A perfect BL event

What is important in a lecture?

Is the critical thing that you need to be sitting close to someone so you can copy their notes when you wake up? Perhaps it's important for the lecturer to know who's listening? Maybe it's the only way to get people out of bed in the morning?

Of course none of these things is relevant: what's important is getting the facts, opinions and ideas of the lecturer aired to the learners. If they can ask questions that's good, too, but doesn't often happen. The OU knew that when it started recording lectures and airing them in the small hours.

Who knows how many of these broadcasts were watched by people in their pyjamas eating jam sandwiches and doodling on the cat? Did it matter?

The essential activity was getting the information across: all else was a diversion. Dr Bill Ashraf realised this in 2006 and brilliantly re-invented the lecture by looking at the need, the learners and the media.
Dr Bill Ashraf

However, if you listen to what Judith Moritz says in this account you will see that she has
missed the point

What he did that was so clever was not the transmission of lectures to MP3 players but the follow-on activity of taking questions by text (neat) and then answering the whole audience in a blog (brilliant)!

He has preserved the essence of the lecture while not imposing an end when he walked out the theatre, but he has done far more than that. By using generation X friendly media he has started a dialogue with the students that is open-ended. Discussion and analysis of the ideas could go on indefinitely. He can refine and amplify the ideas dynamically in response to the text questions. He can clarify parts, offer alternative explanations and refute arguments. And he only has to do it once.

He has used the lecture as a launch-pad to start the learning not as a device to curtail it.
This is blended learning at its best. Simple, inspired and effective.

Ideas in brief : 4

Learners are different - even if they are on the same course. It is perfectly possible for them to get to the same objective by different paths. There is rarely a correct way to study and learn. If some of your learners like books, then let them read their way through the course. If someone else needs her hand held then provide group or individual tuition . Happy to do e-learning? - then do it that way.

It is possible to blend even within the same course and thus optimise the learning experience.

So what is blended learning, then?

In my first post I said that I was going to say what I thought blended learning was.

As Humpty-Dumpty said in Through the looking Glass: 'When I use a word it means just what I choose it to mean--neither more nor less.'

So this is what I mean and it's quite simple really. There are three facets to BL:

• Blend to the learner
• Blend to the media
• Blend to the need

(You can check Clive's 3 facets in the archive)

1. Blend to the learner

We know we need to consider the different kinds of user. We have always known that people learn in different ways but we also need to be aware that different generations approach learning differently.

2. Blend to the media

We know there are many ways to provide 'learning interventions'. These are the items in our toolkit and vary from traditional paper-based items (everything from Abstracts to White-papers via poems) through face-2-face (Classes to Workshops) to virtual (Blogs to Wikis).

So all we need to look at is the need.

And this is probably the most interesting bit.....

3. Blend to the need

When you lose the 'command-and-control' approach to learning you take the limitations off. No course need ever be described as 'completed'. Obviously there are milestones that we may need people to get through, but it's a bit like the driving test: when you pass your driving test it just means that you are safe to go on the roads alone. It does not mean that you know everything about driving.

Take something as apparently concrete as a software programming course. Once you've studied the syntax, learned the rules, written a few toy programs and done a little project it seems like you know how to program. It doesn't. It's only the beginning. Just because you have read Kernighan & Ritchie doesn't mean we want you programming missiles.

Non-stop learning

And this is where BL comes into its own. Although it was always possible in a limited way, the rise of the Web and the explosion in peer-to-peer and community activity means that learning need never stop. We can leave the anxious trainer back in the classroom, still fretting over the loss of control over what we are learning, and now connect with the those who will take us further forward.

Tomorrow: what does a blended course look like?

Ideas in brief : 3

Often overlooked but very significant: what is the audience size? If only 6 people will go through a course during a typical year then there is little ROI in being too creative. The larger the audience the more time you should spend building a blended solution.

When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

We have already looked at the first of the three important aspects of re-inventing the way we do things. I have already argued that we need to consider the different types of learners in an organisation - the different generations. The next thing to look at is the tools we use.

