Maintaining Relevance in Workplace Learning

Workplace Learning Professionals: join us today for a discussion of #relevance in an #astd_forum vSession today at 12:00 PM eastern time: http://tinyurl.com/ayra9qw

DevLearn 2012 Resources

Sadly,  I was not able to make it to DevLearn this year.   Like many others, I was sidelined by Hurricane Sandy.   Fortunately for me, I was able to send several of my team members, so we had good coverage at the conference.   When they returned they were excited by the greater understanding they gained on issues such as HTML5, Mobile Learning, Tin Can API and the latest trends in learning analytics.  They also met some great people through networking.   Now they face the daunting task of educating me!

But to aid in the process, once again we have the great treasure trove of resources from conference curator David Kelly aka @LnDDave.

The Perfect Storm: HTML5, Tin Can API and Mobile

Having just endured the powerful forces of Hurricane Sandy here in the northeastern United States, my heart goes out to the people who lost homes and loved ones during the storm. Meanwhile in the learning industry, another storm is brewing. If you haven’t been paying attention to topics such as HTML5, Tin Can API, Learning Records Stores, and developments on the mobile front, then you better batten down the hatches. These things are upon us now. They represent a climate change that can create super storms, ones that have ability to disrupt daily life for those of us in the workplace learning industry if we aren't prepared for them.

I work in a corporate learning department for a relatively large global company. We have been providing high quality learning services to our employees for years. I’m proud of the work my team does and the impact we have had on our organization’s success, particularly during the tough economic times of the last few years. We have never been what I would consider “cutting edge” but we have always managed to be creative and innovative in our approaches to learning. We have not only embraced change, but we have driven it through our organization. We are doing this once again as we have launched a project to introduce mobile learning as part of our mix. While I am excited by the possibilities, I feel like I’m walking through a storm. We seem to be in a time and place where so many things are swirling around us at once, so it is hard to know where to step next. Here are some of the challenges that we need to weather over the next few months:

Everybody’s Going Mobile – Smartphones and tablets are wonderful productivity tools, aren’t they? These days everyone has one…or two… or three. But they are all different. Yes, we have some company issued devices, but our learners are going to expect to be able to access learning content from their device of choice. This means designing and publishing multiple ways.

Gone in a Flash – I’m talking about Flash output. Up until now, all of the e-learning content we have produced has been published as Flash output. Of course we all know that that is coming to an end. To be able to publish engaging learning that can be accessed on a mobile device, we are going to have to produce HTML5 output now. Of course HTML5 Standards aren’t finalized yet, and none of our current course development software tools publish to HTML5, so there are those little things to deal with.

I’ll trade you an “M” for an “R” - That is as in LMS vs. LRS. We have thousands of learning objects on our Learning Management System (LMS). But of course, our LMS can’t handle content published for mobile devices (Yeah, I know that capability will be coming out in a future release of our LMS software… Q1 of 20xx). Our LMS is looking for SCORM standards, whereas mobile learning will mean using Tin Can API. (Yes, we are all learning about Tin Can.) If we want to record and track mobile learning, we’ll need a Learning Record Store (LRS).

As I said, I’m excited by this new direction we are taking. Mobile learning will be a real game changer for us. But I have to admit, figuring out how to fit all these things together is keeping me up at night almost as much as Hurricane Sandy did.

Capitalizing on 7 Learning Modalities

Last week I had the opportunity to get into a dialog with my company's learning council about the future direction of our approach to workplace learning.  My goal was to get them to support the idea of using tools and technologies to foster more informal learning opportunities. Our learning council is made up of a group of senior leaders from each of our business units and some key functional areas.  They are all savvy, successful business men and women in their areas of expertise, but their knowledge of what makes learning effective is uneven.   My approach was to write and present a white paper to them on how to capitalize on the learning modalities that are currently available for use in our organization - including mobile learning and learning through social media.

I wasn't sure how they would react to this.  Like many companies, our approach to workplace learning has mainly been focused on using traditional delivery methods such as classroom training, webinars, and self-paced elearning. To set the stage in the paper and in our discussion, I started by talking about the 70:20:10 Learning Framework.   This was a good choice as it comes across as rational, logical, and easy to understand.  Next, we talked about the proliferation of mobile devices and the explosion social media usage over the last few years, drawing the conclusion that our employees are already engaged in these arenas and that to provide effective learning support, we need to be in there with them.

After setting the stage, we moved the dialog into discussing how we would use each of the seven learning modalities I included in the paper.  I arranged them along a continuum from most formal to least formal (as shown in the image above).  You could argue with my sequencing, but this worked for the purposes of my discussion.  In the paper, I covered each modality by describing its current use, benefits, drawbacks, and recommendations for usage in our future learning offerings.

