CLTI07 - George Siemens creating organizational learning

This session of CLTI focused on the need to change learning infrastructure. Learning and development that is up to the newest realities of today.

Learning at somepoint faced death by acronyms and buzzwords. Learning = learning, it does not matter what you call it.



There is also a mismatch: what learners need to do, what we taught learners to do.
We forgot context (situation of knowledge they will need, the technology they will use, ...) we have put context of design above context of use.
Which led to neglecting the learner.

Strategy: learning is the live blood of any corporation.
Intent of learning: advance the capacity of both learners and the organisation they make.

So where are we as companies?
- information growth will enhance even more;
- different people: we will need to task shift quickly (not really multitask);
- different competitors: competition is unclear and
- market disruptions unclear;
- value for corporate functioning = ability to function in this space;

What do we need: an infrastructure of adaptability complex environments will have tension between different view points, but that adds to diversity. But how do we keep a certain stability?

Decision tables understand:
- metrics;
- ROI;
- competitivness;
not the jargon L&D use.

All sorts of cultures will be able to implement their thinking into the learning equation.

Up until now the impact of web2.0 was minor in the organisational environment.
The toolboard should be designed so different tools can be put on them, not like now that the tools seem to dictate the board. (really good point!)

different paths lead to different directions => the importance of case studies is sometimes overstated. Organizational background, context can be so fundamentally different that those cases do not translate well at all.
Every corporation needs to go through three stages: conceptual => experimental => implementation. No matter what there core business is.

Learning needs that we face:one approach won't work, you need a learning ecology.
It is important to make a learning structure/ecology that is dynamic and that can cope with new evolutions and learners needs.



The concept of deep smarts is again increasing, based on the expertise and the experience by a mentor. Different smarts are getting ever more important => thinking holistically. More information is in George Siemens's book KnowingKnowledge (see links underneath).

Things to do
- we need to reflect: on the model, the learning
- evaluate context of learning and recognize the diversity;
- experiment aggressively: this leads to thoughtfull implementation;
- function in gradients: learning has many nuances, that demands nuanced approaches.


My thoughts
death by jargon is so correct;
I like the concept of self-learning :-)
A great idea was the use of task-switching instead of multitasking. Really like that idea and use of words. Will use this.


links that were posted
http://www.lsda.org.uk/files/PDF/1543.pdf
The book of George KnowingKnowledge
A definition http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accretion_(science)

CLTI07 - Richard Straub a golden age for eLearning

This presentation focused on open <=> closed world (versus Flat world - spiky world) and he gave insight to the dynamics of technology and business cycles.
It is not only about innovation, but also about value. How can we demonstrate the value?

Invention is an important step, but the application of invention to solve problems is the essence.

Looking at major technology cycles and looking for similarities ('Technological revolutions and financial capital' Perez)
There is a period where new technologies are erupting, than follows a period of frency because of the potential goldmines. But it is not clear where the success will be, and so a crisis follows (f.i. .com bubble).
We just entered another technological booming phase (webtechnology), but how can we apply the newly developed technology now to create value? If people have the right business models, value will be prosperous.

Globalisation is increasingly augmenting the competitive pressure in these volutile and turbulent times.
If you want to innovate, you have to take risks, but how do you know whether it will work because of the volatility.

challenges for companies:
- how be innovative;
- how can you ensure a strong workforce;
- be adaptable for change.

eLearning: only 27% of companies find self-managed web-based training to be effective (IBM study 'unlocking the DNA of the adaptable workforce )
Will the elements that would make up for a paradigm shift be here in the near future?

Moving to a service economy => resources in Human Capital with new dynamics get crucial.
Lifelong learning gets more important and the users take the lead (and are incorporated from an early stage)

Millenium workers: team players, multitaskers, proactive use of technology, personal development is pivotal, opened to the world.
This leads to new enterprise models (open collaboration at all levels...)



Peter Drucker (1959) he mentioned the new knowledge worker: autonomy, they are in control of their learning, controlled by goals/objectives, strong affinity to peers and peer community, self-organised and dynamic teams that are based on trust.

Some questions that were discussed:
cycle of change is being disrupted by the emerging economies etcetera, it is important for managers to take this meta information into account.

a definition that was mentioned:
elearning: electronic learning
ilearning: learner driven learning (http://www.ilearnforum.eu/)

Like all previous posts, this is just a quick paraphrasing of things I jotted down. But you can look at the complete presentation of Richard Straub on CLTI.

