Oh boy, got hacked, lost a couple of posts and then everything redirected to a chinese website.
I am honoured that they thought my lille ol blog was worth hacking.
Back to blogging tomorrow….
Posts Tagged ‘elearning’
New slogans for eLearning
Friday, October 2nd, 2009Q. What is the difference between a consultant who is 18 years old and one who is 55?
A. The older consultant ‘probably’ has more experience.
Q. What is the difference between a consultant who charges £250/day and one who charges £1850/ day?
A. Probably going to get much better quality and experience at the higher price.
Q. Do you choose a product that just released? Or has been around for 10 years?
A. Often the one with the track record. You think it will work better and have less chance of going wrong.
Q. Would you pick up the box that contained instructions for use? Or the one that said no instructions included?
A. Be honest in your answer there. Even if you were not going to read the instructions, there is something comforting in knowing they exist.
None of the above were about eLearning.
In eLearning for some crazy reason we throw these rules out the window and caution to the wind.
Some want latest technology and untested.
Some want quick without regard of quality.
Some want cheap, without thought of cost effective.
Some don’t care if there are no rules or instructions for use (Twitter etc)
Some want ‘sexy’ because the young consultant made it sound great , and it looks fab in the brochure, and look how fast he used it. ‘They even won a shoot out you know’
But if course I am not talking about you. Am I?
New slogans. Actually old slogans. Apply to eLearning purchases.
Try before you buy
Think before you cross
Watch out, there is a thief about
Does Social Learning have a future?
Monday, August 17th, 2009In the beginning…… Genesis Ch1 VS1… From that moment evolution began.
Every so often (may have been thousands of years) there has been an invention that has changed the way life evolves.
The invention of the wheel was such an invention. Up till now, it is still a mystery as to who invented the wheel and when the wheel was invented. According to archaeologists, it was probably invented in around 8,000 B.C. in Asia. The oldest wheel known however, was discovered in Mesopotamia and probably dates back to 3,500 B.C.E.
Some number of 1000′s of years later the Internet evolved. The Internet was invented by the US Department of Defence as a means of communication if they were attacked by Russia. That was in 1969. The WWW on the other hand was invented by an Englishman called Tim Berners-Lee in Switzerland in 1989. The Internet dates back to the 1950s and 60s, although few of us knew of it then as it was part of the American defence system.
Has the internet been as a significant invention as the wheel? Well both have touched the lives of every living being today. The Internet probably got known faster than the wheel.
What has this to do with social learning? You may well ask, you may not be interested right now, but they do have similarities. In between these huge inventions there have been very many smaller inventions or advancements. for every 10 or so advancements, one survives the test of time and makes it to the mainstream.
Take the wheel… It has no operational flaws, but many have advanced its manufacture and use. From the smallest cog in your wristwatch fitted with teeth to ensure an engineering fit with another, to a wheel fitted with a tyre that can support many hundreds of tonnes of pressure when a plane lands on it. Or even as a carbon fibre disk fitted to a Formula1 car as a brake disk to heat up to 900 degrees C to slow the car from 200 mph to zero in just a few seconds. All take a very different form from the original invention.
To the web, and to Web 2.0 to be precise. ”Web 2.0” refers to the second generation of web development and web design that facilitates information sharing, interoperability, user-centered design and collaboration on the World Wide Web. This was exactly how Berners-Lee imagined it from day one, but the technology was not far enough advanced so it became an information system. Some say it is not really far enough advanced now and Web 2.0 is a little on the cutting edge.
With this information sharing we are seeing vast changes in the way people handle information, specifically learning. eLearning took on the role for quite some time as information delivery housed in ‘page turner’ style learning. Today for some companies it does not matter what it looks like, the stigma attached to eLearning is such that some will continue to complain that it does not do it’s job, no matter What it looks like. Too technical, too boring, too gaming, too superficial, too long, too short…. for some you just can’t provide the right blend or balance. For others who have embraced the technology to their advantage it has become a huge time and money saver. But do we get the best from what we have?
