Dave's Whiteboard

ASTD’s T&D for January includes E-Learning: What’s Old is New Again, by Allison Rossett and James Marshall.  They wondered what e-learning looks like in the real world and surveyed nearly a thousand practitioners.

In her book on training needs analysis, Rossett talks about actuals and optimals–finding out how things really are, and determining what they could be.  She and Marshall take a similar approach here.  They summarize responses about how things are, e-learning-wise.  And they speculate about how things could be.

I think the article’s worth reading in full, especially for people who don’t work in corporate or organizational settings (two-thirds of the respondents do).  I agree that for many people, the workplace is changing, as is the definition of work.  At the same time, most of my own clients have been and are large organizations with multiple locations, often with a significant effort to provide structured learning (a term I prefer to “formal”).

I was especially struck (not to say “depressed”) by the last response in the first of several charts in the article:

Our structured training uses realistic situations, encourages choice, supports learning from that choice — less than “some of the time?”

Sadly, I think that’s accurate, and a true indictment for the organizations in which this happens.  Formal training departments may be complicit, but so too are organizational leaders.  Often, in the aeries just below C-level executives, there’s a touching faith in magic beans–nice, clear solutions to nagging problems that don’t look like they’re the organization’s real business.

Last spring, in Halifax, I came across Antonine Maillet’s novel, Pélagie-la-Charette. Maillet tells of Pélagie LeBlanc, deported like thousands of others from l’Acadie (what’s now Nova Scotia and New Brunswick; see this map at Wikimedia).  Twenty years after le grand dérangement, Pélagie leads a band of Acadians  in an oxcart (hence her nickname, Pélagie the Cart) from Georgia back to Acadia.

I’d never heard of Pélagie or of Maillet, but  I wanted to know more about the Acadians, who don’t appear much in the Nova Scotia tales I grew up with (my family tree topples over with MacDougals and Macdonalds, MacLennans and MacLellans).  As a bonus, I’d get more practice with French.

It’s slow going, though–I’m just not that fluent, and Maillet’s style is vivid, idiosyncratic, and sometimes more of a challenge than I’m up to.   But it’s a new year, and today, I fished out a post I’d found months ago on John Biesnecker’s Global Maverick blog: How to read in a foreign language.

Biesnecker argues that new learners (and perhaps rusty ones like me) don’t know how to read…in a foreign language, anyway.  We’re accustomed to understanding stuff written in our native language, or the vast majority of it.

He tried to read his first Chinese-language book while commuting.  One practice he picked up was to ignore a word he didn’t know, and just keep going.

That’s not to say you should never look a word up while reading. If there’s a word that you’ve already seen five times in the last two pages and you still can’t figure it out by context, then by all means look it up. Just don’t waste your time on obscure adjectives that you’re not going to see again soon and that don’t affect the story if they’re ignored.

Here’s how this fits together for me: I hate not being fluent in French, especially since it’s the only other language I know (the odd Gaelic phrase notwithstanding).  Sometimes that manifests itself in my not wanting to speak French with French speakers.  Objectively I know it’s good for me; emotionally, I’m unhappy when I can’t express myself or when I feel I’m making things drag.  And, frankly, sometimes I simply can’t keep because I have neither the vocabulary nor the skill.

At the same time, this is work I have to do for myself.  I haven’t even looked to see if there’s a standard English translation, though I’m sure there must be.  It’d be too tempting to let the translator do what I want and need to do.

I like Biesnecker’s suggestion, though, especially because it corresponds to the way we learn about any new culture: in pieces, in a disorganized fashion, through repetition.  I’m not in a competition to finish Pélagie before the end of the week (or the quarter).  So I’m going to restart something I began last fall: copying the French text into an online document, then writing my own English translation.

Copying the French intensifies my focus.  I end up reading the text two or three times while transcribing, and then rereading the result (either in the document or in my book) to refresh the big picture.  And writing my translation in an electronic document means I can annotate, mark stuff I’m not sure about, and leave room for ambiguity.

So far I’ve done only a few pages.  I already like Pélagie (both La Charrette and her descendant, Pélagie-la-Gribouille ( ‘the scribbler’ ), so I feel I’ve neglected her, which is why I mention this mainly personal project here.

(Special thanks to Louise Côté, whose enthusiasm for Pélagie reinforced my choice, and to Jacques Cool, who recommended an ideal accompaniment: A Great and Noble Scheme: the Tragic Story of the Expulsion of the French Acadiens from Their American Homeland.)

(Added on January 4: here’s Maillet herself, reading an English translation from chapter one of Pélagie-la-Charrette.)

Is all learning “social?”  In some ways, that’s a metaphysical question.  I’ve learned by reading and then applying what I read to some problem– like fiddling with the style sheet on my blog.

I suppose I’ve interacted with the person who wrote the book, and indirectly with the people who see the results of what I’ve done.  Or with myself, if I’m the only one who can tell the difference.

Parsing this can be fun, like pre-Vatican II discussions of Catholic practice.  “Brother Andrew–if it was Friday at the South Pole, and I had a ham sandwich, could I walk over to where it would be Saturday and eat the sandwich?  Would I have to wait before walking back to Friday?”

Most of the time, I think learning evidence itself through interaction with others (so, “social”).  More important, to me “learning” demands application.  Until you retrieve the facts, exercise the skill, attempt a new arrangement–do something–I don’t quite see how you can claim to have learned.

With that meandering out of the way, I’d like to highlight a highly useful series by Jane Hart: C4LPT’s Guide to Social Learning.  She discusses the shift from elearning to social learning, discusses social media, and gives examples of social media in learning.

