RssGeni

This great little video from SimplyZesty, an agency specialising in Online PR and Social Media based in Dublin, contains some fascinating stats about social media usage in the UK. Check the website out because they have a free e-book too.

The secret of a good debate is to choose a motion controversial enough to attract along a sizeable audience, but with enough subtleties and ambiguities that top quality speakers can explore without resort to dogmatism or play acting. After last year’s clasically contentious “This house believes that the e-learning of today is essential for the important skills of tomorrow" (90 for, 144 against), it was always going to be hard for Epic, the organisers of The E-Learning Debate, to come up with something to grab the imagination as readily, particularly now that several hundred of us have been able to experience the novelty of a debate in the Oxford Union. So, how about this?

”This house believes that technology-based informal learning is more style than substance."

The E-Learning Debate 2010 will take place at 4pm on October 6th. A prestigious speaker list includes informal learning guru Jay Cross (speaking against), author and academic Dr Alison Rossett (speaking for) and, just announced, Professor William Dutton of the Oxford Internet Institute.

Some of the arguments are predictable:

• Most of what we learn is learned informally.
• Much of our work and social lives requires us to engage with technology.
• Therefore technology-based informal learning is very much of substance.
• On the other hand, informal and social learning is a fashionable topic.
• Yet it hardly appears on the radar of the average learning and development professional.
• Therefore it is all about style.

But it’s not as simple as that is it? Act fast if you want a place at the debate and a part in the outcome.

See my report on last year’s inaugural debate.

A recent posting on Mashable reports some interesting data from Resolve Market Research based on an online survey of potential purchasers and active users of iPads, smart phones, e-readers and portable video game devices in the USA. It provides some insights into the uses early adopters are finding for their iPads and the effect this is having on competitive devices:

The iPad was initially positioned as a device for reading, watching videos and web browsing. Only 28% of prospective purchasers said their main use would be playing games. However, having got hold of the iPad, 38% then said they no longer intended to buy a portable gaming device. True, even more (49%) said they would no longer be buying an e-book reader, but that was only to be expected. Owning an iPad had a much lower impact on people’s intentions to go on and buy a netbook (32%) or MP3 player (29%).

Surprising was that, for 37% of respondents, the iPad was their first Apple purchase. When you consider the ubiquity of the iPod and the number of iPhone and MacBook users out there, this is providing Apple with a host of new potential customers for their other products.

The early adopters of the iPad are young professionals, aged 22-45, which is hardly surprising. However, the group that’s following in their footsteps is not their kids but their parents, aged 45+. This gels with my own experience – the iPad gives you much of the functionality of a general purpose computer, but it doesn’t look or act like one. For many people it will be all they want.

It’s only fair to also say that 55% of prospective and actual users stated that they regarded the iPad as an expensive toy. In my view that’s not going to stop people buying them, and if the device continues to be used in more and more imaginative ways, it may well become as indispensable as all those other gadgets we now take for granted.

Recently I got an email from 'Sean, a fellow learning theory/tool fiend... I'm also a first year student at Harvard Medical School but I just launched my own tech-heavy learning project on the side. It's called Excel Everest (http://www.ExcelEverest.com), and it's a fully interactive "book" about Microsoft Excel, but written in an Excel file. It has 41 topics, 155 exercises, 339 buttons, and 87 embedded videos.'

There's a great introductory video on YouTube.

Well I tried it and it's a wonderful resource. Learning Excel within Excel is a great idea that works; you get to try out all sorts of fancy formulae and formatting right inside the tool - not by simulation but for real. Not only that, it's written in clear, friendly English with a heavy dose of humour. And did I mention that it's also challenging? Not patronisingly easy like so much IT training.

This would get my vote for a e-learning design award. If you're an IT trainer, get this and sit back while it does the job for you.

In his posting Depressing study of L&D, Donald Clark quotes research by Coleman and Parkes in Spring of this year, which involved interviews with 100 key decision-makers at major UK companies. Apparently this showed that:

• 70% see inadequate staff skills as a barrier to growth.
• 40% see a risk of employee skills being obsolete.
• 55% claim that l&d are failing to deliver necessary training.
• 46% doubt that l&d can deliver.
• Less than 18% agree that l&d is aligned with business

Now I haven't seen this research in any detail, so I don't know how objective these results really are. But let's suppose they're true and my instinct tells me that they probably are. I'd be inclined to point the finger of blame (not a nice thing to do but hey) at the key decision-makers themselves:

• What on earth are you doing tolerating such poor performance (at least as you perceive it)?

