stickylearning

The step-wise evolution of Social Learning

For a few months now this post has been bouncing around my head. It's been through a number of diferent forms until earlier today I read a science article that brought it all together for me. The article I read was titled, "Step-wise evolution of stable sociality in primates", I'll provide the link at the end of this post for those inclined to dig a little more deeply.

There was one particular finding that resonated with me, and it was represented nice and simply by the following diagram:

Put very simply, the study found that primates went through a series of steps in forming the social groups that are found across all species of primates today. That is from living as solitary animals, through stages of loose connections until stable social groups are formed. As I read the study, and this point in particular, this blog post idea came back in focus in my mind.

So, with this little introduction in your mind I'll now go back into my original thinking for this post - and I'll tell it in three parts.

1. Learning when flying solo
2. Lurking in an open plan office
3. Part of the furniture

OK, let's get into it!

Part 1 – Learning when flying solo

I work as a freelance learning designer with assignments typically lasting from just days through to weeks and occasionally months. Mostly I work alone in the relative calm of my home office.

I enjoy what I do but working solo is by definition solitary. This means that it's more difficult to keep my own learning going – I need to actively seek out learning, and social contact.

The internet is my window to the world of knowledge and learning, I surf the internet, its blogs and communities, finding some content interesting, some less so. Without a doubt the internet helps me to learn, you can’t help reading something that’s interesting. I surf the internet to learn whatever I need to, whether it’s how to build a website and upload it, writing blogs, presentation design ideas, cooking, gardening and on and on and on and on................

So, while on one hand I’m busy working away on the other hand I’m learning by reading...and participate, but not always because sometimes I lurk. I’ll jump into an online conversation when it really interests me and I might ask a question or put forward my thoughts. A good deal of the time however, because I'm working and seeing heaps of stuff, I filter what I read and decide if and when to participate.

So, I work solo, I participate in online conversations and I also lurk.

Part 2 - Lurking in an open plan office

At the moment I’m doing a fair bit of work embedded in the offices of a large Australian company designing a range of business leadership programs. So whilst I normally work from my office at home my current environment is a change from this.

The office itself is very large and open plan; you hear people talking .... you learn things. I’ve got work to do so I don’t always jump in when I hear something interesting....and to be honest when I first sat at my desk I didn’t really know people very well anyway. But I’ve got ears and some things you hear are either relevant to what you’re working on or just interesting.

So, while on one hand I’m busy working away, on the other hand I’m learning by listening...and not (always) participating, I still do some lurking. Of course I’ll jump into a conversation every now and then to ask a question or put forward my thoughts but mostly I work away, hearing heaps of stuff, filtering and deciding if and when to participate.

So, I’m a visitor working in an office. I do some socialising and some lurking.

Part 3 – Part of the furniture

Now let’s look into the crystal ball, at least a year into one possible future. In this future I’ve become more a ‘part’ of this office environment (this must mean i've done some very good work!). I’ve got to know many more people and they know me too. I still hear heaps of stuff and choose when to participate, but I do more participating and probably a bit less lurking, I’m more comfortable in the environment - I’m becoming part of the furniture.

I’ve made quite a few connections now; I’m included in the social goings-on. People drop by my desk to ask questions and I drop by theirs too. I’m socially comfortable and this changes how I learn - I participate more and lurk less.

What does this all show?

Let's go back to the diagram from the primate study. In it there are three steps in the evolution of sociality. I like this stepped approach as a way of describing how people build sociality on the internet. 

What it tells me is that we should expect that learners themselves will be at different steps in the evolution of their own internet sociality. It is probably also helpful to imagine that people move through these social steps at different speeds - what is fast for some seems recalcitrant to others.

It is here where undersatanding needs to kick in, you cannot expect all people to interact in online social communities just like you do. Some people jump right in confidently expressing their views and questioning the ideas of others. There are other people who will choose to lurk in the internet shadows, listening, dipping their toes in occasionally and building confidence in the whole thing. 

If you examine the actions of the lurker through the stepped evolution model it becomes clear that they have moved from the solitary world to the unstable social. They may decide to take the next step to the world of stable social if they see a reason for doing so, it can be OK to 'just show up'. What others in communities can do to help lurkers participate more is to accept that participation styles vary - there is no 'one size fits all'.