Most helpful to me: Jane identified five types of learning.  Harold Jarche looked at those and created the chart you see on the right, showing the amount of  “directedness” for each category.

• IOL: intra-organizational learning
• GDL: group-directed learning
• PDL: personally-directed learning
• ASL: accidental and serendipitous learning
• FSL: formal structured learning

(So the list and the chart are a nice example of collaboration.  I thank Jane for clarifying this for me, and have edited this post accordingly.)

A highlight of Jane’s series is an extensive list of examples.  In a grid, she provides examples of different social media tools as they can be used for each of the types of learning in Harold’s chart.

There’s plenty more, including discussions for each of the five categories.  Take a look; see if there’s anything you can…well, learn.

“Talking to self” image adapted under a CC license from a photo by Leeni! / Kathleen.

Talking about live backchannels recently led to talking about feedback, which is good (in my view).  It’s feedback that offers the chance not to change, which was the first word trying to get in as I wrote this, but to decide. As in, decide whether to change or to keep on doing what you’re doing.

The difference?  Well, here are the basic steps of a process:

You can take the point-of-view elevator down (say, to the process for harvesting barley) or up (operating the Talisker distillery).  Processes go inside larger ones, link to others; an output here becomes an input there.

But you’re not getting the full picture.  You don’t know how you’re doing without feedback.  Thus items 7 and 9 on this diagram:

Item 9 on the diagram is feedback about the process (here’s how things are going).  You can see item 7 as both short-term and long-term feedback to the performer.  That’s the answer to “how’m I doing?”  (Sure, there’s crossover between the two, especially if it’s a single performer, but I was going for simplicity here.)

I talked recently with Dick Carlson about the backchannel.  He’s far more technically skilled than I am; he sometimes uses custom backchannel software in a session.  Each participate creates an anonymous ID (like, say, a favorite comic book character or root vegetable).  He displays the backchannel during the session, which means everybody gets to see when Granola&Grits says, “been there, declined the tshirt.”  Or when ParsnipAmazon says, “YES! ima usin this TODAY!”

Potential for an interesting bit of DIY research: do some sessions with the Veggie ID, others with name-based ID, then see if there’s discernable differences between the quality or quantity of feedback.  Okay, now, back to the post…

Not to say a backchannel is a requirement.  I have reservations, especially if most participants don’t have access to it–e.g., 60% lack devices to get to it. Shooting an anonymous remark into the stream is easier and potentially less intimidating than standing out by speaking up.

I’ve already said I’d be very distracted viewing a backchannel if I were presenting on my own.  Though on that topic, Aaron Silvers just today told me he found great value in reviewing a backchannel following a session he’d given.  During the session, he didn’t think he was doing that well, but what he saw in the stream afterward helped him see differently.

All of which is to say that software like Twitter is one way, not the way, to collect and retrieve feedback.  Which reminds me that collecting (storage) and retrieval (application) aren’t a bad way to think about the fundamentals of learning.

That’s my own “Looking for trouble?” chart.
My process diagram adapted from these CC-licensed images:
Ripening barley by net_efekt / Christian Guthier;
stills at the Lagavulin distillery by Freddie H / Frederique Harmsze;
glass of whisky by smiling_da_vince / Eelco.

Cammy Bean, on her Learning Visions blog, summarized a live session by Brent Schlenker.  Brent’s topic:  “Marketers and Game Developers Know More about Learning than We [learning design folks] Do.”

Both Cammy’s post and the extended comments are worth reading; I’m going off on my own, starting with Brent’s notion that we need to move from “event-based learning” (the course, whether classroom or e-learning) to “learning campaigns.”

He contrasts what corporate learning does with what corporate marketing does.  Marketing is about a campaign, “a series of events/operations/continuing storyline.”  A learning campaign, he suggests, is not about t-shirts and email blasts (the latter always strikes me as both offensive and fatheaded).  “It’s about providing more ways for learners to engage with and accent content.”

That’s part of the mind shift for corporate learning: it’s not about getting the word out, if the word is mostly “we’ve got these courses, this elearning, the fabulous LMS.”  Sometimes the message received is: “We’ve got lots of ways to consume your time while distracting you from your real job.”

If I quibbled with Brent, it’d be about the statement, “Marketing brings in the money.”  I think marketing brings in the attention.  But the entire organization–product development, sales, production, customer service–has to deliver on that attention in order to bring in the money.  Or at least to bring it in more than once.

Take the Starbucks campaign for VIA Ready Brew.  If your local area has paved roads and indoor plumbing, you’ve probably experienced part of the marketing campaign around “100 percent natural roasted arabica coffee in an instant form that is rich and full bodied just like a fresh-brewed cup.”  But have you tried it?

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I say “quibble” because I think both Brent and Cammy would agree with this: the concept of campaign aligns well with the idea of an overall performance system.  People who know about communications will tell you that your web site isn’t a brochure; it’s one way that your organization talks with people.  And before you decide on the colors and the layout, you need to think about who those people are and how the conversations might go.

So: corporate learning is about identifying skills people need but don’t have, skills that connect clearly to results that those people and their groups need to produce.  And the learning must not only engage (a far better word than “entertain”); it must do so in a way that isn’t divorced from my real work.

“Campaign” entered English some 300 years ago, referring to large military operations in a geographic area.  In other words, not the Big Idea at headquarters, but theory-meets-practice on the front line.  A successful learning campaign, whatever it looks like, clearly knows the territory.