Top 10 Tools for Learning in 2011

Each Year, Jane Hart founder of the Center for Learning & Performance Technologies invites learning professionals from around the globe to vote on top tools for learning.  Voting closes tomorrow November 13.  Afterwards, she will publish the final list.

It is tough to limit choices to 10 tools, but here is the list I submitted based on what we have been using inside my company, and what I have been using personally for informal learning, development and collaboration.

1. Microsoft SharePoint - we have been using this to create learning environments around formal courses to enable informal learning - includes wikis, shared calendars, document repository and many other joyful tools!
2. Yammer - our enterprise microblogging tool has provided a venue for groups to form and learn from each other.  Informal learning, collaboration, social learning, sharing - it all happens here.
3. Microsoft Office Communicator - share your desktop and video conference using voice over IP in an instant.
4. Delicious - my personal knowledge management favorite.
5. Skype - bringing people together - even when they're not!
6. YouTube - when you want to make a point clear to people, you can usually find a brief video to share that does it for you.
7. Dropbox - new to me and moving up the list. With the growth of tablets, this tool becomes more important for sharing.
8. SlideShare - great for researching presentations and sharing your own
9. Twitter - I've learned more through the connections I've made through twitter over the last two years than through any other means.
10. Ted Talks - If you haven't seen one, check them out.

If I could have added two more I would have added Evernote, and of course, Blogger.

Two Years and Still Growing

Today is the second anniversary of the launch of Many Ways to Learn. I never thought there would be much interest in a blog about workplace learning, but here we are two years later. When I talk about my work among friends and family, everyone runs the other way. But this blog does have a modest following, and the connections I’ve made through it have been enriching both personally and professionally. Feedback indicates people are gaining something by reading it, which makes it worthwhile to continue.


Two years ago, I started writing this blog as part of a personal experiment. I was not using social media tools at all. As a learning professional, I felt it was important to understand these tools. I wanted to see if they held any promise for use alongside our formal learning offerings. I didn’t expect they would, but I was wrong. They certainly proved to hold promise. I slowly began to introduce them to my team members. I have a creative bunch so I wanted to see what ideas and suggestions they might come up with for usage in service to our learners. At the time, terms like informal learning, social learning, personal knowledge management, and content curator were not part of our day-to-day working vocabulary. I’m happy to say they are today. In November 2009 I really began seeing the possibilities. I wrote this blog entry: Web 2.0 Learning Shift to describe what I saw happening. Since then we have implemented a number of non-traditional learning solutions at my company to give our learners alternatives to classroom training or self-paced e-learning. Do we have all our learning opportunities embedded directly in the workstream? No, we don’t. Do we have more learning opportunities in the workstream than we did two years ago? I am proud to say yes, we do.

Here are a few more YES/NO situations to describe the current state of learning at my company.

YES – people are having workplace discussions and sharing resources though social media.

NO – not everyone in the company is on board.

YES – we have a formal social media policy.

NO – we don’t block people from using twitter or facebook at work.

YES - we do have our own internal social media network (through Yammer) available to employees worldwide.

NO – our senior leaders are not all active in our social media network.

YES - we do have online discussion groups and virtual meet-ups to promote learning.

NO - we can't measure what people are learning through these groups, but their discoveries are evident.
YES – we are conducting classes virtually.

NO – we are not using virtual reality tools like Second Life.

YES - our virtual classes are interactive discussions.

NO - our virtual classes are not passive PowerPoint webinars.

YES – we do have wiki-based tools and activities that allow learners to build off each other’s ideas.

NO – we don’t have control over what people post or the edits they make – but it has not been a problem.

YES – we have created learning environments in SharePoint to help our employees manage their learning experiences.

NO – they don’t all take to SharePoint like a duck takes to water.

YES – we do offer just-in-time access to workplace answers through our knowledge management system.

NO – we have not retired our learning management system.

YES – our employees are accessing (some) audio and video content through mobile devices.

NO – the mobile content does not mainly originate from the learning department.

YES – we do capture and share best practices through social media tools.

NO – our social media tools are not the most commonly used means of sharing best practices.

YES – we have increased our employees’ ability to learn through informal means.

NO – we haven’t stop designing and delivering Instructor-led classroom training.

YES – we develop a lot of rapid e-learning programs.

NO – our e-learning programs are not all award winners, but they don’t have to be to be effective.