Here are the seven modalities we discussed, with a brief line about how we plan to optimize each:

Instructor-led training (ILT) - to optimize ILT we need to make sure our courses are learner-centered and discussion-oriented, offering ample opportunities for practice and feedback.

Virtual Instructor-led training (VILT) - to optimize VILT we need to design full, facilitated learning experiences that may include multiple sessions, pre-work, assessments, interactive exercises and post work (not just have a subject matter expert talking over PowerPoint slides).

eLearning (CBT or WBT) - to optimize elearning we need to use story-based, character-driven, and game-based approaches that are interactive and engaging to motivate our learners to stay with them through to completion.

Electronic Performance Support Systems (EPSS) - to optimize EPSS we need to provide relevant tools and place them (physically and contextually) where our learners are most likely going to look for them.

Podcasts and Videos - to optimize our use of podcasts and video we need to create short burst learning objects that address a single topic or specific objective.

Mobile Learning - to optimize mobile learning in the short term we need to post .pdf, audio and video files and take advantage of two-way communication opportunities; longer term we will work with an external partner and our IT team to create and support a mobile learning app.

Social Learning - to optimize social learning we need to create groups and/or topic archives based on areas of interest to our learners, focusing on information sharing, collaboration, and content co-creation.

All-in-all we had a great dialog.  Our learning council members were excited about the possibilities of mobile and social learning.   They recognize the power of embedding learning directly into the workstream: minimizing disruptions to productivity while our employees grow and develop their skills.

Upskilling: The 21st Century Trainer

Boy the times they are a-changing.  Food for thought from Diane Gayeski.  Lifted from Upskilling resources provided by @JaneBozarth.  Click this link for other goodies.

Considering 70:20:10 in a Curriculum Framework

Over the last few months, we have hired several Curriculum Managers in my company to focus on curating learning content for key topics that have been identified as being closely aligned with learning needs in our business.  This new group of learning professionals provides us with awesome capabilities. If they help us to use available information strategically, it will truly enable us to drive growth.   Right now, they are engaged in hammering out our curriculum framework and I am advising them on governance issues.

One of the key things I want them to consider is the 70:20:10 learning model based on research from the Center for Creative Leadership. It states that the breakdown of how we actually learn to do our jobs effectively is as follows:  about 70% from on-the-job experiences, tasks, and problem solving; about 20% from conversations and feedback from people we work with; and about 10% from formal learning sources such as ILT or e-learning courses.  The concept is stated very clearly in this brief video clip from Internet Time Alliance member, Charles Jennings:



As the Curriculum Managers work together to develop our framework, I am asking them to consider how to structure our offerings so a motivated learner will have appropriate choices.  Learners must be able to pull learning to get what they need, rather than have us prescribe and push "courses" out to them.   We have the tools and technology to allow our learners to connect to experts and peers, to join communities of practice  - or to create their own.  We need to help them gain the right experiences for their development, not just train and test them as we may have done in the past.

Extending Learning through Yammer

Take a look at the two machine parts in this picture.  They are Vacuum Deck Blower Motors.  When presented next to each other side by side, it is pretty easy to see that they are not the same.  The one on the left is slightly taller.  If you were to go inside the housing you would see that they have different constructions and different controllers.  That is because they are made for different machines and they are not interchangeable.  But if you didn’t have them standing right next to each other, you might easily mistake one for the other and place the wrong one in the wrong machine during maintenance or while making repairs.  Some of our service representatives have made that mistake.

Of course, when they go through training they are instructed on the differences in usage and labeling so they can recognize and install the right part into the right machine.   Fortunately our equipment is pretty reliable which means there might be a long interval between the time service reps receive this training and the time they might actually have to make this repair.   It is easy to see how they might forget what they’ve learned and install the wrong part.

That is one of the frustrations expressed by the Technical Training Instructor who leads the class in which this is covered.   He is an excellent instructor.  He covers everything the reps need to know, gives them a chance to practice doing it, and provides appropriate feedback before sending them out into the field.  He had been doing this for years and hoping for the best, until he discovered Yammer.   Now he extends the learning beyond the classroom by sharing tips and tricks that the service reps can easily access off of their laptops or mobile devices at the point of need.   The picture of the vacuum deck blowers is actually part of a job aid he attached to a post in the Yammer group he recently created.  In the short time since this group has been up and running, he has been able to share pictures, videos, and job aids -  and generally give the service reps the benefit of his expertise at the point of need.  At the same time, he is learning from them.  He is learning about the challenges and the most common problems they face in the field.  This information allows him to incrementally improve his classroom training approach and materials.