• Would you sit back and do nothing if other departments performed so poorly?

• What direction have you been giving to your l&d team?

• On what basis did you appoint your l&d manager?

• How much do you understand about the process of learning? If not very much, then what are you going to do about this?

The reality in my experience is that many major organisations do well in spite of themselves. Most departments have their fair share of hopeless cases and it's probable that l&d has exceeded its quota. But don't blame those on the shop floor, the trainers themselves, because they're simply doing what they're told and, to be fair, what has always been done. Most are extremely dedicated and hard-working. The majority do get results at the level of the individual learner, but probably not results that are strategically important.

If there is a problem, and this survey indicates that there probably is in more companies than is acceptable, then this is a problem of management. L&d requires strong and assertive leadership, like any other business function. And it needs to start by educating those above to understand the realities of adult learning in the workplace, not the business of processing employees through courses.

A recent article in The Economist, The evolving blogosphere, clarified for me how blogs have changed over the past five years and where they now sit amongst the panoply of social media applications. Not so long ago it was thought, almost assumed, that everyone would ultimately run their own blog - it was just a question of time before we all found something to say, gathered up the courage and started spouting off our opinions to those two billion or so internet users out there. It hasn't happened, and for several very good reasons:

1. Early adoption of blogs was dominated by simple status updates, published for the benefit of friends and family. This functionality is just as  popular now and even more widespread but has shifted almost entirely to social networking sites such as Facebook and microblogging sites like Twitter.
2. Those who wanted to express themselves in more depth on a topic soon discovered that (a) this was hard work requiring a fair amount of commitment, and that (b) you will be in competition for readers with many others around the world who may have more to say and more eloquent ways of saying it than you.

Blogging is a specialist form of journalism, typically but not always aimed at a niche audience, and usually a voluntary, unpaid additon to the day job. A blog is essentially a regular column, with the added advantage that it can generate responses and a degree of dialogue. That may not be all that blogging thought it could become but it's still a very valuable addition to our online existence.

It's fashionable to sneer at the idea that a particular technology is merely a solution looking desperately for a problem to justify its existence. But I'm not so sure that a rational process always has to start with a problem and move dispassionately to a solution - the process is more dynamic and interactive than that. At the eLearning Network's Showcase last week, I had time to reflect on a number of technologies that were under discussion - the iPad, interactive PDFs (if you haven't spotted these, then these are next generation Acrobat documents that can incorporate interactive multimedia elements) and good old Second Life. The advocates of each of these could be accused of hunting for problems to solve in the world of learning technologies. As I contemplated these three technologies, I scanned all those problems currently and historically faced by any of my colleagues and clients to see whether I could find an application. Essentially, I had a bunch of solutions and I was looking for problems.

You do not have to wait until you have a new problem to solve and then sift through each of the currently available technologies to find the most appropriate solution. What about all the current solutions you have in place? Would any of these new technologies do the job better? That's why it pays to take a keen interest in each new technology and to remain as open minded as possible. It doesn't matter that the technology is launched as a solution looking for problems. And vendors often seriously misjudge what the applications for their products will be - they need the collective wisdom of many thousands of customers to come up with ideas that really work. Of course, some solutions never find problems and they disappear from view. But don't be put off because applications aren't instantly obvious - it can take quite a while for the great ideas to come forward.

So, checking existing problems to see whether new solutions will fit is fine with me. But inventing or reshaping a problem to fit a fashionable solution, now that's another thing completely.

I finally got round to reading David Wilkins lengthy and emotive post A Defense of the LMS on his Social Enterprise Blog. What struck me was not his arguments for the continuing use of the learning management system in an increasingly social media age, but his apparent desperation to get this viewpoint taken seriously when it so obviously conflicts with the current fashionable viewpoint, i.e. that LMSs have had their day, largely because top down, formal learning is soon to be obsolete.

Where I sympathise with David is that popular opinion (by which I mean among commentators on l&d, not actual practitioners) is so black and white, so polarised: what's new and fashionable doesn't just build on current practice it completely invalidates it; everything we do currently is the work of misguided dummies who have their heads firmly planted in the sand.

