Et Tu Brute

Asessment task 2.2 is now complete and can be viewed here

I look forward to hearing other’s thoughts on my research.

After listening to Anne Bartlett-Bragg’s (Bartlett-Bragg 2008) commentary on the barrier corporate policies pose to social e-learning I was prompted to ask whether this was not an insurmountable barrier.  I work within the pharmaceutical industry where hundreds of millions of dollars are made and lost as a result of corporate security.  The idea of posting information about corporate strategy online for all to see is unthinkable.

How then do I as an educator utilise the wonderful tools available to me on the web to “design for learning” (Wenger 1999)? I think the solution lies in the next two areas of blockade that Anne assessed; the learner and the educator.  As an educator perhaps I need to “Stand on my head and take a different view of the world” (Bartlett-Bragg 2008) Are there ways in which I can facilitate the advancement of knowledge without necessarily exposing my company’s proprietary information to the entire world?  Or are there ways of hosting my own e-learning communities within the confines of our firewalls?  This would mean utilising applications other than the many free resources on the web, but perhaps this is the price we have to pay if we want to shield our knowledge from the rest of the world.

The far more difficult hurdle to overcome is to engage a workforce which is unsued to being self directed in their learning.  It often amazes me how a group of well educated and successful professionals can cry helplessness when confronted with a learning issue.  When presented with a new concept they have become conditioned that they must be “trained on it”.  This is a group of people who have been progressively selected due to their initiative and performance and yet they have become so dependent on the training department that they refuse to even consider adopting a new process or tool without a training session and a user manual!

My challenge as an educator is to design for learning that will reinvigorate the independence and initiative that these employees so obviously possess which has been suppressed in them by years of having all knowledge presented to them by a “sage on the stage”.

References:

Bartlett-Bragg, A. 2008 “Your guide to social e-learning” Australian Flexible Learning Framework Available at http://socialelearning.flexiblelearning.net.au/social_elearning/index.htm

Wenger, E. 1999, Communities of practice: Learning, meaning, and identity, Cambridge Univ Pr.

Wow!  What a fantastic list of resources!

What a shame it is hidden to the majority by only being available to subscribers.

The list of websites and onlinew recources covered here are enough to keep any educator busy for months, just surfing thorugh and looking at each one.  Much less actually critically appraising each one and assessing its value.  For this we should be eternally grateful to Mr Dringus and his staff at Internet and Higher Education.

Just a pity this information is not being shared with those who do not have the resources to subscribe tothe journal.

Dringus, L.P. 2008, ‘Editor’s choice 2008: Selected online learning resources’, The Internet and Higher Education, vol. 11, no. 3-4, pp. 211-216.

The 2009 Horizon report was somewhat disappointing.  As a relative new comer to the field of elearning and online collaboprative technologies I was expecting to be dazzled with the array of new technologies which were being presented as “on the horizon”.  Instead I heard about new mobile technology which has been available for some time now, at least in the developed countries were I train.  These countries include India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and even New Zealand so I am not setting the bar excessively high.  Cloud computing is positioned as a technology which will emerge in the next 1-2 years abd yet as a self confessed “techno-moron” I have been using a version of cloud computing to store my photo library for at least 2 years!

Geo locative technology is interesting and while I agree with the report that there is still some dramatic scope for expansion it has been available for some time (as is acknowledged in the report) not just in avdanced technical applications but in things as simple as digital SLR cameras.

Semantic aware applications and smart objects are interesting and will obviously have incredible scope when they become readily available but from such a widely anticipated report one would expect a better strike rate than 2 from 6.

Reference:New Media Consortium (NMC), 2009, The Horizon Report, URL: [http://wp.nmc.org/horizon2009/chapters/executive-summary/]

Wenger’s commentary on designing learning is somewhat off-putting when the opening statement is that learning cannot be designed. Overcoming my initial confusion and reading further to the narrow definition of “design” which was given I was able to reconcile with the idea that this type of “design” was clearly not possible and the best that could be attempted was to “design for learning” (Wenger 1999) P231

In relation to this I found the summary of the social perspective on learning particularly interesting (Wenger 1999) Pp226-228; especially the comment that learning is both fundamentally experiential and fundamentally social. As I have stated in previous posts I had been sceptical as to the social nature of learning in the past. To overcome this scepticism I have applied some cognitive theory to my own social experiences and have indeed found evidence to support the claim.