Links:

I came to the Stepped Evolution article via the BBC website that ran a report summarising key findings, then followed the internal link to purchase the full article in the Nature Journal of Science.

I've also read a number of other blog posts on lurking, particularly these three articles:

Lurking is Learning by Dan Pontefract

Lurking and Loafing by Steve Wheeler

Lurking or Peripheral Participation by Christy Wheeler

Where to from here?

Let me know what you think, that is if you're not lurking!

Touching the Earth Lightly - 10 thoughts for learning design

As someone who makes his livelihood by designing and facilitating learning experiences for businesses I should encourage all businesses to design bigger. Bigger, longer workshops, more complex online learning, more post-workshop mentoring and more assessments of all sorts - in all ways possible I should encourage business to design learning that works best for me. Bigger, bigger, bigger....

Mmmm! Well that's what seems to be happen a fair bit of the time! Big, complex learning interventions! Even within businesses there seems to be a desire to impress others with the size and complexity of programs. If it doesn't look impressively large it mustn't be much good - seems to be the message.

But, who is learning designed for? Really?

OK, it's obvious, learning should be designed to increase learning effectiveness. What does effective learning look like? Well, I'll make it simple, effective learning helps the learner perform more effectively in their work environment. (More effective learning = mastery of skills/knowledge + more control over their work + a clear purpose - which all in turn leads to better workplace productivity)

So, let's now look at the title of this post. 'Touching the Earth Lightly' is the architectural design philosophy of renowned Australian Architect Glenn Murcutt. (Here is a link and here is another that fill you in on who Glenn Murcutt is and you might also see why I'd love a house in the Australian bush designed by him!)

Here's my reading of the term, 'Touching the Ground Lightly'. It is about being less obtrusive in the landscape, making a building sit comfortably in it's place without having to rebuild the landscape to fit the building. It is about designing a building to fit the place, not the place to fit the building.

How did this make me think of learning? Simple. Here's 10 thoughts that come to mind.

1. Design learning that is unobtrusive
2. Design learning that is embedded in practice
3. Design learning that doesn't look like learning
4. Design learning where the learner is in control
5. Design learning that encourages sharing
6. Design learning for 'in the moment' needs
7. Design learning that fosters creativity
8. Design learning that is evolutionary nor revolutionary
9. Design learning for learners
10. Design learning that touches the ground lightly!

 

Design with, not for.

I've had a short phrase stuck in my head now for a few weeks, in fact it is stuck so well that I have found myself using it numerous times when speaking with clients.

The phrase is:

Design with, not for.

 

A simple philosophy, however so often it is the straightforward things that cut right to the heart of the matter! When designing learning we have a choice, to push our approach, emphases, content, style etc onto our learners and clients. In other words we can 'design for'.

There is another (better) way of approaching design that instead seeks to understand in detail the unique needs of learners and clients, their cultures, unique outlooks and anything else that may have an impact upon learning. The result, design is pulled towards learners' needs. It isn't an off the shelf 'solution' but rather a solution for their learning need. 

Put the idea in your head, you might find it popping up just at the right time to help you improve your learning design.

My Top 10 'Learning' books from 2010

Another year comes towards to an end and its been another year of great reading for anyone with an interest in learning. Once again I have read from a wide range of areas, all with something to add to how I think of learning. Below you'll find my top recommendations for the year along with a short summary of what I got out of reading each book. I haven't put these in a top ten order this year, there were so many contenders for the number one spot! Do you think there is a standout number one? Let me know.

PresentationZen Design - Garr Reynolds

Probably no real surprise for anyone who has read my blog, I really like the way Garr Reynolds has brought a sense of design to slideware. PresentationZen Design is his follow up to the slide-show stopping Presentation Zen of 2008. It is really an expansion of the design section from the original book, adding a good deal of extra information and ideas along the way. I do not think there can be any doubt that design has an impact upon how learners interact with learning materials, this book is a real help for those who would like to make sure that the learning tools that they design are engaging and effective for learners. Oh, and one extra tip, Garr has his third book, The Naked Presenter about to hit the shelves, I'm sure it will be a great way to start my reading for next year!

resonate - Nancy Duarte

The power of story telling in learning is enormous, we all tend to remember information when its woven into a meaningful and engaging story. Nancy Duarte's second book, resonate, is subtitled 'present stories that transform audiences' . I found that I couldn't put the book down, there is a new idea and lesson on every page. The book mixes things up with a series of illuminating examples of great speeches and great communicators - not all of them expected, they range from Steve Jobs and Martin Luther King Jr to Mozart and Alfred Hitchcock. From each of her examples Nancy draws lessons for the reader and illustrates these story lessons through the use of a 'sparkline' that is a visual way of showing how a speech is constructed. A good deal of the work that I do is really about weaving stories for learners and I found that the book has provided many ideas to improve what I do.

