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Moving learning content away from courses provides L&D with a measurement problem

Posted on February 6, 2012 by Martin

Heads in the Cloud – How are content strategies evolving in the workplace? (debate results)

View more PowerPoint from Brightwave Ltd

Learning technology provider Brightwave ran a session at last week’s Learning Technologies 2012 conference entitled Heads in the Cloud: How are content strategies evolving in the workplace?

More than 100 delegates took part in the debate using voting buttons. You can see the results in full in the presentation above as well as in this associated press release.

Live delegate voting is a great way of taking a snapshot of reaction and sentiment around the topics discussed and this session was no different by the looks of it (I wasn’t at it, I hasten to add). The answers provide a view on content generation and sharing versus course content.

I have included the most popular responses to the questions below and these show the appetite L&D professionals have for putting learners in control of their learning experience and providing them with tools to enable content creation and sharing.

However, there is a big barrier to the adoption of learner resources (as opposed to course content) and that is lack of proof that knowledge has been acquired. It would seem that there is a belief that in order to acquire knowledge you have to go on a course.

Seems that some of these assumptions need to be challenged more. If, for example, you are able to find out a tip to help you do a piece of work at the right point in time and then apply it immediately then there is seamless knowledge acquisition and resultant action to transfer the learning. How do you measure the effectiveness of learning materials at this point? Maybe you can’t and maybe it is a waste of time and resource to do so.

Surely the point is that someone is able to carry out their tasks successfully – now that can be measured.

Unless a course enables attendees to put their learning into action pretty quickly they will forget the learning – let’s not forget the principles of the Ebbinghaus forgetting curve.

The results of the voting show that L&D professionals ‘get’ the benefits of moving content out of courses but there remains the issue of measuring the impact of learning content shared, delivered and acted on outside of the traditional course environment. And that continues to be a big issue for L&D.

How can we best use the cloud to enable more effective workplace learning?

Create a knowledge environment that encourages sharing 43%
Empower learners to take control 31%
Facilitate on-demand learning 19%

In what situations does user generated content work well?

Dispersed team with common interests 27%
Problem solving and complex projects 20%
Employee engagement 17%

What do you think is the most significant benefit of learning resources as opposed to courses?

Support at point of need 34%

What is the biggest obstacle to the shift from course to learning resource?

Lack of proof that knowledge has been acquired 36%

How is the role of the learning designer changing?

Foster continuous learner 29%

How can organisations extend learning content to customers and their supply chain?

Online support networks 44%

Posted in Events, Learning | Tagged Brightwave, Learning Technologies 2012 | 2 Comments

Elearning, mobile, informal: the technology agenda for L&D

Posted on February 2, 2012 by Martin

Last week I provided coverage from Learning Technologies 2012 for Personnel Today (day one and day two) and I also wrote a post on some of the big conference themes.

I wanted to follow this up with a look at some of the key technology themes that were talked about at the show. From walking around the exhibition and listening to conference speakers it seemed as if there were clear areas of focus for L&D teams in the coming year.

elearning
According to the exit survey of delegates it was clear the big learning vendors were the number one port of call. No surprises there. CrossKnowledge published its first European e-learning barometer at Learning Technologies which showed the increasing rate of uptake of learning as a delivery method:

British companies, despite having used e-learning for less time than other countries, are quickly developing their application of e-learning: in 2011, 51% of companies delivered at least one training via e-learning to over 50% of their employees compared to 39% in 2010.

The most recent Towards Maturity report into learning technology paints the same picture, revealing that 78% of organisations currently use some form of e-learning and over half plan to increase their usage over the coming 12 months.

Although elearning is a major focus for organisations and adoption rates are increasing rapidly, that doesn’t mean what’s on offer is going to provide the silver bullet.

If it was there would have been no reason for the e-Learning Network to launch a Campaign for Effective elearning at the show. E-learning chair Rob Hubbard explains why in this interview:

Continue reading →

Posted in Events, Learning | Tagged learning, learning and development, Learning Technologies 2012 | 2 Comments

Tweet analysis for Learning Technologies 2012

Posted on January 31, 2012 by Martin

Here is an analysis of Tweets from Learning Technologies 2012. The report looks at 1,500 tweets so does not fully cover the entire two days. That said it gives good insight into who was tweeting and what they were tweeting about.

Tweet analysis for Learning technologies 2012

Posted in Content, Events | Tagged TweetReach, twitter | Leave a comment

Getting hands on with Lego at Learning without Frontiers #2

Posted on January 30, 2012 by Martin

At the end of day two of Learning Without Frontiers I raced back to the Lego Education dome to find . . . that they had started dismantling the fine work of the conference delegates. It was my fault, I had left it right to the end of day two.