The cognitive theory used was that there are three basic strategies which are essential for lifelong learning: repetition, elaboration and organisation strategies (Weinstein and Mayer 1986, 1991 cited in (Cornford 2002). So how do we “design for” these three steps? Designing for repetition is simple within the classroom but less straightforward in a social construct, perhaps the best that can be hoped for is to try and make an experience as positive as possible to entice participants to do it again. Elaboration will take place relatively naturally if a learner is truly engaged in the social experience, while it is common for information to be accepted as “fact” and not questioned in a classroom, this is less commonly the case in a social environment. Questioning then enables elaboration by building bridges between stored knowledge and new information.

Organisation strategies should happen naturally within the experiential sphere; knowledge, both new and old needs to be applied and therefore it is stratified into useable pathways. So I now find a agree with much of what Wenger has to say; the challenge now is to reassess my educational strategies and attempt to “design for learning” rather than simply writing session plans.

Cornford, I.R. 2002, ‘Learning-to-learn strategies as a basis for effective lifelong learning’, International Journal of Lifelong Education, vol. 21, no. 4, pp. 357 – 368.

Wenger, E. 1999, Communities of practice: Learning, meaning, and identity, Cambridge Univ Pr.

OK so the theory sounded solid and I was able to relate it to my own experience; however I wanted to know whether anyone had actually tried to qualitatively or quantitatively assess whether this idea of learning communities would work within a corporate environment. Was this idea that “Adults learn extensively from belonging to and participating in groups” (Saunders 1999) actually being used in the workplace. I tried to think of the most resistive environment to adopting this sort of change and I the answer which presented itself was either large corporations or the public service. Somewhere with so much bureaucracy that establishing the will to change standard practice would be so great as to almost guarantee failure.

This was when I found a study which assessed the implementation of just such a learning community within the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) a more unwieldy bureaucracy I could not imagine. This study had taken Saunders concept and made one crucial change; that was, “…the status of the participants. Saunders describes conversations as taking place between a novice and an expert. In the training program conversations are conducted between equals.” (Collier & McManus 2005)

This created the greatest challenge of the study the idea of the learners as equals, it is inherent in our corporate structures that we see knowledge as power. One of the main reasons people are promoted in the workplace is that they are seen as having an advanced skill set over that of their contemporaries. Given this why would they then cede this advantage without generating a new one; that of the ability to mentor and coach. The study authors acknowledged this, “The ATO, although team focused, still has many hierarchical structures in place. Therefore, mentoring and coaching which relies on concepts of the novice and the expert, would be expected to fit more comfortably within this system.” (Collier & McManus 2005)

The authors acknowledged the polarisation of opinion caused by the program but due to the nature of the study were only able to theorise on the underlying causes of resistance. Lawrence stated that most resistance to change was related to an aversion to the new technique based on perceived technical flaws. (Lawrence 1968) This would not seem to be the case in this situation and it seems to be more about a perceived shift in the balance of power. It would appear from several comments that the more experienced learners in the partnership were unable to see a clear benefit for themselves which matched the level of benefit which they were offering to their partners.

The willingness to share knowledge has been discussed as a key concept underpinning learning communities by contemporary authors (Bartlett-Bragg 2008). It would appear that this lack of commitment to shared knowledge is what was underlying the resistance within the ATO and unless strategies can be developed to counter this resistance I believe it will taint the attempts to implement learning partnerships within any workplace.

Bartlett-Bragg, A. 2008, ‘Your guide to social e-learning’ from the Australian Flexible Learning Framework Available at: http://socialelearning.flexiblelearning.net.au/social_elearning/index.htm

Collier, K. & McManus, J. 2005, ‘Bridging the Gap: the use of learning partnerships to enhance workplace learning’, Journal of Cooperative Education, vol. 6, no. 2, pp. 7-16.

