eel-learning

Skunkwork and control

'Forgiveness is better than permission' is a dictum our department have relied on and thrived on. By hosting our corporate learning site outside the main intranet we've managed to innovate without following cumbersome IT protocols, while ensuring we meet their security and other standards. Now they ask us for advice. So far so good.

A few years ago we introduced discussion forums, intended to be used in the followup to face to face courses. They were largely ignored and, after the departure of the one trainer who used them enthusiastically, became moribund. We suspect the reasons were largely that people didn't know they were there and that a cumbersome second login was needed to even view them. But it's made us cautious about introducing them again - if we threw a forum what if nobody turned up? What if the real reason for their demise was that they weren't wanted. There hasn't been a learning project since then that clearly called out for them so it hasn't been raised again until I raised it in the context of supporting informal learning.

Now the company's official internal communications department are talking up the possiblity of forums and blogs being slowly introduced.  My feeling is it'll be very slowly as the issues they are most concerned with are 'who would moderate and police them?' and 'which people would be allowed blogs?'. At present as far as I know only one divisional head produces anything like a blog. I would be surprised and heartened if a risk-averse company like ours took this step, especially as so many of its staff do not have email and the argument of 'we want people talking to customers not looking at screens' is loudly and frequently heard against anything on the intranet . Our instinct as a department is to 'just do it' but this corporate suggestion is intriguing.  I wonder how such initiatives got started in other companies and whether control was the central inhibiting factor? Which silo introduced them and did they remain in that silo for a while?

Rocks and hard places

Clive Shepherd sounds a little weary of moderating between extreme proponents of, for example:

• online v the classroom
• self-study v collaborative learning
• formal v informal
• on-job v off-job
• top-down v bottom-up
• content management v Googling
• rapid development v the full ADDIE process
• instruction v discovery/exploration

As he says, you feel a bit shoved from pillar to post. Like Clive, I enjoyed Jay Cross's rant against ADDIE, and have first hand experience of how it doesn't match what really happens. The only times I've ever tried to implement it in a hard-nosed way, it meant long locked-door meetings agreeing the final wording of objectives or, worse, script writing by committee in order to satisfy everyone (sales and processing subject experts) before we could sign off the script and move to the next stage. It began to dawn on me I could have been coding the 80% that was agreed while waiting for everyone to agree a meeting time to sort out the disputed wording. And I learned early that people can sign off words on paper but panic when they see the same words on screen. So yes, I realised the purist approach didn't work, and have been less naive in my current job; it's helped by the fact that working on the web makes prototyping easier and quicker, but more, because that's what people actually do. So I don't expect to move through those stages in such a linear way; I am braver in just putting something up based on first ideas and then moulding it into something fit for purpose, often radically different from the first idea. In ADDIE terms, inefficient, but efficient in terms of working with the grain.
So what would I value from the ADDIE approach?

1. that analysis at the beginning is valuable in the form of challenge, being clear about the purpose (memorisation or performance support for example) and the audience's needs; also, small amounts of task analysis or breaking down into fact, concept, procedure etc can help to clarify grey areas
2. that learning objectives can be a useful tool where sponsors or SMEs haven't brought clear aims to the table - 'They need to know about xxx' 'Do you mean they need to be able to explain it? Or do it? How often? etc'   What we don't need in most cases is a huge list of Mager-style 'Given xxx, the learner will be able to do yyy to a tolerance level of zzz'.  And definitely not at the start of online lessons. I hate being told I'll be able to do something at the end of 30 pages, when all I'll really be able to do is justify having a drink.

So perhaps it just boils down to some thinking and challenging before you start, and a toolbox to use at difficult points in the progress, but not waiting for all the t's to be crossed before you do make a start. You could argue that this is OK only for small projects with a local catchment and local expertise, but that's most of what we do at the moment.

Courses or not?

