Paul Simbeck Hampson has started an interesting conversation on the purpose of education. You may not think this has anything to do with corporate training, but I would argue that it most certainly does. Corporations tried to copy the University model and most failed. Maybe "failed" isn't the right term...many just didn't get the right amount of business value and so they shut 'em down. Will our local and federal government ever be that bold? Is it time to admit the current educational system is not meeting the "Purpose of Education"? Maybe. Maybe not. But that's the discussion. Let's talk!
Education in the largest sense is any act or experience that has a formative effect on the mind, character or physical ability of an individual. In its technical sense, education is the process by which society deliberately transmits its accumulated knowledge, skills and values from one generation to another. ~ Wikipedia
Make the most of whatever it is that floats your boat…
Learning Solutions 2011 was captured in pictures! Lots of great memories came rushing back. Whether you were there or not, you've got to check out the Guild's FB page with all the great Learning Solutions 2011 content.
Check out the tweets that came out (and coming out) of the recent Learning Solutions Conference and Expo via Twapper Keeper archives for what conference goers and backchannel participants have tweet-shared with you. Beware: It's a big page with over 3,800 tweets!
The web site is up and running and you can start planning your event today. Mobile technologies seem to be flooding the market on a daily basis. They get smaller, faster, and cheaper. If you are in elearning, whether a n00b or tested old timer, you need to get up to speed on mobile learning. Get your travel approval today and make it happen. You will not regret it.
I am very excited to have Jeremiah Owyang and Amber MacArthur keynoting mLearnCon. And then closing out the event will be a great panel conversation.
The mLearning Future Zone and MOSHPit will also be back. And of course there will be Master Classes giving you an up close and personal look at the tools of mlearning. The stages of Guild events offer additional content in a comfortable relaxed format.
Aaron Silvers, is back as the host of the mLearning Future Zone. With a deep and varied background in eLearning Aaron understands all aspects of the industry at a level matched by very few. He sees the future of mlearning from many different angles and brings that to the stage with experts challenging your thoughts on what mobile learning will be. Neil Lasher is also back for a second year hosting the Mobile Operating System Help stage....better known as the MOSH Pit. Neil has unique ideas on what mlearning should be and what the landscape of mlearning systems offers us today. He will bring a collection of great speakers to help you understand the systems of mlearning and how you can make sense of it all.
As mobile devices become more prevalent we may find that mLearning is just part of the increasing landscape of elearning. But until that day comes its important that we take time to gather and discuss the challenges we face as an industry.
I'm looking forward to seeing everyone in San Jose this June.
The Learning Solutions 2011 conference and expo was another amazing experience produced by The eLearning Guild. I spoke on Games and Simulations for Training, and Social Media for Learning, at the eLearning Foundations Intensive. The Intensive was a 2-day crash course on all major aspects of e-Learning. If you are new to e-Learning or just need to get the big picture fast, then this was the place to be. I also Hosted a panel of experienced e-Learning professionals in an Ignite format of fast-paced presentations. It was quite an experience to be sure.
For an AMAZING collection of resources from the event you should check out David Kelly's blog Misadventures in Learning. He's compiled a page of resources that will keep you busy for quite some time. He did not attend the event but was able to learn and participate simply by following the backchannel of social media coming out of the event. Nice work David!!!
The keynotes were especially powerful this year. Since David has all of the resources nailed down I thought I would just add my own commentary and thoughts on the keynotes.
He is one of the most amazing presenters I've heard in a long time. He is also, in my opinion, the MOST relevant name in e-Learning that is not in our industry and mostly ignored by our learning institutions and all those pretending to know about how learning works. As Dr. Medina will say...we know very little about learning and the brain, but we DO know a LOT more than we did 10, 20, or more years ago.
He took the LS2011 audience on an amazing journey through the process of how the brain takes in information, stores it in shortterm memory and how it converts to long term memory. Here's the gist. A piece of information is received and you have 30secs to repeat it before short term memory kicks it out. After that you have 2 hours to repeat it again before shortterm memory kicks it out. The key is REPETITION. Read the book for more. The most amazing fact is how long it takes for shortterm memory to let go of information to be perminently stored in long term memory:
"It takes a DECADE for information to reach its happy hunting ground in long term memory. And if that doesn't say something about your job...I don't know what does." - Dr. Medina
Nancy is an amazing woman that has stumbled into the training world after making a name for herself in the world of presentation creation. Her most famous presentation being Al Gore's on global warming. In her new book resonate Nancy defines a pattern for successful presentations. She studied the "I have a dream" speech and the "iPhone launch" speech and discovered that both fit the pattern. And now YOU can learn this pattern and become a master presenter.
