"Social Media for Trainers" Blog Book Tour Starts Thursday!

The Social Media for Trainers blog book tour begins this Thursday, September 2, with a kickoff post from the Centre for Learning and Performance Technologies' Jane Hart. This will be followed by a constellation of blogging stars from the training and eLearning fields.

Is the book right for you? The publisher asked specifically for activities and ideas to help trainers and instructional designers develop an understanding of social media tools at "eye level": What are they, how are they best used, and how can we use them to extend and enhance current practice?  The book is available from booksellers in North America now, with UK and EU releases due in the next few weeks. Check out the "look inside" feature on Amazon.com to get a peek.

Take a look at the blog book tour schedule  and watch for the posts from my colleagues. Many thanks to them for their help with this project!

More? Follow "Social Media for Trainers" on the book's Facebook page and on on Twitter @SoMe4Trainers  (use #SoMe4Trainers).

Microblogging in the Enterprise: Tips

Twitter not quite right for your organization? This came up in #lrnchat last week, and in a Twitter discussion yesterday. Here are tips mostly from Aaron Silvers (Twitter: @mrch0mp3rs) on using microblogging in the enterprise:

-Remember, the practice is more important than the tool. This gives flexibility to change tools later on.

-Having said that: Choose the right tool in the first place.

-Make sure someone is a registered admin. Don't do this with no one in charge.

-If you're using a free account, do your org a favor and link to digital files in these microsharing tools instead of uploading into them.

-There ARE reasons why email works. Use the right tool for the task.

-You want leaders to contribute consistently -- even if it's just once a day, a reply to an employee.

- Write up the "rules" or expectations for your boss person to distribute. Fear is often not knowing what to say.

-Give examples of the kinds of things to use it for to get people acclimated/started.

-With any new communications medium, patience and consistency are keys to adoption. Modeling how to use is important.

-Start w/ a core group, and make sure at least one big manager is involved and posting daily.

And from @ldennison: if you're bringing it into the organization, you're the person responsible for it.

See also: Comparison of Microblogging Tools

What's Your Objective?

[Note: This originally ran on Training Magazine’s former “Training Day” blog on 2/12/2010]

Discussion of objectives in training could be a topic for a book all by itself, but lately I’ve run across 2 excellent examples of problems with learning/performance objectives. They provide a good basis for looking at just a couple of common problems.

Example 1: One summer afternoon my friend Jo left her son, 5-year-old Max, in the care of his grandmother. While Max was napping Grandma found a dead rattlesnake in the yard and thought to herself, “This is a good time to teach Max about snakes.”

Her objective: “Max will understand about snakes.”

So when Max awoke from his nap Grandma took him outside and said:
“See, Max, this is a rattlesnake. Some snakes are very dangerous so you must be careful if you are ever near one. They can be hard to see.” Using a hoe, grandma moved the snake into high grass, then onto a bed of pine straw, to show Max how the snake’s colors tended to blend with the setting. Grandma talked about being careful when running around outside barefoot, not bothering or teasing snakes, and taking care when playing near places snakes might be found, like fallen logs or warm rocks.

At the end of Grandma’s lesson she said, “So, Max, do you understand about snakes?”

And Max looked up at her and said,

“Oh, yes, Grandma. I love snakes.”

In the example with Grandma and Max, the problem was an objective too vague: “He will understand “ can be interpreted in more than one way, which is exactly what happened, and Max did not understand in the way Grandma meant him to. This is a common problem in compliance and policy training, where it’s more usual than not to see objectives like, “Learner will know the policy”, “Learner will understand the rules regarding unlawful harassment”. And regarding Grandma, well, as we say here in the American South, bless her heart. She did intend to help Max “understand” (learning) but she didn't specify actual performance. She tried to make the snake training meaningful and engaging. She did not read PowerPoint slides to Max. She included important information (they are hard to see in the ground cover) and offered some helpful tips (don’t tease). But the training did not accomplish what she’d intended.

I’ve seen the opposite problem as well: Objectives (and performance this time, not just "learning") so detailed and specific that the real point of the thing is lost. Which brings us to Example 2: A contractor charged with developing online tutorials on the new employee timekeeping system listed the desired performance objectives (below).

At the end of the training, the employee will be able to:

• Log on and navigate to the employee section of the portal

• Record and review time

• View time statements

• Display leave quota overview

• Generate leave requests

• Access system help resources

• Assign charge object numbers

• Report premium pay hours

The objectives were certainly detailed and specific. The contractor had thoroughly delineated desired performance. After weeks of tedious wordsmithing, next-level management finally signed off on the objectives. Senior management likewise approved of the plan. Everyone involved agreed that, yes, these are the outcomes we’re after.

Several million dollars later the training was launched, and several weeks after that the new time sheet software “went live” to 30,000 workers. And the critical problem with the tutorials quickly, and loudly, and in a most dramatic way, became evident. The list of objectives had not included:

At the end of this training, the employee will be able to
complete his or her time sheet.

[This is not to oversimplify the other problems here, including the evidence that no one ever thought to ask even one potential learner to try the material out, or that much of the training content, like charge object hours, was relevant only to a fraction of the target audience.]

So: Before developing the instruction don’t just write objectives. Write the right objectives. What is this person really supposed to do back on the job? What does “understand” mean, and what evidence will show you that understanding has occurred? Devotees of Bloom’s taxonomy will argue that learner performance like “listing” and “describing” can constitute what he called ”enabling” objectives. That may valid, but they should not be the only objectives: Employees are rarely asked to “list” or “describe” anything, so it’s critical to move on to behaviors closer to desired performance, not just knowledge. And: Enabling objectives are easy to write, and to develop bullet points for, and to develop training around, and to write a quiz to assess. If you feel the training really must address these, fine, but be sure to push past them on to things that more closely resemble real performance. In my train-the-trainer course I don’t want my learners to describe strategies for engaging learners, I want them to deliver a piece of instruction in which they demonstrate the ability to apply those strategies. It’s more work for both learner and me, and much more time consuming, but it moves us far closer to the actual desired performance. And it makes the training worth doing.

Think Goldilocks. Not too little, not too much. And remember in developing objectives to keep an eye on the rock-bottom performance goal: Don’t get eaten by bears.

Other problems with training objectives? I asked Twitter training/elearning/ID folks and here are some of their answers. Perhaps we’ll expand on some of these in a future column.

• Gina Minks @gminks, EMC: “When objectives relate to what someone wishes the performance was, even though that may be a fantasy.”
• Jeffery Goldman @minutebio, Johns Hopkins Healthcare LLC: “Not setting them at all, not measuring whether they are met in the final assessment, and not providing content to meet objectives.”
• Guy Wallace @guywwallace, EPPIC, Inc: “Objectives are not systematically ‘derived’ from solid analysis of ideal performance/gaps & are best guesses.”
• Kevin Bruny @row4it, Chesterfield County VA Government: “Once used for design and communicated in training, we tend to forget about them and never return to validate.”
• Kara DeFrias @californiakara, Intuit: “People get so wrapped up in objectives they forget to take time to make the actual learning meaningful & engaging.”

