Final Version: E-Learning Buzzword Bingo Card

Here 'tis, with thanks to all those who contributed (see original post and comments). I had more suggestions than spaces (especially loved Bex's "needs more cowbell") so if I compile enough maybe there'll be a Card 2. I am scared to think there might be that many buzzwords associated with e-learning, but fear there probably are...

The Collapse of a Community of Practice (CoP)

I have long been a subscriber to, first, the old TR-DEV listserv and its revised format as a moderated Yahoo group. While the site shows 4,000 members, I would guess that truly active membership -- lots of posting, interaction, some argument -- is in the range of 50-100. Debates have been long and often spirited, and while I have not always found it all useful (too much parsing of semantics, too many side visits to politics last fall) it did keep me informed about current interests in the training field and what practitioners were really working on (as opposed to what the media often report). While a true community of practice is usually characterized by its lack of formal oversight, the moderators did a good job of blocking out blatant marketing attempts and people phising for email addresses, and refocusing/refereeing discussions when needed.

ANYWAY, the announcement came from the moderators this week that the site will be shut down effective Tuesday, and they will not be entertaining any further discussion or answering responses about it. They did provide a long explanation, including acknowledgement of new social media technologies that did not exist back when the listserv was started. And, really, they said, they're tired. It is an often thankless job, with anyone with a beef about anything taking it out on the moderators who were doing this voluntarily in the first place. The moderators have already deleted all the materials in the archives, things like handouts and whitepapers and tools submitted by members.

The response has been, not unexpectedly, dramatic and emotional. People are shocked at the swiftness of the decision; comments on the board this week tend to alternate between "thanks for all the years of service" and "how dare you?" The conversations have raised some points to ponder on the matter of CoPs. Let's cogitate:

1. Who "owns" a CoP?
2. To whom does the material shared by, created by, and stored in a community repository belong?
3. Does the life of a community have such a definite end point? What will happen next?


While I am sad to see TR-DEV go I admit I have been fascinated at watching the drama play out this week. For those really interested in the philosophical side of all this, there is a small body of academic literature on power issues in CoPs; authors include Huzzard; Pemberton, Mavin, & Stalker; and Roberts.

E-Learning Buzzword Bingo Card

Clark Quinn, Cammy Bean, Steve Sorden and I have been having a Twitter discussion about buzzwords associated with e-learning. The conversation quickly showed that once-useful concepts are often cannibalized and reduced down to little more than hype for the marketing and the misguided. For more, read Clark's excellent post, "Less than Words."

Meanwhile, help me complete the "Official E-Learning Buzzword Bingo" card as we are still short a few terms -- but I know they're out there. What terms did we miss?

Alternatives to Kirkpatrick

While the Kirkpatrick taxonomy is something of a sacred cow in training circles—and much credit goes to Donald Kirkpatrick for being the first to attempt to apply intentional evaluation to workplace training efforts—it is not the only approach. Apart from being largely atheoretical and ascientific (hence, 'taxonomy', not 'model' or 'theory'), several critics find the Kirkpatrick taxonomy seriously flawed. For one thing, the taxonomy invites evaluating everything after the fact, focusing too heavily on end results while gathering little data that will help inform training program improvement efforts. (Discovering after training that customer service complaints have not decreased only tells us that the customer service training program didn’t “work”; it tells us little about how to improve it.)

Too, the linear causality implied within the taxonomy (for instance, the assumption that passing a test at level 2 will result in improved performance on the job at level 3) masks the reality of transfer of training efforts into measurable results. There are many factors that enable or hinder the transfer of training to on-the-job behavior change, including support from supervisors, rewards for improved performance, culture of the work unit, issues with procedures and paperwork, and political concerns. Learners work within a system, and the Kirkpatrick taxonomy essentially attempts to isolate training efforts from the systems, context, and culture in which the learner operates.

In the interest of fairness I would like to add that that Kirkpatrick himself has pointed out some of the problems with the taxonomy, and suggested that in seeking to apply it the training field has perhaps put the cart before the horse. He advises working backwards through his four levels more as a design, rather than an evaluation, strategy; that is: What business results are you after? What on-the-job behavior/performance change will this require? How can we be confident that learners, sent back to the work site, are equipped to perform as desired? And finally: how can we deliver the instruction in a way that is appealing and engaging?