Then just when you thought it was safe to get back in the training water as eLearning settled into mainstream, along came Twitter and Facebook and a range of social learning sites all allowing the user to play a part in whatever way they want.
For some corporate entities this was a step too far. IT blocked Facebook and Twitter, then Ning and any other site that looked a tad like them. This without any real thought to the power that lay behind them.
To begin, I too thought that Twitter was a gimmick. I stated publicly that Twitter was like driving down the road while yelling out of the car window. I stated Facebook was a place for kids who did not have the social abilities to have a conversation face to face. OK I admit I was wrong on both counts.
The problem is not what they stand for or how they work, but how we have been unable to find a successful way to harness what they do. Neither have we been able to direct the user from what they see to what they may like or need if shown it. We are not following the users patterns merely letting them use it, or not. I am not talking about creating private versions of Facebook or Twitter, but tapping into what exists and everyone is already using. Not trying to reinvent the wheel.
There is a fine line however between those who read and those who write using these systems. How many tweets do you need to post a day? or, How many hours a day do you need to be logged into Facebook before it has become a compulsive disorder?
Putting the possible compulsion to the back of your mind and educating people to use and not misuse these systems is the key to creating powerful links between the social learning the bandwagoneers (real word? who knows but I like it) are trying to peddle now and the formalised learning we have already in our repositories. The question is, how do we make the link? And how do we get the user to read the formalised content that your company has approved rather than the blog I am posting here or the tweet that one of the many I follow post each day.
The answer started in a conversation I had with Karyn Romeis, Jane Hart and Jay Cross at the Learning and Skills Group in June. Thank you guys for pointing me in the right direction without even realising you did it. I accused all three of being compulsive. Jay has posted very little since on Twitter, (sure that’s not my doing) Karyn continues to publish her well written ‘erratic learning journey’ (last on Friday, thanks Karyn, well worth the read) and Jane, well Jane Hart over the weekend posted many tweets and Facebook entries all about work, and it was the weekend. Compulsion? Maybe not, Jane runs a brilliant site but does post at all hours!
The conversation started me thinking to what was missing in a tweet or Face-book entry that we, the trainer, could tap into, what could we use to our advantage. Then someone said to me ‘maybe it’s not what it contains but how they use it’. How they use what Facebook or the content?
I looked into how we (including me) use Google, Facebook and Twitter plus other similar social sites.
The research began into how people look for and find and then use the information they see in informal posts. There was no plan by the user to search and find, as they ‘fell over’ the information they saw. So without a plan to learn or a design to teach, this informal information could hardly be called learning. Could it?
What I found is that there is an extraordinary pattern that takes place. I started in Twitter, read a couple of Jane’s posts and then found this from Koreen Olbrish.
KoreenOlbrishTwitter in the classroom: 10 useful resources – Social Media In Learning http://bit.ly/Frf7a #twine (via @CathyLAnderson)
The user clicks the link as it looks interesting to them and they are taken to a single blog post on Twine, (I had never heard of Twine, so made a mental note to come back and take a look) and this contained another url to follow. Do they click this next link? or do they give up and return? Well the link in this instance caught my interest while writing this blog, it stated :-
an integrated electronic environment that is available to and easily accessible by each employee and is structured to provide immediate, individualized on-line access to the full range of information, software, guidance, advice and assistance, data, images, tools, and assessment and monitoring systems to permit job performance with minimal support and intervention by others.
Also in 1991, Barry Raybould gave a shorter definition:
a computer-based system that improves worker productivity by providing on-the-job access to integrated information, advice, and learning experiences.
An electronic performance support system can also be described as any computer software program or component that improves employee performance by
- reducing the complexity or number of steps required to perform a task,
- providing the performance information an employee needs to perform a task, or
- providing a decision support system that enables an employee to identify the action that is appropriate for a particular set of conditions.
As an author of an EPSS system (CSL, http://tiny.cc/lHF5d ) I began to consider how to alter our EPSS system – which already watches your screen to provide Context Sensitive Learning links from software and content to learning nuggets stored in a repository – and add a simple system of keywords based upon your searches in Google or Wikipedia or Twine and keywords found in sites like Twitter and Facebook.
