#ectel2019 #mlearn2019 keynote @GeoffStead on #informal learning at scale #languages #AI

Geoff Stead (@geoffstead ) takes the stage with a headset, a black shirt and walking like a fit Californian surfer (looking great).

As chief product person of the Babbel language corporation, he talks about informal learning at scale and will offer insights. 750 people all working on 1 app, fully funded by individuals willing to pay small amounts of money to learn languages. Mostly Euro-centric coming from the organic growth of the organisation.

5000 courses => 64000 lessons (unique language pairs), focus on communicative confidence, light-hearted, diverse topics. Well over 1 million subscribers (of which I am one - Spanish).

Digital = scale and reach
Team of 10 people can start the magic of the web.
How can we ensure Quality?
Learner centric, otherwise what is the value of the application?

Using a learner journey to unite efforts, to enable connections between learners. Conceptual flows of individuals that is used as the mantra to move the app forward.
See picture, where they also embed some spaced learning.
They work with patterns that are turned into fake persona's, which are designed and modeled (design thinking approach). Enabling developers and strategist to understand the different demographics. These personas are linked to learner journeys. Which enables to keep a focus on the learners.

Learning from the learners
What do they do? analytics, A/B tests, behavioral segmentation (showing what you did, signposting to what you did and worked...), interviews, intercept surveys, wishboard, market surveys, UX research (ask permission to video tape parts of the learner journey and ideas), customer service, market research. Not one is representative, but hoping that with enough different angles they are hoping to get closer to the actual learning in all it's complexity.

Dev at scale
20 different teams of people, a lot of independence, but only one product. So how likely it is that the releases are synchronizable as soon as they are launched by teams? Tripping over each other, contradictions, ...it quickly becomes chaos. So it is self-driven and autonomous, but potentially disastrous for the learners. Marketing and money was basis for scaling: stickers in planes and on poles in big cities, get people to pay a bit of money.

How do you trade off freedom versus working together
Teams organised around User Journey: Experience Groups (XGs) are clusters of teams across Product & Engineering, uniting tho enhance cross-functional collaboration around product ideas and speed up the development cycle: impressions, engagement, learning, learning media, platform and infrastructure (really interesting this!).

Product department 
Product is made up of many specialist teams. some teams are embedded within multi-function or engineering teams: didactics, product design, product management and QA, data engineering and analytics, quality and release management.

Towards "learning experience design"
Mixed multidisciplinary approach, but in larger companies most of the time they are not often set up as bridged teams in a multidisciplinary, cross-functionalness.

Babbel meetups in Berlin every 2 - 3 months, welcome to come and have a look.

LXD basics
digital learning is not content distribution, we are only a small slice of our learner's day, we never really know what is going on. Learning Experience Design, all about the multidisciplinary nature.

Learner engagement
It only works for them if they use it. What is the science of pulling learners back in?
Weekly active paying users: returners. One of the key drivers = 7 day return to learning (it is this that most of the dev teams use to validate short term impact of new features and refinements). If the people who try a new release, do they come back within 7 days to use this newly released option. This simplifies discussions on what is important.

Obsessive focus on interpreting events: Tableau, Amplitude (big fat data stream).
Mixing art and science to understand the engagement ladder (to help our learenrs focus - hooked (N Eyal) triggers motivation (Fogg), Nudge (Thaler, Flow state, spaced repetition, babbel qualitative and quantitative data....).

Gamification: treat with care, some very useful tools, often used for trivial impact.

AI to make Babbel more human
AI is a very broad umbrella term for a wide range of very specific disciplines. Babbel uses 'narrow AI' to focus on very specific problems/opportunities. NLP, CL, ASR...
Making interfaces more human (hybrid human-AI). Using NLP to give the automated feedback more human (eg "I understand what you meant").
Making guidance more useful: content recommendations, based on other, related topics and level. Still very much in beta. Optimising for speed, and identifying opportunities.

Rose Luckin's golden triangle is used.
Tutorbot corpus (Kate McCurdy, Dragan Gasevic...)

Liveblog @mathvermeulen #JustDoIt #vovpitstop @vovnetwerk

Liveblog Mathias Vermeulen Ode aan Angus

(Great keynote, capturing the audience first, coming to business with strong ideas)

Lang leve technologie!

Technologie is (ahem)

• ·       Ons LMS
• ·       Ons eLearningmodules
• ·       Onze course vending machine

MacGyver is biggest inspiration of @mathiasVermeulen

Fabulous learning is developed by thinking ‘What would MacGyver do?”

·       Find what is out there, and use it to your own advantage and needs!

·       L&D is a party for everyone: becoming best friends with IT. HR, L&D

·       “Ik ben een bricoleur”

Zwitsers zakmes

• ·       xAPI – LRS
• ·       VR/AR
• ·       Games (bury me my love – try it, text but serious game on Syria)
• ·       Mobile
• ·       AI and chatbots

Don’t worry be crappy (Guy Kawasaki)

Try out tools, set aside time (e.g. Friday afternoon) to test, think, come up with ideas on learning solutions.

