I’ve been designing my first ever commercial collaborative spaces at work over the past month or so. By design I mean coming up with a whole heap of web 2.0 ideas and storyboarding them into one place so someone can build a mash-up containing and feeding in all sorts of stuff for us. It is a really exciting time for me because the way I see it, this is an opportunity to make some positive changes in my organisation. Situations like this don’t come around every day (supportive team, funding, momentum, minimal red tape, no prior e-Learning history), so I want to make the most of it.
I was fortunate to have a really good teacher when I was studying e-Learning and she instilled in me very thoroughly that we need to design for what we want to achieve, not for what a piece of software can do. I would dare say that it is the best piece of e-Learning advice I have been given and has shaped my practices in other e-Learning projects I’ve been involved in. I generally start to design my work and ideas based on the premise of “wouldn’t it be great if…”. This avoids the “build it an they will come” (no they will not, trust me) mentality which is so often associated with e-Learning failure.
So… for this project I have looked at what we want to achieve, what we currently do, what we could improve, and how we can use technology to help us achieve our learning outcomes in a spectacularly engaging fashion. This has resulted an approach which is centred on learning through technology, rather than technology “transmitting learning”. Why do I say this? Because we had to go through a process of conscious thought about what we actually need and want. We had to be creative, we had to educate ourselves as to what was possible, and then we have expanded this with our ideas. We didn’t decide on a piece of technology and ask ourselves how we could make it work. As it turned out we decided on many pieces of technology all in one place, known as a “mash-up”, defined here on the Servitium technology’s blog.
This inital process meant that when we met the varied providers, we could do something which some of them didn’t expect - we could talk in an educated fashion about what we want, we could even show them a basic storyboard and some examples of specifics. This meant that as a customer, the power was back in our hands, and the providers could provide some valuable consultancy. We weren’t wandering through the darkened forest of e-Learning eating poisonous berries, we were having a picnic in a sunny park somewhere in suburbia.
I’ve been thinking about this digital literacy thing from my own reality. There are heaps of definitions out there which basically say that to communiucate properly and safely online you need to be digitally literate, I’ve found Leigh Blackall’s work useful in the area of digital literacy. As our physical and digital lives increasingly converge, things are becoming more complex. Just as we have a set of social rules and norms when communicating face to face, we have a set of norms and rules which guide our behaviour online. I wouldn’t tell my professional contacts about my crazy weekend, just as I wouldn’t bore my friends with intricate workings of my latest work project over coffee. So why would I do it online?
Let me clarify… Some of us are always going to be more willing to share different aspects of our lives (particularly Gen-Y’s apparently, but that’s another discussion).
For instance, my Facebook contains people from all walks of life. My Facebook is also my generic “catch all” online identity - I’ll even show it to my classmates on the projector screen. I’m a pretty open person, and if it’s there, I’ve deemed it fit for public display - social and professional. My lecturer knows I like Pink Floyd? Good for him! My coworkers know my favourite books? - great! However, my Facebook will not tell you what I don’t want “the world” to know so readily. It will not tell you what course I am studying, it doesn’t acknowledge the existence of my blog, my (real) friends know it is not cool to tag me in photos doing incredibly stupid things… and so on. I have other identities for these things.
For example, my varied Ning memberships will tell you all about my work responsibilities and opinions surrounding e-Learning, but nothing about my favourite books. This is because I choose to use Ning for professional pursuits, just as some may choose to use facebook purely socially, or purely professionally.
My del.icio.us tags are similarly professional in intent. They are all about surprise, surprise - e-Learning. However, if a professional acquaintence found me on Flickr I’d be surprised and a little confronted as my personal photos are listed under a totally unrelated alias and not referred to on any other social sites on purpose because they aren’t intended to cross the social and digital divide between friends and professionals.
In short, just as my personality is multifaceted in the physical world, it is in the digital world too. Most importantly, who sees what is up to me, it’s my decision what is online, and where it is online. Digital literacy is about understanding the digital medium so you can use it in a safe and well informed manner, and for me, that means keeping some boundaries between the different parts of my life, being aware of the forum into which I am posting my thoughts, considering who may be looking at what I’ve written and so on. There’s more to digital literacy than that, but that’s my short take on digital identity and digital literacy.