Great communicators are great story tellers and from the earliest storytelling frameworks we begin to form the pattern that is the same for all great presentations.
Dr. Wesch delivered a compelling, emotional presentation about how when create technologies those technologies then begin to re-create who we are. They shape our culture and they shape who we are. The most popular video he created is embedded below will open your eyes if you have not already seen it.
New media has given us all the ability to do something great. And maybe not even great, but merely simple enough to move just one person. That in and of itself is GREAT! The people side of technology is often overlooked. And what I often remind my audiences is that its not about the technology...it's about the people. It always has been and always will be.
This post was inspired by Kevin Thorn's (LearnNuggets) guest post at eLearning Weekly titled Top 5 eLearning Skills for 2011 and the Follow up post. Kevin's take on eLearning skills has sparked a little debate and started a healthy conversation around several topics including social media. Here is Kevin's take on SoMe as a top skill for 2011:
Social Media– As we all know social media is no longer a trend and is becoming the main stream of communicating. I don’t think SoMe is a skill so much as it is a practice. You gain knowledge of how SoMe works by the mere fact of being embedded in it. Similar to video production where many organizations are not set up to handle that type of media, even more organizations have not incorporated SoMe into their business. Just because there are several really great case studies using SoMe in training, doesn’t mean your organization has a business value to implement it. In preparation for the years to come though, I would encourage everyone to get a Twitter account, join LinkedIn groups, and engage in Facebook Groups, etc. to stay plugged in.
Kevin nails SoMe as a practice, not a skill. But I suppose one might argue that you need to acquire the software/internet skills first in order to practice. But I would that today those skills are acquired before getting to this point in your career. The practice of SoMe is not a trivial matter. As an eLearning designer/developer, if you don't engage with social media as a participant/learner you will NEVER understand or embrace the value it offers. However, when that proverbial light bulb goes off, and you see the light, DO NOT rush to consider it your next great eLearning solution either. Many have, and many have failed.
The fastest way to SoMe failure in the enterprise is to call it a learning tool and to have it born of the HR/Training department. Driving technology adoption is something you can influence IF you have a seat at the table. But it is not the responsibility of the Instructional Designer, the Training Manager, or the CLO to implement enterprise wide SoMe solutions. You should have a solid relationship with your IT organization. It's their responsibility, NOT YOURS. SoMe will inevitably become part of the enterprise. Don't force it in as a learning solution.
In Kevin's list he doesn't mention certain traditional ISD skills and that's where some readers begin to share their thoughts.
A commenter on Kevin's post writes:
Surprised in both articles, there is nothing about assessment/evaluation. And I am not just talking about the design or writing here. The mechanics to deploy something and get back items that provide meaningful, actionable data is a critical piece in the puzzle.
Let’s take the hot topic right now: SoMe. Setting up the space to facilitate the connections is great, but we will be asked at some point about the value of the solution. What data will your C-level accept as value? Will your system report this data? What can be done to capture it?
He is commenting on assessment/evaluation of eLearning, but in so doing makes a strong statement reflecting how Learning Professionals misunderstand SoMe. This thinking is how we fail. Did anyone ever ask us to monitor happy hour conversations, or water cooler conversations, and provide "meaningful, actionable data"? No. Why? Because we didn't ask anyone to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to support their implementation. Let IT see/understand the need and take responsibility for its implementation.
The reality is that "WE" should not be the ones required to PROVE the "value of the [SoMe] solution". It must be implemented to support the business...ALL of the business NOT JUST training/learning. The data "your C-level accept[s] as value" is the same data he/she has always accepted...unless you spend their money on a SoMe system "just" for learning/training.
Something to think about...
Learning Development Practitioners: If your organization does not have a company wide SoMe solution in place then don't even think about it in your design. If you do have an enterprise solution in place its your job to get connected, participate, engage. Your greatest successes will come from farming the rich data that is planted and growing within these spaces. To ignore an existing SoMe solution is an incredible waist of a natural internal resource.