--JB

Updates to "Social Media for Trainers"

Many thanks to those who have preordered Social Media for Trainers or purchased it for Kindle. A challenge with writing a book about technologies—particularly those that are continually morphing and evolving – is keeping content as up-to-date as possible. Since the book went to press several things have changed:

1. Correction to p. 59: While Facebook terms of service have always been clear that having fictitious accounts was a terms of service violation, it is now clearer that having multiple accounts is forbidden, too. Those wishing to maintain “private” space on Facebook (for instance, to have one’s personal account but also to use Facebook for hosting a course) can do this via the use of groups and fan pages. For instance, I have a main account but a "Jane Bozarth Bozarthzone" page. I post training/learning related information there; my "fans" don't have to friend me or vice-versa. Facebook offers many options for setting limits on who can see what: Be sure to learn about using lists and other privacy settings. (July 30, 2010)

2. Google has just announced that it will no longer support development of Google Wave and plans to support the service only through the end of 2010. Be on the lookout for new tools from Google. (July 30, 2010). Update to an update! September 4, 2010: Google has now announced that it WILL continue to support Wave. See details .

3. A new tool, HootCourse, has recently emerged in beta testing and is so far proving a useful, friendly space for aggregating conversations. Hootcourse assigns a unique URL. Learners can access Hootcourse via either Twitter or Facebook. Conversations can be kept private if so desired. See http://hootcourse.com/ . For an example, visit a bookchat I recently led at http://hootcourse.com/course/523/ (August 8, 2010). I've also used this as an introduction to Twitter for new users. We spend half an hour or so working privately in HootCourse, practicing using @replies, RTs and #s, then move into the bigger Twitter feed. Think "training wheels".

4. Tweetie2, a Twitter iPhone app discussed in the book, was purchased by Twitter and is now the Twitter-branded iPhone app Twitter, available from the iTunes app store. (June 2010)

5. Enterprise social networking is rapidly expanding and evolving. Here's a comparison of 7 enterprise products, including Sharepoint and Jive. Also, Yammer (previously regarded as a microblogging tool) is moving toward becoming a full-fledged networking tool. (September 5, 2010)

Keep up with more frequent updates by following me on http://twitter.com/SoMe4Trainers or on the book's Facebook page

Best,

Jane

Look Inside "Social Media for Trainers"

Amazon has just added the "look inside" feature for Social Media for Trainers so be sure to go take a look!

I'm offering daily tips and ideas on social media for trainers via Twitter @SoMe4Trainers and weekly-ish tips via a Facebook page.

Check "Where's Jane?" at right for my speaking schedule. Most upcoming events are on the topic of social media for trainers, and several of them are free.

Book Chat on Learning-in-Practice: Join us!

Some Twitter folks are getting together to discuss "how people learn" as evidenced in King's On Writing and Gawande's Complications. Both books are examples of adult learners who learn through practice/reflect on learning.

Interested? Details are at the Training Book Review blog.

Getting Management Commitment to Training

"One of the frustrations in Learning & Development is the reality of what happens when the worker returns to the job. A thousand things stand between a learner and performance; among the biggest of these is the learner’s manager."

This month's "Nuts and Bolts" column for Learning Solutions Magazine offers tips for getting management commitment to training.

Review: Trainer's Handbook

A look at the 2nd edition of Karen Lawson's Trainers Handbook on the new Training Book Reviews blog sponsored by HRDQ.

Consider Your "Loose" Connections This Memorial Day

Monday is the US Memorial Day holiday, set aside for remembering those who gave their lives in military service. For me it has additional meaning. On Memorial Day 2003 my brother and his wife were hosting a holiday cookout, and some of the young men there started playing basketball. My nephew Ryan, without warning, collapsed and was taken to the hospital. That evening it was determined he'd suffered an aneurysm, with a prognosis that included a long rehabilitation period. The next morning he was pronounced brain dead. Doctors kept Ryan alive long enough for his little brother to rush home from Iraq to see him while he was still breathing, even if not on his own. We buried him the next weekend.

I was at the time working in a small HR shop for a state agency, and office protocol in the event of a death was the gift of a potted plant. They sent a small hydrangea in full bloom, which the family gave to me and I took home. I hated to let it die so, when it outgrew its pot, planted it in a shady spot beside the garage.

That $20 hydrangea is now taller than I am. It's thrived despite my inattention and appallingly un-green thumb. It's leafy and green for most of the year, and loaded with huge blue blossoms in late spring and summer. It bloomed again this week, just in time for the Memorial Day weekend:



I see the plant every time I pull into the driveway. Apart from reminding me to think of Ryan, the plant -- a $20 token gift sent per policy -- represents much more. It's a reminder that little things do matter, and small gestures sometimes carry great meaning. It's a reminder of how important it is to maintain memories. I left that job not long after Ryan's death but often remember it, and my former coworkers, fondly, prompted by the view of the hydrangea.

And what I'm trying to get to: Small connections matter, sometimes in unexpected ways. I think this is why it disturbs me to hear some people who are so dismissive of social media and online interactions and distant or "loose" connections. Through social media, especially Twitter, I have cultivated a network of smart, funny, interesting people who have never failed to come through when I asked for something. My reach with some is fairly close, with interactions nearly daily; others I may directly connect with only sporadically.

Little things matter. Connections matter, no matter how they cross time and space. You can't predict in 7 years, or 20, or 50, which small connection will still be important. So this Memorial Day I urge you to take a moment to connect on Facebook, or Twitter, or LinkedIn (or if you must, the telephone or even in person) with someone perhaps not part of your daily orbit. Perhaps, as with my former coworkers, the connection will provide a fond or poignant memory on some future Memorial Day.

Review: Figuring Things Out

Revisiting Zemke & Kramlinger's wonderful Figuring Things Out, a must for any trainer's shelf--if you can find it. On the new Training Book Review blog sponsored by HRDQ.

Travels With My Kindle

My husband and I spend 2 weeks in the Caribbean every spring, and while I don't unplug completely I do spend the bulk of my time unwinding. This usually takes the form of sitting by (and often in) the pool with a book. My undergraduate degree is in English Lit, so I've always been an avid reader. But between a life spent in front of a computer and writing assignments (first for Training Magazine, now for Learning Solutions) requiring business-related reading, I find I have little time in my "real life" for novels and other non-work related books. This annual trip is my chance to catch up.

In years past I've usually brought 14 books, a heavy and now, with fees for checked bags, an expensive proposition. I've always liked my Kindle and find it great for business trips, but had some concerns about taking it out in bright sunlight & heat/reading in the pool/keeping it safe at a resort. But this year I decided to give it a try on the long vacation, with great results:
1. I am taking it into the pool in a ziploc bag, which has worked very well. Lesson learned: Some ziploc bags have writing/white label on one side, making them half as useful for reading purposes, and I have found that ziploc bags, after being handled for a day or so, start showing their age by wrinkling. This makes it harder to read through them, so if you plan to try it, bring backup bags.
2. The size, with "next page" buttons on either side of the screen,is a perfect fit for my hands, and I can hold the device and turn pages with one hand. This is great for keeping the Kindle from getting wet.
3. The no-glare screen is fabulous in bright sunlight!
4. No running out of books. One year I didn't like several of the 14 I brought and was just miserable: There's no bookstore here, so except for souvenir-shop titles I was out of luck. (I agree with Stephen King on this: The lending library in hell is filled with nothing but Danielle Steele and Chicken Soup titles.)