The last two years have certainly been interesting. They have shown me there are indeed Many Ways to Learn. Through writing this blog and interacting with readers, I’ve discovered a lot and grown quite a bit as a learning professional. I’ve used what I have learned to help my department evolve and to help employees in my company be successful. I also hope this blog has led others to make a few discoveries. Thanks for reading.

The Last of the 3-Ring Binders

This week when I return to work, I’ll be packing up for yet another office move. The latest round of transformation projects and real estate strategy adjustments has me going from the fourth to the fifth floor. At least I’m moving up in the world! I have moved many times in my career. During each of these moves, I have winnowed down the contents of my office to just the essentials and a few personal items. So when the move coordinator asked how many boxes I’ll need, I replied, “Probably one, but better get me two just in case.” causing her to raise an eyebrow in surprise.


As I think about packing up next week, I realize that office moves are great milestones for reflecting on how things change over the course of our careers. Each time we move, we throw open the drawers and closets and pull out items we might not have seen in a while. We have to decide what to discard and what to take along with us into the next phase. As a learning professional, one of the staple items in my closet has been a collection of 3-ring binders - the ghosts of training past. Less and less of these end up in the “keep pile” with each move.

Two decades ago, when I relocated from New York to Connecticut for a promotional opportunity, I had a ton of these binders. Some from programs I had designed and delivered; others from classes I had attended. Among them, there was at least one binder from a program that probably had a title like, “How to Cope with Change.” I’m sure I checked to make sure I had it backed up on a floppy disk before throwing it into a dumpster along with many others that would not be making the move with me.

Ten years ago, when I moved from a satellite building into our corporate headquarters a few miles away, I still had many 3-ring binders with me. Among them, there was probably one with a title like, “How to Create and Drive Change.” I’m sure I backed it up on a CD, pulled the out pages and put them in a recycling bin, before offering the empty binder to another department for reuse.

Now as I make the move from four to five, I have only a few 3-ring binders with me from some of my favorite programs, one’s that have helped me greatly over the years. Among them is a program with a title like, “How to Manage in an Ever Changing World.” Since no one is using 3-ring binders these days, I’ll make sure it is backed up to our SharePoint site before separating the paper, plastic and metal parts and placing them in the appropriate bins.

Note: for suggestions on what to do with discarded 3-ring binders visit planetgreen.com.

Doing It Right: Instructional Design without Cutting Corners

What a pleasure it is when you are able to do a learning project the "right way."    This week, my team and I finished training for a group of managers in one of our business segments.   This was a project that we initiated in the fall.  It was carried out according to plan and within the next few weeks, we will have our final set of measures on its overall impact.

When I say we did this the "right way," what I mean is that we were able to follow our instructional design process without having to cut corners along the way.  You might be thinking, "Well, don't you always do that?"  But in truth, we are often forced to make compromises on our projects to meet business deadlines, work within budget constraints, or cater to the expectations of a particularly influential business leader.   But on this project, we were not constrained by any of those things.

The project was to provide training to approximately 35 managers who were mostly long-tenured and experienced, but who have recently had to deal with significant changes to their job.  Here is how it went:

Analysis - We originally approached the head of this business unit to get an understanding of the outcomes that were expected from the changes that were put in place, and to get his perspective on the impact he thought these changes would have on his managers.  Next, we had two rounds of discussions with four managers who were part of the target audience.  After the first meeting with them, we drafted an analysis report to feed back to them our understanding of the audience characteristics, the job, and the key tasks that were changing.  In our second meeting with the managers, we validated and fine-tuned the information gathered in the first meeting.  After that, we presented our analysis findings and a training design proposal, including a draft of the agenda and objectives, to the business unit leader and the Vice Presidents into whom the targeted training audience reported.   They provided some additional insights that we incorporated into our agenda and we were ready to begin designing the program.

Design & Development -  We chose a blended approach including two online assessments and an e-learning module as pre-work, a three-day classroom learning event, and follow-up learning opportunities made available through a SharePoint site set up specifically for this class.  The design process for the classroom event was relatively quick and easy.  Most of the training needs could be addressed with existing material that had been used for other programs.  There were a few key segments that would be new, but they were all on topics that were easy to research.  Finding appropriate content was not an issue.  Designing learning activities that would be effective at making the learning points was a little more challenging. But that is certainly a part of the job that my team enjoys doing.