Training Managers/Corporate Learning Officers: Find your IT Buddy. Okay, so that's a little unprofessional. Try this. Engage with your IT department and begin conversations on how the Training/Learning department can/will leverage SoMe functionality. This gives them the ammo THEY need to prove the cost of implementation, ROI, etc. (REMEMBER: Its THEIR responsibility, NOT yours.) If your IT department is ahead of the curve then you already have enterprise SoMe. You need to engage. You need to ask IT for data. Figure out who's using it, and how they are using it and when. Understanding this data will help you craft your social learning strategy.
iTunes App Link
For all instructions, video, and downloads go to this link. The Learning Solutions 2011 app is powered by ATIV software's Event Plus. Maneuvering the hectic world of conferences and expos has NEVER been easier. Functions include:
Access up-to-the minute session and event updates in the dynamic Now tab
Plan your day and build your own personalized schedule (for native apps)
Browse or search the interactive Program, Speaker and Expo guides
Find your way easily using Maps with an animated location pin
Stay organized by creating custom notes and thumbs up ratings
Easily share contact info with other attendees using Bump or QR codes
Follow the #ls2011 discussions with the integrated Twitter feed
View and share slides (for native apps)
Save time after the event and email all event notes in a comprehensive report
If you ever needed a reason to upgrade to a smart phone, this is it! So, if you're headed to Orlando next week and you have an iPhone, or iPad, or Blackberry, or Android device, your job one is installing this app.
Let me know what you think? What would you like to see the app do next year? Your suggestions are more than appreciated.
Last week I had the pleasure of chatting with Jerry Bush, Program Manager Learning@CISCO. I must say, it sounds like CISCO has an amazingly innovative culture that allows them to experiment with new technologies and ideas around learning. Check out their Games Arcade. Lots of great desktop games...with a few recently ported over to mobile technologies.
While we had a great conversation in general about eLearning, mobile devices, and serious games, I loved hearing about their new FREE iPhone/iPad app called BINARY. Be aware that there is another binary game app NOT created by CISCO that costs $.99. The CISCO binary game is FREE.
Now, I like to think of myself as having a little bit of geek cred. And of course every self-respecting geek has a full and complete grasp of the ultimate geek language - BINARY....right? Well, I know enough now to know that I only had a simple-man's grasp of what binary is. I knew binary was a string of 1's and 0's. And I also knew that a string of one's and zeros "added" up to a larger number. But I guess that's about as far as my lesser-geek knowledge went. The BINARY game was exactly what I needed to fill in the missing pieces in my knowledge base of binary.
This is the type of content that works great in a game...in my opinion. There are no instructions. You just start playing. Its exactly how I like to learn. The game also helps you learn "the code" in both directions. In some cases you are given the 1' and 0's in the proper positions and asked to give the answer on the right side of the "=" sign. And in other cases you are given the number and then by tapping the 1,0, chicklets you set up the binary code to equal the given number.
Okay, so that doesn't sound like much fun does it? Well, notice in the image above how the different rows are stacked? Yea, they just keep coming. More rows after more rows. This forces you to learn to think in binary...FAST. And what you soon learn is that there are patterns in binary code. So at a certain point you stop "doing the math" and just remember the patterns. Which is exactly how the brain learns to process complex information. But I'll leave the brain science stuff to others. Give it a try. If you already are certain that you know binary then you will still get a good idea how simple game mechanics can make learning fun...and fast.
Another great post from Tom Kuhlman underscores what he knows about creating eLearning...and how its changing.
The development of eLearning has come a long way from simply creating a one-off "course" either to be delivered in the classroom or self-paced via technology. Today development means understanding and leveraging the time before and after the "course". And most importantly we design with the understanding that new technologies now give instant access to the experts AND our fellow learners. Creating eLearning solutions today is simply a LOT larger task than it was even 10 years ago. The only problem is that you'd never know it by how universities are still teaching the old school models and countless companies still accept the old school solutions.
If you want to play in the future of learning you better be prepared to go all the way!
Last week I had the pleasure of chatting with Jerry Bush, Program Manager 
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