CLTI07 - Keith Resseau

Her topic was 'It's Not Innovative If It Doesn't Educate' and that is a superb motto. We looked at hot technologies being used in the public sector (podcasts, wikis, blogs, social media)

First she pointed out that there is no significant difference in learner outcome between f2f and technology based learning (see site). But by adapting content to technology, improvement of the learner outcomes can be enhanced (very nice to know).

Keith covered all the latest technologies and gave some feedback on them.
Blogs: the strength of a blog is the reflective learning it can ignite.
Wiki’s: are also useful for after conference events or after classroom events to get participants in on the learning outcomes or other relevant topics related to the activity. There was an interesting question on the critical number that would make a wiki work => it does not seem to matter, as long as the participants get pushed into participating (or they are sure to get something out of it). And there was a remark on using wiki’s and blogs in a corporate environment, but not naming them as such, rather entitle them as ‘team papers’ …

The overall conclusion was that the tools do not make a difference. What does make a difference:
• Make learning sticky;
• Add storylines;
• Make meaning;
• Redesign content to fit the tool.

links that were mentioned:
http://podcastalley
globalmentoring.com/

CLTI07 - David Snowden the patternizing brain

This was an information filled presentation by Dave Snowden, wow. The brain is revealed as a pattern processor, in which original fragments last longer as being relevant than the context they are put in by our brain. This said, I will just put out all the fragments I wrote down while attending this presentation:

• Cultural differences and evolutionary necessities resulted in different brain evolutions (eastern  western);
• The brain scans information and gives it its meaning by relating both to the scan and past experiences;
• Increasing ambiguity will optimize learning IF it is increased to the optimum level of fragmentation (screenshot);
• Replicate patterns from fragments sticks to the mind more than structured knowledge;
• People will rather go for stories/narratives than best practices and case studies;
• Learning mechanisms are about meaning;
• Remembering = always person/context coloured => the quicker info is captured the better and to be chosen every time above artificial reconstructing after the facts;
• The more educational material is polished, the less impact it has (long live low resource design 
• Avoid teaming up with people that have the same thoughts => decreasing knowledge because it is not challenged (village idiot syndrome);
• Avoid environments that push the brain/mind into a certain non-critical thinking. It only takes 3 to 5 years before their mindset is grilled into yours;
• Business must follow the natural way the brain learns as a model for its new business era.



Links from snowden
http://www.cognitive-edge.com/2007/07/learning_lessons_or_lessons_le.php
http://www.cognitive-edge.com/blogs/dave/2007/11/km_keynotes.php
http://www.cognitive-edge.com/recommended_reading.php
http://www.cognitive-edge.com/2006/12/social_atomism_identity_natura.php

CLTI07 – Jay Cross Learning without foundation

It would not be Jay Cross if he did not go with his own flow, which in this case was an organic approach to discussing learning in corporations through dialogue.

Jay is an advocate of perpetual beta and he connects it to organic growth (which I like a lot) versus the more linear growth which is mostly found in business models.
Do define new ways of learning it is interesting to start without a foundation to keep an open mind. Especially if more and more of our economy is build upon information, knowledge and consumables.

The key idea was learning = co creating.

To assure the best possible way to keep in touch with everything that is changing and emerging, it is essential to get a strong knowledge network going. But… because information is exponentially growing, it is more and more difficult to keep track of relevant knowledge. Jay mentioned ‘the singularity is near’ a book by Ray Kurzweil in which the idea is written down that things can get so complicated that we can no longer comprehend them.
George Siemens added a notion of Eric Beinhocker an economist who reflects on economical networks that keep growing until they are so vast they no longer are a benefit to the network links themselves => network falls apart because of week ties (I am definitely paraphrasing the idea George mentioned, I need to read up on a lot).

Some thoughts I had while reviewing the presentation of Jay
- Organic learning is a process that has been growing since the idea that ‘there is no objectivity’. In my mind it seems only natural to evolve from non-objectivity and thus non-absolute truth to perpetual beta;
- Jay wanted people to get their thoughts out into the presentation to get a dialogue going. An idea I like a lot, but on the other hand it will again put people aside and get a non-equal dynamic going. Because a lot of people do have a lot of ideas but are not techy, not confident, not … to get their ideas out there. It is a bit like Virginia Yonkers said in the dialogue ‘power of politics’ which is not only true on an organizational level, but also on a personal level. The different skills of a person define what and in what way they can add information.
- Valerie Bock of Q2 mentioned a great idea: reinstating the apprenticeship. I really liked that idea, if learning is doing, living alongside a (couple of) mentors will definitely get knowledge across really rapidly. Carnegie and Napoleon Hill are an old example of that.

