Entries Tagged 'results' ↓

The Soundbites of Training 2007
(second attempt)

Nanocasts are mini-podcasts are one to four minutes in length impromptui, not reheased cut to the chase These are from Training 2007.	My recorder is a Casio Exilim camera. It’s an amazing gizmo. Tiny. Thin. And can record an hour of video.
Nanocast with Frank Russell, GEO Learning	GeoLearning picked up the tab for Roger McGuinn.
Nanocast with Bjorn Brillhardt, Enspire Learning	Bjorn’s on the right. I’ve watched him grow Enspire from five guys working out of a house to a 50+ employee simulation powerhouse.
Nanocast with Howard Siebel, Veotag
Nanocast with Tony O’Driscoll, IBM Altus Learning Systems ProtonMedia	O’Driscoll Castle. I couldn’t find a good photo of Tony.
Nanocast with Harvey Singh, Instancy Training Growth Strategies, April 24-25, Cary, North Carolina	He looks better in person.

Do you think there’s a future for Nanocasting? Leave a comment.

Review of Informal Learning in this month’s T+D magazine. (pdf)

As someone who makes a living out of designing formal learning systems for large corporations, I was an unlikely candidate to buy into Jay Cross’s theory that formal learning is largely ineffective. But my curiosity got the better of me, and I found myself totally engrossed in his out-of-the-ordinary thinking on learning.

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At ASTD TechKnowledge, people either loved our message or hated it. They were as firm in their position as they are on abortion or the O.J. verdict. Informal learning is a devisive issue!

How can people be so opposed to something that, if added to the status quo, results in better performance?

Upon reflection, I realized that this parallels the introduction of eLearning. Many people had oversimplified what eLearning meant; they defined it as replacing instructors with computers. This appealed to greedy venture capitalists and bottom-line-fixated executives, even if it was dead wrong from the start. Geez. (All learning occurs through a combination of different activites. Why should eLearning be different?)

The formal-versus-informal debate shouldn’t be happening at all. Extremists on both sides miss the point that this is not either/or. It’s shades of gray. Few human issues are binary, or, as I kid people, “bi-polar.” The world doesn’t work like this:

Permit me to borrow an analogy from a recording studio. You never hear what the musicians play. Someone at an audio mixer ups the volume of the Bono feed and downplays the drums. The result is much more pleasing to the ear. Making recordings is akin to taking photographs: a combination of what’s there and how one manipulates it.

Imagine, if you will, a learning mixer. You could slide the switches to give the learners a little more control here while shaving development time there. And so on. Here’s a hypothetical learning mixer.

You don’t achieve the best mix by moving all of the sliders to the top or all to the bottom.

The Delivery slider moves from courses and push (formal) to conversations and pull (informal). The Duration slider goes from hours (formal) to minutes (informal). The Subject matter ranges from curriculum (what the organization says, formal) to discovery (what the individual needs, informal) Timing goes from outside of work to during work. Development time ranges from months (events, formal) to minutes (connections, informal).

Learning professionals who are in favor of using any methodology exclusively deny themselves the opportunity to create the best mix. What’s not to like?

In preparation for 2007, I’m digging through old backups and obsolete documentation. On a CD of 2002, I came upon the contents of the Meta-Learning Lab site (which disappeared in a change of ISPs and a lapse in paying for the domain name.) Here ’tis, an oldie but a goodie.

Online Educa is over for most of its 2,000 participants, but I’m only about half way through. In the context of unbounded, informal learning, events are but a component of a broader learning process. At Online Educa I was gathering input and finding new nodes to follow up. Now my mind is sorting through what’s memorable and what’s mental clutter. New neural connections are forming. I awoke today with fresh insights.
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This morning I arrived five minutes before my presentation was due to begin. (I was the opening act.) I explained that I didn’t want to miss what I had to say. Now that I tout informality, I do improv; I never know what’s going to come out. We were just getting warmed up when the clock ran out on us. Someone suggested we host an informal learning camp.

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People who pre-ordered Informal Learning from Amazon are now receiving their copies.

What? You didn’t pre-order? Do it now. And while you are waiting for it to arrive, you can read Chapter 2. Here’s the Index.

Informal Learning: Rediscovering the Natural Pathways That Inspire Innovation and Performance

Daniel Goleman’s Emotional Intelligence (1996) was delightful. Its topic shares common ground with informal learning. Both are about behavior that’s right under our noses. When you hear the backstory, it seems so obvious you wonder why you hadn’t made the connections before. Both say we’ve been barking up the wrong tree, Goleman that the human medium is the message and I that most real learning happens outside of class.

Emotional Intelligence was such a great concept that I’m surprised I became bored with it, choosing to follow the wisdom but not the continuing literature: Working with Emotional Intelligence, Leading with Emotional Intelligence, Raising an Emotionally Intelligent Child, Emotionally Intelligence Parenting, The Emotionally Intelligent Workplace, Destructive Emotions, and others.

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Newfoundland and no man are islands, and the Province retains insular charm and quaintness: Canadian for sure, but unlike Toronto or Ottawa or Quebec. In fact, Newfoundland didn’t join the Canadian Confederation until 1949.

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