In search of meaning…

As I was writing my last post “The Sound of Silence”, I decided to seek a definition of  “webinar” as I understand the term. Surprisingly, this proved a difficult task. Most definitions seemed to limit webinars to information conveyence, some made reference to interactivity, and a surprisingly large amount suggested that interactive features be disabled (or not enabled) to limit interruptions and maintain “control”. All this searching for a definition started to make me think… Through all our phases of selling the webinar concept to management, piloting the concept and rolling it out on a larger scale as we are now, I have had to explain what a webinar is.  As the concept of webinars meets more and more with the real people in my organisation, I have tried to simplify my explanation to be comparable with already familiar concepts.

At the beginning of each of our sessions, which currently all contain several employees who are new to the technology, the webinar concept is defined as a combination of a teleconference, PowerPoint presentation, eletronic communal whiteboard and instant messenging chat, which when used together can achieve something more powerful than each individual component.

All our current sessions are designed with an introduction to the webinar tools, and participants are guided through each of the tools with practice on all annotation and expression tools.  It is made clear to all participants that the session is designed with the intention of allowing them to use the tools on hand to collaborate in the webinar, and that their input in this manner is highly valued.

It is the key principle of our webinar strategy that interactivity is a critical driver of the success of a session.  I believe that webinar interactivity needs to start with concept, drive design, define facilitation, and focus on participant engagement.

The focus on collaboration, communicaiton and interaction fits with my beliefs about learning using technology, best summed up in Stephen Downes’ now infamous 2005 article “e-Learning 2.0” where is it stated “Web 2.0 is an attitude not a technology”.

The Sound Of Silence

Last night I was musing over what is, why it is so, and what could be. This isn’t something out of the ordinary for me - I do it on a regular basis really. But this particular session was about a project I have been undertaking at work lately. We are rolling out a series of interactive webinars to our blue collar workforce as part of a company restructure. This entails some serious efforts on the part of our team. Webinars are new to everyone:

• our trainers - as subject matter experts (8 )
• our moderators - driving the technology (5)
• our learners - geographically dispersed with low digital literacy (2000+)

And everyone has been putting in a truly herculean effort to make this project the success that it is so far (224 sessions across varied subjects in 10 weeks).

Following that, I have been watching the progress of our trainers with much interest. My experience as a moderator, conversations, and observations prior to this project led to me believe that it is more difficult for a face to face trainer to cross the digital divide and train in a virtual space. In some respects the project has reinforced this idea. Why? Because trainers aren’t just learning to teach online, there are preconcevied ideas about teaching and learning that sometimes don’t translate to the online medium. It could even be said there are things which need to be unlearned.

The area my musing focussed upon was dealing with silence. I noticed in the debriefs of many of our trainers first webinars that I was commenting on the potential of the trainers to increase interaction, stating that not doing so results in a mere conveyence of information (Ellen at aLearning Strategies has some musings about why this is a bad idea). How was this potential being left unfullfilled? By asking questions and answering them themselves. By letting only one learner answer a question and not building discussion. By not allowing learners to correct each other. Basically by not taking all the opportunities available to have learners participate. Noticing that this was a pattern amongst first timers, I had to ask “why is this happening?” Two of my theories, based upon conversation and observation is as follows:

Nerves - Silence is uncomfortable. As a face to face trainer, you can supplement silence with body language, silence can be visually meaningful. As an online trainer, interaction and communication supplement body language. So faced with a short silence after asking a question the easiest way for a trainer to break the silence is to speak again. Unfortunately this leads to passive participants, who may be providing silence in a more true sense by not listening to the trainer’s efforts at “non-silence”. It is more brave to use the silence in another way that gets participants talking, when participants interact and join in the conversation, true silence is less likely, even if there are a few pauses for thought.

A shift in power - Trainers are comfortable in and used to a face to face environment. They can wield their power bestowed by their position as a trainer easily in this environment. They stand, they learners sit. The learner is subordinate to them (see Ira Shor’s Siberia). In webinars, the physicality of the trainer is not so present. In our set-up, they are listed on the screen amidst the participants - the equivalent of sitting with the learners in a certain respect. So how can a trainer reclaim their lost physical power? By talking. Lots. By answering your own questions to show that you are indeed the expect. Of course, this proves ineffectual, and once again creates true silence as learners opt to check their emails etc.

To the credit of our trainers, they have acted upon the feedback provided to them and continue to move from strength to strength - there is alot less “talking at” and alot more “talking with” going on these days. They are a credit to our organisation and an example of what good e-Learning can achieve. They have moved beyond “The Sound of Silence” Simon and Garfunkel sang in reference to our focus on ourselves and lack of communicatin and have translated their focus on the learner in the classroom to the online environment.

What does e-Learning have to do with saucepans anyway…

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.