Tools

It's tempting to think that adding new technology automatically transforms what we deliver. It doesn't. The label 'classroom' is shorthand for a style of provision that could better be described as 'command-and-control'. School teachers are often told that the definition of a good classroom technique is 'to have going on in the classroom only what you want going on'. And that's where the danger lies.

The person at the front is in control. She decides what facts will be revealed, how they will be interpreted and what conclusions will be drawn. She decides the pace and the outcome. She is the gateway to knowledge - and the gatekeeper.

Going virtual

Consider the Open University. In its early days it was given as an example of what we should be moving towards. However distance learning is not the same as blended learning. Just recording the lecturer and transmitting the lecture at 2 a.m. does not change the centralised nature of the activity. It is a bit more convenient for the student but it's still command and control. Our new generation of students will not be fooled by this.

Adding computers to the mix doesn't help either. The early days of CBT didn't change anything - in fact you could say they made it worse. It was the electronic equivalent of Moses coming down from the mountain with the ten commandments on his PDA.

Spinning a Web

The arrival of the Internet and with it, more importantly, the Web has provided the real breakthrough. The Web is fundamentally democratic and, for the first time, adds so many new tools to the toolkit that we can finally make blended learning work.

Of the 71 items in our kit, nearly 40 are electronic and nearly 20 require Internet access. In many ways these last items are the important ones. Why? Because it is the rise of peer-to-peer activity that will provide the last piece in the blending jigsaw.

Ideas in brief : 2

Make a list of the different ways people communicate within your organisation and what the rules are about their use. For example, does everyone you need to reach have an email account? Do you use the Tannoy? Can you reach your audience by mobile phone?

Ideas in brief : 1

When you start to design a new course, don't think 'How am I going to replace the classroom element?'. Start with a blank sheet and ask instead 'What do I need to achieve?'

Getting down to basics

Following Nina's suggestion I am starting a Hints and Tips column in the form of a Quick Start Guide on the blog.

Thanks, Nina!

Any reader is free to add a comment: just click on the link at the end of each post - the one that tells you how many comments there are.

All change

I'm only posting short items 'til the line spacing issue is fixed - the one that makes the posts look unreadably long - so here's today's thought:

Watching Michael Caine in the Ipcress File recently - which is one, long hunt around London filmed when the world was in black and white - it occurred to me that if someone had tossed a handful of mobile phones onto the set, the plot would have evaporated.

Today, training's a bit like that. We have new technology in a new world, and the new cast don't see why we should follow the old script.

Tomorrow: 'You were only meant to blow the bl**dy doors off'

How wide is the generation gap?

Talking about my generation

Ah! The great music of the age – or possibly not if the '60s only exist for you in the history books. It didn't for me and my view of the world is set by the feeling that we seemed to be the lucky generation*.

To the radio generation raised in the 30s life was tough. This didn't mean they were miserable but simply that they accepted that jobs were few and far between and that if you had one you counted yourself lucky and didn't rock the boat. When it came to training, you were grateful for what you got.

And Management thought that too.

The times they are a'changing

Baby-boomers changed all that. Laid-back, confident but, above all, growing up in an age when everything seemed easy they didn't expect to suffer and they were quite prepared to answer back.

These changes in society were reflected in changing attitudes at work. Boomers still expected to work. Although they could pick and choose they saw it in terms of committing to an organisation, to a career. Once they had signed up they felt a loyalty to the company and expected that in return with investment in them. They considered that their views counted.

Redundancy hardly existed in those days and when it finally arrived it was seen as a betrayal. We could rename them the bewildered generation.

All change for generation X

Generation X, the MTV generation, who entered the workforce in the '80s, are a cooler group. Individualistic and self-contained they don't expect work to be a second family. They have a pragmatic view of their careers and consequently training. They expect to take what they need and not to waste their time. They don't expect jobs for life.

This generation has grown up with technology but for the real experts we turn in awe to the …

New kids on the block

Impatient, demanding and technically highly literate, this is the virtual generation, generation Y. Everything is done on their terms.

They do not expect to sit quietly in a lecture theatre and be instructed. They will do things their way, on their terms and walk away if they don't like it.