Pilot & Revisions - Since our total audience was relatively small (at 35 managers) we did not really have the opportunity to conduct a full blown pilot.  We broke the audience into three delivery groups and viewed our first delivery in December as a quasi-pilot.   Overall it went well, but as with any new program for a new audience, there was room for improvement.  We huddled up afterwards, examined our level one feedback, talked to a few of the participants and observers, updated our design document, and made some adjustments for our second and third deliveries.

Implementation - By the time our second delivery rolled around, we were confident that we had the right program to meet their needs.   We were clear on which segments needed the most support and which would meet with resistance, and we prepared ourselves accordingly.  For all three classroom events, we had one of the Vice Presidents with us during delivery.  We carved out a small but important segment for them to specifically deliver, and for the rest of the time they were with us, they were able to provide clarification or join in the discussion as we covered the other items on the agenda.   Their presence and involvement was a key factor in the program's success.

Evaluation & Follow-up - For this program, we used level one (participant reaction) and level three (behavioral change) measurements.  The level one measurements were taken directly at the end of the classroom sessions.  For the level three measurements, we use the Friday5s goal management system over a ten-week period after training.  Each participant was asked to set two specific goals at the end of their classroom session.  These goals get input into the Friday5s online tool where the class participants can go to receive online coaching and track their progress.  Also, we continue the momentum created in the classroom by allowing participants to connect with each other after the event through a SharePoint site that was set up specifically for this program. 

On the whole this was a very satisfying project.  We got to help our managers and help our business by doing what we do best: creating a learning opportunity that met specific needs for a specific audience.   And, we got chance to do it right!

In Praise of SharePoint

Recently, we have made some great strides in my company in our quest to convert training from event-based to ongoing. We made a deliberate attempt to reframe training by thinking in terms of “learning environments” instead of “learning events.” Rather than simply setting up training programs as two or three-day instructor-led events, we have been viewing each class as an ongoing community of practice. Participants still gather to attend a learning event but then they continue to work and learn together virtually after the instructor-led segment of the training is completed.

To enable ongoing collaboration, we use Microsoft SharePoint. For those of you who may not be familiar with SharePoint, it is an integrated suite of tools that provides content management, discussion, and information-sharing capabilities. It can be used organization-wide or scaled down for small groups. In our case, we set up an individual SharePoint site for each class we conduct. Our training program participants, facilitators, and subject-matter experts connect through their SharePoint sites to build on topics discussed during their learning events and to capture and share new informal learning. SharePoint helps us do this in several ways:

1. Ongoing Dialog – There have always been options available for participants to use to stay connected after training, but few classes usually sustain their momentum for long. Because SharePoint offers so many capabilities, participants seem more motivated to stay connected through this tool than other means we have offered in the past.

2. Job Aid Sharing – When we conduct training, inevitably, someone asks a question and the subject-matter expert will respond saying, “I have already worked that out,” or “I have a spreadsheet for that.” The SharePoint site provides that subject-matter expert – and anyone else in the class – with a place to share documents that are relevant for class members.

3. Best Practice Sharing – Typically when we conduct training, we generate lists of best practices for the topics that we cover. We post these lists on the SharePoint site after class. This provides real value for the participants. They go back to the site to get this information. While they are there, they are able to build on those ideas or add new ones to the lists.

4. Action Planning – It is also customary for us to have training participants commit to specific actions they will take after they leave a training class. We challenge them to put what they have learned to use in the business. To do this, we distribute and collect back action planning worksheets during our classes. We post these commitments on the SharePoint site so the class members can see what each person has committed to doing. We also use the SharePoint calendaring function to set up milestones for tracking progress. This has been a great benefit to our class members. They offer each other tools, ideas, and suggestions on how to meet the goals they set during training through the SharePoint site.

5. Program Evaluation – The SharePoint sites provide us with another means to collect level 3 (behavioral change) and level 4 (business result) evaluation data. We mine completed action plans and general dialog in discussions on the SharePoint site for each class for evidence of applied learning and business impact.

One obvious usage I haven’t mentioned here is for program pre-work. At this stage of the game, most of our collaboration work is post-work. The reason? SharePoint is still new in our organization. Our training classes seem to be the first place our employees are encountering it. Also, my team is new to it too. We are still working out how best to introduce it on the front-end. Our goal is to begin using it for pre-work in 2010.