The thought process is that if you use a social site, find something of interest, follow your nose and search the ‘term’, then the term becomes the driver and the link to learning. If you have a repository of accepted, approved learning, with a keyword attached that matches the search term, or something in the tweet being read, it is at this moment you need to inform the user and with the minimal support and intervention by others to deliver a nugget of learning. In our EPSS system we now do this with a balloon in the task tray, a single click and the approved information is delivered. Contextual Social Learning.
To take this further it is better to deliver a link to a blog (an internal blog that has further links to learning nuggets), this fits in with the style the user is using at that time and so it will slot into the path they are already following.
Informal delivery of this type can start with the social event in an online social site or just a search with a search engine. either way the informal and the formal have been delivered as if they are one.
My original question was Does Social Learning have a future? Had you asked me three months ago as Jay, Karyn and Jane found out my answer was NO, it’s a fad it will fade away… Now I am not so sure I was right, maybe a little hasty. But with that said, more people need to be convinced and more need to be posting their own views and thoughts. If everything continues to point only at Jane’s site, convincing the Theorists may prove to be an uphill struggle. I am convinced that it is not something to be driven by just a training department, the user is already driving it themselves. We can only assist and provide the tools (like EPSS) to make it feel a little easier.
It will remain a mystery as to who invented the wheel and when. It is less of a mystery how we can utilise informal learning. Will Social Learning ever really become an integrated part of our lifestyle? Time will tell. I think it is just another part of eLearning, which I hope before long looses the ‘e’ and just becomes a part of the wider learning we all do each day.
For more information on how CSL works, drop me a line. I will be happy to give you a copy to play with. Neil@trainer1.com
follow me on Twitter @neillasher
Dr. Woods and his wailing machine
Thursday, October 30th, 2008Some years ago I attended a specialist medical practitioner’s office in London. His speciality was identifying allergies and he did this with the most interesting item of test equipment I had ever seen.
He evaluated my sensitivity by connecting a stainless steel tube to my big toe and another similar tube to my thumb, both connected with a wiring harness to a machine with flashing lights and a big dial. Then he placed a small quantity of the material he believed I might be sensitive to in a glass vial and dropped it into a small receptacle in the machine. Pushing buttons and turning knobs, the machine began to wail and the needle on the dial danced madly up and down the scale. I could not tell the difference in the wailing between water and whisky.
We laughed all the way home and have dined out many times on the story of the allergy clinic. While I found out I was sensitive to an excess of alcohol, I would have paid twice the amount to see someone else’s report to compare the findings, or see if it was generic.
I often wonder about Dr Wood’s machine ( I now know it was an early version of the Vega test machine) could be used, in today’s turbulent world, to measure other things – like performance, for instance? How great would it be to hook a delegate to some machine, place the intervention (either in note form, maybe a video or on a disk) into a machine and measure the outcome before spending any money trying to deliver it. The more the machine wails the better the result…
Evaluation of performance has become one of those subjects that every conference discusses. Both HR and L&D people have differing views on the importance of performance and methodology of the evaluation. In many of the conferences I have attended in the last six months, the discussion ends up trying to define what performance is and how you recognise it. Some even try to assess the best way to deliver it, as if it was a commodity.
I believe that performance is best improved through the training department, using every available technique we have in the box: coaching, mentoring, training and learning.
The rapid development of e-learning has become one of the latest ‘fads’ to try to deliver learning (not training) in a quicker manner, where speed to the end user and price per moment of learning has pushed aside the importance of quality and instructional design.
Speed
The age of speed has been with us for some time. We have far less patience than the generation that preceded us. Look at the differences between generations X and Y. Look at their expectations, tolerance levels and patience towards speed of technologically delivered services and you will see how fast we expect results in everything and how much it has speeded up as the generations evolve.
Price
There are two guaranteed sales in the world today: the cheapest on the market, and the most expensive. Everything in the middle has to make excuses for why it is cheaper than the competition but still worth buying, or, why it is more expensive than the competition and the reasons why it is worth paying more.