Change by Design - Tim Brown

Change by Design just missed last years's list (I hadn't quite finished it) For those who mightn't know, Tim Brown is the CEO of the design firm IDEO who, in this book shares his ideas on how design thinking can be used within organisations to drive innovation.

The book presents through a range of stories/case studies and provides glimpses of the creative/design process used within IDEO. 'Design Thinking' has (to me) real applications to learning design and there are enough good ideas and new approaches within this book to make it well worth a read! 

Drive - Dan Pink

Drive is an easily readable book, crammed with examples and anecdotes, Dan Pink looks to build a new way of looking at motivation. He argues that the established (old) ways of motivating, through what he terms, 'carrots and sticks' don't work anymore (except in particular circumstances) In short carrots encourage us to do something for a reward, sticks can be used to punish unwanted behaviours. Businesses and indeed learning uses both these approaches, bonuses for performance, A+ for excellence etc. Pink argues that there are better motivators in today's world and these are the trio of Autonomy, Mastery and Purpose. Autonomy - we like to be self directed (informal learning), Mastery - we like to be good at things, Purpose - we'll work harder at things when we can see the bigger purpose. A good book and well worth the read!

Switch - Chip and Dan Heath

Made to Stick was Chip and Dan Heath's first book and in fact a key driver to me beginning this blog. So when they released their second book Switch this year I had it on pre-order from Amazon as soon as it was listed! This book is all about how to change, yourself and/or others. I won't go into detail here, except to say that they provide an interesting and usable approach to encouraging change, using a three step approach - Step 1 - Direct the Rider; Step 2 - Motivate the Elephant: Step 3 - Shape the Path. Now these might sound a little unusual, but the model is interesting and as learning is essentially about change, from what we know and do now to what we could do be, this book and it's model for change provides some new ways of thinking about things!

Better than Bullet Points - Jane Bozarth

I'd been meaning to read Better than Bullet Points for a while but only got around to it a few months ago now. As you might have noticed through my reading of PresentationZen and Slide:ology I have an interest in improving the use of Powerpoint and other slideware in presentations and learning environments. Powerpoint however is also used as a starting place for the development of elearning. Unfortunately a good deal of elearning is actually really e-reading and I was keen to see what Jane had to say about using Powerpoint more effectively in the development of elearning courses. Put simply, the book is a great resource for anyone who will be using Powerpoint in the development of elearning courses. The book focuses upon the effective design of elearning first and the use of Powerpoint second. Throughout the book and the included CD-ROM there are piles of practical examples and case studies. An essential addition to your bookshelf!

The Black Swan - Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Not a standard learning text by any means! The Black Swan is part philosophy, part economics, challenging your preconceptions and assumptions. I'm sure NNT (as the author refers to himself) would question many of my book choices here as many of them use limited examples and case studies to help to provide proofs for their ideas. NNT isn't a fan of generalising from limited observations, he's an empiricist who probably can only be certain of what he has seen himself. Why is it titled The Black Swan? Simple, for thousands of years (in fact forever) people in Europe would describe swans as being white, that was just a given. Just as the sky is blue, swans were white. But in Australia swans aren't white, they're black. Much of what we assume to be truths are really only theories waiting to be disproved, waiting for a black swan. What has it got to do with learning? Well here's one angle. traditional formal learning is about 'teaching' accepted practice, how to do things, what is right - it teaches what could be termed White Swan knowledge. Informal learning on the other hand doesn't have a set curriculum, it is flexible and ready for Black Swans. A challenging read, best done when you can get some quiet time to think, it also messes with your head a bit, but the outcome is a new way of looking at things and that is always good!

