I spent today as a student in a training program. It’s been a while since I’ve been on this end of the stick. Much of the day was put your mind in neutral and go with the flow. The demonstration & performance piece was very good – here’s how to do it, and now you do it. Could have had better feedback though.

This day as a learner reinforced what I know as a performance technologist. Training without clear performance objectives, that are relevant to each learner, is useless. Also; anything is better than death by PowerPoint (bulleted lists of the instructor’s notes). For many people it was a day outside the office. For me it was the loss of a day’s revenue, or even worse, an opportunity cost. When your own money is on the line, you become a more discerning buyer. This is the future of training – be relevant or be gone.

Some formative ideas on education & training:

Blogs, wikis, aggregators, social networking software, etc. are great tools for informal learning. They help in the creation of personal knowledge repositories and communities of practice. They enhance "learning", in the social-constructivist sense that I always believed our education system should. Given their decentralized nature, these informal learning technologies do not provide the kind of data that a formal system, like an LMS or performance management system, would give.

I think that one of the problems with our education system is that there is too much of a focus on getting quantitive data, like testing. These functions are more suited to a "training" system, where the performance requirements are clear, measurable and observable. In education, the performance requirements are fuzzy. There is nothing wrong with either a training focus or an education focus; each one has its merits. The problem is when you try to mix the two. The arguments that I hear over testing or the adoption of blogs in the classroom seem to be the result of mixing a training systems design approach with a general educational approach. Water and oil.

If your organisation, be it a school or a company, has clear performance expectations, then you should use proven performance technologies, such as drill & feedback, performance support, or a wide variety of other interventions. On the other hand, if your objectives are educational in the broad sense, then forget about testing and controlling, and allow learners to explore and construct their own knowledge.

Informal learning, facilitated by the likes of blogs & wikis, works well for general education, and for continued learning outside of the "classroom". Informal learning (education in the broadest sense) is messy by its very nature. Training, such as how to drive a car, can use a more scientific method to optimize training time, achieve the desired performance and reduce the risk of accidents. Training and education can even use the same tools, like simulations, but not the same approach. Education and training are complementary, but distinct.

Am I just splitting hairs?