The bottom end of the market is the one that will have most long-term affect on training. To make it ‘cheap’ and ‘quick’ you have to cut out something. The old love triangle still is in play:
You can only have two of the points of the triangle.
· If you want it quick and cheap, you can’t expect high quality.
· If you want it fast and in high quality, it will cost more.
· If you want quality but want it cheap, don’t expect it quickly.
Rapid Development tools are trying to break this triangle that has been accepted for so many years: offering cheap, quick e-learning and purporting to be high quality. How would these courses score on the ‘Dr Wood wail test’?
We want to reduce the time to market and we want to maintain the high quality and efficiency of the courseware we are delivering and, of course, we claim to have no budget.
If you, like me, are not sure if there are answers, you could always buy one of the machines I may be offering early next year that wails when you have a good intervention – or maybe the more the delegate wails, the better the result!
Water water everywhere…
Tuesday, October 28th, 2008I may have found the perfect learning tool WATER
Some facts about water:
Up to 60 percent of the human body is water, the brain is composed of 70 percent water, and the lungs are nearly 90 percent water. About 83 percent of our blood is water
To remain healthy, an adult must drink 8ozs of pure water for every two waking hours.
Although a person can live without food for more than a month, a person can only live without water for approximately one week.
A 2% drop in body water can trigger short-term memory loss.
75% of the earth is covered with water. There are 326 million cubic miles of water on earth.
The average person uses 80 to 100 gallons of water each day. During medieval times a person used only 5 gallons per day. It takes 2 gallons to brush your teeth, up to 7 gallons to flush a toilet, and about 25 gallons to take a shower.
Dr. Masaru Emoto has opened up an exciting scientific frontier about the effect our words can have on our life. His latest explores how the vibration and resonance of our words can change our life by transmitting the positive energy where it is needed inside us. Dr. Emoto’s latest book filled with trademark water crystal photographs, The Miracle of Water, looks at how sensitive and receptive water can be in the presence of positive and negative thoughts. During his research, he noticed that the most beautiful and symmetric crystals formed when the water was exposed to the words love and gratitude while deformed or lopsided patterns appeared following the phrases you idiot and you can’t do it.
Receptive water?
As 60% of the fat free mass of the human body is made of water, could we prepare this water before we drink it to contain not just positive thoughts but actual knowledge?
At this stage I would not blame for thinking I have already had too much to drink or gone completely mad. I write this well before Christmas. Actually I am typing this at 8am on a Sunday morning, so no drink at all, not even the morning coffee yet!
Have a look at the website http://www.h2omwater.com.
Om? Om is a sacred syllable that is considered to be the greatest of all the mantras, or sacred formulas. Used in meditation the syllable Om is composed of the three sounds a-u-m.
H2Om water with intention’ is the world’s first interactive natural spring water. Infused with the power of positive energy through words, music, colours, symbols and you.
What is Water with Intention?
Designed to inspire you, they claim each bottle of H2Om promotes positive thinking, and positive energy for people and the planet.
Their trademark slogan “Think it while you Drink it”® is designed to inspire us to use the positive words on the label as the driving force in creating our intention.
Their vision for H2Om is to spread positive energy, inspire people to visualise amazing possibilities in their lives, and carry those vibrations throughout the world. Of course while drinking their water!
But that’s not all, they don’t just print positive words on the label, they play music and positive speech to the water while they bottle it. They call it VIBRATION HYDRATION™.
They claim, “The final energetic frequency is the power of thought. Your ability to connect to the water, create your own intention, and literally, Drink the vibration inspired and supported by the words on the label. As you drink, take a moment to use the words, colours, music, and vibrations as the driving force behind your own intention! Set your world in motion, then watch as the law of attraction goes to work for you.
There is obviously much research needed in this area, if as they claim we can hear and feel the vibrations added to the receptive water, while it was bottled, as we drink it. If we could charge the receptive water with the correct words and information, all we would need to do to learn would be to drink. Simple technology of the future. Could you imagine the bottle of Microsoft Word water, drink and know how to type a letter.