The New Social Learning - Marcia Conner and Tony Bingham

I read this book and said to myself The New Social Learning is the best book I've read for ages, and it is! It looks at how social media can help to create a whole new platform for learning within businesses. This quote from the book begins to explain the book's focus, "In large part, innovation and learning comes from the little moments between the activities we've previously thought of as 'real' work." Social media provides a way of sharing these 'little moments' it is a way of increasing collaboration within organisations, of breaking down silos of finding solutions to new problems in real time. This book is about what is happening in many businesses today and will continue to grow, people are social creatures and social media provides another avenue for people to do what they do best, to learn from each other.

Social Media for Trainers - Jane Bozarth

 

Social Media for Trainers is a really helpful book for trainers who would like a new addition to their suite of learning methods/tool. I won't go into how social media can be used for learning, Jane's book however provides a series of practical tips, case studies and ideas that trainers can use to support learning. Social media looked at includes Twitter, Facebook, Blogging, Wikis and a bunch of other tools. Whether you're across all these tools or not, this book is a great resources filled with really good ideas for using the new social media tools to improve your learners' experience.

Amazon Kindle

OK, not a book and mine's still on it's way however I already know that it will be worth it. I've been using Kindle on my iPad and that's good, but having all my books with me in a lightweight reader will be great and I can get a new book right away without having to wait for delivery from the US. They're cheap too, mine's going to be the wifi/3G model, $189 Australian, I'll save this in 6 months by buying ebooks instead of 'real' books. I don't like writing in my books, (just a hangup of mine) but in the Kindle I'll be able to bookmark and highlight text to my heart's content, great for helping me find what I'm looking for. (BTW why a Kindle and an iPad? I can never get to use the iPad, everyone wants to use it at once!) 

 

So, another great year of reading, ideas challenged and horizons opened. Looking forward to 2011 now!

(Learning) Design with Intent

A few months ago I came across an excellent and free resource that I have now used parts of when designing learning solutions for clients, it's called "Design with Intent" and is the creation of Dan Lockton (a PhD student at Brunel University), along with Professor David Harrison and Professor Neville Stanton.

In this post I'll introduce you briefly to the tools and how I think they apply to learning design. You can also find out heaps more by going to Dan Lockton's "Design with Intent" page (where you can download the tools for free!) as well as the Design with Intent Wiki where you'll be able to read even more about the system and the thinking behind it!

What does the Design with Intent approach look like?

The tool is named Design with Intent for a reason, it seeks to provide a way of designing "to influence or result in certain user behaviour". Now for anyone who has ever struggled to design learning solutions that go beyond simple knowledge and skills towards broader behavioural learning objectives you will appreciate the intent of the tool and why I was attracted to the tool to assist in learning design. My interest in it goes beyond this however, as I'm very interested in the design of different learning options/tools that better engage people and lead to more effective learning experiences.

The Design with Intent (DWI) approach seeks to challenge your way of thinking to place questions in front of you, to make you consider a variety of solutions. As Dan pits it in his wiki it is an 'idea generation tool, provoking design ideas by asking questions and giving examples of particular principles in action'. It is a little like the IDEO cards that I have also used at different times, but the difference with DWI is that it is a lot more behaviourally oriented in it's approach.

Here are two cards from the deck that I'll use as examples:

This card challenges how I lay out information, use typefaces, colours, link to other resources, make anything stand out from the crowd, direct peoples' attention. It makes me think this through, I'm less likely to skip over it or not to consider something. It's like having someone look over your shoulder and challenge what you're doing!

This card makes me think, 'what can I do to draw people into the learning, build motivation, keep them connected and engaged. I mightn't do the 'First one free' thing, but it's got me thinking about engagement and motivation.

Are you getting the picture - even a little?

In fact there are 101 cards! These are broken into 8 lens each one designed to assist in resolving different design problems. The 8 (colour coded) lens are:

Architectural: relates to issues of the environment in which the design problem exists. Generally this relates to the physical environment but could also be applied to the design of learning tools and how these tools are organised for learners.

Error-proofing: is about designing solutions that prevent users from making errors. For example, providing users with feedback to check their intent before committing, ie "Did you mean....?'