So, we are supposed to believe that formal learning is always wrong and informal learning always right; similarly for face-to-face v online, top-down v bottom-up, discovery learning v structured instruction, training v performance support, passive v interactive content, 2D v 3D, static v animated and so on. Any practitioner who has to run a real-life l&d function for a large organisation would laugh at the suggestion that all learning should be driven by learners, informally, as and when needed. Not only would this not work in very many cases, it would break numerous laws.

I am of course a keen supporter of social media, informal learning et al, as is David Wilkins (as he pleads time and again in his posting). I'm keen to see the balance shift away from top-down, classroom-dominated, just-in-case learning interventions. But I use the word balance advisedly. The discriminating l&d strategist will realise that it all depends on the situation, as it always does. Absolute positions are fine if you don't have to act upon them or to suffer the consequences.

I suspect that many of us find it hard to concentrate when we really need to put in a sustained effort to prepare a report or a presentation, read a document, write a script, create or edit media assets, generate code or assemble an e-learning module - in fact, all the things that e-learning people do most of the time. These tasks require single-minded concentration, sometimes over many hours, even days. How unfortunate, then, that in those times when we are less busy, we choose to install a whole load of apps that focus almost entirely on interrupting us - email, Twitter, Facebook et al.

I was amused, therefore, to read in The Economist (Stay on target, June 10) that it is now possible to buy software to protect you from other bits of software:

"Some programs fill the whole screen to keep disturbing alerts hidden; others disable specific websites, such as Facebook, or even cut off internet access altogether. The idea is similar to parental-control programs that prevent children from accessing inappropriate content: but these are controls that grown-up users deliberately impose upon themselves."

Examples include Freedom, Isolator and Think. As an example, Freedom cuts off your internet access for the number of hours that you plan to keep focussed. Once set up, the only way of over-riding this constraint is to re-boot.

Without the benefit of this software (and I'm not sure I would have the courage to turn it on, any more than an alcoholic would voluntarily go on holiday to Saudi Arabia) then there is an alternative, at least for me. I've always found trains to be the perfect places to concentrate and get things done - that's where I'm writing this post and probably a good half of all those that came before. The reason is that you tend to get really patchy cell phone coverage on a train journey, so even if you're armed with a smart phone and a 3G dongle, you'll be lucky to get more than a few periods of decent signal. Rather than let this bother you, it's easier to shut out the rest of the world and get your head down.

The Big Question for July on the ASTD Learning Circuits Blog is “Does the discussion of ‘how the brain learns’ impact your elearning design?” To emphasise the extent of this discussion, Tony Karrer lists 32 blog postings, including two of mine:

Brain rules – where does that leave us?, June 22, 2009

The art of changing the brain, May 13, 2008

The answer in my case is a quite simple ‘yes’. I have gained a great deal of benefit from what I have read on this subject and I have made every effort to integrate this into any design work I have undertaken over the past couple of years. The answer for the design community as a whole should also be ‘yes’, because this stuff has relevant and practical application, but I rather suspect that a great many designers take little time to get themselves up-to-date in their own professional discipline and are still working on the basis of the old instructional design theories from the 1950s.

Neuroscience hasn’t caused a complete rewrite of learning psychology, because in many cases it has only confirmed existing good practice. What this new focus on objective and relatively unbiased research has done is to (1) help us to recognise the pop psychology for what it is and (2) to create a bridge between the opposing forces in learning and development (the behaviourist/cognitivists and the constructivists). That is progress enough.

I’ve just joined another Wetpaint site that seems to offer some interesting considerations of required shifts in communication strategies for educational institutions.  IN terms of communication, what can schools, teachers, administrators learn from students.  While the focus seems to be upon K-12 contexts at this stage, based on recent exprrience I think there is plenty [...]

It has been really interesting to watch Old Aunties attempts to embrace the possibilities of web2.0 and participatory culture. My favourite show on the one-way-box “Q&A” is an excellent example. It is very engaging to watch the video mash-ups submitted by pensioners and students alike, and hearing the challenging questions from the audience. Even just [...]

Are flash based Learning Objects dead?  They sure are expensive - since 2001 the Teaching & Learning Federation (TLF) has used “AUD$123 million ….. divided by 6300 curriculum items. That’s close to AUD$20,000 for each single (eg, Flash) TLF curriculum item,” observed Stephen Loosley (Member, Victorian Institute of Teaching) when he opened some excellent discussion [...]