I realize that electronics are electronic, and disaster could lurk around every corner. Once the Kindle is dropped, or stepped on by the pool, or gets wet, or something, it could stop working altogether, whereas a paper book, unless set on fire, will probably always be there. Overall, though? Kindle is a fabulous travel companion. I've resisted the idea of so many devices, advocating for consolidation into one, but now am rethinking that. I've been eyeing the iPad, but can't foresee ever taking it by or in the pool, so kind of hope the predictions that iPad will kill Kindle and other reading devices are wrong. (Although to compete I do think Amazon will need to rethink Kindle pricing.) In this instance, having another machine (bigger than my iPhone, less cumbersome than my netbook, smaller than the iPad) did fulfull a need.

My favorite titles so far this trip? Cutting for Stone (hands-down), Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, and Fool.

What are you reading?

And ADDIE wasn't even there to see it...

There's been lot of talk in Twitterland lately about the usefulness of the ADDIE process model often used in instructional design (much on the theme of whether ADDIE is dead), and the validity/existence of "informal" learning. I saw it all hit overlap this week in 2 separate encounters with service employees.

In the first, I was purchasing a prepaid gift card at a drug store. The transaction brought the place to a halt, with the register giving off that dull 'thunk' sound as unhappy computers will. The cashier fumbled with the register, pressed a number of keys to no avail, said she "wasn't sure" if the card was activated, and finally called for a manager, who quickly took care the problem. As I left -- after a one-item cash transaction that took maybe 5 minutes -- the cashier said, "They told me that in training but I hadn't done it before. Sorry, but I forgot."

In this first instance, performance support could have supplemented, or likely replaced, training simply by programming help screens and prompts. Training for future use of a skill is pretty much pointless. It would be like not training at all, but for adding the maddening "I think I heard something about this" factor to an already frustrating situation. The solution here is not based in designing-implementing-evaluating instruction, but in identifying places for, and deploying resources toward, good performance support.

In the second instance, last night, my husband and I were at a restaurant. A new server appeared in the company of the more experienced server charged with training him. The training pretty much took the form of job shadowing, with the experienced guy modeling good (in fact, breathtaking, exemplary) performance. Occasionally he would ask the new guy something like, "What do we always ask when someone orders coffee?" (Answer: "Would you like cream?"). They stayed together most of the time we were there, merging into what my husband called The Waiter with Four Arms, and appeared to be having both a good and successful time. We enjoyed them, and had no complaints with the service. By the time we left the new server was taking his first steps at working on his own, and as far as we could tell he was doing just fine.


In this second scenario, we see something on the learning continuum between formal (in the sense of an intentional,planned event, either live or online) and informal (in the sense of an employee at the point of need accessing help)learning. Basically:

--the 'trainer' (more experienced server) was the performance support
--as a peer,actually doing the same job, the trainer was able to provide real-world suggestions
--the learning experience appeared to be a successful one
--as a side effect, the experience appeared to be forcing better performance from the trainer
--and I'm afraid ADDIE wasn't anywhere to be found. There was no deliberate process, no 'steps'. The new guy followed the more experienced guy around, and the more experienced guy demonstrated and explained. And it worked.


I'm not interested in the dead/undead discussion of ADDIE so much as concerned about the desire on the part of many to apply it to every situation. As L & D professionals we need to have many items in our toolkits. ADDIE is one. What others do you use?

How the Snake Got Its Oil

There's been a flurry of activity this week on the topic of snake oil: First Harold Jarche said: "“As soon as the software vendors and marketers get hold of a good idea, they pretty well destroy it." Jane Hart weighed in with “social learning is being picked up by software vendors and marketers as the next solution-in-a-box, when it’s more of an approach and a cultural mind-set”. And today Jay Cross added to the discussion, using the word "hijack" in terms of both what happened to elearning and, now, what we're seeing with the concept of "informal learning".

I agree with my colleagues but would like to twist the conversation to why the hijacking keeps taking place. Time and time again I see Training/L & D allowing this to happen. When "learning" started happening online, Training/L & D resisted and let elearning be co-opted by vendors and IT departments. Now that "learning" is finally recognized as something that often happens informally and via social connections, Training/L&D is letting "social media" decisions be made by everyone but Training/L & D. Learning is happening everywhere in organizations, but unless it looks like "training", then Training/L &D stands aside and lets it belong to someone else.

Mark Rosenberg has used the metaphor of the railroads: They saw their business taken over by the trucking industry because they defined themselves as being in the railroad business, not the transportation business. And the training department is going to go the way of the railroads if it doesn't start seeing itself as being in the learning business, not the classroom business.

So: I really can't begrudge the vendors for acting when they see a chance, even if they end up peddling a snake-oil version of a better concept. As my work email account signature says: "Opportunities are not lost. They are just taken by others."

RIP Training Magazine

I apologize for the length of this, but eulogies bring out the wordiness in me. Tuesday morning brought the sad, but not surprising, news that 41-year-old Training Magazine will cease publication with its March 2010 issue. From my view, the magazine had been in a downward spiral since its sale by Lakewood Publications to VNU Business Media and then again to Nielsen Business Media. Every sale saw new staff, less and less knowledgeable about (or, as far as I could tell, interested in) workplace training and learning. The struggle was evident: Those who subscribed to the print edition over the past few years can attest to its shrinkage from magazine to something more akin to newsletter. I don't know how it held on for as long as it did.

Since Tuesday's news many people, familiar with my 10-year participation as a member of the "In Print" book review column team and my other sundry contributions, have reached out to express surprise, conjecture about the reasons for the closing, and sympathy for the loss of work. Magazine work is just an add-on for me; I am among the fortunate in the training/learning business to have good, full-time employment complete with retirement plan and health insurance. The shutdown will have no effect on my livelihood, but I am sad to say some friends are now out of work. I hope that among the many supporters I've heard from will be someone in a position to help these folks find new employment.

I owe Training Magazine a great deal. As a new trainer, armed with an undergraduate English degree and assigned to a training department led by a former registered nurse who broke out in hives when she had to speak in public (no, I am not kidding), I had no one to help me learn how to do this. My coworkers taught canned programs like CPR and First Aid, and all came from the third-grade-teacher approach to training adults, so weren't much help when I was assigned things like developing supervisory training. I was fortunate that we had an office subscription to Training (and I'm pretty sure I'm the only one there who read it). Jack Gordon and Ron Zemke were still in the house then, and the magazine was about training. It's the first place I heard about things like adult learning theory, ISD, and ADDIE; it's the first place I saw someone question venerated training idols like the MBTI; it's where I first saw someone try to pull back the curtain on high-priced consultants peddling "packages" (as I recall, this was a piece titled "Ship of Charlatans"). The magazine then had heart and a sense of humor: One of the funniest things I've ever read was a piece by Zemke (or was it Gordon?) about frustrations with personal computers. Among the points made: "When I am driving along at 60 miles and hour and the car sounds funny, I don't just shut the ignition off." The help Training provided in the early days of my career is so significant that I discussed it in my doctoral dissertation.