Their view of training is as different from the radio generation as is their understanding of the word 'wireless'. And these frightening individuals are arriving at a desk near you, now.

Tomorrow: how these generations collide in the classroom

*assuming you were in western Europe or the US, of course

The view from the other side

In the last post I said we needed to start with a clean sheet when we design a new course – but why should we do that if we have a perfectly good solution already? We all grew up with a common understanding about how training works, and its delivery never did us any harm.

However, just because something works 'fine' doesn't mean it couldn't work a lot better. Those of us in organisations with the power to change things have the power to transform training. We can make it more flexible, more efficient, more effective, more appropriate, more digestible, more timely, more successful.

And it's not about spending more money.

Change is all around

If we look around us we see that society and work are changing rapidly – but the world of training has changed much less. It looks as though it has changed, but fundamentally it's the same thing in different clothes. We are working ever harder to preserve a system we recognise and are comfortable with, without ever asking ourselves if those that experience it are equally comfortable with it.

Today's training environment would certainly be recognisable to our parents – and to our grandparents. And just adding a layer of technology doesn't fundamentally change anything. Three generations ago all training was face-to-face and largely by lectures; two generations ago the lectures were still there but they might have been delivered via the television; the last generation has seen the rise of the internet – but that's still treated as a mechanism for delivering the message from the centre.

Looking from the other side

What we are not doing is looking at things from the other side: from the consumer's point of view - particularly new consumers. Training works but it's not necessarily the way consumers need to learn, or would choose to learn, which means it will be less effective. Today's younger worker is a different person to us. The way they relate to work is different. Their expectations are different. The social contract is different. We can not expect them to see everything else differently – except training.

The world of work has changed as well. It's faster, obviously, with instant communications transforming the environment, but it's also much more results focused. Less interest is being paid to abstract qualifications and more to concrete delivery of results. When was the last time anyone checked your qualifications? Did they feature in your last appraisal or was it about what you achieved? Bits of paper may sort out who gets through the door but once inside it's delivery that counts.

It is these two aspects, the generation changes and the business environment changes that drive the need to update training. New technology is not the driver, it is merely one of the tools we can use to make the changes we need.

Tomorrow: which generation are you: radio, baby-boomer, X or Y and how does that affect things?

In search of a new iPod

While I was in Texas recently I went in search of an iPod shuffle. The store I was in was huge and the assistant gave me precise instructions as to where I could find one, but still I spent a long frustrating time wandering up and down the aisles while failing to find it. Why? Was I being stupid or was the famed American customer service not all it was cracked up to be?

The answer was simple: I was told to look on the second floor – and an American's second floor is a Brit's first floor.

It got me thinking afterwards about how often we have conversations with people where we know we are talking about the same thing but in fact we each understand something quite different. My field is e-learning – particularly blended learning - and every day I talk to people about it, but are we talking about the same thing?

In this blog I want to spell out exactly what I mean by blended learning: what it is - and what it is not, why it's needed, how it fits in, how it works, what its strengths are, how it can be implemented. When I mean blending I have in mind the 71 separate elements that can be put into the mix. If 71 is a few more than you thought there were, then maybe we are not talking about the same thing . . .

First Steps

When people first 'do' blended learning it is usually in the same way: they look at an existing classroom course and see what could be replaced by e-learning. A 5-day classroom based course becomes a 2-day e-learning section followed by three days in the classroom. Easy isn't it? Easy maybe, but it has about as much in common with blended learning as fitting wheels to a horse turns it into a car.

Stepping back again

Let's go back to the start. And the first thing we'll do is chuck classroom training out the window. Are you shocked? Is that heresy? Of course there is nothing wrong with classroom training as such but its dominance of the training landscape obscures and distorts the possibilities. Like the first step described above we are always dancing around the altar of instructor-led training thinking of ways to replicate the gold standard by alternative means.

Blended learning, real blended learning, doesn't start from this position. It makes no assumptions about the solution before it has looked at the problem. It looks at the task in hand. It looks at the students. It looks at the tools. It looks at the culture. And then it builds a solution focused on the best way to achieve the most effective result.

Tomorrow: in the next post I'll explain why we need to find a new way of doing things.