Kim Flintoff drew the attention of readers of the fantastic West Australian eChalk email list to this video - eSN TechWatch: Preparing Kids for 21st-Century Success. Kim observed: Yet another smart person (Daniel Pink) recognises what needs to be done in education – why don’t things change? Interesting that embedded arts is identified as [...]

This public service campaign video was filmed at the CoSN (Consortium for School Networking) annual conference. The wisdom with which educational leaders like Alan November, Greg Whitby, and Stephen Heppell explicate the urgency of giving teachers the tools to connect with 21C learning and their students is poignant in this video. The massive task [...]

This Technology Integration Matrix is a very handy reference point for school administrators, especially those ready to take the plunge and give students the opportunity of 1:1 access the Digital Education Revolution funding offers. It is worthwhile clicking on the links under each indicator to see how the integration works in both shared and 1:1 learning [...]

As @dswaters pointed out at the recent ECAWA unconference I am not the most social creature online these days! I do engage with some discussions on email lists and a little bit more lately on Twitter but in general this year I have not really been joining in the dialogue of the blogosphere as [...]

Technology now dominates every area of our lives and educators need to make sure they are prepared for its inclusion into our schools. This may mean making a break from traditional teaching methods; but there is no denying the inevitability of technology being thrust into curricula around the country. Many teachers may be [...]

Paul Fuller was our special guest in a live Digital Chalkie webcast in this conversation around how one globally aware primary school got their one-to-one parent funded notebook program off the ground please tune-in. Paul explains about the students’ reactions, planning, financing, technical and pedagogical shifts. Below is a podcast of Digital Chalkie webcast #6: How [...]

Great - we finally have computers making their way into the hands of Australian students. But what if they don’t have access to the internet that will really equip then as 21C learners when they get home? (I’ve written more about the Meraki solution on my own blog here.) In this scenario, I have been [...]

CLO magazine Published June 2010 When you talk to businesspeople, you must speak as they do. Executives only care about training as it relates to execution. Their interest is in moving the corporation forward. You should share that interest. That is what they pay you for. A sponsor is the person who pays those bills. [...]

is hosting the European Premier of The Working Smarter Fieldbook | June 2010 Edition Authors Jane Hart, Charles Jennings, & Jay Cross will sign books 2:00 – 3:00 pm, Thursday, July 22, 2010 at the Guiness Storehouse

Bob Morris pointed me toward this article that appeared in Strategy+Business last November: What’s So Special about Special Ops? by Andrew Sobel The article describes how Green Berets, SEALs, and Air Force Special Tactics units learn to do their extraordinary jobs. The story contains invaluable lessons for corporations. The training that SOF personnel go through [...]

Two weeks hence, I’ll be enjoying the west coast of Ireland, just me and my iPad for the better part of a week at the Dolphin Beach House on the Lower Sky Road, Clifden. The iPad aspect will be interesting. I have many ideas and doodles I want to capture. Will the iPad help or [...]

FOR SALE: Professional Library of Jay Cross Buy them all. I will throw in an afternoon on my back deck in Berkeley going over what I thought were the major messages of as many volumes as you wish. Shelves of inspiring books. Strong on instructional design, management, learning, eLearning, marketing & sales, and psychology.  Some [...]

Gnomedex, Chris Pirillo’s two-day intensive for geeks, takes place August 19-21 in Seattle. I’ve been to the last five — and I’ll be there again this year. Every time, I meet people who become movers and shakers in tech and move ahead of the curve for a while. Join me — it costs only $300 [...]

The performance of workers used to have bounds. The fastest bricklayer was maybe 20% faster than the average bricklayer. In conceptual work, the sky’s the limit. A superstar may generate $50 million in value while the average employee brings in a meager $50 thousand. Several things are going on here. For one, rates of production [...]

I am moving the My Documents folders from all of my computers to one Dropbox. Dropbox is the equivalent of a hard drive in the cloud. I’ve been using the free version (2 GB) for months without any hassles. Dropbox lets me work on files offline; it syncs when I’m back on the net. It [...]

Canon PowerShot S90 10MP Digital Camera with 3.8x Wide Angle Optical Image Stabilized Zoom and 3-inch LCD $349.95 $362.42 with extra battery (which you will want to have) I continue to be impressed with the Canon S90. Great in low-light conditions. (I never use the flash.) Fast lens. Vibrant colors. While no camera is idiot-proof, [...]