Back then the magazine had a final page, "My Turn", open to 1000-word contributions from readers. The first national piece I ever published was a "My Turn" column on problems with customer service training (the gist: Smiling does not make make up for utter incompetence). I did a couple of these, and when the magazine was looking for people to staff its new book review column, editor Martin Delahoussaye recruited me to help. The book review column was a great gig, giving me piles of new books every year and putting my name and picture in a national publication every month. Martin left the magazine for Pfeiffer publications, where he became the push behind my first book. And when that book came out in 2005, new Training editor Holly Dolezalek ran a feature article about it, along with a banner on the magazine's cover.

Apart from the magazine proper, I want to note that I especially loved the Training conferences (ending with a year: "Training 2004", 2005, and so on) and the people who organized them! Leah Nelson, Julie Groshens, and Kris Stokes were fun to work with, competent at what they did, and adept at turning a lot of spinning plates into a well-oiled machine. In addition to giving me a lot of exposure and letting me try new things, the events are where I met in person people like Susan Boyd, Thiagi, Bob Mosher, Patti Shank, The Hortons, and my dear friend and valued colleague Jennifer Hofmann. These gigs, in turn, led to Training's online certificate programs and webinar work. (Those are still on, by the way, as is the online community.)

The magazine seemed to slip away under its latest ownership. The field was changing, with much emphasis shifting from training in specific to learning in general, but that wasn't all. Content seemed less and less focused on anything related to training and learning, some of the freelance contributors clearly knew little about what they were discussing, and there seemed to be a widening disconnect between the interests of readers, who paid for the subscriptions, and the content catered to the advertisers, who paid the big bucks. I was rarely sent anything training-related to review. (Heck , they wouldn't even review my books. I mean, seriously, what's a girl gotta do?) In earlier years I reviewed works by people like Mark Rosenberg, Mel Silberman, Alison Rossett, Patti Shank, and Michael Allen. Along the way there were occasional leadership books, including the dreaded Little Animal or Dairy Product Metaphors, but the books mostly were one way or another tied to learning. The last book I read for Training was something called Jenga, which was really quite interesting -- all about getting a product manufactured, trademarked, and distributed for sale -- but had not one thing to do with training or workplace learning. Yes, in considering the magazine's demise, there were lots of red flags. While I don't know all the details, I do know that the problems weren't all connected to the economy.

I'm sad to see Training go and am sure other industry publications are taking heed. It has brought me back to the reality that the shift from training to learning, and the proliferation of content via free Web 2.0 means, are going to bring big changes for all of us, some of them perhaps painful.

I will be back in print soon in another publication, likely with both book reviews as well as a new training/learning related column, so stay tuned for news of that. Thanks to all who have expressed their interest and concern, and reached out with offers of new opportunities.

Learning in 3D blog book tour stop

Welcome to today's stop on the Learning in 3D blog book tour.

Does the passage below sound familiar? Substitute “VIE” with any other term you like: “technology”, “tool”, “course” “blog”, “Facebook group”, “webinar software”…:

“Some organizations create a virtual space with only vague learning outcomes and no formal assessment plan. Then, after a few months of inactivity, no visible learning outcomes, and frustration, the organization drops the VIE because it doesn’t seem productive.” (p.204)

Learning in 3D offers sound advice for avoiding what the authors call a “virtual ghost town” and maximizing time and work put into the efforts. As with all things elearning, the magic lies not with a tool but with a deliberate, thoughtful approach to design and desired outcomes. Authors Karl Kapp and Tony O’Driscoll stress the importance of planning, of intent, of systemic approach and strategy. They also acknowledge the background and expertise of their audience, assuring readers that moving to VIEs is largely a matter of adjusting existing skill sets and learning to focus as much on environment as context.

Question: For those of you who have made the move from more traditional training and elearning, what did you find helped the transition most?

OMG! Control freak much?

I've just finished up the first draft of my latest book, Social Media for Trainers, due out from Pfeiffer in summer 2010. It's pretty much a quick explanation of some Web 2.0 tools (like Twitter & Facebook) with ideas and instructions for conducting specific training activities with each (see the post from November 9).

One weekend I brought home a pile of activities-for-trainers books from the office, intending to do a quick sweep to see if I'd missed anything major (I had. Duh. "Use online technologies to enable learners to interact with an author or expert.")

Seeing the books in the aggregate brought a huge shock, namely, that typically 1/3 to 1/4 of the text is dedicated to "rules for learners". To quote my favorite checkout person at Target, LaQuinta: "OMG" (pronounced "OMG"). There were ground rules for class, ground rules for discussions, ground rules for breakouts, ground rules for role plays, ground rules for ground rules. Team Agreement Templates. Guidelines for participating in online discussions. Procedures for posting responses.

And ironically: Most of the books were also touting "constructivism", "letting learners take over" and "putting learning into the learner's hands". Learner's handcuffs is more like it.

Holy moly. Has anyone else noticed this? Anyone else wondered what effect it has on learning? On learner attitudes toward training? And as an aside: Any thoughts on what this says about the trainer's view of his/her role?

Trainer's Evaluation of Workshop

Trainers: My "Instructional Design for the Real World" online session yesterday, hosted by Ray Jimenez and ASTD-Los Angeles, included mention of a trainer's evaluation of his/her own training session. It's something like a reverse smile sheet, and as you can see from contributor Randy Woodward's notes, it can serve as a useful tool for both trainer and management. I put it on slideshare as a downloadable file.

Wherefore Failure?

Malcolm Gladwell's new collection of essays, What the Dog Saw, includes a piece on the Challenger explosion. Essentially, he asserts, most failures of this magnitude can't be traced to a single mistake or one bad decisionmaker. Sure, hindsight being what it is, things could be done differently -- but there are several things, sometimes in important chronological order or patterns -- that all need to happen. In other words, the problem is the result of a system failure.

And therein lies the central problem with the traditional (think 4-level) means of "evaluating" training. There are 1001 things (let's call them 'variables') standing between a freshly-trained worker and successful performance, from bad tools to a bad hard drive to, yes, a bad supervisor. Attempting to isolate the worker from the rest of the system in which he or she works invalidates the evaluation by removing context and circumstance -- and if the desired performance still isn't there, this approach to evaluation doesn't tell us how to fix it.

If you've been led to believe there's only one approach to evaluating training, try Googling around for Stufflebeam, Brinkerhoff, Stake, and Scriven. And there are others, so keep Googlin'. Perhaps something else would better meet your needs at informing both your formative and summative evaluation processes.

