Tuesday, December 1

Learning 2009

We are going to continue a tradition in the Big Question ...

The Big Question for December is:

What did you learn about learning in 2009?


If you are a blogger, I would highly recommend taking this as an opportunity to go back through your blog posts over the year and looking for any "aha moments" or highlight the posts that you think were the best/most interesting.

If you happen to be a blogger who is part of eLearning Learning, there are some tricks you can use to help you find your best stuff for the year - see Using Special Parameters to Create Year End Post for details on producing a post like 2009 Top Posts and Topics.

You might want to look back at some discussions going on during the last two yearly recaps:

January's Topic:

Predictions for learning in 2010

How to Respond:

Option 1 - Simply put your thoughts in a comment below.

Option 2 -

Step 1 - Post in your blog (please link to this post).
Step 2 - Put a comment in this blog with an HTML ready link that I can simply copy and paste (an HTML anchor tag). I will only copy and past, thus, I would also recommend you include your NAME immediately before your link. So, it should look like:

Tony Karrer - e-Learning 2.0

or you could also include your blog name with something like:

Tony Karrer - e-Learning 2.0 : eLearningTechnology

Posts so far (and read comments as well):
Posted by Tony Karrer at 1:13 AM 17 comments

Monday, November 2

Presenting the Value of Social Media for Learning

I've received various forms of the same question from different people over the past few years. The basic question is:
How do I communicate the value of social media as a learning tool to my organization?
Which provides us this month's big question:


Presenting the Value of Social Media for Learning?


Let me provide some flavor for this question straight from someone who asked me about this:
My coworkers are Baby Boomers and Traditionals. When I mention blogs or any social networking they "poo-poo" me and say our workers should not use those tools because it will make them inefficient and not do their jobs. When I have presented the idea of how we can use discussion threads on our environment to discuss topics and make comments outside the classroom, many of my co-workers said it can't be done. They either haven't opened their mind to the idea or really care. In essence, if it is not classroom, they are really not interested in it.

My question is how do I get my coworkers to even consider the capabilities of these tools when it really does not interest them.

So some of the questions this raises in my mind:
  1. How do you communicate about the potential here to other learning professionals? to knowledge workers? to management?
  2. How do you communicate the value to an audience who doesn't have experience with social media?

How to Respond:

Option 1 - Put your thoughts in a comment below.

Option 2 -

Step 1 - Post in your blog (please link to this post).
Step 2 - Put a comment in this blog with an HTML ready link that I can simply copy and paste (an HTML anchor tag). I will only copy and past, thus, I would also recommend you include your NAME immediately before your link. So, it should look like:

Tony Karrer - e-Learning 2.0

or you could also include your blog name with something like:

Tony Karrer - e-Learning 2.0 : eLearningTechnology

Responses So Far (also see Comments):
Posted by Tony Karrer at 6:55 AM 22 comments

Thursday, October 1

New Presenter and Learner Methods and Skills

In response to my recent post Narrowing Gap between Face-to-Face and Online Presentations, the comments were really fantastic, but got the discussion going in a different direction - and it is clear that a comment box is way too small for this discussion.

Both your face-to-face and your online audience is likely multitasking. They might be participating in chat / backchannel. They might be blogging. They might be taking notes. They might be checking and responding to email. They might be figuring out where to go to dinner.

Clive Shepherd captured the problem as Multitasking is now every presenter’s problem.

The comments suggest that there are things that presenters and learners should do to to address this. Hence, this month's big question is:




New Presenter and Learner Methods & Skills?



Related questions:
  1. What should we do as presenters in this multitasking world?
  2. Should presenters coach (or ban) people away from multitasking?
  3. As a presenter, how do you deal with the backchannel effectively? (I personally can't present and work with the backchannel at the same time.)
  4. How does the backchannel fit with effective note taking?
  5. What could a presenter do in 2 minutes at the start of a presentation to get this all to work out well?
  6. What should we do as learners?
  7. What if the presenter is not making effective use of our time?
  8. What have you seen that worked really well?
  9. What didn't work well? What would you do to change it?
  10. Any tools that make this better?
I'm hoping to learn a lot out of this discussion which is certainly far bigger than my original post.

How to Respond:

Option 1 - Put your thoughts in a comment below.

Option 2 -

Step 1 - Post in your blog (please link to this post).
Step 2 - Put a comment in this blog with an HTML ready link that I can simply copy and paste (an HTML anchor tag). I will only copy and past, thus, I would also recommend you include your NAME immediately before your link. So, it should look like:

Tony Karrer - e-Learning 2.0

or you could also include your blog name with something like:

Tony Karrer - e-Learning 2.0 : eLearningTechnology

Responses So Far (also see Comments):
Posted by Tony Karrer at 8:06 AM 23 comments

Tuesday, September 1

Working with Subject Matter Experts

I want to thank Jeff Goldman - Minute Bio for his great response last month. He suggested that we focus the Big Question on specific issues and then suggested four questions.

