Harold Jarche

Learning through Storytelling with the PPCLI

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Via Luis Suarez is this story on CNEWS [dead link: see comment below] about a cultural anthropologist, Anne Irwin, who has been studying soldiers in the field and how they learn and bond through storytelling. The soldiers of the Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry battle group are in Afghanistan and Prof. Irwin is there to watch and understand:

When they are out in the field and return from a patrol, the exhausted soldiers relax together in small, tightly-knit groups – Irwin calls them “nesting circles” – and recount the events of the day or the mission.

Each soldier contributes a story, an anecdote or even a joke, adding stock and spice into what becomes a collective stew of experiences, she said. They also playfully insult each other.

The storytelling not only helps forge the individual identity of each soldier, it builds interpersonal relationships that can have a bearing on how well the unit performs on the battlefield.

Having served in the same regiment and having been active in training and learning for many years now, I can say that this is the perfect example of the importance of informal learning. It’s a fact that these soldiers have all been formally trained in the skills of the infantry. However, the unit is not an effective fighting force until individuals have worked together. Informal learning is the glue that helps keep them together during the tough times. Support for these “nesting circles” and other ways to facilitate group learning is essential.

Let’s take a similar, but much less dangerous situation. Imagine a company that has a project team that has had a difficult client with tight deadlines and then managed to pull it off. Immediately after the last deliverable, the team is redistributed across the organisation to get to the next project, because “time is money”. There has been no time to talk or to swap stories or to find out what Bob was doing while Mary was dealing with a certain crisis. There are no “nesting circles” here to develop the group’s learning.

Civilian organisations might not be able to devote down time to informal learning, but they can ease the way for other kinds of communication that may help informal learning. Storytelling through blogs is possible for those who want to write. Sharing pictures on the Intranet can evoke memories and encourage people to revisit an event and learn from it. The key is to create environments that support these types of communication and learning — just as a dozen soldiers in a tent are going to tell stories, bond, and learn.

3ppcli afghanistan
3PPCLI in Afghanistan — Wikimedia Commons

Attracting Young, Educated People to Small Towns

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CEO’s for Cities has a recent report on Attracting the Young, College-educated to Cities. I l looked at the summary data (this is US data, not Canadian) from the perspective of a small town trying to attract this demographic (the new generation of knowledge workers), which is part of what our Commons is about. The report covers responses from 1,000 college-educated 25-34 olds.

“Two-thirds of college-educated 25 to 34 year-olds report that they will make the decision of where they live first, then look for a job within that area.” To be considered, small towns had better get on the mental maps of young people. In Sackville, we have a university where we can make a positive impression on a select group of young people.

Half of married people or those with children under 18 would definitely/probably consider a small town. Therefore small towns should focus on being family-friendly and consider what resources couples, parents, and children need.

In response to, “If you were to consider moving to a city, which of the following sources of information might you use to find out more about the city?”, 65% cited Go to local website. Towns need comprehensive, accurate websites, and I believe some two-way interaction such as blogs or social networking to connect real people with real needs; not just marketing hype.

The report shows a hierarchy of needs (à la Maslow) of this group:

  1. A clean and attractive, safe and green place to live the life I want to lead.
  2. A place that will allow me to grow professionally and personally, and raise a family
  3. I want an interesting and diverse place to live that has space for social interactions and is close to family.

I think that the major challenges for small towns are the second and third points. We have to show that it is possible to grow professionally. This requires a critical mass of professionals in the area (a subjective number, depending on individual needs) as well as an excellent networking and Internet connectivity infrastructure. We also have to diversify our population by attracting more immigrants from other regions and cultures. These are our challenges, if we want to be viable Internet age communities.

Skype 101

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I’ll be hosting my last skypecast for our informl learning unworkshop tomorrow. The availability of Skype and now skypecasts has simplified the process of hosting audio conferences with people distributed around the world. Here’s what I’ve learned this past month about hosting free skype conferences and skypecasts.

Skype Conferences

  1. Skype conferences are the simplest way of getting up to five people into a conference call. Just right-click on the contact you wish to “Invite to Conference” after you have started a call with one person.
  2. The host cannot mute other particpants in a skype conference, but each person has a mute button on the skype application (top right).
  3. If you have an Intel dual core processor powered computer, you can invite up to ten people to your skype conference.

Skypecasting

  1. For more people, you can create a skypecast which will allow you to have ~99 participants in a call.
  2. To create a skypecast, the host goes to the Skypecast website and logs-in with his or her skypename and password.
  3. The host creates a session, either to start immediately, or for a later time. Provide a title and description and set the time (after the set time period, no one can join or rejoin the skypecast so set a sufficient time period).
  4. As the host, you can mute anyone/everyone, which you should do, as it keeps the excess noise level down. Imagine the sound of a cocktail party coming through your headset. I would strongly suggest that all participants use a headset and microphone.
  5. Muted participants can “ask for the microphone”, which the host will see as the icon beside the participant’s name turning from green to orange.
  6. Note that skypecasts are open to the public and anyone can drop in. The host can eject anyone, but be sure to read the terms set by Skype.
  7. With most people muted, the sound is usually quite good.