Interaction: links interactions and behaviour, for example the use of progress bars to indicate how far you have progressed through an online learning course, giving users feedback as they use the system, tailoring solutions based on individual learners' needs

Ludic: uses 'games' thinking to build engagement, for example leaving gaps to fill, building collections, creating learning levels and so on. It seeks to build 'playfulness' into the design

Perceptual: can you use colour, contrast, proximity and other design tools to suggest associations, links and/or differences to users to direct their behaviour?

Cognitive: uses ideas from cognitive psychology to look at how people make decisions and look to how decision making can be influenced through design

Machiavellian: this lens comes from the school of 'the end justifies the means'! Forced choice, 'locking out' unwanted choices, can you drive behaviour towards your desired outcomes?

Security: here you could build a system where 'learning' is supervised or tracked in some way or direct learners to certain options based on their previous behaviour.

How could this be applied to learning design?

As I've said already, I see two uses for this system in learning design.

1. As a way of approaching behavioural learning needs, the DWI approach challenges your thinking and indeed presents options to you. For example the Ludic (games) lens could provide ideas on how to influence the behaviour of salespeople in a retail environment by providing unpredictable reinforcement of wanted behaviours, using rewards and scores, making a meme of your plan. This can all be used in the design of the learning itself, whether on-job, workshop or online-based. Make it fun, influence perceptions and in turn bahviours.
2. Alternatively DWI can be used in the design of learning tools themselves. Whether this is in the graphic design appearances that comes out of the Perceptual Lens, or the Architecture of the learning environment or how learners Interact with the learning tool. 

The options and applications never seem to end. For me however the DWI cards repeatedly remind me that I do not have all the solutions, BUT with a little prodding from DWI I can approach learning design problems from previously unthought of angles.

An excellent addition to my bundle of tools (and yours too!)

(As I said you can download the cards for free, however I recently bought a pack and can see myself using them more than ever!) Click here to purchase!

 

 

Social Learning - this is how it can look!

Let's begin with some context to this post!

Like many of my blog posts the ideas come when two or more ideas collide in my head and I think, Mmm, that's interesting. Writing the blog post itself is one of the ways I get my thoughts in (some sort of) order.

Right now I'm reading an excellent book, The New Social Learning by Marcia Conner and Tony Bingham. Once I've finished the book I'll certainly write a comprehensive review. The book has again turned my mind towards the question of using social media tools to provide another channel for organisational learning.

As these thoughts were bouncing about my mind recalled a recent TED video of Sugata Mitra speaking on child-driven education. (You can watch it below)

A very interesting video but for me the interest here is that children working together socially were able to learn what they needed to without anything that looked like traditional formal learning. In fact, the idea was that Sugata would simply leave a computer for village children in India to use and that was that! Amazingly the children learnt to use the computer, they also learnt how to speak English with a more 'English' accent and also learnt a good deal of a Biotechnology course (in English) Remember, this was all done on their own without a 'teacher'!

So what has this to do with social media?

Well, I think it is an excellent example of how people can solve problems together by talking through problems with other people. Provide them with engaging tools and let them go - together. 

Social media really is just a technological 'tweak' of what you see in the video. Instead of children in a village there are employees in an organisation communicating through various social media tools. As in the video, someone may for a time become the teacher, helping others with a problem, whilst others will provide encouragement (like the 'method of the grandmother' in the video)

And perhaps the most important point is that social media often works just as the learning in the video, people often do not see what they are doing as 'learning'. But honestly, who cares, as long as people are learning!

So how about organisations?

Provide engaging tools that allow employees to find what they need to know, when they need to know it. Provide these tools within an online social environment, allowing people to engage with and learn with other people. Allow the system to self-organise, build trust within the organisation.

So, to wrap this up.

Learning can (should?) be social, people can do it amongst themselves without formal structures and it mightn't even look like learning!

Oh, and buy The New Social Learning, really, it's worth the read! (and if you want to know more about it, I'll write a post on it in a week's time!)

Lists are the enemy of learning!

I have to begin here by saying, I've never been a fan of lists, I like things a little more 'free-form', I find lists stifling. 

Lists put an artificial order on things, they say, after doing/reading this, the next 'logical' point is X. To make matters worse, we tend to prioritise lists by placing numbers next to each point, we tell the reader, 'point 1 before point 2, before point 3....'. When you put something in a list you tend to simplify things because a list is really a series of BRIEF points...no explanation, let's keep things brief!

