Work is learning. Learning is the work.
Learning
I’ve noticed that several companies in the Province are advertising for jobs, ranging from translators to e-learning project managers.
Here are some companies currently advertising full-time and contract positions:
Red Hot Learning – Fredericton
I guess the economy is doing well.
Dave Weinberger links to this report on what may be an indicator of the future structure of academia:
Ninety-nine “top” Harvard professors are calling for the ceation of a new coordinating committee with the power to hire 75 science faculty for research that doesn’t fit comfortably within a single established discipline, according to an article in the Boston Globe today. The committee would also have the power to allocate funding for inter-disciplinary projects.
This reminds me of The Medici Effect, where the author shows how exponential innovations that can occur when examining one field through the lens of another field.
In the 1960’s we saw the rise of inter-curriculum studies, such as Canadian studies, combining courses from various academic disciplines, but no major changes in the major disciplines. With the Internet and easier connections to colleagues in other fields, or even outside an academic field, will interdisciplinary studies become the dominant mode for higher education? And if so, what happens to the traditional disciplines?
Is informal learning just another flavour of the month that tries to be all things for all learners? Tony Karrer states that:
I’m becoming convinced that folks in the informal learning realm are quite willing to live with “free range” learning. It’s way too touchy-feely and abstract for me. If this stuff is important, then I want to:
* Know that it will work
* Know why it works
* Know that its repeatable
I don’t see free-range learning as a panacea, but neither do I believe that ISD can address informal learning needs. In the spirit of attempting to clarify the process, as Tony asks, here is one of my perspectives – human performance technology (HPT).
In HPT, one of the main areas of focus is the analysis; to determine what the performance gaps are. I was told by an experienced practitioner in the field that only 15% of organisational performance problems can be addressed by training. This is based on about 50 years of research and on the premise that “Instruction & Training” can only address a lack of skills or knowledge. The other 85% of organisational performance issues need other kinds of what are known as “performance interventions”. These can include, but are not limited to:
As you can see, organisational and individual performance can be influenced by a wide variety of factors. Because we are humans, no one will ever create the perfect performance system.
Where does informal learning fit into all of this? First, if you accept that only 15% of performance issues can be addressed through instruction and training, you accept that there is significantly more to look at in any organisation. A larger piece of the puzzle would be all learning interventions, not just those that address a lack of skills or knowledge.
In HPT, learning interventions can be divided into two groups – instuctional and non-instructional. Instructional interventions can be designed using ISD or other methods of training development. Informal learning, in my mind, is that other, and larger, grouping of non-instructional learning interventions.
Here is a sample list of non-instructional performance interventions:
I don’t necessarily agree with this grouping, but I thought that I’d show that there are others who use the same terminology. Of particular interest to me is Item 7, because the Internet has changed the balance of power and control in many organisations. With the Internet, and now with cheap and easy ways to connect people (Web 2.0), we have more possibilities for non-instructional performance interventions. Each of these addresses a different performance need, so there is no single methodology for informal learning. Building job aids is quite different from nurturing a community of practice.
As a learning professional, I am comfortable in prescribing and designing training when there is a lack of skills or knowledge. For example, I developed all of the training programs related to the operation of a military helicopter. There was a clear lack of skills and knowledge and we developed training programs to address this. However, there are a lot of learning needs that cannot be addressed through instructional performance interventions. These include:
Informal learning systems may increase overall performance but these cannot be exactly measured nor quantified. But then, neither can successful business practices or military strategy be exactly defined. Good business and military leaders know that success is a blend of science and art. I see informal learning as a similar endeavour. There are ways of measuring effectiveness – see Estimating the Performance Situation – and evaluation needs to be directly linked to your analysis. For example, morale cannot be quantified, but you know when good morale exists or when it is missing in an organisation.
Currently, we are looking at how certain technologies can be used to foster informal learning. The body of knowledge is not large, but we have adequate evidence that blogs, wikis, online fora, or knowledge-sharing are effective in increasing organisational performance. Again, take the Army Storytelling example and ask why this unstructured, informal learning activity is so important to the soldiers and their unit’s combat effectiveness, even though every soldier is highly trained.
I am certain that a good analysis that involves the learners and brings a knowledge of non-instructional performance interventions can have a significant impact on organisational performance. It took a lot of work and a world war to develop ISD, so I’m sure that we still have a way to go in the informal learning field, if it even can be called a field.
I think that informal learning is a way of categorising a whole range of strategies that we now have available with the advent of cheap web access, powerful personal computers and low cost applications likes blogs, wikis, tags, etc. Informal learning offers a new array of tools for the learning professional’s tool box.
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.
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 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.
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.
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?
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.
Our son, Lucas, has just written a story for his Grade 7 English class. It’s loosely based on the Dragonlance series of fantasy books and when Lucas read it in class this week, all of the students wanted to find out what happens next.
At my suggestion, Lucas posted the story on his blog and wants to continue writing stories over the Summer. He’s even said that he prefers writing these stories to playing computer games. Having his stories on a blog may also give him more positive feedback to continue writing. There is no option for students to use blogs or other web-based learning tools in school, so we supplement these skills at home, as I’ve mentioned before.
If you’re interested in blogs and creative writing in public education, take a look at Lucas’ first story posted online – Sakata. This is unedited creativity from an 11 year old. Lucas had a great teacher for English this year (thank you Mr. Stewart) and he was given a lot of freedom to explore writing. I think that the results of this positive learning experience are incredible.
