In last week’s post I looked at the simple strategy of exposition. You will recall that this involved little more than the delivery of information from teacher or expert to the learner, perhaps with a little Q&A and discussion, but largely one-way. Exposition occurs live through lectures, presentations and webinars, but can also be packaged up in textual, audio, video or multimedia forms. Exposition can work well for independent and experienced learners, who will be happy to ‘get the information straight’, but is likely to be overwhelming for more dependent learners and novices, who are less familiar with what they know and what they need to know.

• being clear about outcomes;
• concentrating on meeting a small number of key learning objectives thoroughly, rather than a large number only superficially;
• following an instructional process which is appropriate for the objectives in question;
• engaging the learner;
• helping the learner to make new connections with prior knowledge;
• presenting new material clearly and at an appropriate level, making use of demonstrations, stories, examples, visual aids and other tools to aid comprehension;
• providing activities that allow new knowledge and understanding to be reinforced and consolidated;
• allowing for plentiful opportunities to new skills to be practised, with the aid of timely and constructive feedback;
• being responsive to the needs of individual learners;
• providing support until all objectives are achieved.

It’s now two months since the iPad was launched in the UK, and so it’s timely that people are starting to comment on how they and others are using it. Inspired by these and other posts I thought I would jot down my own thoughts on how the iPad fits into my toolset.

The first time I took the iPad out, my laptop came along too as I couldn’t quite convince myself that the iPad would do everything I needed. Since then unless I know that I will specifically need it (such as for development work) the laptop has stayed at home; the iPad has quickly become my main portable device for business. I regularly travel up to London, and previously my bag would contain my laptop, its power supply, a paper notebook and usually whatever book I happen to be reading. Now all I take is the iPad. It really does have a battery that lasts all day, and combine that with no wait to boot up, and it really is just such a convenient device for accessing… well, everything.

I work at home, so the line between work and non-work activity has a tendency to blur, but the iPad somehow makes that less intrusive. I think perhaps because it’s so quick and easy to access things, activity like checking for an important email you’re waiting for is less likely to open the door to doing other things. In fact, one of the things I like most about it is the way it forces you to be focussed, because although background multitasking is on its way you can only ever be in one app at a time so there’s far less opportunity for distraction.

Some people have commented that at 16, 32 or 64GB it doesn’t have the capacity for serious work, but that hasn’t been a problem for me. All of my content lives in the cloud in one of three places – DropBox, Evernote or Google Docs, so if I want access to something I just open it via WiFi or 3G. The days of carrying your actual data around with you are pretty much gone, even if we don’t quite have ubiquitous access to the net yet. For the curious, my 32GB iPad currently has 26GB free, although I suppose I should mention that I don’t keep any music on it as that all lives on my iPod Classic.

Irrespective of location it has become my favourite tool for online communication, whether that’s via email, Twitter or other social networking tools. That has had the knock on benefit of keeping those things off my desktop when I’m working. I’ve also found that I manage my RSS consumption much more efficiently on the iPad, although that may be more down to the app I use (Reeder) rather than the iPad itself.

I guess you can’t talk about the iPad without mentioning its lack of support for Flash, but for me that’s really been a non-issue as it’s yet to stop me doing anything.

Despite having reasonably large hands I’ve found the on screen keyboard to be surprisingly good, but then I can’t touch type anyway so I don’t have a great typing speed to start with. If I know that I’m going to be doing a lot of typing I will take my Apple wireless keyboard with me too.

At Onlignment we’re all about working virtually, and the iPad is proving its worth as my portable virtual office. Apps from Skype, Webex and Adobe Connect mean I can be connected with the rest of the team wherever I am. I’ve no regrets about buying the first generation iPad, but I’m excited by the opportunities that future versions will bring.

Image Source: Apple UK

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Department for Business, Innovation and Skills – 22 Jul 2010 10:10

Consultation on future of skills launched

• Making clear what is the most important information and what is just nice to know.
• Using story-telling and anecdotes to bring abstract concepts to life.
• Making the most appropriate use of media elements – text, images, animation, audio and video.
• Paring down the volume of content to reduce wasted time and minimise the risk of overload.
• Modularising the content so it can be easily random-accessed and reviewed.

• As background material to be accessed before or after an instructional session.
• As content for learners wishing to formalise their understanding of a subject that is primarily being tackled through a process of guided discovery.
• As material that can be accessed on-demand from a supporting content library.

Informal learning was not an invention of the Computer Age. However the degree to which corporate learning and development departments seem to be preoccupied with it seems to suggest that it is the new flavour of the month. The headline questions seem to be:

• “What is informal learning?”
• “Should it be of interest to corporate L & D departments?”
• “What role does technology play in informal learning?”