After a few enjoyable sessions with books like Jay Cross's Informal Learning and Rosset and Schafer's Job Aids and Performance Support, and reading Tony Karrer and Clark Quinn among others I'm starting to settle on some directions I can present to my colleagues. A lot of what I read refers to 'knowledge workers' at the likes of Sun and Microsoft, and I'm not sure how well that transfers to my organisation, where most of our training effort is aimed at frontline workers in high street branches where browsers are hobbled to prevent not only Flash, but even bookmarking and printing, browsing is strongly discouraged and even managers do not have email. It seems a world away. The content of our intranet 'learning' site seems largely lists of information about face to face, workbook or CD ROM courses (which are being removed), information about competency schemes and tips and advice for managers. The amount of front-line learning delivered by elearning seems to be reducing, largely because of the retirement of one particular enthusiast in the branch network.

Enough of that. I'm now thinking of a simple either-or:

• information that has to be memorised; skills that have to be gained
• performance support, tools, advice, tips to be used when needed but not 'practised'.

In the past I campaigned for more elearning for the former and not calling the latter elearning, even saying it shouldn't be what we as the elearning function do. My thinking now is that 'skills that have to be gained' is not an application for which there is any love or support for elearning in this organisation, at any level. That may be something to change, but it will be a longer term cultural change. 

'Information that has to be memorised' is vastly  exaggerated -  managers who propose  elearning for this kind of thing do it in ignorance of the limits of memory capacity, the processes of chunking and learning, and if it doubt say 'they have to know this' rather than 'they could be told this once and that would be enough'. So we in elearning have a role in challenging the need and organising the information so that what really needs 'learning by heart' can be done and what doesn't can be presented in palatable ways. That, however, crosses over into the second - in other words performance support. And that's what we're good at, and recognised to be good at. I may be wrng, but my hunch is that commissioning managers say 'give me elearning' when they want shot of the problem - they're willing to outsource it and throw money at it to get a 'black box' with the title of the particular need; when it's close to their  heart, however, they either want face to face, or they come to us because they know we  can organise and present material and  do so in close communication with them. So in a sense what we're good at and highly regarded for, is actually what we should be capitalising on.  A move away from calling our stuff 'courses' but using the same skills of analysing, rationalising, organising and presenting.  My learning journey continues.   

Jeff Oliver remembered

My first post started a train of thinking about how I got here, and made me think of Jeff. Anyone who attended TACT (The Association for Computer Based Training) in the 80s and 90s knew Jeff as the Big Man, often abrasive in his criticism, always knowledgeable and authoritative. He was a bit of a mentor for me, from the first training session he ran in TenCore (still going) for the building society who employed me around 87. From that time on we often worked together on projects and met at seminars. He was unfailingly supportive and encouraging, even when I would come out with things which, if some academic presenter had voiced them at TACT, would have earned a concise but telling put-down or, worse, caused him to remove his large frame summarily from the auditorium - a very powerful and conspicuous piece of feedback. Jeff died suddenly in, I think, 1996, from complications after a minor piece of surgery. I miss him today.

The aspect of learning technology that Jeff represented to me was the idea that one person could do it all - needs analysis, script, coding, delivery, implementation. In the days of 4-colour CGA displays and floppy disks that was possible. Then came multimedia and you had to either pick your role among the many - script, instructional design, storyboard, media, assets, editing - or project manage the lot.  When Jeff introduced me to this new thing called the internet - I fondly remember following his directions to the Cyberia internet cafe near Tottenham Court Road - the palette was again restricted and some form of small, mobile, intelligent unit (to use Robert Fripp's term) was again possible.

A final memory of Jeff which brings us bang up to date with the current elearning paradigms was when someone at TACT was promoting hyperlinked browsing CBT (pre-web, so probably using HyperCard or the like) which also had alternatives for different learning styles. The user wouldn't go along a linear path, they'd explore, discover, uncover and be surprised. Jeff piped up that what managers wanted was for the learner to get in, get what they needed and get out again in the shortest possible time, not to go around the houses discovering things!

Looking up Jeff's name today I found (only) this, from his response to a lecture in 1996:

Finally, Plenty-of-Time versus Just-in-Time learning. Just-in-Time training and its illegitimate sibling EPSS are fine when (1) learners don't need much practice to be proficient and (2) only small numbers of learning points have to be acquired to complete the task. Airline pilots and surgeons are not high on my priority list for these types of learning. I have a pragmatic approach here. With most types of teaching we do not expect students to learn everything that is in the lessons (or all post-tests would require 100% to pass). In particular, most job-related training offers an opportunity to learn, but we must expect trainees to return to the job incompletely trained. Usually a colleague or supervisor fills in the gaps. That's what really happens, and it has many advantages. Just-in-Time learning bypasses the settling-in and learning-completion phases which are arguably essential. Plenty-of-Time Incomplete Learning is a more accurate description, with people-based performance support the norm.