So, let's start with his first suggestion:
Working effectively with subject matter experts
There's a lot to this topic, and certainly it's an on-going challenge. Some specific questions that are raised in this area:
  • What should all IDs know about working with a SME?
  • What can you and can't you expect a SME to do?
  • Does it work to have SMEs create rapid eLearning?
  • How does social and informal learning impact how you engage with SMEs?
  • What's your favorite instructive story of working with a SME?
I've seen a few good posts in the recent past on this topic. Feel free to include prior posts or resources you know about in your response.


How to Respond:

Option 1 - Put your thoughts in a comment below. Likely there can be some pretty good thoughts left via a comment.

Option 2 -

Step 1 - Post in your blog (please link to this post).
Step 2 - Put a comment in this blog with an HTML ready link that I can simply copy and paste (an HTML anchor tag). I will only copy and past, thus, I would also recommend you include your NAME immediately before your link. So, it should look like:

Tony Karrer - e-Learning 2.0

or you could also include your blog name with something like:

Tony Karrer - e-Learning 2.0 : eLearningTechnology

Responses So Far:
Posted by Tony Karrer at 1:23 PM 15 comments

Sunday, August 2

Feedback on the Big Question?

We are coming up on three years since the first Big Question - Should all Learning Professionals Blog? That's still a great topic and the content you can find there is pretty interesting. I still personally believe that blogging is a great self-directed learning tool. Ah, but I digress.

I normally don't do a Big Question in August. This year, I'm just going to do something a little bit different.

The goals of the Big Question are:
  • Get different perspectives on topics that are of interest to workplace learning professionals
  • Provide input to Learning Circuits, T&D and other parts of ASTD on topical issues
  • Provide a way for bloggers and others to find relevant blogs
  • Support the network of bloggers
I'd like to get feedback on the Big Question:
  • What works?
  • What do you think should change?
  • Are there other models that you've seen that might be interesting to consider?
  • What aspects of online community management might apply here
And here is a list of past topics that might be worth looking through for thoughts and ideas:
How to Respond:

Option 1 - Put your thoughts in a comment below. Likely there can be some pretty good thoughts left via a comment.

Option 2 -

Step 1 - Post in your blog (please link to this post).
Step 2 - Put a comment in this blog with an HTML ready link that I can simply copy and paste (an HTML anchor tag). I will only copy and past, thus, I would also recommend you include your NAME immediately before your link. So, it should look like:

Tony Karrer - e-Learning 2.0

or you could also include your blog name with something like:

Tony Karrer - e-Learning 2.0 : eLearningTechnology

Responses So Far:
Posted by Tony Karrer at 7:16 AM 3 comments

Wednesday, July 1

New Skills for Learning Professionals

This month's big question comes out of a discussion that I've been having in various forms over the past few years. In a Learning 2.0 world, where learning and performance solutions take on a wider variety of forms and where churn happens at a much more rapid pace, what new skills and knowledge are required for learning professionals?



New Skills and Knowledge for Learning Professionals?


I know that there's already quite a bit out there on this topic, so please point us to existing information on the topic.

How to Respond:

Option 1 - Put your thoughts in a comment below. Likely there can be some pretty good thoughts left via a comment.

Option 2 -

Step 1 - Post in your blog (please link to this post).
Step 2 - Put a comment in this blog with an HTML ready link that I can simply copy and paste (an HTML anchor tag). I will only copy and past, thus, I would also recommend you include your NAME immediately before your link. So, it should look like:

Tony Karrer - e-Learning 2.0

or you could also include your blog name with something like:

Tony Karrer - e-Learning 2.0 : eLearningTechnology

Responses So Far:
Posted by Tony Karrer at 1:00 AM 32 comments

Monday, June 1

Time Spent

This month's big question comes from an inquiry I received from Robert Kennedy via my blog. The question was:
What is your typical day like? How do you do all you do with elearning learning, elearning technology, techempower, work literacy and all the consulting and still remain profitable while having a LIFE? Ok, so that is more than one question, but hopefully you get the drift. What are your thoughts here?
This is a great question and I'm guessing the answers will be quite interesting. After all, when I do presentations that introduce things like blogs, RSS readers, social networks, etc. I am almost always asked - "How much time do you spend on this? Where do you find the time?" And what they really mean is - I'm already too busy, how the heck can I also do all of what you are telling me about. So I really hope that we can have a great resource here that will give people a sense of what's going on in the lives of people who are adopting some of these things.

Where is your time spent?