Think ahead

• ·       New people (we are good in this)
• ·       More (what can we do to train our people)
• ·       Apply (e.g. performance support when they need it: just-in-time learning)
• ·       Solve (again, take time to learn what is out there)
• ·       Change (produce a lean learning approach)

Critical #skills define performances across multiple fields

Critical learning/reading/living is an acclaimed skill. With the internet becoming a global content delivery and discussion forum, this skill has become increasingly important for knowledge creation, filtering out crap and manipulation, or simply in order to try and construct your own voice in your own field of interest. As my Personal Knowledge Mastery class facilitated by Harold Jarche moves forward, this is my next reflective exercise. For last weeks topic was on: challenging ideas and why this is a good thing.
This process of constructive, critical action as an interesting journey that fits my current "where do I go from here in my personal and professional life", as such combine my PhD, with a military training option, and a Cate Blanchett interview mentioning doubt and self-reflection. It all fits together in my mind :-)

And for those looking for some great and well-grounded critique on TED talks, look at what the wonderful Audrey Watters writes on the subject (in short: TED talks are about flashing (entrepreneurial) ideas, not getting them questioned - thx for the link Harold!)

PhD journey and becoming more critical

Being critical is also a key aspect of any PhD or research project. Knowing which terms you use, why you select certain methodologies, whether they stand the test of critical analysis, what weaknesses/strengths they have. Looking back at when I started with my PhD I can see how I have strengthened my critical skills. The verbs I use, the arguments I make, the data I collect and how I analyse that data, everything is scrutinized and rightfully so, as this turns simple actions into conscious, meaningful acts. And in order to enhance these critical skills, feedback from colleagues and supervisors is more then helpful. This was not new to me, as I used it to evaluate eLearning and mobile projects in the past, but really improving that skill will have a profound effect on my future evaluations, and understandings. A clear gain from my PhD journey. 

The use of people trained in being critical in the military

In the PKM course an example from the military is given reflecting on the "Red Team University", a university which trains critical people to be send out into the field and use their critical skills to improve field actions and strategies (so those people question the military staff in order to strengthen tactics), here is the excerpt:. 

The school is the hub of an effort to train professional military “devil’s advocates” — field operatives who bring critical thinking to the battlefield and help commanding officers avoid the perils of overconfidence, strategic brittleness, and groupthink. The goal is to respectfully help leaders in complex situations unearth untested assumptions, consider alternative interpretations and “think like the other” without sapping unit cohesion or morale, and while retaining their values.More than 300 of these professional skeptics have since graduated from the program, and have fanned out through the Army’s ranks. Their effects have been transformational — not only shaping a broad array of decisions and tactics, but also spreading a form of cultural change appropriate for both the institution and the complex times in which it now both fights and keeps the peace.
- Andrew Zolli: HBR 26 Sept 2012 

Cate Blanchett and personal critical analysis as a means to grow in one's profession and life

When watching an interview for the Screen Actors Guild with Cate Blanchett on her performance in Blue Jasmine, in the end one of the questions from the public is on self-doubt and reflection. Although Cate Blanchett has performed numerous times on both theater and film stage, she clearly defines doubt and critical thought as defining her expertise, as fine-tuning her performance. A nice interview.

#OER #MOOC online learning papers from Open CourseWare conference

The Open Praxis special issue from the Open CourseWare Conferenence (OCW) 2014 that took place in Ljubliana, Slovenia is just published. This issue features a selection of papers. I gladly include the list of papers at the end of this blogpost, but first starting with an article and research that I found particularly useful.

The most interesting for my research and online learning interests was the one from Cohen, Omollo and Malicke which was an article on "a Framework to Integrate Public, Dynamic Metrics Into an OER Platform". The authors look at the usefulness of opening up meaningful analytics coming from shared Open Educational Resources (OER). I find this of interest, as it is part of something I want to investigate in relationship to peer/expert knowledge creation, MOOC, mobile learning. This paper provides an overview of what the university of Michigan, USA has done, but it can easily be rolled out to other educational and training institutes or organizations, even - in my view - to an international modus operandi.

The authors concluded with:
Metric-sharing is currency in relationships between OER-publishing-platforms and the faculty, staff, and students of universities and businesses who create OER. This is not the only benefit, but it has been a clear one for us: we are giving a population we have identified as a primary audience something they want. Our experience and user research confirm this.
The technical architecture an organization uses to host and reference OER is tied closely to the organization’s ability to share detailed usage data for its OER. Our use of the hierarchical structure of a Drupal-based platform allows us to easily provide metrics for individual courses or resources.
Metrics on a small scale are interesting, especially to their creators. Metrics can inform qualitative investigation, but they do not answer “why” questions (e.g. “why does this course have so many downloads compared to this other?”). To find analytics, metrics are necessary, but not sufficient.
Due to the structure by which OERbit platform stores metadata, Open.Michigan can group OER and its associated metrics in various ways. This positions Open.Michigan to progress from dynamic metrics to dynamic analytics in the future.
Much like seeing nodding and note-taking when you speak in front of an auditorium, seeing evidence of views, downloads, or comments where your OER are published is validation, evidence that there is some likelihood your effort provides real value to others. Having that evidence allows many to justify the additional effort it may take to openly license educational materials to supervisors and administrators. Open.Michigan’s sharing of individual OER metrics sustains development of open resources and allows an open education initiative, such as ours, to build strong relationships with its surrounding community and thus support the development and sharing of OER on a larger scale.