(review of Steve Alessi's Dean Lecture Feb 1996)

Time to stop waving the flag for interactivity?

In my previous job, back before the internet and intranets, I was recruited to lead the introduction of computer-based training (CBT). I established Learning Centres and either created, or presided over, the creation of several interactive product knowledge and health-and-safety courses. Then it all dried up - customers discovered we could use the same approach in interactive workbooks at a fraction of the cost and delivery time. So suddenly I found myself heading a (smaller) team of DTP authors, occasionally buying in CBT and, in the background, learning HTML.
Then my company was taken over by a larger one. This one, my current employer, wanted web design enthusiasts to perk up its new online university intranet site, and I found myself in probably the best job I've ever had. I went straight into CBT mode, railing against 'electronic page turning' and creating javascript-based interactive modules - ironically, converted from workbooks!  But still our internal customers balked at the amount of thought and planning that was required for interactivity, and said instead 'Please put this memo/booklet/workbook/instruction manual (groan!) on the web. Just make it look nice and if you want to put a quiz at the end, that's fine.'

Now, in the autumn of my years, I question my enthusiasm for interactivity. I note that

• when I want to know something myself I Google or Wikipedia it and want to get it fast, not sit through questions and feedback
• the new emphasis on informal learning seems more of a recognition of reality than a bandwagon, and just-in-time, performance support and job aids seem more in tune with that than tutorials and learning objectives
• even those customers who believe engaging the user in demanding tasks don't want to put the time into ensuring they're business-real; they'd rather I did it, with my full lack of knowledge of their day to day business. That ain't right.
• much of what this company calls elearning has been hijacked by a Learning Management System of monstrous clunkiness and dinosaur-like stupidity. I now fight to keep my material out of it!

So what am I doing currently?

• creating templates for 'good page-turning' i.e. with word limits per page, page limits per unit and Word templates for gathering content that are based on elements of instructional design. Designed for skimming and scanning, these will be my weapons to attack the online workbooks and compliance manuals
• creating variations on these with light Javascript  interactivity to try to draw internal customers towards us when they want e-learning rather than external companies who promise Strictly Come Dancing then pump up the budget trying to dumb it down for our highly restricted intranet (no Flash, 50k per page etc)
• working on recasting what we do as performance support and plotting for the day when we can introduce forums, wikis and the other paraphernelia of electronically-supported informal learning. This will take time, and may happen after most of our managers get email :-)

Sometimes I think I'm betraying my training as an instructional designer/CBT author, but my conscience is (mostly) clean.

OK I'm out there ...

Stung by Tony Karrer's Top Ten Reasons to Blog and Not to Blog, I've boldly gone forth.

Particularly

9. Because it forces you to do your homework (Rodolpho Arruda)

8. Because this is how you are going to learn in the future.

“This is the difference represented in the shift from traditional classroom based learning and network learning. The idea of the latter is that learning occurs when the learner immerses him or herself in a community of practice, learning by performing authentic tasks, learning by interacting with and becoming a member of the community.” (Stephen Downes)

7. Because if you don’t we’ll think you’re lame and don’t know how to do your job.

“What can you know about a professional who doesn't blog his or her work? How do you know they are competent, that they have the respect of their peers, that they understand the issues, that they practice sound methodology, that they show consideration for their clients? You cannot know any of this without the openness blogging (or equivalent) provides. Which means, once a substantial number begin to share, there will be increasing pressure on all to share.” (Stephen Downes)

Of course the reasons for NOT blogging were almost equally persuasive, but I've learned so much by reading others' blogs on the subject that I feel I'm allowed to step up here without knowing all the answers, just to add some little questions from my corner of the world..

(I'm not a stranger to blogging, though - in my other life as a musician on normanlamont.com)