It is very tempting to try to reduce complex notions like this to a few bulleted points. It is very tempting to temper difficult concepts in this way and then move on to the next “killer application”. You might say informal learning:

1. has no prescribed framework
2. does not consist of organised learning events or objects
3. does not have a teacher or trainer present
4. does not lead to an award or qualification
5. does not have to transfer to some behaviour or performance, nor achieve some defined result.

The deeper I think about this the more I become uncomfortable at the limits of my own understanding. I find myself making various assertions and then challenging and rejecting them almost as soon as the words I type appear on screen. There are many paradoxes in this subject. Once you begin to create an intervention, such as the provision of resources and infrastructure, you might argue that all informality is negated. As you read and listen to the words of others you become aware that some view formality as contained within the time or place of learning. It is often defined as “learning that takes place outside classrooms.”

To the Zoo

The implication then is that if a teacher takes a class in the park or at the zoo then the learning is not formal. But if you have to line up in rows, carry a checklist or spotters’ questionnaire, then some formality has been reintroduced. The same is true if a trainer takes a group on outward bound activities. The renowned educator Maria Montessori spent much of her time in classrooms providing not lessons but an environment for learning. It is a matter of sensory stimulation – surrounding a learner with the sights and sounds that intrigue and stimulate a spirit of enquiry and a thirst for knowledge. Surely you can extend that approach to adults at home or at work. The Internet and emerging computer technologies are providing some obvious opportunities for enriching the environment around us. But we should also remember that how we choose to decorate walls and notice boards, how we behave as a culture and how we interact with colleagues supplies and customers are fertile areas of informal learning.

It’s All Greek to Me

Others see formality as bound up in the purpose and goals for learning – if it has a prescribed performance outcome then it cannot be informal they will say. But by this definition the learning of Latin or Ancient Greek would be informal learning. So that cannot be right. The condition known as latency enters the argument now. If the moment arrives when I copy an action that I noticed casually while waiting for a bus two months ago, have I altered history? Have I turned my informal learning event into a formal one?

Some look at methods of delivery and find the essence of informality in the ways in which a learner grows knowledge and skills. If I rely upon a third party for my learning (teacher, tutor, colleague, friend) then maybe I am formalising my learning. I can think of a number of extra-curricula learning experiences that happened to me in classrooms at an early age. For there it was Colin Yates taught me how to make a paper aeroplane. A girl called Elizabeth C taught me what it meant to be neglected by your Mum and Dad and so I learned compassion and just a little kindness. Frankie created the conditions for me to learn coping strategies to deal with bullying. I won’t tell you what “Gillian with a G” taught me (or where) but it was a lesson for life.

Tamarinds

Most of all there seems to be a good deal of overlap between informal learning and the kind of learning we sometimes refer to implicit or tacit.
Now tacit learning has much easier dimensions with which to grapple. It has been defined as “learning that occurs without the subject being able to explain how” (Parking 1993).

I’m frequently engaged in learning things that I know I’ll never put to any practical use. It’s a habit; I read newspapers without absorbing every word. I read cereal boxes and sauce bottles. I can recite the ingredients of HP sauce, tamarinds and all. I know many other things that I cannot recall ever having learnt. So I’m in no doubt that I’ve engaged on many occasions in some informal learning. It was learning without any planned transfer to performance or behaviour. This type of learning may become explicit only if ever I need to apply it or to link it with other things I’m yet to learn. Psychologists seem to agree that knowledge is organised into patterns and structure and associations in our minds. It may remain latent, that is to say it may not ever show up in any kind of action or performance and so we may not ever know that it is there.

Testing the Theory

To test the theory let me put some questions to you.

1. First of all, “When did you last go swimming?”
2. Second, “Can you describe a swimming pool and say what it is for?”
3. Third, “How many swimming pools do you pass on the journey from home to work?”
4. Fourth, “How do you swim?”

Let’s look at those four questions again.

1. The first one, “When did you last go swimming?” is no more than a test of how well you can recall your personal past (to give it a fancy name it is a test of episodic memory.)
2. The call to describe a swimming pool and say what it is for is similar, but you may not even need any personal experience upon which to call. Suppose you’ve never visited a swimming pool; nevertheless it is more than likely that you would be able to answer the question by using your knowledge of what words mean – this is known as your semantic memory.
3. Question three – “How many swimming pools do you pass on the journey from home to work?” is the sort of question that stimulates your RAS – your reticular activating system. It’s a bit like using Google – there maybe millions of images, words and ideas networked and connected to other ideas in your brain. You may never consciously see a green Ford Fiesta on the road, but buy one and you’ll soon be seeing them all over the place.
4. The fourth question, “How do you swim?” is the most difficult because it is asking you to process and express some types of information that may not be understood in the conscious mind.