The above article matches in nicely with the OER and MOOC related article authored by Fernández and Webster (University of Madrid) which described "From OCW to MOOC: deployment of OERs in a MOOC, the experience of Universidad Carlos III in Madrid"

The emergence of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) is focusing all its attention on open education. There  is growing interest in creating MOOCs, which can be done by transferring OCW courses to MOOC format. However, a series of doubts arise regarding the pros and cons implied in this transformation. In this paper we discuss the conclusions derived from our experience at Universidad Carlos III de Madrid with a widely disseminated OCW course that was satisfactorily converted into a MOOC. This experience has allowed us to compare two different models of open education initially based on the same content. We also analyze the difficulties incurred in the transformation process and present strategies to successfully carry out this change.

Other articles featured in this Open Praxis issue:

Wikiwijs: An unexpected journey and the lessons learned towards OER	PDF
Robert Schuwer, Karel Kreijns, Marjan Vermeulen	91-102

Public Expenditure in Education in Latin America. Recommendations to Serve the Purposes of the Paris Open Educational Resources Declaration	PDF
Amalia Toledo Hernández, Carolina Botero, Luisa Guzmán	103-113

The potential social, economic and environmental benefits of MOOCs: operational and historical comparisons with a massive ‘closed online’ course	PDF
Andy Lane, Sally Caird, Martin Weller	115-123

Formalising informal learning: Assessment and accreditation challenges within disaggregated systems	PDF
Rory McGreal, Dianne Conrad, Angela Murphy, Gabi Witthaus, Wayne Mackintosh	125-133

Scenarios for the Use of OpenCourseWare in the Context of Student Mobility	PDF
Frederik Truyen, Stephanie Verbeken	135-144

From OCW to MOOC: Deployment of OERs in a Massive Open Online Course. The Experience of Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M)	PDF
José Vida Fernández, Susan Webster	145-158

Crowd-sourcing (semantically) Structured Multilingual Educational Content (CoSMEC)	PDF
Darya Tarasowa, Sören Auer, Ali Khalili, Jörg Unbehauen	159-170

An Architecture based on Linked Data technologies for the Integration and reuse of OER in MOOCs Context	PDF
Nelson Piedra, Janneth Alexandra Chicaiza, Jorge López, Edmundo Tovar	171-187

A Framework to Integrate Public, Dynamic Metrics Into an OER Platform	PDF
Jaclyn Zetta Cohen, Kathleen Ludewig Omollo, Dave Malicke	189-197

Complacency, failure, improvement cycle and #pearltrees #pkm14

For what ever reason, I seem to have a personal complacency => failure => improvement cycle. Which means that every few years something that I was good at turns into mush.

Messed up more then one presentation
The latest one concerns presentation skills. So I have been good at it (why do I know: feedback forms, mouth to mouth) and then it turns bad (why do I know? Again feedback forms). I did feel myself slip, but I simply told myself 'I had a day off' and soothed me into not worrying. So what is the typical decay of my presentation skills: I know what I know, I actually know quite a bit about certain topics (mlearning, cMOOC), but then I want to share ALL that I know in one hour slot of presentation AND I rely on my brain to come up with structure ad hoc. This does not happen.
There are multiple reasons, as every and any teacher/trainer will know:

• pushing too much information forward to the public simply does not transmit the message
• if you are not a naturally structured person, ad-lib will result in chaos and rambling
• use simple slides for presenting, and use notes to elaborate on your slides, or add audio so people understand the pictures you use (this means: I always think that slides can be used as content booklets (see my slides for yourself)... but I think I will just need to step away from that. Either present, or offer booklets I guess). As Marshall McLuhan said: the medium is the message , and I scrambled both up resulting in a confused feeling in the heads of the listeners.
• a starting point and relations or concepts that are obvious to me, is not obvious for others
• practice, practice, practice to become really good, and aim for the moon while I am at it
• there was even someone in the audience figuring out if I could be one of their future presenters... well I scared them away big time *sigh*

Actions taken
I want to make sure I do not get trapped in my own world of greatness again (apparently I come from a city known for its citizens to think they are great (Antwerp, Belgium). Those citizens even get called 'señor/a' as a nickname to describe that complacent ego phenomenon. Anyway, I searched for a way to improve:

• get some pointers on how to present, i.e. expert knowledge
• corner a future presentation occasion: May 2014 an online forum (which will be on related subject as the presentation I messed up, and the forum also has feedback forms) 
• practice, practice, practice and get better. Why: I want to give pleasurable insights on topic into people's minds, not chaos!

