Back soon!

As you may have gathered I do have a day job in e-learning and it's been so busy that blogging has had to take a back seat.
I'm taking a break from work for a few weeks now and on my return I'll start again - with real life examples as promised.

Ideas in brief : 7

There is much on the 'e' front we can use.

Virtual assets include: 2mT ('2-minute training' i.e. byte-sized e-courses), blogs, code wars (programming competitions), customised e-courses, e-books, e-papers, e-simulations, e-tests, FAQs, off-the-shelf e-courses, LmT ('50-minute training' i.e. longer e-courses) , PowerPoint presentations, threaded discussions, web sites, wikis and XmT ('10-minute training' i.e. short e-courses)

Some of these have f2f equivalents; some don't.

Making the change

I have been a bit harsh in seeming to blame the preoccupation with the classroom for obstructing the transformation of training but I'm using 'classroom' as shorthand for a teacher-centred, command-and-control, bounded learning experience where students are kept on a conceptual short-leash.

What we need to accept is that we have to relinquish control. That doesn't mean allowing students to learn by accident - it's not the 60's after all - but to behave as a partnership. The most effective results will be when the student manages her own learning. With BL we have the means to do that. Stereotypes give us a rough idea of what to expect from different groups: we know the generations approach things differently, but so do the two sexes and so do different cultures. Add to that the well-known variation in learning styles and it's a pretty rich mix.

Some of this is hard to accept. While we acknowledge different learning styles other aspects are harder to digest.

Doing it differently

Doing something different requires resources so it's only worth doing for high-value projects. This may mean high value in terms of money - for example a residential course that's really expensive to run - but it might also mean high value in terms of the business: a change management program after a merger, a new process for customer-facing staff, a technology-system roll-out. In fact any project that can not afford to fail.

Reaping the benefits

If we put our efforts into high-value projects then this is where the BL idea of the 'learning never stops' will have the greatest effect. I was talking recently to someone doing consultancy with a major company that had just completed 6Sigma training. He said that what was so extraordinary was that they were still totally clueless. They were walking around with the badges and yet the training might as well have been painted on. It had made absolutely no difference to their behaviour. The 'sheep-dip' instruction method of training was probably to blame in this case.

Practicalities

So let's have a go: in the next post we'll test-drive some simple examples. In the meantime I have two things to ask you.

A request

Firstly: if you have any examples to share with the readers then please send them in. They might be successes or disasters, how to do it or how not to do it.

An Invitation

Secondly: hear someone else in SkillSoft talk about BL. The web event is on April 26th at 2pm EST. The link is on the right....

Ideas in brief : 6

Live events can be either face-to-face or virtual.
Face-to-face ones include: class, coaching, conference, lecture, meeting, observation, observed exercise, role play, tutorial, workshop.
Virtual ones include: ask-the-expert, chat with a mentor, chat with peers, e-mail, e-messaging, helpdesk, mentored exercise; polling; quizzes; RSS; telephone; texting; virtual classroom

Ideas in brief : 5

I mentioned 70+ items in the toolkit. What are they?

This is the first batch: learning interventions/assets/resources that are

on paper:-

abstracts; aid memoires; book; checklist; crib sheet; exam; exercises; flyer; manual; newsletter; poems; poster; snail-mail; study guide; test; white paper; workbook.

Over-heard, over-hyped and over here

Are we just getting carried away?

Some readers will be shaking their head wryly and thinking: it's the dot-com bubble all over again. They might be prepared to countenance a little levity in the classroom - perhaps a game during the coffee break or an amusing video - but they are still thinking: if it ain't broke, don't fix it. And they certainly don't want the upheaval of changing things only to find they don't work.

This would be a shame as the possibilities are exciting. The horse-and-cart isn't 'broken' but it has been superseded. Our classroom still works - but it's not the answer to everything. We owe it to our customers to investigate the new ideas and if they work better then we should use them.

A clever idea

Many years ago when I was a computer science student we were set a project to demonstrate our understanding of logic programming. Logic programming underpins game theory so we were told to program a particular game. How did we know if we were any good at programming? Was the marking to assess whether we could write elegant code, use obscure mechanisms or format it neatly? That would be the conventional way of assessing a project, whereas the real question was: could we deliver the result?

The desired result was to be able to program a winning game - so each student' program had to beat the others. With ten points for entering the knock-out competition and ten points for each round of the competition you got through, the projects marked themselves - on the only meaningful criteria (though you were unlucky if you met the winning program early on!)

Strength

This is probably the greatest strength of BL. By looking at the desired outcome in terms of fit-for-purpose it is possible to design a course that concentrates on the essentials. If the course is about life-saving then nothing beats jumping in the pool and trying the techniques out. If the course is customer-service then get the phantom caller to ring up and check the student's acquired skills.

For something like selling skills there is always more to learn. There is always someone who does it better and sales' skills can always be polished. Shadowing experts, discussing with colleagues, following research and reading up on new ideas - all of these help deliver the result.

Doing too much

By concentrating on essentials we find some interesting things happen. Lots of theory may be redundant. How many courses have you been on where you only used 20% of what was covered in the course? By looking at outcomes rather than formal requirements courses can be made more effective. The effect is similar to cataloging a library. Did you know that most of the books in your local library are probably not in the catalogue? A book will only be in the catalogue if someone takes it out. Most books are never taken out so why waste time cataloguing them?

Toolkit

So, rather than say how do we cover content in the classroom we should be saying what do I need to do to get the desired outcome?

Only when we are very clear about the purpose of the training can we look into our toolkit and select the best tools.

veni, vidi, wiki

Or, as Julius Caesar might have said, "I came. I saw. I wrote it all up in my blog".

That excruciating title pun is probably only recognisable to the radio generation but the reality is recognisable to generation Y. There are an estimated 4 million bloggers out there. I wonder how many people are writing books? Not 4 million, I suspect. If Julius Caesar were recounting his saga of battle, murder and sudden death today, it could well be as a blog.

Here and now

Someone has already commented that these ideas will not really take root in the cold business environment. I disagree. These ideas fit now. We are still viewing the business environment through the filter of early generations. For confirmation check this article in today's Guardian newspaper.

I will be running a Blended Learning Workshop later this month (SkillSoft customers only, I'm afraid) and will use this blog to answer some of the questions that may arise afterwards. We can keep a dialogue going long after the formal event has finished and hopefully the learning will continue.

New tools for old ideas

It has always been possible to create a learning community to continue after formal events but it has not been as easy as it is now. Collaboration software like Sharepoint allows easy creation of dedicated environments for continued learning. In some ways it re-creates those largely long-lost days of residential courses when discussion and reflection occurred in the evening after the intense work of the day.

Working towards an end

When the idea of blended learning is introduced most people concentrate on the activity that takes place at the beginning. It is certainly true that this may be where the best cost-saving can be gained. By shortening the formal part of the event with pre-work expensive training time can be replaced by more effective and cheaper individual preparation. However if we consider the improvement in learning that BL can introduce this is much more likely to occur at the end of a course - an intervention that is rarely considered or addressed.