Oh, and where do I live? I live online of course B-)
So I’ve just signed myself up as a moblogger at moblog.co.uk. What a great tool! Part of my job deals with gen-y’s who have non-computer type jobs and need to show competency at what they do. I think that moblogging has enourmous potential to engage these guys. Some broad assumptions around gen-y’s lie around them being digitally connected by either phone or computer, which means that this technonology is fitting with their broad characteristics. Other implications more specific to my situation are around my particular group’s preference for practical tasks and avoidance of “school type” assessments. If these guys can learn and show competency by doing something which is fitting with their lifestyles, the learning that arises has the potential to be more meaningful because it is less threatening than the traditional written test, more practical, and has more potential to be revisited at a later date.
MargB has a really down to earth and insightful presentation about moblogging which got me thinking. Check it out here.
I am always surprised by the amount of “web 2.0 bashing” by learning and development practitioners. My most recent experience was during a class about educational theory where a guest speaker had come along to tell us about web 2.0 as applied to learning. Basically - e-Learning 2.0 as defined by Stephen Downes. What I have found to be typical and skeptical response to the presentation was asked…
“it would be great for work, but it’s no good in the real world. Too social. Too many people you don’t know talking”
I feel compelled to address this briefly as it seems to me to be a contradiction. Web 2.0 is a social tool, it is used socially, that is how it emerged, unlike the classroom, educators do not “own” this domain.
Web 2.0 is designed for collaboration and communication, which presents a conflict with the banking model of education. In a classroom, we seem to face the teacher, who plops information into us while we sit there passively, in web 2.0 environments, those “chairs” form a circle, where everyone’s input is valid and people feed from each other, not just the teacher.
We do not naturally learn by passively sitting in a classroom accepting information, we have been conditioned into this as a result of the industrial revolution because mass production meant that the kiddies needed to be out of the factory and it seems the same mass production was applied to humans and machines. Prior to this, people learned from those around them in social situations it seems. Consequently web 2.0 presents an opportunity (and a conflict) to return to social learning, where people learn by collaborating and communicating because that it how we use it already. We expect to be able to comment, contribute and collaborate using these technologies!
The conflict presents itself when people go online expecting to have information banked into their heads because the method is at odds with web 2.0’s “circle of chairs”. Power relations are different. The conflict needs to be resolved, and this means the application of social learning theories. The banking teacher is replaced with someone who is more of a guide, asking questions, setting e-Tivities to build confidence and creating the necessary cohesion, cofidence and collaboration. Gilly Salmon’s model explains this process really well.
Banking information into people’s heads using web 2.0 has been tried time and time again. It has failed time and time again, and often when it does, practitioners look to blame the technology. Web 2.0 is just an instrument we can use as educators, a good one with lots of potential, but ultimately an instrument. As such it is important to use it because there is an identified need which is fitting with sound pedagogical principles. When you look at it this way, of course using web 2.0 to bank information into people’s heads would fail - because the requirement of banking is at odds with the social requirements of web 2.0. You can try it, it might work for a very short time, but it is destined to fail because the two concepts are fundamentally incompatible.
I have recently been downloading and saving alot of research articles from secure sources where my del.icio.us account just ain’t gonna cut it and it occurred to me (with some frustration I must admit). I can only call something one name, I cannot tag it, and there are no pictures to help me identify it fast. What if I want to save something in multiple places without creating version issues on my PC?
I mean, I have a thousand stoopid articles in a list on my computer, just something, anything to help Mr Microsoft. Maybe there is something out there I don’t know about, I am by far the Microsoft expert. Is there? I’d love to hear about it. In the meantime, let me “play” online - Flickr, del.icio.us, they’re way more fun than Microsoft Office B-)
I am guilty. I have sinned using PowerPoint. I have made boring presentations. Partially out of ignorance, sometimes out of boredom. But not any more, not for a while anyway. I thought that using some picutres and sticking to the seven brief bullet points per slide was ok. Until I had a look outside my own world…
It’s not that I don’t know how to use PowerPoint. I know how to use it very well, and I create regular “pieces” at work which look nothing like the “normal” PowerPoint on a regular basis. But… when it came to actual presentations, which are rare for me… I have blindly followed “the rules” not thinking of what could be. It is embarassing to admit that while I don’t think I am guilty of “crazy long text everywhere overload”, I am very guilty of “list the key points down the screen and use a little image in a corner to illustrate”. *blush*.
