).

Wow, I have a really rough time signing up to be in charge of something that doesn't have a defined end target and no process. In fact, this is the antithesis of what I would suggest is the cornerstone of my professional life (see: ADDIE Not Relevant?). I can understand the desire to allow for end-user contribution and an evolving system, but my software development background gives me great pause.

I've written about exactly this issue several times:

• Elves, Measuring Results and Informal Learning
• Informal Learning is Too Important to Leave to Chance
• Guidance Needed - Are we Misguided in Informal Learning and Collaborative Learning Techniques

and have read lots about this. I'm becoming convinced that folks in the informal learning realm are quite willing to live with "free range" learning. It's way too touchy-feely and abstract for me. If this stuff is important, then I want to:

• Know that it will work
• Know why it works
• Know that its repeatable

For kicks, go look up the definition of informal learning on Wikipedia. Whoops, there isn't one. Why not? Well I tried to figure out what I'd say and it's hopelessly vague.

Heck, I'm not even all that convinced that we, as learners ourselves, are particularly adept at learning (Do Learning Professionals Make the Worst Learners?). I've been trying to write (Personal Learning for Learning Professionals - Using Web 2.0 Tools to Make Reading & Research More Effective) about some ideas on how we can participate in improving our personal learning skills.

But, are we collectively making progress in this? Where are the resources for learning professionals that help us learn? Where's our great examples of informal learning support? Please don't tell me it's TrDev and ASTD. Is that all we've got?

Let's get real... If supporting informal learning is the wave of the future and a critical capability for learning professionals of tomorrow, we had better come up with something more than "unclear process" and based on a "rough end target."