Tag Archive for 'learning'

#oeb2009: Relate to business goals for learning to have impact

Published
by
Joost Robben
on December 14, 2009
in Uncategorized
. 1 Comment

It has been a week now since I was in Berlin at the Online Educa (#oeb2009). Prior to the conference I said in another post that I would experiment with using Mindmeister as a LIVE online mindmap tool. I wanted to experiment with new ways to create notes and instantly share and connect with others through that.

Well, in the end, Online Educa didn’t seem to be that online at all. Connections mostly were real slow or not available (eg. when attending a session across the street). Therefore at times I needed to get my little paper-notebook and completed my mindmap back home. Well, ok, opportunity for improvement i’d say. I was very satisfied with using mindmaps for taking notes. Next time I would love to connect with a few others to co-create a mindmap and see whats going on else-where.

Main theme

Thinking about main theme’s at the conference I realized that this is very personal and strongly related to my passion, things I’m working on at the moment and possibly also some frustrations:). The main thing that i repeatedly have seen coming back in various sessions is the need to relate to business goals in order for learning to have impact. (and yes this relates to my personal context).

Charles Jennings mentioned as one of the current fundamental changes the movement from learning as an event towards viewing learning as a process. Learning continuously embedded in the work process. I’m not sure if this was his wish, or something he had seen already emerging. In my view, looking for learning to embed in the process is one of the key aspects for L&D to have success. Also, many times, there not being paid any attention to. The reason for this might actually well be, what Jennings calls the conspiracy of convenience.

“A manager comes to a training manager and says ‘I’ve got a problem, I need training’. The training manager says ‘fine, we’ll develop a training programme’. So the training manager develops the programme, delivers it to the business and no-one measures it. The business manager is happy because they feel they’ve filled their requirement, the training manager is happy because they’ve done what they think their job is about, i.e. delivered training, and because no-one measures it, nothing really happens, but everyone’s happy….we need to break that conspiracy.” (quote from Newswire article)

When I talked about this with learning developers, their initial reaction was “you mean we need to do ROI?”. Could be, but moreover I would like a more process consulting approach (see eg. Ed Schein). Up front, try to discover the real need, why is your client or colleague asking for this training? What is the business problem behind this question? Try to actively engage the client/ colleague in the design process. Is training really the means to solve the problem. Afterwards, you can do research and come up with figures on the business impact but it depends on the situation if this is what you want. Mostly, it would be a great start to actually start the process of questioning the business impact (which is different from learning goals!!). Relate to business and help your client in this process of determining the impact of learning intervention.

On groups and emerging networks

Published
by
Joost Robben
on October 13, 2008
in Uncategorized
. 3 Comments

Last week’s conversation in the cck08 course has been on the distinction between networks and groups. Which is funny, because in his presentation George Siemens starts off by saying this is an unfair distinction as “they are the same”. Siemens tell is this because groups are a type of network. But aren’t we really talking here about the distinction of groups and the concept of “emerging networks” which i discussed in my previous post?

I get started to think that there is an interesting conflict underlying these two concepts and when overlook, often causes failure of designed learning environments. In this movie Stephen Downes elaborates on the differences between groups and networks.

“A lot of what people are presenting as online learning focuses on groups. I believe what online learning brings us looks more like networks” (Downes)

Groups are based on unity, coordination, closeness and are distributive in nature. Networks, according to Downes, are more diverse are  based on autonomy and openness and are connective in nature. So groups are manageable, they can be coordinated by a manager or a teacher. Groups have closed walls and teachers will present knowledge to their groups/ class. Groups will therefore need technologies like learning management systems which allow teachers to offer their class structure and manage their learning in a close environment. Networks cannot be managed. Members (learners) are autonomous and their learning environment is not bounded by (physical) walls. Networks need technology like personal learning environments, blogs, e-portfolio’s.

The mapping of groups and networks with the technology that fits with their charecteristics was a real eye-opener for me. It made me think about organizations wanting to implement portfolio’s in closed learning environments, demanding employees to write a blog post every week and doing this in a shared blog (non autonomous!), etc…..

Thinking about the differences between groups and networks is not a very easy task, but its very worthwile for every educator/ learning designer to be aware of the distinct differences between those. We (or I) certainly need to do a lot more thinking on the matter, make it concrete for deeper understanding. Many web 2.0 tools are gaining loads of attention nowadays for their educational/ learning purposes. We need to question ourselves wether such a tool was designed for a network audience or if it was based group principles and in what sort we would like to use it.