Moved on

As it seems that some people are still stumbling across this site, and there are a few links pointing here, I thought I should stop by and mention that this site is well and truly abandoned.

My new blog can be found at http://barrysampson.com

Walk2Web

There are many ways you can see who's linking to you and vice versa - but there can't be many cooler ways to do it than Walk2Web.

http://walk2web.com/surf/http://rocketshipstudio.com

I really like web apps like this that do something functional, but in an interesting and visually stimulating way.

Elearning Network Day - Informal Learning

This is a shameless plug for the next Elearning Network Day, which takes place in london on 25th May. The day is titled "Informal Learning - Learning Despite The Training Department", a subject that I feel quite strongly about!

There are some great people presenting:

• Jane Hart (Waller Hart Learning Architects)
  
• Richard Middleton (Academy Internet)
  
• Richard Lane (Skillsoft)
• Anna McGrail (Johnson & Johnson Babycentre)
• Nick Shackleton-Jones (BBC)
• Jean In het Panhuis (ING)
• Emma Goss
• Mark Harrison (Kineo)

Oh, and I'm presenting too :-)

Details of the day can be found here, and if you would like to join us you can go here to book.

Is Informal Learning Like Quantum Physics?

I almost wish that the current fashion for informal learning would hurry up and blow over. Not because I think that informal learning doesn't have any value, quite the opposite in fact. I just wish training departments would get back to what they're good at (formal learning) and leave the informal learning to happen in the workplace as it always has done.

As soon as training departments start getting involved with informal learning, it becomes formal to a greater or lesser degree.

David Wilson has written a post about Real Metrics on Informal Learning, and I can't help feeling that any figures he does manage to solicit from people are simply going to be wrong. Attempts to measure informal learning suffer from something akin to the Observer Effect in quantum physics, or the Hawthorne Effect on the changed behaviours of workers under observation. The act of observation or measurement changes the beahviour, and thus the outcome.

Informal learning just happens, without any help from outside forces. The very best a training department can do is provide free access to materials, and to create an environment in which learning is encouraged and accepted - and then to step away and let it manage itself. But how many training departments really have the courage to do that? Not many I bet.

Redefining Elearning

This post over on Dan Roddy's blog should be essential reading for anyone just starting out in elearning :-)

Elearning leader

If you haven't seen the latest press release from elearnity, they announced today that Adrian Jones has joined them as Principal Analyst. I've had the pleasure of working with Adrian in various roles over the last five years, and he truly is an elearning leader. There can be few others who've made such a significant contribution to the adoption of elearning in UK corporates.

On a personal note, over the last five years Adrian has at different times been a great mentor, a great manager and a great colleague, but at all times been a great friend. I wish him the best of luck in his new role and I know we're all going to miss him.

Do Templates Really Help?

This morning I was reading Kineo's recent piece on the future of rapid elearning tools. I don't think the article said that much really, which isn't a criticism of Kineo, more a reflection of the 'jurys out' feeling about rapid content creation that seems to be prevalent in the industry.

They did touch on the issue of quality of instructional design, and in particular the effect of giving more control to SME's. I believe they were quite right in their conclusion that the democratisation of learning content creation can only be a good thing, but I'm less sure about their belief that you can mitigate some of the risks around quality by supplying "well structured templates which will give instructional integrity to how they develop their learning". I see three problems here;

It presupposes that the templates are instructionally sound in the first place: In reality I doubt that any templated approach is likely to be instructionally sound. For me this is is one of the key failings of traditional elearning content: fitting your learning need to pre-existing templates, whether that's SME built rapid content or something produced by an elearning provider. Templates are about keeping costs down, not standards up.

It also presupposes that the theory behind the templates is instructionally sound: I am in firm agreement with Donald Clark that trying to build elearning content based on outdated theories that were never meant to be applied to elearning anyway, is just plain dumb. If you want to read more head over to Donald's blog, he says it much more eloquently than I could.

It assumes that the tool can solve SME (and trainer) shortcomings: It's not going to happen. PowerPoint is a fabulous tool, capable of creating wonderful presentations. Why then is the world full of awful presentations? So what makes anyone think that a content creation tool, no matter how well designed, is going to help SME's produce good learning?

In conclusion, I would say that templates may provide some assistance, but only if the person using them actually knows what they're doing... which sort of negates their purpose anyway. I would rather see those involved in producing learning content learn how to use a more robust tool or engage with someone that can. Training departments should get out of the way of SME's and let them carry on producing ad-hoc knowledge content without attempting to turn every Word document and PowerPoint presentation into a piece of elearning.

UPDATE: This subject has become an interesting conversation over at Cammy Bean's blog.

Why Web 2.0 is changing learning

If you don't 'get' Web 2.0, or know someone else that doesn't 'get' it, you or they should watch this video, to the end.

Web 2.0 ... The Machine is Us/ing Us

Do we care if they learn?

Every year organisations spend a great deal of money on compliance training for their staff. But do we deliver the training because we’re actually concerned that they learn about the subject in hand, or do we just want to be sure that we demonstrate some degree of due diligence for when the inevitable audit comes?

I would suggest that it’s the latter. This week at the Learning Technologies 2007 conference I saw a number of speakers who work in regulated industries, and when compliance training was mentioned in their presentations it was with the tell tale roll of the eyes that suggested it was nothing but an inconvenience.

So, the question is if all we want to achieve is that regulatory tick in the box, why do we spend time and money developing sophisticated training? Surely as long as we cover the relevant topics, and we can produce reports from our LMS to demonstrate its completion we’ve achieved our goal. That we way we can spend the money where we really believe it'll make a difference.

I’d really like to know what others think.