My thoughts did turn to whether this may be long or short term memory and if the size of your bladder had any bearing on how much memory retention of what was contained in the water. I decided not to go there.
Although water with VIBRATION HYDRATION™ is not free, (About US$1.50 a bottle) it may be a very cheap source of high tech learning for the future.
Maybe the Holy Grail of finding something for free should turn its efforts to finding something relatively cheap instead. Maybe we stop looking for the Goblet, but rather what goes in it.
By the way, it comes with free shipping in California! Where else?
For the totally sceptical amongst you, you can sleep without worry tonight as vendors like myself still remain in the marketplace willing to offer you other technological solutions that come in either a download or on a disc, also with free shipping from £20.
Dancing in the moment
Monday, October 27th, 2008I always remember meeting a man named Doug Malouf. It was at an ASTD conference back in the ’90s. At that time, I thought I was a great trainer and presenter. He changed my life by opening my eyes to what I was really doing as a trainer, instead of what I wanted to be – a training facilitator.
From the moment he walked on stage he had my attention. When he left I was satisfied, but wanted more. He was funny, he was entertaining he had my full attention. I sat after he finished and asked myself one simple question.. “How did he do that?” I had a head full of new ideas and a book full of writing I had scrawled so fast, I had trouble reading it.
Ask yourself a question before you begin every course: If this group of students go home today and say they had a bloody great time, what would have happened and how will you have achieved this?
“Listen up,” I shouted at a conference. The room fell silent as I began a presentation five minutes early and whilst still backstage using a microphone. People were still trying to take their seats and choose the best view. I said “Don’t sit down, stay standing, and if you are sitting comfortably then please stand up for a moment.” It was a room of professional e-learning developers. I asked two questions: “If you have never facilitated a classroom-based training course using a controlled set of pre-designed interventions, or have no idea what I am talking about please sit down.” And then…”If you have never sat and completed any e-learning course that you or your company has not designed, please sit down.”
At that point, of the 175 people in the room all bar a handful were sitting down. I was astonished and have repeated this around the world with the same result.
Being a trainer in today’s world is being a facilitator, able to move with the crowd and change the material on the fly to meet the need. The training psychotherapist in my family (my wife) calls it “dancing in the moment.” The rules of the chalk-and-talk educator of the past have changed. The more we move to new media the more we have to change our training ways and views.
To dance in the moment is to know your subject so well that you can design your course not as training but as explorative learning. Imagine this: You stand up and begin to present your session. Everyone looks eager and awake, eyes are shining. Everyone is ready for your very first word. You start to talk, all seems great. You like the sound of your own voice, so why shouldn’t everyone attending? Five minutes in and a few eyes are glazed, the light fixtures and the sweets in the dish on the table have become more interesting than you. You’re in trouble, but you have not noticed yet. So on you go, talk…talk…talk…
At seven minutes there is a change in the group. The “manager type” in the front row is smiling at you politely. The blonde lady in the business suit has a twinkle in her eye, and the techie in the second row is completely relaxed and fully consumed in pleasure. You think, “Hey I’m getting through.
They love me, no?” No! In fact after seven minutes, it is well documented your audience will be thinking of something else, something that is fun or is more easily palatable. What you have is not the positive feedback you so desire. It’s a message to stop talking and move on.
Dancing in the moment?
To dance in the moment is to present for only a few minutes, and present something so thought provoking in relevant subject matter that the group are filled with questions and the need for more. Then offer the group the opportunity to use your expertise, to ask questions and explore the areas they wish to know rather than your normal, pre-designed route for teaching. Delivery in e-learning using this process is still achievable. Design a library of small scenarios and allow the user to get involved in as many as they wish.
Dancing in the moment, requires not much new, just a change in how you do it…. If they had a bloody good time, then you were dancing…..
As for Doug Malouf, he was one of those “ah ha” moments for me all those years ago, something that stuck and that I will always consider. If I saw him on the bill at any conference, I would be at the front of the queue.