I'm really hoping that we can get a broad cross section of answers. I consider myself to be somewhat of a "special case" ... but I'm guessing that's true for many of us.

Beyond the basic answer I'm hoping you will chime in with thoughts around:
  • How much time do you spend and how did you find time for all the relatively newer things like reading blogs, twitter, social networks, etc.?
  • What are you doing less of today than you were 3-5 years ago?
  • Do you have less of a life with all of these new things?

How to Respond:

Option 1 - Put your thoughts in a comment below. Likely there can be some pretty good thoughts left via a comment.

Option 2 -

Step 1 - Post in your blog (please link to this post).
Step 2 - Put a comment in this blog with an HTML ready link that I can simply copy and paste (an HTML anchor tag). I will only copy and past, thus, I would also recommend you include your NAME immediately before your link. So, it should look like:

Tony Karrer - e-Learning 2.0

or you could also include your blog name with something like:

Tony Karrer - e-Learning 2.0 : eLearningTechnology

Responses So Far:
Posted by Tony Karrer at 5:00 AM 23 comments

Monday, May 4

Social Grid Value

This month's big question comes from an inquiry that I received as a result of my presentation on the Social Grid. The question is the basis of the May 2009 Big Question:


How does/will the Social Grid will impact Human Capital and Organizations?

In Social Learning Measurement, I discussed some different ways that we could measure social learning, but I think the question that is raised here is a question that needs to be asked prior to asking about measurement.

My guess is that there are all kinds of interesting dynamics that will come about in organizations that have a strong social grid and a workforce that is highly skilled in using that social grid. For example, the recent MIT Study that showed that more highly networked individuals were more productive (see Workplace Productivity).

What do you see as the impact?

How to Respond:

Option 1 - Put your thoughts in a comment below.

Option 2 -

Step 1 - Post in your blog (please link to this post).
Step 2 - Put a comment in this blog with an HTML ready link that I can simply copy and paste (an HTML anchor tag). I will only copy and past, thus, I would also recommend you include your NAME immediately before your link. So, it should look like:

Tony Karrer - e-Learning 2.0

or you could also include your blog name with something like:

Tony Karrer - e-Learning 2.0 : eLearningTechnology

Responses So Far:
Posted by Tony Karrer at 9:08 AM 7 comments

Wednesday, April 1

April 2009 - Getting Unstuck

Last month's big question got quite a great response. I'm very much looking forward to the response this month.

The inspiration for this question comes straight from Gina Minks' post - I think grad school is making me crazy. She is in a graduate school program and is a great self-directed learner:
I’m learning about things like instructional theories, learning theories, how to tie learning to performance, how to tie learning to business requirements, and ways to measure all these things.

I’m learning that my technical skills are important as learning moves to a web 2.0 platform. I’m learning my experience as a community organizer is very transferable to building online communities. I’ve learned my background in information studies helps tie all these things together.

Participating in courses like CCK08 helped accelerate my thinking on the real possibilities of change that are available now.

But Gina also works inside an organization (in her case a large corporation) but I think most people will recognize her comment:
The realities of being part of a large organization and my responsibilities are more clear to me now too.

I feel I’m going to be stuck doing the same thing forever with all these cool ideas in my head that will never get implemented.


Thus, for April 2009 Big Question is:


Stuck? Getting unstuck?


There's really quite a bit to this question.
  • Do you sometimes feel stuck? Feel like you have so many more ideas about how you could help your organization or your clients, but that What Clients Want is just some training?
  • Should you attempt to get unstuck? How hard should you push your internal or external clients to get them to see the full range of what is possible? Or should you give them what they ask for?
  • If you are feeling some level of stuck, what should you do to get unstuck? How important is it to get unstuck? Is it okay to learn a lot about all kinds of different solutions, but to primarily work on simple training solutions?
  • If you are stuck, should you be concerned about your future?
For those of you who are not bloggers, come and at least comment on whether you feel a bit stuck!

How to Respond:

Option 1 - Simply put your thoughts in a comment below. This may be hard given the complexity of the topic.

Option 2 -

Step 1 - Post in your blog (please link to this post).
Step 2 - Put a comment in this blog with an HTML ready link that I can simply copy and paste (an HTML anchor tag). I will only copy and past, thus, I would also recommend you include your NAME immediately before your link. So, it should look like:

Tony Karrer - e-Learning 2.0

or you could also include your blog name with something like:

Tony Karrer - e-Learning 2.0 : eLearningTechnology

Posts so far (and read comments as well):
Posted by Tony Karrer at 5:00 AM 16 comments

Sunday, March 1

Workplace Learning in 10 Years

This month it's time for a truly BIG question. The inspiration for this question comes from the recent posts discussing the future of workplace learning:

Jay Cross and Harold Jarche - Future of the Training Department
Jay Cross - eLearning is not the Answer
Tony Karrer - Corporate Training
Dave Wilkins - The Future of Training Started Yesterday


Thus, for March 2009 Big Question is:


Workplace Learning in
10 Years?