As I reflected on these different products of learning, I revisited the website www.losethetrainingwheels.org

It has some wonderfully simple but intellectually deep thoughts and statements.

One comes from a ten year old who says, “If you want to ride a bike, you must have faith, believe, pedal and look forward”.

Maybe this is the nub of informal learning.

You can do much in a formal setting to learn about bike riding. You might even delve deep into the physics of the subject – critical velocity, the properties of steel and carbon and their application to the construction of bicycles, the characteristics of non-minimum phase systems and so on. This would probably be formal learning. And what would make it formal would be the method of study – an academic book-type learning; the topic – knowledge and comprehension in the cognitive taxonomy – facts and concepts you can tell and test. The control of the goal would be with someone else. It is unlikely anyone would list these difficult and rather dull topics in a set of “must knows” connected with riding a bike. However if you had previously learned that rubber comes from latex then you might link that idea with pneumatic tyres and think of it as you mended a puncture.

So I have to hand the questions back to you:

“What is informal learning?”
“Should it be of interest to corporate L & D departments?”
“What is the role for technology in informal learning?”

At the eLN Showcase event on 9th July, the Onlignment team each presented a Pechu Kucha (20 slides, each 20 seconds in duration). Today we present Barry’s session, titled Overcoming objections to social media.

Just a couple of years ago it was hard to find any serious use of social media within the workplace, and yet now it’s commonplace to see blogs, wikis and other collaborative tools being used. Adding social learning to the blend can enhance the learning experience, increase engagement and at the same time reduce the time and cost involved in more traditional approaches. So why do some organisations find it so hard to get started?

At the eLN Showcase event on 9th July, the Onlignment team each presented a Pechu Kucha (20 slides, each 20 seconds in duration). Today we present Phil’s session, titled Getting the job done with live online training.

Most training is carried out live in the classroom or on-the-job, but face-to-face instruction is not always the most practical or cost-effective option. Web conferencing allows you to continue to offer live training but without the need for all participants to be present in the same location. The ‘virtual classroom’ is ideal for running short training sessions, follow-ups, seminars and meetings. In this Pecha Kucha session, you’ll learn how leading organisations are making use of web conferencing to provide more training more efficiently and how they have equipped their classroom instructors to make a successful transition to online delivery.

At the eLN Showcase event on 9th July, the Onlignment team each presented a Pechu Kucha (20 slides, each 20 seconds in duration). This week we’ll make them all available here, and we start with Clive’s session titles Enjoyable Elearning – Is it an oxymoron?.

We all know that elearning is growing in popularity, primarily because it’s efficient. It helps employers by cutting travel costs and allowing more training to happen more quickly. It helps employees because it allows them to obtain learning when and where it suits them. But none of this means that learners ‘like’ elearning; for many it’s just another mundane chore. So is it possible for elearning to be enjoyable, or is this an oxymoron?

Last week, Blackboard, the largest commercial provider of learning management systems to the education sector, purchased not one but two web conferencing providers that also have a strong educational heritage – Elluminate and Wimba. Now, although I have used Blackboard for five years or more now to deliver an online certificate for one of my clients, I certainly have no warm feelings for the company; firstly because I actually prefer Moodle, even though it’s essentially free, but even more because of Blackboard’s outrageous behaviour a year or two back in claiming it invented the LMS and going after its main competitors for extravagent royalties. It failed, I’m glad to say, and it will take Blackboard years of being terribly nice to repair its stinking reputation.

I don’t know Wimba, but I have an affinity for Elluminate, which the eLearning Network and ALT uses to run its joint public webinars. It is a capable web conferencing platform, with a number of features which make it especially suited to use as a virtual classroom (Onlignment’s Phil Green is a big fan). It’s possible that both Elluminate and Wimba would find it hard to survive on their own in the long run against the competition faced by the big IT and telecoms operators that are beginning to dominate web conferencing (Cisco, Microsoft, Adobe, AT&T, etc.). Whether Blackboard provides it with much protection is dubious. After all when Saba bought Centra, which was at the time one of the major corporate web conferencing platforms, its profile dropped enormously and now it is a speck in the market compared to WebEx.

In George Siemens’ posting about the takeover, he takes the position that Blackboard is making a sensible move because “synchronous tools represent the fastest growing technology segment in education, and the one with the greatest prospect for future growth.” At Onlignment, we like to think so. But I’m not sure that it really helps to integrate the LMS with web conferencing, particularly in the workplace, where the decisions to purchase these platforms are likely to originate from different places in the organisation: HR look after the LMS, and IT look after business communications, which includes web conferencing. And a good LMS should be able to integrate seamlessly with any web conferencing platform, just like it should do with any authoring tool or HR system.

Here are a few photos from last week’s eLN Showcase event in London.