Or maybe you're already using something else? If not the 4 (or 5)-level taxonomy, what are you using to figure out whether training is really "working"?

Social Media in Training

I keep seeing lots of "tips for using social media tools in training" but not many concrete examples. Certainly the bigger goal is to help training become less an event and more a process, and to support ways for workers to form communities and interact with one another -- not just with the trainer. But there are plenty of strategies for using Web 2.0 tools to support instruction as well as inform formative and summative evaluation. Here are just a few:

Twitter -- provide activities that recognize the 140-character constraint

Get-to-Know-You, Advance Assessment: "Please tell us your name and the ‘3 keywords’ that represent your mission, philosophy, focus, or priorities."; "Please state the one thing you most hope to get out of this class".

As both a review and means of formative assessment, conduct an A-Z Summary of past class content, live or webinar session, etc. Ask each participant to tweet one thing they’ve learned. Each item should start with a different letter of the alphabet, from A-Z, with no repeats:

Facebook -- Leverage Facebook's more robust discussion areas and built-in tools like photos and events:

To help maintain learning and community after training, create a fan page or group for graduates of your corporate Leadership Academy. Start (or ask for volunteers) regularly scheduled discussions of topics relevant to all graduates: Ethics, Sales, Retaining Talent.

Have learners enrolled in a course conduct an environmental scan, taking cell-phone photos in their worksites of items such as signage, furniture, office layouts, etc. that support or conflict with the stated company mission. (If the company mission is to "Consider all employees as equal partners", then why are there executive parking spaces?) Ask participants to put photos in a Facebook photo album. Use as the basis for discussing disconnects, planning actions for aligning management strategy, and plans for leading the change.


Blog
Create a blog post asking learners to provide a 100-word recap of the critical takeaways from the past session.

Post a link to an article, YouTube or CNN video clip (think customer service, conflict management, empowered employees, workers in trouble) and invite learner responses. Facilitate comments to elicit further discussion among the participants.

For a management development program, ask each Friday for a quick response to something critical to the course, such as, “List 5 things you caught people doing right this past week.”


Wiki

Use the wiki's inherent 'database' structure to start capturing collective knowledge within the organization. Invite course participants (and then, perhaps, the rest of the organization) to contribute tips for things like: Retaining top performers; improving existing processes; recruitment strategies; success stories.

Have workers create a map of an existing process, then work together to edit/create a new, better process.


Ideas for other activities?

NOTE: This is copyrighted material to appear in Bozarth, J. (Summer 2010) Social Media in Training. San Francisco: Pfeiffer.

What I learn from #lrnchat

Every Thursday evening there's a great fun live gathering on Twitter called #lrnchat. It's a fast free-for-all organized around a theme, like instructional design, virtual worlds, social learning, or e-learning myths, structured around 3 general questions. If you're in the training/learning/Ed business, folks you've heard of often drop in, as do many folks you haven't heard of. Once you meet them, you'll want to know them better.

I recently threw out an idea to organizers of a large conference, saying that I'd like to host a 'Twitter event' during the conference. That's about as far as my vision went, and as often happens I have been called on it. Thinking over what a live "Twitter event" for trainers might look like, I turned to the #lrnchat blog and found the transcript from the June 11 discussion. The theme: Incorporating social media into learning events. The #lrnchat participants: Dozens of learning professionals, many of whom had participated in, or helped organize, events that sought to incorporate use of tools like blogs or Twitter.

Half an hour later I'd sketched out a general approach to my session, a way to structure it, questions to ask during it, and tools to support it (I forgot about Ustream TV, and didn't think to ask people to put their Twitter handles on their name badges.). The transcript included a link to "8 Ways to Make Your Event More Blog and Twitter Friendly which in turn linked to a guide for participants joining a conference remotely via Twitter.

So. #lrnchat gives me all-at-once access to some of the best minds in the field, directs me to new ideas, provides alternative points of view, and sends me looking for a new book or article. It usually helps me focus my thinking, occasionally solves a problem, and often cracks me up.

Warning: #lrnchat is messy. Sequential, linear thinkers tend to have a hard time following it. But you know what? 21st century information is going to be messy, and those who can deal with that messiness and the accompanying ambiguity will be ahead of the pack. #lrnchat is also, again, a chat. It's not a workshop, or a class, but as with Real Life you may find you learn something informally and by accident.

Join us on Thursday nights, 8:30 ET, 5:30 PT. Begin by typing #lrnchat into the Twitter search box. If you'd like to get a look at who's likely to be there, and how the conversation will go, you can check out the transcripts. Just remember that the transcript won't give you the same sense of fun and speed as you'll get by drinking from the live stream of tweets flying fast and furious.

Find Your 20%

I see lots of good-presentations-gone bad, often due to the speaker trying to put too much information into the available time. The result: Critical points are lost in the mass of content, or the speaker is rushing at the end to get to what s/he really wanted to say.

Often in coaching presenters I watch them approach their content as if they were 8th graders assigned to give a report on their "topic". They visit Wikipedia and Google and clip art galleries to amass piles of information, factoids, job aids, video clips, and PowerPoint shows, then try to compress it into a 75-minute session.

Here's a model I like to use in developing my own presentations, and in helping others develop theirs. The trick: rather than starting from a lot of information and finding a way to deliver it in the available time (the result: lecture + bulleted slides), find your critical "20%". What are the 2 or 3 key takeaways? If I ran into your attendee 2 weeks from now, what would they say were your 2 key points?

In other words: Using this model, start in the middle and work your way out:

Remember: Design is done when there's nothing left to take out.

Better than Bullet Points

Hundreds of people joined me for a whirlwind tour of my second book, Better than Bullet Points: Creating Engaging E-Learning with PowerPoint. The session, hosted by the Training Magazine Network, came down to this: Plenty of horrible e-learning has been created with expensive tools. Good e-learning is about thoughtful design, not software.

Articulate's Tom Kuhlmann offers this example of an e-learning tutorial created with PowerPoint. It's based on the great "Frog Guts" high-school-biologyg simulation, so be warned about the content.

For those who missed the session, Cammy Bean was kind enough to offer a concise recap on her "Learning Visions" blog.

I'll be offering the extended version of the"Better than Bullet Points" program for Training Live + Online Events beginning on September 9.

What Do You Care About?

I lost a dear mentor on Thursday. Colleen Aalsburg Wiessner, Ph.D., died suddenly while on vacation with her family. She was one of the kindest, gentlest souls I have ever known, and the loss to her family and to the learning community is immeasurable.

Above all she was a teacher, one of perhaps only a few true teachers I have ever known. Teaching was not her job; it was her work and her purpose and her joy. In her own words, from the NC State University website: "Inclusive, affective, collaborative, participatory, critical, and developmental are six words that describe my approach to teaching. I seek to create learning communities with my students, settings in which we can question, reflect, laugh, challenge and grow in our roles as educators. I enjoy infusing the arts and other creative approaches in my learning designs. As Paulo Freire, I believe teachers are also learners and learners are also teachers."