An alternative approach to evaluation was developed Daniel Stufflebeam. His CIPP model, originally covering Context-Input-Process- Product/Impact, and later extended to include Sustainability, Effectiveness, and Transportability, provides a different take on the evaluation of training. Western Michigan University has an extensive overview of the application of the model, complete with tools, and a good online bibliography of
literature on the Stufflebeam model. Short story: this one is more about improving what you're doing than proving what you did.

More life beyond Kirkpatrick: Will Thalhimer endorses Brinkerhoff's Success Case evaluation method and commends him for advocating that learning professionals play a more “courageous” role in their organizations.

Enough already, Jane! More later on alternatives to the Kirkpatrick taxonomy. Yes, there are more.


(Some comments adapted from the 'evaluation' chapter in my book, From Analysis to Evaluation: Tools, Tips, and Techniques for Trainers. Pfeiffer, 2008.)

The First Help Desk Call

"Compared to the scroll, it takes longer to turn the pages of a book." And what about the manual?

Hemorrhaging Money

I've talked about this before and want to add a new voice to the choir. I get two kinds of calls from people wanting to "do" e-learning. The first come form those who are interested in expanding their scope to include more learners, to reduce travel and other costs, or to otherwise solve a business problem. The other calls come from those who want to know how to track and monitor and measure completions. They are always more interested in buying an LMS they don't yet need (and often don't even really know what it does) than in designing anything resembling effective online training.

The question of buying an LMS to track and monitor and yada yada recently came up on one of the Yahoo discussion groups to which I belong. Here are some fabulously in-your-face comments from Peter Hunter, www.breakingthemould.co.uk, quoted with his permission:

"If your training is not producing added value to your bottom line,then what is
the point of tracking it?

All you are doing is measuring the exact rate that the training
department is hemorrhaging money out of the company.

If your training is adding value, then measure the value it is adding.

When we train for the sake of training we are destroying the
organisation we are supposed to be supporting.

Think carefully about why you need this software and if the reason
turns out to be that your boss told you to get it, go ahead."

Tony Karrer's E-Learning Learning Community

Thanks to Techpower's Tony Karrer for including the Bozarthzone blog on his list of sources for eLearning Learning It's "a community that tries to collect and organize the best information on the web that will help you learn and stay current on eLearning."

Be sure to check it out, and while you're at it be sure to also take a look at Tony's
elearning tech blog.

(And for you Twitterers/Tweeters/Twitterpeeps types, he's well worth following there, too.)

And PS: Happy New Year!

7 Things

Janet Clarey has thrown down the gauntlet of the "7 things" meme. So here are my "Seven Things You Don't Know About Me".

1. Getting married was the best thing I ever did and I wish more happily married people would speak up. My husband says, and I am sure he means this in the most positive possible sense, that we have to stay married forever -- because he doesn’t want me for an ex-wife.


2. If it weren’t for my global virtual village of training friends I would lose my mind, as everyone in my physical orbit thinks I am just speaking Plutonian or something most of the time.


3. If they made a movie of my life I would want the part of me to be played by Debra Winger or Whoopi Goldberg.


4. One of my favorite possessions is a “story people” card that says: “She accepts that she creates her own reality except for the parts where she wonders what the hell she was thinking.”


5. I would like to take credit for being brilliant and talented and gifted but in reality I probably owe most of my success to the facts that I can 1) follow instructions and 2) meet deadlines, which apparently hardly anyone else on earth can do.

6. They say that your favorite childhood book influences you more than you will suspect and will play out somewhere in your adult life. When I was 28 I was still single and liked it that way and lived in a funny little house on the edge of a little town with funny little pets. I even became a redhead. Looking back I realize: Yes, I was living the life of Pippi Longstocking.