If you peer inside an organization in 10 years time and you look at how workplace learning is being supported by that organization, what will you see? What will the mix of Push vs. Pull Learning; Formal vs. Informal supported by the organization? Are there training departments? What are they doing? How big are they as compared to today? What new departments will be responsible for parts of workplace learning? What will current members of training departments be doing in 10 years?

How to Respond:

Option 1 - Simply put your thoughts in a comment below. This may be hard given the complexity of the topic.

Option 2 -

Step 1 - Post in your blog (please link to this post).
Step 2 - Put a comment in this blog with an HTML ready link that I can simply copy and paste (an HTML anchor tag). I will only copy and past, thus, I would also recommend you include your NAME immediately before your link. So, it should look like:

Tony Karrer - e-Learning 2.0

or you could also include your blog name with something like:

Tony Karrer - e-Learning 2.0 : eLearningTechnology

Posts so far (and read comments as well):
Posted by Tony Karrer at 4:45 AM 29 comments

Monday, February 2

Digital, Rapid eLearning, & Social Media Conversations


Fire


From Digital Immigrants and Digital Natives to Digital Wisdom - Innovate


Digital wisdom is a twofold concept, referring both to wisdom arising from the use of digital technology to access cognitive power beyond our innate capacity and to wisdom in the prudent use of technology to enhance our capabilities.

It Only Took HOW Long? -Duthie earning


We've ended up with 78 minutes of what could be argued is elearning content for doctors. Total production time? 11.9 hours. Run the math and it comes to 9.15 hours' development time per hour of finished 'seat time,' roughly 9:1. Compare this to high production value, interactive elearning, which generally takes 200-300 hours per hour (200:1 to 300:1).


The trouble is that the doctors each spent (in my estimate) 5-10 hours apiece preparing their slides and narrations.

Spy


Listen in on the social media conversations of any topic you're interested in. The above link will take you to the latest converstaions on eLearning. Don't like that one -- try this one.

Two Strands of Connectionism - The Technium


One strand of massive connectionism is currently called social media. The other strand of massive connectionism relies on a massive number of machines. This new territory can best be illustrated by the far-right top extreme where both sides meet in the center - the area where we have maximum machine connection and maximum human connection. This overlap or convergence space would be the emerging global superorganism.
Posted by Donald Clark at 8:44 PM 3 comments

Sunday, February 1

Economic Impact

There were some really interesting posts last month in - Challenges Plans and Predictions for 2009. This month's topic was suggested by several people and was touched on by some of the posts last month.

Thus, for February the Big Question is:


What is the impact of the economy on you and your organization? What are you doing as a result?


The goal here is for each of us to reflect and share what's happening to us today as well as looking at what we might need to plan for going forward.

How to Respond:

Option 1 - Simply put your thoughts in a comment below. This may be hard given the complexity of the topic.

Option 2 -

Step 1 - Post in your blog (please link to this post).
Step 2 - Put a comment in this blog with an HTML ready link that I can simply copy and paste (an HTML anchor tag). I will only copy and past, thus, I would also recommend you include your NAME immediately before your link. So, it should look like:

Tony Karrer - e-Learning 2.0

or you could also include your blog name with something like:

Tony Karrer - e-Learning 2.0 : eLearningTechnology

Posts so far (and read comments as well):
Posted by Tony Karrer at 5:00 AM 16 comments

Thursday, January 1

Challenges Plans and Predictions for 2009

Happy New Year!

We had great response to last month's question - What Did You Learn about Learning in 2008? This was a great opportunity to look back at 2008. This month we are going to look forward.

Thus, for January the question is:


What are your
Challenges, Plans and Predictions for 2009?


The goal here is again to be a bit reflective.
  • What are your biggest challenges for this upcoming year?
  • What are your major plans for the year?
  • What predictions do you have for the year?
You might want to take a look back at last month's posts and as well what people talked about in:
How to Respond:

Option 1 - Simply put your thoughts in a comment below. This may be hard given the complexity of the topic.

Option 2 -

Step 1 - Post in your blog (please link to this post).
Step 2 - Put a comment in this blog with an HTML ready link that I can simply copy and paste (an HTML anchor tag). I will only copy and past, thus, I would also recommend you include your NAME immediately before your link. So, it should look like:

Tony Karrer - e-Learning 2.0

or you could also include your blog name with something like:

Tony Karrer - e-Learning 2.0 : eLearningTechnology

Posts so far (and read comments as well):
Posted by Tony Karrer at 6:00 AM 25 comments
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