A list forces you to move on to the next point and the next....until a defined end - no discussion. And of course we've got the dreaded bullet pointed list! Arrgghh! Powerpoint or document, if it's in a bullet-pointed list your mind seems to go into a trance-like automatic state, 'must finish list' your mind repeats over and over! Finally we're all told to use 'To do' lists to 'improve our productivity'! Productive? Only if that means no creativity! I mean, you can't be creative if every moment of your day is 'time-managed' by a 'to do' list?

We are drawn to lists because of their ability to create a sense of certainty and predictability, lists feed our need to be 'in control'. But is it any wonder that we find our creative juices drying up! Isn't it obvious, following a list does NOT encourage creativity.

Lastly, creativity happens when two new ideas collide unexpectedly in your head...and is closely followed by learning. But how can you learn if you follow a list? There's nothing unexpected in a list. Quite simply, lists are the enemy of learning!

Informal Learning and Black Swans

Stickylearning got stuck!

If you've been reading my blog since it began early two years ago you will know that I like to read. I like to challenge how I think about things, books and blogs are a couple of ways I get new ideas to think about. Well this has been all well and good however (and I can't entirely blame the book here) I read a book in May/June that got me thinking so much I haven't blogged since. OK, that's not really fair, there have been other reasons, holidays, travel for work, pneumonia....But honestly The Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb (NNT for short) got so many ideas twirling around my head that I kept trying to write a blog post around it, but I couldn't get out what I wanted to say!
 
The answer (I think) is to not say too much! 

The Black Swan

So let's start with a (tiny) review of the book (try Wikipedia for a fuller outline). In The Black Swan, NNT's premise is that we only know what we know. This is OK until we 'kid' ourselves that what we know is all there is to know. For example, in the Northern Hemisphere all swans are naturally white. For thousands of years the only colour swan you could see was white. So, if someone asked you what colour swans were you would say, "white of course"! But down where I live in Australia, swans are black. When Europeans first arrived in Australia they were naturally shocked, "what, black swans! How extraordinary!" Only extraordinary, that is, if you'd assumed that all swans were white.

So, we extrapolate on imperfect information. A good example is cited by NNT. Imagine a chicken. Everyday it wakes up, is fed, does a small range of other chicken activities and goes to sleep. Life is predictable. The chicken can be sure that tomorrow it will be fed and at the end of the day it will sleep. Then one day it's head is chopped off. Whoops, the chicken didn't see that coming!

So here is the lesson in learning

Business learning today is designed to fill a skills or knowledge 'gap', to provide workers with skills and knowledge required in today's business world. In other words, 'predictable' learning needs lead to formal learning solutions - problem solved!

Not if you're the chicken it's not! The chicken could attend all the formal chicken courses it likes, such as, 'A Beginners Guide to Grain', 'Feather your Nest and Flourish' and the perennially popular leadership course, 'How to RULE your Roost' but NONE help when, chop, off goes your head!

Formal learning has it's place, definitely. It provides learners with skills and knowledge they're highly likely to need, today and tomorrow. The outcomes of formal learning are also generally predictable, learn X, be better at Y.

However, put all your eggs in the formal learning basket and you put yourself, your business, at risk. What if you're wrong? What if tomorrow isn't as you expected? What if there is a new competitor? What if there is a financial crisis? What if......?

This is where informal learning comes in. Let's try these descriptions of Informal Learning:

• Learning with no particular outcome in mind
• Learning for learning sake
• Learning that mightn't look like learning
• Learning directed by the individual, not the workplace
• Learning with no set time, no set place

Informal learning can help to develop skills and knowledge that may not seem important until they are. (if that makes sense?)

So, what should business do?

Simple answer: provide (more) opportunities for informal learning

If you have a 'L&D' budget of $X, allocate most of it (say 80%) to formal learning and the rest (20%) to encouraging informal learning. 

But remember:

• Formal learning provides practical and financial benefits for business, don't throw it away just because informal learning seems to be the new buzz word.
• Informal learning doesn't mean 'free' learning. Don't think that this 'new' idea means you can slash your learning budget.
• You might feel a need to control however if you try to 'formalise' the informal there's no informal left.

The Black Swan - a hell of a read! I recommend it, it might do your head in, but it will get you thinking.

What's wrong with Tweeting at conferences?