7. I live at the top of one of the highest hills in Durham, North Carolina, and on a clear day can see the top of Duke Chapel from my deck. I would not change one thing about my house or my husband or my life. My favorite material possessions include my icemaker, my iPhone, my dishwasher with a timer, my under-sink hot water dispenser, the tall windows in my living room, my Mustang, and my little iPhone beanbag that cost way too much because of shipping but is perfect for watching movies on planes. I refuse to discard the Thin Clothes because you just never know. I am pleased we have so many great neighbors we genuinely like. I love my job and my work and yes those are different things. I am in deep denial that our beloved Corgi, Donald, is 13 years old and will likely not live to see 27. I do try to say, "Why not?" at least once a day.


And in the spirit of paying this forward I will pass the challenge on to
Karl Kapp
Jennifer Hofmann
Saul Carliner
Patti Shank
Jane Hart
Bryan Chapman
Phylise Banner

So do something already.

I get a lot of "my organization won't let me..." comments in training that I do. Steve Radick offers a wonderful response. Here's part of his post from yesterday. Visit him to read the whole thing:

"Don’t tell me it’s too hard or that your boss doesn’t know YouTube from an iPod. Those are excuses, not reasons. If YouTube is blocked where you work, get it unblocked. Write a white paper justifying why it shouldn’t be blocked. Meet with your boss about it. Meet with your boss’s boss about it. Start a blog where you talk about it. Volunteer to give a brown bag presentation to your office. Just DO something! Take the initiative and work on changing how your organization works - don’t just sit there sulking, saying, “I wish we could do social media here, but we can’t even get on Facebook so there’s no use.” Bringing social media to your organization isn’t something that happens from 9-5. It happens from 5-9, after everyone else has gone home...

Social media and government started not with some policy or memo from the senior leadership, but from regular people sitting in a cubicle who saw an opportunity and decided to do something about it. They didn’t see a policy prohibiting blogging and say, “oh well, I guess that ends that.” No, they pulled together briefings on why blogging was needed. They found examples of others who were doing it. They told anyone who would listen about the power of blogging. They got meetings with his bosses. They eventually changed the policy.

It’s time for you to be that guy and to step up, take the initiative and not let red tape and bureaucracy stop you. Don’t accept no as an answer and don’t let a couple unenlightened colleagues stop your drive to effect change. Stand out from the crowd and actually do something about it."

And I say A-men to that!!

How to DO THINGS v. How to GET THINGS DONE

One of the discussion points in my dissertation research involves the distinction between knowing how to do things (i.e., perform a task) and knowing how to get things done. At the agency where I work, for instance, we lost Grant of the Superpowers some years back. Grant was our "purchasing guy": apart from knowing how to fill out paperwork, Grant also knew who to call if you needed a check cut on a day not in the cycle, how to get stalled paperwork off someone's desk and back into the system, and which vendors would most likely extend agreements without lots of additional rigamarole. He knew how to get things done, and unfortunately, when he left he took that with him. And we haven't recovered yet.

As we shift to global transactions and face the coming exodus of Baby Boomers from the workplace businesses worry about capturing tacit knowlege. We usually mean skills --how to do things--and so far we continue to struggle even with that.

How will we capture the ways to get things done?

Gift idea

In his latest post Karl Kapp kindly offers gift-giving ideas for the cost conscious, namely copies of his book. I wholeheartedly endorse this plan and recommend his Gadgets, Games, and Gizmos for Learning as the perfect complement to the collected works of Jane Bozarth. Now, you're probably saying to yourself, "Gee, Jane already owns 4 signed, dog-eared, tattered copies of Karl Kapp's book (Gadgets, Games and Gizmos for Learning -- did I mention that already?), what could I possibly give Jane?" Well the answer, of course, is the Optoma EP-PK-101 PICO Pocket Projector. Is there anything anywhere cooler than this? Except maybe for Karl Kapp...

Pocket First Aid iPhone Application

I know that folks tend to have strong feelings about the iPhone (I love mine...it completes me :-) ) and understand that as far as phone applications go, well, to each his own. So please think of this post less as an endorsement of the iPhone, or even this particular application, but as yet another instance of excellent matching of function to technology.