Recording

  1. I used Pamela to record our skypecasts. Pamela Pro is required and it’s available for a 30-day trial or can be purchased for $25.
  2. Once you’ve downloaded and installed Pamela Pro, go to “Tools – Options – General” and uncheck the box marked “Automatically start on Windows start-up”.
  3. When your skypecast is running and you decide to start recording, just open the Pamela Pro application (easy if you accept a shortcut on your desktop on set up). A window will open asking if you want to record the call and click yes. Pamela will record the call for as long as you keep it and the skypecast open.
  4. Pamela Pro will save the recording as a date stamped .wav file in “My Documents – Pamela – Callrecord”.
  5. To convert from .wav to MP3 and make the large file a lot smaller, you will need a converter application like Free CD to MP3 Converter. Using this application, click on “File – WAV to MP3” and it will do the rest. The resulting MP3 can be renamed and uploaded to a website or shared via FTP. An hour recording is about 40 MB.
  6. There are many other ways of recording a skypecast, including more complex audio edit suites, but this is the simplest method that I’ve found so far.

Skyping & Learning

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Yesterday was a skype-filled day. It started with a conference call for seven people to discuss a new business idea. During the session I learned that the skype conference limit of 5 people can be doubled if the host uses an Intel dual core processor.

Later in the day I hosted a skypecast for our Unworkshop where we discussed podcasting and had a great conversation about wikis in the enterprise with Peter Kaminski of Socialtext.

At the end of the day I joined the regular Thursday EdTech Brainstorm where the conversation ranged from learning scripting languages to blogs in school. There is still a need for more “how-to” resources for those interested in using the Web for learning. Some of the casting resources discussed were:

We also talked about various platforms for web-based learning and blogging and these applications seem to be the current leaders of the open source pack:

The people formerly known as students

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The people formerly known as the audience do not believe this problem “too many speakers” is our problem. Now for anyone in your circle still wondering who we are, a formal definition might go like this:

The people formerly known as the audience are those who were on the receiving end of a media system that ran one way, in a broadcasting pattern, with high entry fees and a few firms competing to speak very loudly while the rest of the population listened in isolation from one another and who today are not in a situation like that at all.

The above is from Jay Rosen’s article on “The people formerly known as audience“.

I’m in a playful mood, so here is what the people formerly known as students might have to say:

The people formerly known as students do not believe this problem “too many individual learners” is our problem. Now for anyone in your circle still wondering who we are, a formal definition might go like this:

The people formerly known as students are those who were on the receiving end of an oligopolist educational system that ran one way, in a broadcasting pattern, with high entry fees and few options, and accredited institutions competing to speak their truths while the rest of the population learned in isolation from one another and who today are not in a situation like that at all.

“OpenOffice.org challenges Microsoft’s Office Test Drive”

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Microsoft today announced the opening of a “test drive” so that people can see what Microsoft Office 2007 might look like when it finally goes on sale.

The OpenOffice.org Community invites potential upgraders to go one better – download the full OpenOffice.org 2 office suite today for a test drive, and if you like it, use it free for as long as you like. It’s the ultimate no-strings-attached test drive – if you enjoy the test drive, keep the car!

As office software becomes a commodity product, Microsoft has been forced to make significant changes to the ‘look and feel’ of MS-Office 2007. Because of this, analysts now agree that migrating to Microsoft Office 2007 will be a major upheaval with a significant cost impact.

Unlike changing to Microsoft Office 2007, changing to OpenOffice.org 2 does not require learning how to use office software all over again. Indeed, reports have shown migration to OpenOffice.org 2 is 90% cheaper than migrating to Microsoft Office 2007.

For more information and references to the reports, please see http://why.openoffice.org

As announced by OpenOffice.org, open source makes sense when you need a commodity product like office software. Combine OpenOffice with a few web applications like Writely, Google Spreadsheets and Gliffy and you’re all set for your business needs.

Open Source LMS

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A lot of people come to this site searching for “open source LMS”. These are some of the web-based learning systems that I have used, and would recommend:
  • Elgg – for informal web-enabled learning where the learner is the centre of it all. Though still in its early development, I would recommend Elgg as a virtual space to foster community outside of the course-based LMS.
  • Moodle -a constructivist web environment for more formal learning with an extensive user base worldwide. Combining Elgg and Moodle makes an excellent choice for formal and informal learning.
  • ATutor – a Canadian-based web learning system designed for accessibility and with a number of easy to add modules, such as collaboration.