For those that missed part one of this blog post, I said I would return to see how building work had developed. Brand manager Simon Thomas kindly gave me an update, which you can see above.

He also said that more images of the delegate creations can be seen on the Lego Education blog and also on the Lego Education Flickr page.

Finally, he asked if I had seen Lego Education president Jakob Kragh give his talk. I hadn’t so Simon filled me in on the success Jakob had had in his session. He provided delegates with a packet of six Lego bricks (pictured) and asked them to make a duck. The result? Lots of different types of ducks.

You don’t need me to explain what was going on here but I thought this sounded like a great way to show difference and indiviuality when provided with just six bricks.

I’m going to give these packets to my children and see what they come up with . . .

Posted in Content, Events | Tagged Learning without Frontiers, Lego | Leave a comment

Learning Technologies 2012: thinking for yourself, moving things on

Posted on January 27, 2012 by Martin

I was lucky to attend the Learning Technologies 2012 conference in London’s Olympia 2 this week. I was covering the event for Personnel Today (see my day one and day two reviews) and spent the majority of my time in the conference sessions.

Thanks to see some inspired speaker selection, delegates were treated to a range of thinking from the keynote speakers which, although related to learning and development, was way beyond the day-to-day practicalities of the job.

The three keynotes, Edward de Bono, Ray Kurzweil and Jaron Lanier, took us from thinking and creativity to machine intelligence and our humanity in the face of technological advances. Big themes set in the real world context of fast and big technological change.

Edward do Bono struck a chord for me as his focus was on us as individuals and how our brains process information and how we make decisions. I liked his concept of being able to ‘move things on’. Instead of thinking in terms of right or wrong we need to be able to think about how we can challenge ideas and thinking in order to improve something.

Sounds simple but de Bono has made a very successful career showing others how to do this. Organisations are terrible at moving things on, enabling employees to challenge perceived thinking in a way that enables others to want to keep developing ideas. My experience of challenging has been mostly that it just creates negative responses from those being challenged.

We talk about collaboration and innovation but are we really that good at it? de Bono shows us how we can be more effective and I buy his thinking. To be better at innovation we need to be able to open up to ideas and challenge current thinking and perceptions around that.

Continue reading →

Posted in Content, social learning | Tagged Learning Technologies | Leave a comment

Getting hands on with Lego at Learning without Frontiers #1

Posted on January 25, 2012 by Martin

The Learning Without Frontiers conference is taking place at London’s Olympia today and tomorrow. This morning I looked around the exhibition area which consists of lots of inflatable pods which look like igloos. Lego Education has a pod in which conference delegates are invited to get hands on and build. Brand manager Simon Thomas told me about the aims for the conference.

I’ll be back at the end of day two to see what’s been created . . .

Posted in Content, Events | Tagged learning without rontiers, Lego, Lego Education | Leave a comment

Doodle with confidence

Posted on January 24, 2012 by Martin

A great talk here by Sunni Brown which makes that point that doodling is great for taking in and processing large amounts of information. Tomorrow and Thursday I will be at the Learning Technologies show and I hope to see some doodlers at work.

Sad to say that conference attendees can get sniffy when those around them start to scribble – check out Craig Taylor’s experience of note taking at an elearning network event.

For all you scribblers and doodlers – keep up the good work. We were born to learn and dooddling is a critical part of that. I like this slide from Sunni’s talk showing the true meaning of doodling . . .

Thanks to Neil Denny for sharing the link to Sunni’s TED Talk.

Posted in Content | Tagged doodling, learning, sunni brown | Leave a comment

Customer insights and trends – Google provides a real-time reporting tool

Posted on January 24, 2012 by Martin

Think with Google is Google’s brain food department for anyone interested in digital trends and insights. Within Think with Google is an an insights area that provides users with free tools to measure trends and user behaviour around search terms as well as research findings, forthcoming digital developments and so on.

There are two tools worth a look:

Real-time insights finder – a tool that does what it says on the tin – see video above

GoMoMeter – a diagnostic tool to look at how your site works on mobiles

This is what GoMoMeter looks like . . .

Thanks to Will Francis for sharing a link to this.

Posted in Content, Search | Tagged Goggle insights, google, Think With Google | Leave a comment

What does a website protest look like?

Posted on January 19, 2012 by Martin

The proposed Stop Online Piracy Act and Protect IP Act sparked huge protest across websites leading to a 24 hour blackout. But, how did sites visualise the protest? It is not an everyday occurrence so thought it would be interesting to see how some did it . . . and yes, blackout it was.