OK, here's my short follow up post as promised in my last post on the recent AITD conference!

Let's get to the point, I went to the conference primarily because of sessions keynotes and workshops on the use of social media in learning - a real interest of mine. (as you saw in my last post I did enjoy the conference!) I was however prepared to use Twitter during the conference, I've followed other people at conferences related to learning and have always found something of interest to me, following the tweets isn't as good as being there but the tweets give a taste and some ideas and links to follow up on. Throughout the conference I did the same thing, tweeting snippets of each keynote and workshop I attended and providing links to articles and information mentioned by speakers.

I decided to use the hashtag #aitd

I thought it a good guess that this would be the 'official' tag for the conference. Quickly I found that there were others using the same tag but guess how many? I'll give you a clue, there'd have been about 250+ people. Maybe you'd guess that 20 people tweeted, perhaps even 40 people. 

Well, in a word, no! All up there would have been 6 people. Two of the tweeters were themselves speaking at the conference on the use of social media - so you would have expected them to Tweet. Just a little surprised was I!

Why is this the case? Doesn't Twitter aid learning? 

I know that Tweeting helped me learn more at the conference. Following the few people who did Tweet brought me their perspectives on sessions, often challenging my own views, isn't that learning? 

Social media won't make the world of traditional learning fall down around us, however I do think that there is a distrust of some new technologies. To me it's simple, I learn in workshops, I learn from TV, I learn from working with other people. And do you know what? I learn every time new information and ideas enter my head. Here's the thing, my head doesn't care where the new stuff comes from, it just wants more of it - even if it's via Twitter!

Destinationism - why does it have to be this way?

What is destinationism?

Destinationism - probably not a real word so lets explain what I'm getting at! I have a 4 year old boy who is really beginning to love playing with Lego, alot like his Dad used to do! Looking at the Lego that's on sale these days however, I've noticed one key difference between Lego when I was a boy and today, let me explain.

Nearly all the Lego sold today is designed so that the builder has a particular item to build, for example my son has Lego to build the Millennium Falcon from Star Wars, a helicopter, a semi-trailer and so on. When the object is built it looks great, exactly as it does on the box and very much like the real thing. This is all good, but ...... When I was a boy my Lego was mainly red and white blocks in only 4-5 different sizes, from these blocks I designed and built whatever I wanted to. The results were never as 'beautiful' looking as today's purpose designed sets but the outcome was the result of my imagination and problem solving abilities. I could and did build pretty much anything I wanted, it made me creative in how I used the blocks.

Does today's Lego stifle creativity?

Well I think it does! My son, Tom, still builds things other than the exact project described in the instructions, however there is less 'free' play. Today, more often than not with Lego, you get what you (and everyone else) expects - a great looking, realistic model. But can you be as creative and adaptive? I'm not so sure.

Why is this a problem?

Well to me it reflects a similar philosophy running through much of our business culture today (probably started by Henry Ford and his production lines!) - there seems to be a template that describes how nearly everything 'is meant' be. It's like the old square peg and round hole problem, except today there is an expectation that we all fit into the round hole, if we happen to be square, we need a quick nip/tuck to 'fix' things up! Now I am talking about learning here as well (that is what this blog is generally about!)

Destinationism and Learning

Well no surprise here really, formal learning is all about completing a set course to agreed standards - fair enough for many purposes. A business does need to be sure that workers can work safely, or meet manufacturing standards consistently. The design of learning reflects this with an emphasis on 'training' discrete sets of skills, often in isolation from each other - almost as if they bear no relationship to the real and complex world in which they are used.

I'm probably waffling a bit here! What I'm getting at is that so much learning is very specific, with a particular 'destination' to be reached. The world has changed however and destinationism could be holding business back!

Solutions?

Well (fairly) simple really. We should design learning so that learners can perform the tasks required, BUT design the learning so that the learner isn't only able to build a Millennium Falcon! Learning should be designed so that learners can adapt their skills to new problems. Businesses today should pay heed to this, for no longer can you expect to 'train' a person so they can execute a skill then expect that same person to continue using that exact skill for many years to come - unchanged. The world changes at speeds undreamt of even ten years ago, destinationism might have been sensible once but today it would be better to have an innovative flexibly skilled workforce that a workforce whose skills are no longer relevant.