One of my fondest memories of Colleen took place several years ago when I was a student in her "Introduction to Qualitative Research" course. She asked us to take out a blank sheet of paper and said we had a short writing assignment. She paused and asked us to answer the question, "What do you care about?"

My answer to that stuck with me through the rest of my graduate studies, kept me focused on my dissertation topic each time it threatened to derail, and now helps me steer through job challenges when I sometimes lose sight of the bigger picture of my work.

So I ask you: What do you care about?

Handy Job Aid 1

Zaidlearn posted this the other day in the context of a longer discussion about Bloom's taxonomy. This item is one of the most useful I've seen, linking objectives to possible activities.

United Breaks Guitars? Training Won't Fix That

I've had a great time with the recent, fun brouhaha over United Breaks Guitars. With 3 million+ views so far, the video is a testament to the new 21st century power of the individual living in the world of social media, and should give hope to all of us who ever wanted to stick it to The Man.

As "Sons of Maxwell" singer Dave Carroll notes in his follow-up statement, United Airlines has stepped up and has offered him some compensation. News reports also state that United wants to use the video in "training".

"Training"? Really?

Sorry, but I don't see a training problem here. I see employees constrained by bad practices and protocols, and others whose knowingly substandard performance would have no consequence. Basically, they were doing exactly what they were expected to do. Even Dave Carroll defended the employee who gave him the final "no" from the airline as, "Acting in the interests of the policies she represented."

No, baggage handlers do not need to attend training so they can "learn" not to throw musical instruments onto the tarmac, for cryin' out loud. People with the title "customer service representative" do not need to be "taught" not to be indifferent. Too often management throws problems into a bucket labeled "training issue" as if that will fix larger matters of culture and leadership. (And maybe hiring.)

And I want to be fair to United: Those of us who travel frequently know that this kind of thing could happen with most any airline at most any airport. (Just read the comments below the original video.) Even if it doesn't create sweeping change, perhaps the work of this one man will help spark an industry desire to improve enough to stay off of YouTube.

New Skills for Learning Professionals

This month's Big Question asks what new skills learning professionals need going forward in a Web World, "where learning and performance solutions take on a wider variety of forms and where churn happens at a much more rapid pace".

I don't know that I see 'new' skills so much as further refinement of the ones that we've needed since we first tried to integrate any web technologies into traditional classroom and OTJ instruction:

1. Become comfortable enough with technologies so that you can recognize them for what they really are. Get yourself past the hype and to the possibilities.

For instance: A blog is not just a solipsistic place for "online rants", as many believe, but a nearly-idiot-proof web page creation tool. Possible uses when seen in that light: student portfolios, learner journals, a place for reflective comments back to an instructor question, a place for a course home page, or a place to practice new skills. One of the best uses I've seen: students learning to teach another language are assigned to manage and update a blog-- in that new language.

For instance: Twitter is not just a solipsistic place for telling the world what you had for breakfast. Take a look at @slqotd (Social Learning Question of the Day): each weekday morning the moderators post a new question related to social learning, and any of the 800+ followers can chime in with a quick response, to the question or to one another. They don't have to log in to another site, they don't have to jump through a lot of setup. They don't have to endure an "icebreaker". The weekly #lrnchat sessions (Thursdays, 8:30 pm ET) on Twitter are fast, lively, interesting conversations centered around 3 or 4 key learning/training-related questions per session. Transcripts are made available soon after. It is an excellent way to share expertise, obtain diverse perspectives, and meet new colleagues. And it's fun. It's good practice for thinking on your feet, so to speak, and with a limit of 140 characters is great at teaching you to get to the point already. Twitter also can be used for reflection and mindfulness about learning: Every day @lrn2day (which I moderate with Marcia Connor) poses the question: "What did you learn today?"

2. LET GO. Research has shown that one of the biggest fears traditional classroom trainers (and teachers, and organizations) have of new technologies is the lack of control. Now: They have complete administrative control of people in seats (maybe even assigned seats) who are told how long they can take a to go to the bathroom, get a snack, or make a phone call, and when to read page 6 of the handout, and which slides to look at when, and what time they will go to lunch. Next, in their view: Scary, willy-nilly online free-for-alls, with no control of the message, everyone talking at once, and people maybe even talking when the trainer's not there. Several of my colleagues, in answering this Big Question, have mentioned the need to develop skill in moderating and facilitating online conversation. The bigger picture of that, though, may mean development of characteristics that are not necessarily skill-based: tolerating ambiguity, letting learners take over the learning, and coping with 'messy' conversations may take more than just skill development. Can this new attitude be developed? I think so, if the trainer-person is actually interested in helping others learn, in enriching the experience, and in working as a guide alongside rather than sage on the stage.

Of course, all our conversations assume that traditional trainers want to move forward. I don't see sweeping evidence of that in my physical (rather than virtual) world. What I do see is an increasingly widening gulf between the tech-savvy and the classroom-bound. Maybe they'll be left behind, maybe they'll find themselves unemployable, maybe we will see organizations holding on for years more to the classroom/schoolhouse model.

What do you see?

Classroom Trainer Resistance to E-Learning

Many reports coming in on last week's ASTD International Conference and Expo -- in my world coming from instructional designers and trainers making use of technology and social media -- expressed surprise at the prevalence of attendees who, to quote Cammy Bean, are "Traditional training people for whom most of this eLearning stuff is kind of exotic and/or quite overwhelming and threatening."

Once upon a time my dissertation was to focus on classroom trainer resistance to e-learning, killed by The Academy (some of whom were, um, traditional classroom trainers resistant to e-learning...). Up to 2007 I did lots of research and wrote a number of papers for assorted courses. Briefly: There's a lot of interesting literature showing that resistance ties to a number of factors, including personality type (explorer), view of self as instructor (to impart information or guide learning, work roles, and view of technology (enabler or interference).

Here is a lit review from 2006, which finally seems to have found its audience. Enjoy, and please contact me with any updated literature on the topic. Perhaps I'll rewrite it now that the other dissertation is done.

Pet First Aid iPhone App

Back in December I wrote about one of my favorite iPhone apps (and excellent example of a performance support tool), the Pocket Aid first aid app. At that time people were already asking for a version for pets, and it's just been released. $4.99 from JiveMedia LLC. Stores pet info, provides first aid data, and even videos of emergency medical techniques.

Education v. Training

The @slqotd Twitter project, which offers a daily conversation via a "social learning question of the day", has taken a new twist. Frequent flyers are to post an answer on their own blogs, then send the link to @slqotd. The current question asks for the difference between learning and training, which I am taking the semantic liberty to alter to "the difference between education and training". My take on that has always been that "training" should ideally be aimed at immediate, performance-based use, while education more broadly and abstractly was aimed at some unspecified future use. Here is an ancient little ditty on that topic from prehistoric training lore:

Would you rather have your 14 year old daughter take a sex education class, or a sex training class?