Because of the personal knowledge management course I am following and its assignments. One of our current assignment is testing out new tools. In the past I have used content mapping as a way to organize and built content and information towards new knowledge. I used CMAP from the University of Florida, USA. But it missed some of the easy social media sharing options (but does have meaningful relational descriptions as an option between to sets of content). As such I strolled through Jane Hart's eLearning tools and I found pearltrees as a new tool to put together content in a jiffy, make it visual and retrievable and share it with others. So sharing my pearltree here ( a just started Coursera course, examples of great public speakers, good books, and presentation tips):

Filtering for Future ProFessional Frontiers #pkm14

As the Personal Knowledge Management (PKM14) course moves into its second week, all the participants are asked to filter their social media / their networks. We are suggested to use more advanced filters: e.g. using feeds from people or/and groups, using automated filters of choice (e.g. hootsuite or tweetdeck to filter the personal twitter and other streams).

First I took a look at hootsuite (suggested by Ronda Zelezny-Green) and tweetdeck (both of these are free to some extend. Another paid option is sproutsocial which has wonderful options, but fits more with an enterprise type of social media stream analysis. I tested both and looked at other user comparisons to get an idea of which tool would suit me. I had both used them briefly in the past, but not to their full potential. And as it has been some years now, it is clear that I am better at understanding what these types of tools can do, and the overall structure of the tools in themselves is an improved user experience as well. For me Hootsuite works (but without integrating it into my browser, that feature was the reason why I stopped using hootsuite in the past: too much bling makes me angry and puts me off a tool - but that is me, not the tool).

After only two days, I already found some immediately relevant information (e.g. more status updates on learning analytics for informal learning, more about weak/strong ties in online communities), but at the same time I am loosing more time as I got lost in an information loop. Again... knowledge management is about finding useful tools, optimizing or personalizing them to fit your own goals, and limiting your time on those tools to get the best experience out of them (for me the best experience is: activating a peer network. One immediate benefit of Hootsuite is being able to schedule tweets, this saves time and will - eventually - keep me from returning to my streams in Hootsuite until a moment in time I consciously choose and limit.

The information streams in Hootsuite are currently based on one list, and keywords (e.g. mLearning, learning analytics). I started to build MyKeyPeople list within twitter: adding those twitterers that are of importance to me, that provide new insights, links, ideas.

But I do realize this is person-based, now - like a fellow participant Kavi (@_Kavi ) mentioned - knowledge can be distilled from a higher level by using twitter lists and combining these, or to search for good curators/curations and link these to a RSS/feedread or scoopit... I still have to work on those options. So that makes a good to do. 
Speaking of to do lists, another participant of the course (Shane Johnson) mentioned todoist, a cross-platform software to plan your time or project. Will have to see if this works for me. 

8 years of Working Out Loud thoughts #PKM

As the course on Personal Knowledge Management (PKM) is well on its way, one of the steps to reflect on and improve the PKM is about making a summary of Working Out Loud (or set out actions if this is the first time to be working out loud = sharing what you do through your own social media in order to build an active network that supports you and which you in turn can support).

I have been Working Out Loud for the last 8 years, and my main knowledge areas have been eLearning options as stand-alone options as well as partnerships with other institutes, mobile learning, continued medical education tools for training, and mobile learning solutions for developing regions. This took me on a very steep learning curve. Especially as mobile learning in developing regions was quite a new feature when I started on that track (and top management was not convinced mobile learning would be a good training option - first projects were paid out of my own pocket).

Why did I work in the open? 

• It allowed me to connect with the few peers that were out there, somewhere on the globe
• to share what I learned with others who are contemplating to roll out similar projects
• keeping track of what I did learn, and how I solved certain challenges (a personal learning archive)
• building a network that I could consult and feed back into. 
• It is part of professional activism: sharing consciously to plea for open science, open commons, openness overall

Looking back at those last 8 years, how can I make improvements? Which actions will I take?

• Challenges and failures should be shared more frequently. It does not feel good for the ego, and in some cultures failure just is not discussed, but failure is part of the essence of failure. 
• Increase curation (synthesizing and disseminating what other peers do). I need to reconnect with my 'top notch 50' peers. I have been reducing my 'reading what others do' in the last few months and this resulted in more of an isolated feeling. The reason why I started to link less to others was due to time management challenges, a professional identity shift (from corporate solution to academic research), and loosing track on my own personal knowledge management overall. 

#pkm course: sharing current network questions

Although the master class of Harold Jarche only started 2 days ago, it already got me thinking about my networks, what works, what does not work, and where I want them to be situated. From the start the course asks each participant (and what a wonderful bunch of participants, the joined expertise!) to explore, reflect and strengthen their own personal knowledge network.