There are many others, many of which are reviewed on EduTools, and I’d suggest that you go to my Open Source for Learning lens for further links.

NB schools to receive more laptops

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It looks like the New Brunswick public education sector is slowly advancing into the 21st century. The government announced today that, “About 2,900 grades 7, 8 and 9 students at 27 New Brunswick schools will have a notebook computer in the fall of 2006 …”. On a personal note, this is not that positive, because only one school in our district, and no schools in our town are on the list. Oh well, we get to continue enjoying the 20th century and the industrial era for a while longer.

Update: After a little more digging and a few conversations, I think that a few factors in this school laptop initiative have to be raised.

All of the computers in the school will be loaded with Microsoft Windows and MS Office. This may seem like a real deal for our education system but it is really creating a continuing market for MS products. The students get used to using the Win/Office combination so that’s what they’ll use at home or after graduation. MS has even offered this great deal:

Partners in Learning School Agreement – offers upgrades for Microsoft® Windows® operating system for free and Office software for no more than $4.00 per year, per desktop to Canadian schools considered disadvantaged.

Given that the initial laptop program had 500 computers, and this initiative has an additional 2,900 plus the 6,000 notebooks provided to all NB teachers, there are at least 9,400 new computers in the system. Paying $4 per year per computer for Microsoft products costs – $37,600. Had the government decided to use a basic Linux system, complete with ALL the necessary applications, such as the free and open source UNESCO Young Digital Creators CD, the cost would be $0.00 (zero). It would also be free to copy and put on home computers and it would be free forever.

Even my own public education district, financed by Canadian taxpayers, is using paid staff to train teachers on American produced proprietary software applications. This is not a rant against our US neighbours, but I would rather have seen the money go to developing some “made-in-New Brunswick” capacities.

elearning session at CCL shows significance of informal learning

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Stephen Downes is blogging the Canadian Council on Learning’s Conference on Adult Learning in Canada. Stephen’s report on the presentation (see my last post) on e-learning shows, among other findings, the significance of informal learning:

Griff Richards: on four functional areas:
– e-learning as an extension of military education
– e-learning as distance education
– e-learning as classroom education
– e-learning as informal education

Terry Anderson: report misses an emphasis on informal learning.

The notion of the message being more impotant than the carrier: I asked some students, is it worth the extra money? Some said it was, and the logic was, a power issue. They had the same resources the professor did. And because they could take time to research something, they would go into the class knowing more that what the prof does. It completely changes the playing field. And when I look at online informal learning, I see, they’re offering advice, practical advice, that they cannot get. And again, it’s about power. So the question is, is it just the thing we used to do? Has this been developed and explored?

Comment: Following up on Melissa’s comment: I think perhaps we need a response that takes it out of the formal education sector. When we respond from the formal sector, we are still looking at teaching and not learning. And perhaps adult learners who might have an affinity for technology might have an interest in knowledge and sharing, not so much credits. Not teaching, but the informal use of learning for new knowledge.

Comment: paper on barriers. 59 percent of people are participating in informal learning. Do you really know who those users are who are using e-learning?

Adult Learning – pressing issues and where the field is headed, in two sentences

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I just received this message and spent some time reviewing the hundreds of posts I’ve made about learning over the past few years. I can’t think of any one or two lines that would actually make a difference. I’m leaving at 6:00 AM tomorrow, but may be able to get a response sent before the end of the day. Any suggestions? (Emphasis is mine)

The Canadian Council on Learning’s Adult Learning Knowledge Centre will hold its first national symposium at the Wu Conference Centre, in Fredericton, NB, on June 21-23, 2006. The symposium will provide an opportunity for dialogue between stakeholders in the practice and research of adult learning. At the symposium, I will be presenting the CCL’s state-of-the-field literature review for e-learning and adult learning with reactions by front-line practitioners and researchers.

I would like to incorporate comments from actual practitioners and researchers on the state of the field of e-learning, especially in relation to adult learning. Please feel free to share your perspectives on the state of the field from your perspective as an independent consultant in Atlantic Canada by Wednesday (June 21st) and I will gladly reports back to this larger audience (Sorry for the short notice!). One sentence or two on where the field is headed and some of the pressing issues from your perspective will suffice. Comments or quotes will be acknowledged and authors identified during the presentation. The symposium is intended to facilitate researchers and practitioners working together in meaningful collaborations, and to influence the policy process resulting in better learning opportunities and improved outcomes. The symposium will provide ALKC with concrete ideas to meet its goal of creating a culture of adult learning that is accessible and relevant to all Canadians.

Update: This is what I submitted:

The overwhelming majority of the learning needs of Canadian adults are not addressed by formal training and education. In this post-industrial era, adults today require self-directed learning skills to thrive in the unstructured work environments outside of school. Efforts should be focused on the development of practical tools and strategies for adults to learn in a networked information society.