This is the "Pocket First Aid & CPR Guide" from Jive Media LLC. It's an instant first-aid reference always with you on your phone, with additional screens for your own emergency medical information (link to your Dr.'s office, your emergency contacts, your preferred hospital, your allergies). AND: the first-aid instructions are available even when you are out of cellphone range. Reviewers at the iPhone app store are asking for the addition of emergency phone links even when out of country, and for pet first aid info, so I would imagine that, and more, will be added soon. $1.99 US.

Impromptu Bozarthzone Award: Most Innovative Use of YouTube

Check this out: Tonya poses a question, asks viewers to type their answers into the comments section below the video, and pauses the tape to give viewers time to answer. FABULOUS strategy. FABULOUS use of this technology! Be sure to visit the YouTube site to see the comments.

Who is research for, anyway?

Now that The Dissertation is finished I want to ask the question that always seemed to annoy faculty: Who is research for, anyway?

I feel it should ultimately be geared toward helping the practitioner. But most research is written in that stilted academic style (believe me, mine's closer to comprehensible English than most, and it was still like writing in a second language), often full of numbers incomprehensible to anyone who hasn't taken Graduate Statistics, published in journals that cost $200/year, and presented at conferences attended only by other academics. Then the researchers complain that research doesn't transfer into practice!

Any response to this?

Happy Thanksgiving!

Warm wishes from me and Donald the Answer Dog for a happy Thanksgiving. Here's a little assignment for everyone, even those of you not here in the US. Get a piece of paper. Write:

1. One thing you are thankful for about your life, spouse, partner, or family.
2. One thing you are thankful for about your work.
3. One thing you are thankful for about yourself.
4. Anything items 1-3 didn't cover. I am, for instance, thankful for my iPhone. It completes me...

Now put that somewhere you can see it every now and again, like taped inside a cabinet door or in the drawer where you keep the antacids. We can all use a reminder every now and again. And while you're at it maybe draw a hand turkey, too!

Happy days--
Jane

Participation Inequality

This is a couple of years old but it's the first time I've seen it. No surprise for any of you who've ever participated in an online community, online course discussion board, looked at Wikipedia...

"In most online communities, 90% of users are lurkers who never contribute, 9% of users contribute a little, and 1% of users account for almost all the action.
All large-scale, multi-user communities and online social networks that rely on users to contribute content or build services share one property: most users don't participate very much. Often, they simply lurk in the background."

See the whole article for ideas on ways of better equalizing participation.

President-Elect Embraces "Collaboration on a Shoestring"

I had planned to comment on this tonight but my buddy Karl Kapp beat me to it. Regardless of your feelings about the outcome of last week's Presidential election, you gotta admit that Mr. Obama's team understood and embraced the possibilities of Web 2.0 technologies and social networking strategies. Here's what Karl said:

"... ask yourself, if it's good enough for a president-elect to deliver messages and information via social media and Web 2.0 tools...isn't it good enough for your learning and development department and your company to use these tools? If you want to break down the traditional and artificial boundaries of the learning function within your organization, you can use the web to help do it."

See About.com Web Trends and CNN for more -- as well as the Change.gov site itself.

I'll be doing my "Collaboration on a Shoestring" workshop live-online next month with Insync Training. Free, and open to the public, if you'd like to attend.

I think I'll be adding some new screenshots...

Control, anyone?

I'm working on a new leadership training program and this morning was looking through some books of training games. Here is something that caught me short:

"Use this activity to have a pleasant way to reprimand unpleasant behavior." And, "Don't give up when the participant hesitates to do an activity."

So much for adult learning, n'est-ce pas?

Young @ Heart

Ok here's the second non-e-learning/training post for the week, and I promise to start focusing again really soon. Meanwhile: If you have not yet seen the film "Young @ Heart" then do yourself a favor. It will make your heart glad.

So I'm Finally a Doctor! ...

... but as Randy Pausch's mother always said of him, "...but not the kind that helps people."

It took 9 years of continuing enrollment and much jumping through hoops, which could have at least also provided aerobic exercise.

My husband gave me a t-shirt that says:

"Graduation is for Quitters".