Assignment 1 was on mapping your own network. This immediately resulted in tools for social network analysis to be shared:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Nb57-Ztisok41WFatm-Iya96ocTYab-Esr11R34VgsE/edit

http://joitskehulsebosch.blogspot.nl/2013/11/tools-for-social-network-analysis-from.html

http://gigaom.com/2013/09/16/visualize-your-twitter-followers-in-3-fairly-easy-and-totally-free-steps/

http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/5-awesome-free-tools-visualize-analyze-twitter-networks/

http://markvang.com/content/free-google-analysis-tools-visualize-your-network-and-measure-results

By taking on the assignment, I came up with personal questions I want to resolve during the 40 day course:

• Where do I want to position myself as a professional (corporate, consultant, academic) and how does this translate in terms of network interactions and professional options?
• What is the weak/strong ties ratio? Or rather: what do I want it to be?
• What is my interaction karma? Do I give, return and exchange in a balanced way between the peers in my network? It seems I want it to be balanced and karmic?
• Where do I want to go? How can my future career wishes be translated into knowledge network actions?

For those interested, this was my filled in paper of the collaborative document which was the result of the participants working on the starting pdf provided by Harold.

This is already worth it!

@hjarche master class on #pkm Personal Knowledge Management

The past couple of months have pushed me deeper into the PhD universe, and that has lead me to rethink what I am doing in terms of my own knowledge management, how I am doing it, and where I can improve my actions and make my knowledge acquisition and sharing process more efficient (or simply more fun would also be more then enough!).

Knowledge management is mostly related to corporate or organizational learning, but the way I see it we are all in this together and networked/social learning is of importance to each one of us if we want to create our own Hive of Excellence. And yes, I would love to be a central part of a Hive of Excellence on online, mobile learning. 

Because I felt I was slipping on the knowledge side in favor of getting to grips with research methods, I was looking to find a way to understand why I had the feeling of getting of track, and more importantly to learn simple steps to get back on top of those innovations, insights and ideas that spark my own creativity and thinking. Just at that point a mail came in: master class given by Harold Jarche on Personal Knowledge Management. It is a sweet, short course (40 days) and for half of the money (149 $ as the master class has just been revamped and Harold wants to gather some word-of-mouth - and I guess feedback). And it is online... enough factors to get get me excited and pay the cost. 

The master class starts today (31 March 2014 and runs until 9 May 2014), and information can be found here: http://www.jarche.com/pkm-in-40-days/

What pulled me in was the introductory movie. And although I do know the concepts, it soothed my brain to see which steps I currently under-nurtured, and even where I am currently lacking.   

Presentation on #MOOC for KM change

Just finished my presentation on Change and how MOOCs can help with coping change, given during the Managing and Surviving Change MOOC organized by the University of Aberdeen. You can see the slide deck here. 

Or you can have a look at the video recording:

How #MOOC can help coping with change #KM

Later today (at 14 o'clock BST) I am going to speak during the Managing and Surviving Change MOOC organized by the University of Aberdeen. During this talk I will be focusing on how MOOCs can be used to prepare and cope with changes that affect all of us: downsizing, preparing for a career move, staying on top of your own expertise ... so feel free to join, the hangout URL will be posted here:
https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/111851221304115850183

And these are the slides I will base my talk on ... and get into some conversations with:

How MOOCs can help coping with change from Inge Ignatia de Waard

#MOOC on Managing Change #KM starts next week

Change management is and has been a tough nut to crack in any organization. Now, with the economic crisis still weighing on knowledge workers wherever they work, managing the change that is happening all around us in our professional as well as our personal sphere is becoming quite a challenge.
The organizers of the Managing & Surviving Change MOOC will try and provide and exchange strategies on managing this change. The official start is on Monday 20th May at 2pm GMT.

I will be taking up one of the talking slots on 27 May, focusing on how MOOCs can help in keeping on top of change (more on my focus a bit further). But there is a whole variety of participants, and some of those will highlight one section that relates to change: mindfulness, leadership, how to make the most of innovative technologies in the workplace & your community and a whole host of other things. You can also access and upload resources before the course starts and also tweet about the course using  #ChChaChanges. 

To me MOOCs - in an ideal form which still needs to be found - will be able to cater to our natural sense of learning. If I look at my life I have always been lucky to be able to rely on others to enlighten me, inspire me, direct me towards my goals. So at a certain moment I felt a bit confident that I had this lifelong learning skill covered...
But a couple of years ago, this naturally acquired trait started to be questioned again, and I feel it is not only me, but all of us that feel the pressure. In addition to this the media tells us we need to enter into the ‘knowledge age’, every professional magazine whether focusing on psychology, management or research is promoting online, digital skills … and all the while the sword of Damocles is positioned above our head and is said to fall down upon us if we do not accept change, meaning technological change, meaning more administration, more quality guidelines … more indirect work and training on top of our already heavy workloads. This puts a pressure on all of us, and as such on our colleagues, families and friends.