Lawrence, P. 1968, How to deal with resistance to change, Harvard Business Review.

Saunders, S. 1999, ‘Social Psychology of Adult Learning’, 1999), Adult Educational Psychology, Social Science Press, Katoomba, NSW.

The Social psychology of adult learners – Shirley Saunders

Part 1

Reading Saunders has caused me to re-evaluate my ideas of online learning and of learning communities. Initially I resisted the idea that, “Adults learn extensively from belonging to and participating in groups” (Saunders 1999). That was until I realised how narrow my focus had been. When assessing my learning experiences I was restricting myself to the formal learning environments which I had experienced. In these environment (school and university) I had often viewed the group as, as much of a hindrance to learning as a help. So much so that the final two years of my undergraduate degree I completed by correspondence because I felt that attendance at lectures and tutorials added less than they detracted from my learning experience. Even my first two subjects of this Master of Adult Education provided me with little in the way of true community learning opportunities.

When I allowed myself to take a broader view of the groups I participate in and assessed whether they offered opportunities for learning I saw that every social interaction I have is a learning experience and if I were more able to consciously harness and channel these opportunities I would gain a lot more from them.

The idea of people sharing rather than imposing their expertise (Saunders 1999) is not only attractive it is inherent in the well functioning learning communities in which I am involved. When I assess the learning environment at my local rugby union club where I coach a masters (over 35 years) age team, the sharing of knowledge is palpable and yet when I compare this to the autocratic nature of the coaching I conducted in the professional arena I wonder where the players learnt more and it saddens me to admit that it is most likely in the former scenario.

I am now looking forward with some anticipation to the opportunity to engage in a true learning community in the sphere of tertiary education as I believe it will be the first time I have done so.

Saunders, S. 1999, ‘Social Psychology of Adult Learning’, 1999), Adult Educational Psychology, Social Science Press, Katoomba, NSW.

Assignment 1.2 is complete and can be viewed here

Hope it makes sense.

Assignment 1.1 has been complete and available for viewing here for some time I just forgot to make a blog post to let everybody know!

Hope you enjoy it!

I just read Mollybob’s post on presenting in a Webinar and couldn’t aggree more!http://mollybob.wordpress.com/2009/04/09/presenting-a-webinar-great-now-shut-up/

I have recently had the opportunity to explore some new delivery techniques for learning within my company.  I support learning for a national field sales force and the tyranny of distance means I only ever get face to face time with the entire team twice a year.  These conferences are always a mad competition for time and devoting an hour or more to just gfeneral discussion is seldom high on teh conference oprganiser’s list of priorties.

We had tried teleconferencing with varying levels of success and it was decided that 2009 was the year to try something more interactive.

Enter Webex, Webex is a proprietary software for which my company has a global licence.  Because it is a secure portal the company is comfortable for it to be used to disseminate strategy and other corporate materials.

In my first two outings on Webex I have limited myself to merely utilising the ability to present powerpoint and use the interactive nature of the “chat box” to ask the participants to give their feedback.  However I have found that the temptation is to fill every silence myself.  I think like in so many other training environments we as facilitators need to be prepared to let the silence stand.

While I agree with most of what Mollybob had to say I do believe there are ways of gauging the level of engagementy of an audience via Webex, I should say that I am unsure to which forums Mollybob was referring when she commented on the difficulty of judging audience participation without listening.

One of the strengths of Webex is the chat bar and I found the more I used it the more ability I had to track true audience engagement.  It certainly “raises the bar” from a facilitation point of view as you try to keep track of 18 different chats at once, however it makes it easy to see who is actively listeneing and who is just along for the ride.

It also provides a less threatening environment to ask people to answer questions as they know their posts can be sent only to the host and therefore gives an opportunity for a less outgoing particpant to have their say without fear of being criticised.

I know my second Webex conference was better than the first froma  facilitation point of view and I know my next will be better than the last but I think the key, as well as listening is building true interactivity into the presentation.

I’ll keep you all posted on my future experiences.