Tips for Working with SMEs

We had a lively discussion in my VILT session today, "Instructional Design for the Real World". Here's a screenshot of the conversation (click to enlarge it). My own addition: the best SME may not be the one who's been doing the job the longest, but the one who has reached competence most recently. They are the ones more likely to remember what it was like NOT to know how to do the job, and they won't come to the table with years of war stories and one-time exceptions to SOP. Participant Greg Sweet also shared his own SME template. Thanks, as always, to host insynctraining.com and to session producer Kassy LaBorie.

Monty Python gets it.

To extend last week's post on who owns information, how about this: Monty Python put free videos on YouTube, in better quality than the bootlegged ones -- and sold 23 THOUSAND PERCENT more DVDs

Who Owns Information?

A 'social learning' theme keeps kicking dust in my direction, first when the TR-DEV Yahoo group folded (see post below from January 24), and again the other night. Clark Quinn, Marcia Conner, and others have begun a wonderful Thursday-night Twitter gathering (8pm EST; #lrnchat). Conversation turned to the willingness to share information, and I noted that it is often management that is reticent to share data. My grad school research on communities of practice included an interesting 2000 article on communities, why people freely participate in them, and why they are willing to share.

In the virtual communities under study, Wasko and Faraj (2000) found that people participate because they feel knowledge is a public good and should be shared out of a sense of moral obligation and community, rather than self-interest. This is positioned in contrast to the organizational view that knowledge is a private good owned by the organization or individual members. Wasko and Faraj interpret their findings to indicate that self-interest (to include organizational control or institutionalized CoPs) “denigrates” (p.171) the community. Essentially, members share from feelings of doing the right thing, and engage in intellectual exchange for its own sake.

Additionally, Wasko and Faraj found that community members act out of community interest, not self interest, and concluded that knowledge is owned and maintained neither by the organization nor by the individual, but by the community itself.

Your thoughts?


The full citation is Wasko, M. & Faraj, S. (2000). “It is what one does”: Why people participate and help others in electronic communities of practice. Journal of Strategic Information Systems 9(2-3), 155-173.

2009 Top Ten Tools for Learning Professionals

Each year Jane Hart of the UK's Centre for Learning and Perfomance Technologies invites practitioners to submit their "Top 10 Tools for Learning Professionals". Here's mine; be sure to check out the lists others have submitted.

1. iPhone. It completes me. Much more computer than phone, it’s on this list because of the apps (which count as “software”, I should think). It’s a mobile one-stop repository for productivity tools (Google, Evernote); entertainment tools (Pandora radio, Flixster), job aids (the first-aid reference Pocket Aid: even when out of phone range the reference material still works); and fun and games including real-time handheld Scrabble with friends anywhere in the world. Also excellent for settling barroom arguments, not that I’d know.

2. Google reader: Pops up on my IGoogle home page with everything I want to follow, with minimal clutter and fuss.

3. PowerPoint: Still the best, least expensive, and most user-familiar “authoring tool” available. Good e-learning is about design, not software.

4. SnagIt: My single most-used application, ahead even of Word and PowerPoint. Very inexpensive., and version 9 is very robust, with excellent editing capabilities. From Techsmith.

5. Fireworks. I still say this beats Photoshop hands-down for creating graphics for the web and editing photos.

6. Quia: Inexpensive one-stop site for unlimited-use quizzes, Flash games, evaluations. Statistical feedback on quizzes rivals that provided by many much-pricier LMSs.

7. YouTube. The woefully misused “comment feature” is excellent for generating learner response and interaction with video/instructor. See, for instance, what Tonya TKO did.

8. Skype. I have lots of colleagues in the UK and Australia; this lets me talk to them via text or VOIP for free. For about US .17/minute I can also call most landlines worldwide from anywhere in the world without racking up extra charges on my cell plan. Can’t beat that.

9. Twitter. Any hour, day or night, there are dozens of people on Twitter who want to talk about things I didn’t know I wanted to talk about. And all in 140 characters or less. For those who believe it’s just self-centered updates, see some of the social learning experiments going on. “SLQOTD”, for instance, asks one social learning question of the day, to which anyone can respond. As of this writing: Day 80+ and counting.

10. WizIQ: FREE virtual classroom tool with good VOIP, some features to rival the big vendors. Some of the big boys don’t yet offer the object-oriented whiteboard that WizIQ has had from Day 1.

Can Your People Pass the Banana Test?

I'm researching an upcoming live-online session, "Tips for the Positive Deviant" and just ran into this anecdote:

During a positive deviance workshop designed to surface strategies for curtailing the spread of AIDS/HIV in Myanmar, "The group consisted of prostitutes -- nearly all of whom insisted she faithfully made her clients use condoms. The moment of truth occurred when each participant was asked to apply a condom to a banana. Varying degrees of dexterity quickly differentiated the pretenders from the practitioners...With the right exercises, many organizations could profit from appropriate reincarnations of the 'banana test'."*

We talk a lot about "assessment" of our learners, but do our assessments pack the punch of the banana test?


From Pascale, R. & Sternin, J.(May,2005). Your company's secret change agents. Harvard Business Review.

Wherefore Passion?

Dave Ferguson has revived the Working/Learning Blog Carnival and has asked for thoughts on "work at learning: learning at work". Here's what's on my mind this rainy Sunday.

My dissertation research focused broadly on communities of practice (CoPs), and narrowly on a single community comprised of workplace trainers who gathered voluntarily to “stamp out bad training”. The group, now in its 24th year of evolving membership, has served members well as a vehicle for developing skills and camaraderie. They worked together to develop workshops and a lengthy train-the-trainer course; they used meetings as an opportunity to “dry run” new programs or activities and get helpful feedback from other practitioners; they learned by watching one another work and by working with one another. The CoP provided them the opportunity to learn about their work while learning while doing their work. (The whole dissertation – be warned, all 345 pages of it – can be found here )

While my interviewees offered myriad motivations for joining and participating, virtually all of them, thinking back on their time as novices, expressed frustrations with being hired, or placed, into positions for which they admitted they did not feel qualified or were inadequately prepared, expressed their lack of clarity about what a trainer did and how one knew if one was doing it well, described their feelings of isolation at being the organization’s only trainer -- or the only one in a training unit interested in improving -- and reported what seemed a shocking indifference about their job performance on the part of their supervisors.

While this may be where they began their work as trainers, by the time they were in my interview pool most described themselves as “passionate” about their work. Where does passion germinate? Why does one worker become passionate where another gives up and moves on to another role? While it was beyond the scope of my study, the matter came up enough for me to start asking, “When did you become passionate about training?” Without fail, the answers tied to feelings of confidence and efficacy. This was not necessarily tied to expertise – some interviewees said they became passionate long before they felt they had achieved mastery – but to a feeling of effectiveness: “When I saw that my training really made a difference.” “When I saw my first ‘a-ha’ moment in a learner’s eyes.” Is it, then, confidence that generates passion? And in turn, is reasonable to infer that it is passion that drives the desire to become more expert? And another thing: Is it a matter of achieving, and feeling comfortable with, the state of "conscious incompetence"? ("I know I don't know everything, but I'm confident that I have the ability to learn more, and I want to?")