So here is where I think MOOCs can help us to get our lifelong learning back into pace with contemporary demands and evolution. Because we all need to (re)think where we want to go with our professional and personal life, we need to explore ways that can help us to achieve this. MOOCs can be an option in getting many of us closer to our goals, for MOOCs can be set up rapidly, cater to very broad or very detailed knowledge needs and they can be build with as much or as little technological tools as an organizer wishes. 

#Informal learning and the master deck of the guru

For years I have been following Jay Cross. He simply has the gift to come up with simple, yet essential knowledge insights that lift me up time after time. Yesterday he shared his 'master deck on informal learning'. It is a treasure of key ideas and at the same time such a great personal time saver, as well as a knowledge/management tailoring device. I can see how such a deck, build with my own set of slides and key pointers would enable me to draw up a meaningful presentation in no time, or I could even tailor a presentation on the go having such a master deck at my back hand draw. It can be used for both face-to-face, as well as virtual presentations, so you could even use it while teaching a subject ... great.

For those interested in informal learning, I gladly share the informal master deck of Jay Cross here:

Jay's informal learning research deck from Jay Cross

Analyzing institutes online #presence for increased competitiveness

During the last few weeks I was asked to see where my current institute was in terms of innovation, digital identity, online visibility... and more of those knowledge age connected characteristics. This lead me to set up a presentation with some options to find out where your institute or organization is placed among its competitors or partners. Where is your institute at? Mine is now working on a strategy to enhance its visibility and online presence based on the results ... exiting and fun stuff!

Is your institute visible online and ready for the knowledge age? Analyze it for yourself from Inge Ignatia de Waard

Harold Jarche on the need for #corporate #networking and learning

During the Learning Day at the European Environmental Agency (EEA), an organisation filled with knowledge workers, I had the pleasure of hearing a keynote of Harold Jarche ( @hjarche and www.jarche.com ). These are my live blognotes.

An interesting central idea is the fact that all knowledge workers need to have time to do nothing, simply relax, get their heads into an open, wandering, creative state. I totally agree. Without pauzes, my brain would not be able to compute and emotionally process all the input absorbed by the day.

Breaking down barriers
Change is human. Although at every moment in time, we - as people - feel that something will be there forever. But we are only surrounded by artificial barriers. These barriers are artificially created. Organizations are the same, the barriers, guidelines are provided... These barriers are sometimes set up to create an idea of trust, balance, ... but in fact these barriers can be restrictive. If we want to grow, we need to share knowledge. As such we need to break the barriers down, enabling fruitful change. 
hyperlinks subvert hierarchy (from the cluetrain.com manifesto)

Moving from local to global
We live in a less barriered world: self-publication, group forming across the world, unlimited information. In the past we linked up with people with similar interests locally, due to simply physical realities... now we can link up with people from around the world. So from a learning perspective our learning group grows (personal addition: this also means that the group that lives inside the personal zone of proximal development grows, as more people can potentially be in this). Groupforming is now becoming networks. This has an effect on mentorship: per mentor you can only have so many learners, but with the growing group more mentors can stand up and the learners themselves can become mentors.

The web has changed the way we work.
How we start businesses (get online financial support), couche surfing....

An interesting question put forward by Harold is from Robert Kelley, "What percentage of the knowledge you need to do your job is stored in your own mind?" research. The percentage decreases, but ... I am not sure about this, as the brain builds on its experiences, as such - even if we look up something, the basis of what we pick up is actually stuff we know. So - to me - the 'new' is not that new, it is only a small part of new, but mostly it is building upon personal knowledge.

Anything that can be automated will be automated
Anything that can be automated will be automated: production, outsourcing, law (when big corporate law goes to court, all the information needs to be organized. Now this search is done by computer data software), banking.... even to drive through: you go to a MacDonalds, someone in India takes the order and sends the 'burger computers' the order...
So if you are looking for work, look for the far right handside, otherwise you will loose it. (I agree!)
Talent is seldom outsourced, labour is. Live and work is in perpetual beta (I agree so much!).
So byebye teachers?

(personal note: although the above is true, I feel this is only true because we belief in the non-human at this point in time, money and profit is the goal, but that is not human. Because of this focus on non-human factors, humanity is out of balance. We should use the web, the new world order to shift back to the central goal: humans - think Star Trek society, the technology serves humans, no money needed).

Connections drive innovation
We need input from peope with a diversity of viewpoints - Tim Kestell (or Kastell?).
How do we connect the open world with the corporate world.
Communities of Practice: weak and strong social ties. "You know you are in a CoP when it changes your practices".
Rob Cross, et al. The Hidden Power of Social networks, HBS, 2004. is mentioned => the people that are more connected are the most connected, it is not the smartest people.

Collaboration versus cooperation
collaboration: working together for a common objective. Cooperation: openly sharing, without any quid pro quo. Corporation is linking with each other: yin/yang balance. 
Knowledge sharing networks is build on openness, for it enables transparency, which fosters diversity of ideas => trust! (agreeing here, any willingness to communicate openly is based on the feeling of trust).

We should all move into transparency to get to innovational drive.  Mentions Nancy Dixon on knowledge management: do not go to hierarchy, but to a networked corporational architecture.