A couple of links from the session (and links I found while searching for something else, the organic harvest lets say), will need to put them in my del.icio.us list:
everythingismiscellaneous.com/
Geetha Narayanan podcast (an educator George Siemens mentioned)
http://kt.flexiblelearning.net.au/category/uncategorized/
a slide presentation on learning in an immediate world by George Siemens
http://www.edna.edu.au/edna/go/news/podcast/cache/offonce/pid/1819;jsessionid=AE5EB8F1EAD5AFDBC3BB3EF605C3481D

And a great set of workshops on education by LTC.

CLTI07 - Steve Mahaley - virtual worlds and education

In the corporate learning conference organised by George Siemens, Steve Mahaley was second to give a presentation on using virtual worlds for education.

Education was defined in this presentation as a corporate business strategy to optimize work. Steve gave some examples of education in virtual worlds (he used the Second Life environment). One of his examples was on having a teaming exercise in SL.

He looked at possible benefits of virtual world education. Based on his favourite class = recess, he concluded that the best learning activities are those using all of our senses to interact with an educational environment. Several learning theorists were put onto display: Lev Vygotsky, John Dewey and David Jonassen who based their theories on 'Learning by doing' and social interaction to enhance education.

Steve showed a virtual teaming exercise and listed a few practical considerations amongst which he mentioned:
- videoconferencing is better than virtual world for debriefing;
- debriefing is essential if you want to reach your learning goals that you set out to attain;
- he found that it was better to give participants avatars, than to let participants come with their own avatar that could be 'inappropriate' for certain circumstances or would lead to unnecessary exchange of items.

My own thoughts on using virtual worlds as a means of education:
- great for getting experience with simulations;
- good for learning any knowledge that is based on sight;
- but it is expensive if you want to own or build your own island and virtual environments certainly demand high end equipment for all participants to be able to attend virtual classes => at this point virtual worlds exclude people from low resource areas.

Again, like with the presentation of Tony Karrer yesterday the fire walled environment in corporation was mentioned as a possible downside for corporation and (knowledge) workers in those corporations to accept virtual environments as an educational tool. A lot of participants mentioned that they could not blog or go to virtual environments from their office. Which meant that most of them were pushed into experimenting with these new educational tools from home and in their spare time.

Again Ricardo Semler comes to mind as a possible blue print for new management in corporations that are technology and knowledge based.

A couple of links that were mentioned on virtual worlds and education
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Terra%20incognita/152/96/33
http://sl.nmc.org/wiki/NMC-Campus:About
http://electricsheepcompany.com/
http://metalab.blogspot.com/
http://sleducation.wikispaces.com/

CLTI07 - Tony Karrer - Web2.0 tools for education

The CLTI is on. Each session is a blast of information served to all attendees. Tony Karrer focussed on Web2.0 tools ranging from wiki's to social bookmarking... It was a very good intro because everyone got ideas on possible uses of Web2.0. Because most of it was a little bit familiar, I just wrote down some of the things that were said in Tony Karrer's presentation that stuck to my mind:

Because information is increasing on a daily basis (by 2015 it is predicted that information will double every week), most people (me included) find it difficult to keep track of the latest knowledge.

As tacit knowledge work becomes pivotal and the idea that 'learning = working' becomes more accepted, the ability to cope with massive amounts of info and being able to search through them becomes more important as well.

Learning to learn is becoming more and more important. To keep track of the evolutions within one field of expertise, blogging is a sound option. Blogging forces you to think about what you are writing down, hence you learn more in-depth. Apart from blogging continually evaluating and improving personal work and learning skills is of the essence. This is made easier when one uses Web2.0 or participative web tools. But this is were some corporate IT departments have difficulties with security. While wiki's are most of the time accepted, other 2.0 tools get thumbs down in a lot of cases.

Bill Bruck pointed out that learning professionals need to learn how to support learning within the existing constraints and find tools and approaches that work within IT. Now that is something I am facing... not easy.

Most attendees of the virtual conference knew wiki's, social bookmarking, RSS etcetera, but the Google Tilde operator was virtually unknown.

Some links that were written in the very active chatbox of elluminate:
http://www.articulate.com/community/blogdemo/web2/engage.html
http://www.wikipatterns.com/display/wikipatterns/Wikipatterns
http://www.techcrunch.com/
http://sociallearning.ning.com/

Corporate Learning: Trends and Innovations

George Siemens is organizing an online conference on corporate learning. The conference will begin on 15 November and last untill the 20 November 2007.

Looking forward to it. The conference wiki is already in progress.