Confidence and efficacy over mastery and expertise. Role clarity, feeling one knows what one’s job is, and whether one is doing it well. Finding outlets for overcoming feelings of isolation and the indifference of a supervisor. Comfort in the "I don't know now, but someday I may" zone. Passion may be what drives the desire to achieve mastery.

What does this tell us about our role in developing more passionate learners?

State of E-Learning 2009

Elearn Magazine asked me for 500 words on my views about the current state and future of e-learning. The piece begins:

"As the news about the economy grows ever bleaker, organizations are finally forced to take a hard look at travel and other expenses associated with traditional classroom training. I predict this will bring several changes to the e-learning horizon—some good, some perhaps not."

The other 456 words are here.

"I'm a Computer Whisperer"

Well, closing the lid DOES work sometimes...

E-Learning and the Panopticon

Bentham developed the idea of the panopticon, a prison design that provided a single central point from which all prisoners/cells/activities could be observed. (Many American shopping malls adopted this as a design guide, too.) Foucault later wrote at length of the pervasiveness of the concept -- the need to observe and regulate -- as it extended to other institutions such as hospitals and schools.

And it extends to a new realm, now. Consider universities providing "distance education" courses via a course management tool like Blackboard, into which administration can ostensibly drop at any time to read student discussion comments, watch instructor videos, review recordings of virtual classroom meetings, and access other daily course activity. While the Dean could always drop by the traditional classroom, he/she didn't do it very often, and when it happened you knew he/she was there. Distance learning allows for a new level of observation/supervision, including simple lurking, for those who choose to use it.

I find myself in the position of panopticon resident from time to time, not always intentionally, and most often in dealing with data generated by an LMS or other tracking system. For instance: At his manager's request I provided an e-learning/technology resistant colleague -- someone with whom I need to remain collegial -- with a free login to a suite of commercial e-learning courses relevant to content the trainer taught. The product includes really excellent, hard-to-build-from-scratch simulations with branching decicisionmaking. Months later the trainer dropped by my office to describe at length how much time he'd spent examining the courses, detailing the myriad reasons they just wouldn't work in replacing, supplementing, or extending the content he taught (um, customer service, e-mail rules, MBTI, and basic supervision). He went on and on about how the courses were not relevant to the public sector, with "everything" he looked at targeted at people in sales and manufacturing. When I went into the system to review product usage for the quarter, I saw that he'd spent exactly 10 minutes and 11 seconds in one course, and began one simulation but did not finish it. That's it.

What are the ethical implications here?

Should university administration make their presence known when dropping in to an academic course? Who "owns" the course? The university, the faculty teaching it, or the learners enrolled in it? Should class discussions be a private matter between students and instructor? Should students have a right to say who should have access to the "content" they generate during the course? Do students have the right to be notified when someone other than the instructor is observing them online?

Should we be more explicit with learners that online activity can be tracked, and what effect might that have on learner interest and motivation? How might it affect the learner-trainer relationship? How can you say it without sounding like Big Brother?

What do we do when, as with my own example, we are privy to knowledge we'd just as soon we didn't have? Not long ago my colleague's boss called to discuss her continued issues with the resistant classroom trainer, who had shared his "findings" with her. What would you have said? Would you have confronted the trainer, who is also a colleague? What are the rights of the learner in the online world? What is the role of the trainer/consultant in this situation?

What rules should exist for those of us who have access to the panopticon?

Reality or ... Media?

My January 24 post, "Collapse of a Community of Practice", included an aside about what training practitioners are really doing v. what the media -- print, business blogs, "forums" and "webinars" would have us believe (another aside: there is nothing positive about the word "webinar"). My third book, From Analysis to Evaluation, was envisioned as a compilation of tools developed and used by practitioners in the field, loosely arranged around the ADDIE model of instructional design. Dozens of authors and training practitioners were invited to contribute to it, and were specifically asked for tools they were using in their own work. I thought I had a pretty good idea of what to expect in terms of submissions, and was somewhat surprised at what did not arrive. For instance, no one -- not one -- person submitted anything on determining training results-on-investment (ROI).

As this is such a hot topic in training-related magazines and books, I don’t know whether the lack of submissions is coincidental, that no one ever needed to create a “homegrown” tool for this, or that it’s a reflection on what is really happening in the field in spite of what the literature tells us. As I knew readers would expect to find it, I went back and added some material where reviewers felt its absence would be especially noticed, but let me say again: I asked people to share what they used.

Last week I tipped sacred training cows. This week I'm asking something different. What do you find that you really use in your practice, and does it differ from what media and myth say you should?

Sacred Training Cows

I am just home from Training 2009 where, among other things, I offered sessions on "Better than Bullet Points" and "Instructional Design for the Real World". With both these topics I always manage to tip a few sacred cows. While I hope the presentations provoke thought more than ire, I know that I sometimes ruffle feathers -- often, I suspect, by hitting too close to home. Here are some of the sacred training cows I tipped in Atlanta:

--Much of what we call 'e-learning' would be much more useful if distributed as text documents.
--The traditional approach to training evaluation is seriously flawed.
--Good e-learning is about design, not software.
--Irrelevant or cute art, graphics, animations, and colors only distract the learner; they do not enhance the training by "adding visual interest". (How about the example in this post: relevant, or distracting?)
--Boring content is no excuse for boring training.
--The tendency for trainers to fall into the role of order taker ("Yes, sir, you want an order of teambuilding with a side of stress management? Coming right up.") does not constitute good "customer service". It is harmful to the learners, the managers, and ultimately the credibility of the training profession.


What other sacred training cows would you add to the list?

The Myth of "Best Practices"

I get lots of requests for lists of "best practices"...in e-learning, in the virtual classroom, in instructional design, in classroom presentation. Here's the deal: there's no such thing. A "best practice" is best only in the precise, specific context in which it exists. I don't recall who first offered this analogy, but think of it this way: what works in my marriage won't necessarily work in -- and may even damage -- yours. Even if moved from one situation to another very close one, the odds of transfer being made with practice intact is nil.

In education they call this a problem with "fidelity": one teacher writes a fabulously effective lesson plan and shares it with her friends. They each decide to 'adapt' it in a slightly different way to suit some unique need of their students. It is no longer the practice that was supposedly "best". Of course then, when the end users don't get the desired outcome, they say it's isn't their fault...because after all, they were using "best practices".

So how do we address those who pressure us to produce a list of, or abide by, "best" practices?

[Update: I ran into a great visual example of the problem of fidelity in best practices. Check out the update.]

Can 'Competencies' be Taught?

I tend to agree with Marcus Buckingham (First, Break all the Rules). Do you? What's been your experience with "competencies"?

"Competencies are part skills, part knowledge and part talent. They lump together, haphazardly. Consequently, even though designed with clarity in mind, competencies can wind up confusing everybody. Managers soon find themselves sending people off to training classes to learn such 'competencies' as strategic thinking or attention to detail or innovation. But these aren't competencies. These are talents. They cannot be taught. If you are going to use competencies, make it clear which are skills or knowledge and therefore can be taught, and which are talents and therefore cannot."