Some nice quotes:
"All models are flawed, but some are useful.
"Assume positive intent" says Harold, things work better with this as a starting point.
"To change behaviour you have to do it 40 days in a row for change to stick".

Social network analysis shows trust (e.g. twitter traffic can show those persons that are trusted)

These are his presentation slides

Eea learning day copenhagen from Harold Jarche

Are you a #knowledge management expert? Become our #CoP advisor

ITM's department of Public Health, more specifically the Unit of Health Policy and Financing Unit is looking for a knowledge management adviser with expertise in social media. Feel free to send your resume to the people mentioned below. Good luck!

This unit is involved in a number of projects that involve an important part of social networking using notably social media and the internet. The specificity of those projects is that it involves professional health experts and researchers primarily based in low income countries. Hence their access to the internet often goes through intermittent low bandwidth connections. We believe tablets and smartphones, particularly android based, will keep growing in these specific niches.

The communication in these communities happens mainly in English but some channels are bilingual, French and English. The Unit is looking for an adviser to help define the strategies, tools and methods that are advisable for their audience and objectives. The work will unfold in two phases. The first one should last one month. The second might take longer but should probably not exceed 5 month. (see deliverables).

So what would be the assignment?
Through interaction with the team, you are responsible for the designing and implementing of a dissemination strategy of the results from a consortium research project with 6 academic partners in Europe and Southern Africa.

• You perform an assessment and propose a strategy for the dissemination of our work and for the communication among our networks.
• You setup the networking tools required.
• You provide the required guidelines for the team to implement the strategy.

Deliverables:
A strategy for development of our networking platforms and the dissemination of our work in general an
d in particular regarding the European research project. Once this one has been approved by the Unit you set them up.
A final report describing the tools set up, including Standard Operating Procedure for dummies to use the tool and technical guidance note for IT maintenance and update for each tool that is being used.

Interested?
For more information about the assignment contact Bruno Meessen. Applications with budget, timeline, CV and motivation letter should be received by e-mail to bmeessen@itg.be,with copy to dhercot@itg.be.

#LAK11 the #semantic web and how the intelligent curriculum will enhance our learning

This week was rather busy, developing an online mobile course that will be open to all, following LAK the open course on learning analytics and finalizing a needs assessment, on top of regular work. But! The LAK content keeps intriguing. This week's content focused on the semantic web, linked data and intelligent curriculum.

Intelligent curriculum: or how data analysis will tailor content to the learner
The topic that struck me the most in this weeks LAK-topic was the idea of an intelligent curriculum. Just imagine that all the data that you - as a learner or knowledge worker - go to, examine, read, ... are analyzed and put against the content of the rest of the Web? And just think that an algorithm is put upon that data to see which content might be of use to you, but really of use to you... that would certainly enhance in-depth learning in your field of preference.

So the screening of data would result in immediate relevant content (which affects what needs to be learned, as old/new knowledge can change rapidly). Professional learners will be able to get to relevant up-to-date information much quicker.

The benefits for learning are enormous: it would not only provide me with personalized, tailored content that fits my current hunger for knowledge, it would also allow me to stay in close contact with those who provide that information and share it amongst those who have a similar interest (if an algorithm would keep track of who has similar interests, or who is close to the content I go to). This would have an effect on my (and others) professional networks, for the professional groups will shift from a more localized network to real global networks that learn through connectivity (well, most of us do this already, but professional groups that link up will become more important and most of all attainable).

Semantic course: the course wraps itself around the learner
We - as educators or trainers - might even be in the possibility of creating a course which redesigns itself depending on the prerequisites and skills of a particular learner, thus giving her/him a much smoother learning path, without leaving the learning objective itself.

Moving away from old-fashioned classrooms divided by age, going for skills and enthousiasm classes
This approach of semantic learning might even take us out of the artificially divided classrooms. If we could cater lessons to a variety of learners, they would not be put into classes depending their age, but depending their ability to grasp what is necessary, or depending on their eagerness into specific subject matter.

Creating research proposals in a jiffy
It will also facilitate research: just imagine, that you want to launch a new project in your scientific field? You need to write a proposal, and with an algorithm (AI friend) which searches in your scientific field (e.g.) scholar.google and cross-references this to the data bank of EU/WHO or B.& B. Gates foundation for funding that was granted... you could be on your way to get a funded post-doctorate or project going with much more ease.

Corporate intake: Bert De Coutere launches use cases based on learning analytics
Bert who works at IBM and comes up with great learning strategies and educational games, launched an interesting concept which fits learning analytics. This is what he proposed to enhance learning performance: OK, I'll try one again. Does anyone else feel comfortable adding some use cases as we go along in this course?

The use case:
A young manager quarterly runs a tool to picture his social network, as part of his continuous leadership development. Data mining has shown that successful leaders in his corporation typically have 1/3 of their network amongst subordinates, 1/3 with other managers on the same level, and 1/3 higher up the chain. The tool allows the young manager to see the evolution in his network and get some action points to move it to the desired state.