While looking on slideshare last night for assignment ideas I came across a great presentation which has a brilliant quote applied to PowerPoint “Bullets don’t kill people. People kill people” Yes! How true! Don’t bore us with your words - inspire us with your ideas.
I repent my PowerPoint sins of the past. I have seen the light. Never again will you find me murdering my audience via bullet points by creating uninspring, boring presentations.
This is “thecroackers” presentation from slideshare which illustrates so many points so well.
I went to a networking breakfast this morning about the use of social technology in organisations. I found it really interesting, and thoroughly agree with the premise that people like to be involved in knowledge creation and learn from each other. Social technologies can enable this if implemented thoughfully.
Toward the end of our workshop we took part in an activity which asked us about our fears around social technologies. A recurring theme was around what employees might say in collaborative spaces. People said “what if our employees say bad things on there?” and “this will let employees say whatever they want”. I started to wonder about these questions. Are employees really just itching for the chance to be given the opportunity to say bad things about the company they work for in a company forum? Provided there is some basic understanding (or education to create basic understanding should it be lacking) about what communicating online really means, I don’t think this would be happening, and it indicates larger problems within the organisational culture if it is.
Maybe employees will raise concerns, voice opinions and question decisions - but isn’t that what happens when people talk around the coffee machine etc anyway? A key part of our society’s evolution has been by reflecting on the past, engaging in dailogue and moving forward. We learn by looking back at experiences and analysing them, so employees discussing work issues could be considered learning, especially if questions are being asked to generate further discussion.
We employ people because they can contribute to our organisation, not because they are going to sit in a corner knowing and saying nothing. I think it is an indication that something is right if employees are discussing things online because it shows they are engaged. They care enough to actually say something.
When employees start questioning issues and discussing them online, they are just replicating their normal behaviour at the coffee machine in an online environment.
Maybe we need to change the way we think about what we read on a computer screen. People use computers to express opinions, just like I am now on this blog, or to connect with contacts, as I do with Facebook. Basically using social technologies in the worplace it is just another way to starta conversation, and we’ve been doing that since the beginning of time. Not so scary after all.
I had a meeting with some Human Resource managers yesterday about how geographically broad companies can induct their staff. I had seen a presentation at a seminar about a new induction sytem one of the banks uses which had some good underlying principles, but staff still had to travel great distances, so uptake was still improving, but still not excellent. So I started thinking about what could be done… then I had a conversation that brought me back to reality.
When I spoke of the possibility of e-Learning, I was met with great enthusiam for “self-paced modules”, made from death-by-powerpoint style slides which are apparently the be-all and end-all of e-Learning. I need not mention that death by PowerPoint doesn’t rate well, but are self-paced modules really appropriate for staff induction? Maybe that depends on the context for some people, so possibly I’ll get disagreement, but for me the answer is a distinct “no”.
What does sitting someone in front of a computer with noone on the other end for the first few hours of their working life with a organisation tell them about that organisation? Probably little about the content, and more about a low priority on people, which is definitely not the case. We are alienating our people! Will reading about our values from a computer (albeit showing video and words) really get people to live our values? Or will they just know what they are and feel a bit fuzzy.
I think the problem with using isolated self-paced individual modules for induction is that there is no interaction or relationship building. There is no opportunity for social or informal learning as you are speaking with a computer that has noone on the other end. Or if you are like me, you may engage in conversation with your monitor. Either way - there’s noone listening out there.
Perhaps a better way would be to divide the induction into transaction and transformational, as this particular bank has done, then determine the most appropriate method to deliver both. Perhaps an area/branch/line manager could deliver transactional training, and the rest could be done using a series of webinars so that employees can interact and connect with each other over a broader geography via a computer.
There are many options both non-techonlgy and technology related I am sure, but the underlying principle surrounds why technology is chosen, if chosen at all. Selecting an e-Learning technology is like choosing a saucepan to cook with - you don’t make a selection based on which is the prettiest, best looking or most personable - you make a selection based on which is most suitable for the task at hand.