The semantic web
The semantic web is growing, and it effects all of us who search for content or other things in the vast amount of digital data that is on the web.

• Semantic Web: An Introduction: http://infomesh.net/2001/swintro/
• Welcome to the Metaweb http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJfrNo3Z-DU&feature=player_embed (Metaweb was purchased by Google in 2010, but this is still a nice resource on dealing with ambiguity of words/text)
  
• Ray, K (2009) Web 3.0 http://vimeo.com/11529540

As the web will become more semantic, all the data that is on it will be tagged, linked, analyzed... and this should increase our feeling of the 'living web'. Which ties the semantic web into Artificial Intelligence (AI) nicely.

For those interested of hearing more on semantic technologies in learning environments, have a look at the video lecture given by Dragan Gasevic available at http://bit.ly/gfXqEF (cool guy).

#LAK11 analyse your learner/worker interactions with SNAPP to increase #elearning outputs, pedagogy and #performance

Many of us use learning management systems, and some of us even track students to support learning processes, but let's face it: tracking does not always result in clear visualization of the interactivity that is taken place amongst learners. Here is where SNAPP comes in.

There are other visual analyzing tools, but SNAPP is simple to use and easy to install, which is why I really like it.

SNAPP is developed by the University of Wollongong (who I think are coming up with a great deal of interesting educational innovations and thoughts). SNAPP allows you to transcript interactions in Moodle, Blackboard (and webCT, Desire2Learn into maps that immediately show who is a hyperconnected learner or participant, and who is more of a lurker, or even to pinpoint learners that at the core of the interactions.

SNAPP is a software tool that allows users to visualize the network of interactions resulting from discussion forum posts and replies. The network visualisations of forum interactions provide an opportunity for teachers to rapidly identify patterns of user behaviour – at any stage of course progression. SNAPP has been developed to extract all user interactions from various commercial and open source learning management systems (LMS) such as BlackBoard (including the former WebCT), and Moodle. SNAPP is compatible for both Mac and PC users and operates in Internet Explorer, Firefox and Safari.

By mapping interactions, you have a better overview of what people are doing and how they learn/perform. As such I see two fields of interest: education/training and knowledge management in corporations.

Education and training benefits
you can localize students or learners that are at risk (of not understanding, of having decreasingly less time...). The SNAPP-people have listed some great benefits of network diagrams:
* identify disconnected (at risk) students;
* identify key information brokers within your class;
* identify potentially high and low performing students so you can plan interventions before you even mark their work;
* indicate the extent to which a learning community is developing in your class;
* provide you with a “before and after” snapshot of what kinds of interactions happened before and after you intervened/changed your learning activity design (useful to see what effect your changes have had on student interactions and for demonstrating reflective teaching practice e.g. through a teaching portfolio)
* allow your students to benchmark their performance without the need for marking.

SNAPP also allows you to pinpoint lurkers (who might be a good target audience for research, e.g. did they get something out of the course, and why did they only lurk?
Additionally, you can filter out those students that might be good future facilitators. For students that are in the middle of the interactions, are clearly motivated and strong in reaching out and communicating.
Another educational benefit is for looking at peer-2-peer interactions. It might be that you do not get much feedback from a student, but after analyzing the interactions, you might see that that same student is a real peer-2-peer knowledge node, and as such has great course value.

Performance and knowledge management benefits
This SNAPP approach can also be used for knowledge management. Let's say you have a internal, central 'help' forum inside your company. And there is a person responsible for giving help on that forum. It might well be that after you screen the forum with SNAPP, you can see that someone else in your organization offers just as much help or support, just because they know the subject. As such you can give a bonus, or a different function to that active employee and stimulate knowledge transfer in your organization.

Interpretation of visual network maps
SNAPP does not simply provide the software, they also give an overview of how to interpret the visual data that you get from analyzing the network interactions.
So how does it work?
You download SNAPP and you get cracking with it!
I will take Moodle as an example:
Moodle

1. Visit a Forum in Moodle. Ensure that “Display replies in nested format” is selected.
2. Click on the SNAPP Bookmarklet (from where you placed it in the Bookmarks menu in Firefox or the Favorites menu in IE). You may need to enable the Menu bar in IE 7, to view the Favorites menu. The SNAPP interface will be inserted at the bottom of the page.
3. The SNAPP interface consists of five tabs: Visualization, Statistics, Export, Help and Credits. Within the Export tab, social graph data can be saved as GraphML or to the .vna format. The .vna format can be opened in NetDraw for additional analysis and visualization.

What will you see on your screen: the program will go through all the threads, one-by-one (you see the screen flip from one thread to another), and eventually a Java-icon will be displayed. You just wait and the graphic will appear, together with 5 tabs.

Netdraw - also a free tool developed by Steve Borgatti a nice bearded bowling professor in Kentucky, allows you to fine-tune the graphs you get with SNAPP.

The picture depicted here is a representation of a welcoming forum in Moodle.