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.But Gina also works inside an organization (in her case a large corporation) but I think most people will recognize her comment: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.
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.
How to Respond:
- 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?
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):
- Sreya Dutta - Big Question: OMG I'm Stuck!!
- Jeff Goldman - April's Big Question
- Rupa Rajagopalan - Big Question: Stuck? Getting Unstuck?
- Ignatia/Inge de Waard - Get your innovative eLearning ideas out no matter what others think!
- Robert Kennedy - Getting Rid Of The Glue
- Anthony Montalvo - Help! I'm stuck!
- Clark Quinn's Learnlets: Getting Revolutionary
- Stephanie Sandifer - Getting Unstuck
- Lisa Meece - April's Big Question on the LOL Blog
- Amit Garg - Upside Learning Blog - Just do it
- Kern's Learnability Matters - Getting Stuck and Unstuck
Posts
16 comments:
Sreya Dutta - Big Question: OMG I'm Stuck!!
Jeff Goldman - April's Big Question
Rupa Rajagopalan - Big Question: Stuck? Getting Unstuck?
Ignatia/Inge de Waard - Get your innovative eLearning ideas out no matter what others think!
Robert Kennedy - Getting Rid Of The Glue
Anthony Montalvo - Help! I'm stuck!
Stuck? Getting Stuck?
http://annbrady.edublogs.org/
Clark Quinn's Learnlets: Getting Revolutionary
Stephanie Sandifer - Getting Unstuck
Lisa Meece - April's Big Question on the LOL Blog
How can you minimize the perceived risk? Most people don't want to do anything new or different because its risky. What they don't see is that doing the same thing over and over again is even riskier.
Innovation theory suggests that we focus on areas of non-consumption -- where there is less at stake because no one is doing anything there anyways. So is there a place in the organization where there is a need that could be served by doing something different, and no one is paying much attention because that's not their bread and butter? That's where to begin innovation.
The challenge will be to find the energy to do this in addition to your usual workload. That's where a good manager who allows you 20% of your time to innovate is absolutely key. Dream world - maybe, maybe not.
Amit Garg - Upside Learning Blog
Just do it
Getting unstuck may also deal with seniority. I would imagine that since April is in graduate school, she may still be working her way up the ladder thus, making it even more difficult to implement these great ideas. I would recommend that she try her best to move her company towards these facinating techniques in learning but if this company continues to stiffle her crativity, she may need to take her gifts and talents elsewhere. If the culture is so slow-moving that she is not able to try new things, she will only continue to be frustrated.
Kern's Learnability Matters - Getting Stuck and Unstuck
Of course it's frustrating when you can't implement all those wonderful new ideas you keep hearing about, but unless you're the executive in charge of learning and development strategy (and even then there are huge limitations), you're limited to making minor changes whenever you can and trying your best to publicise any succeses you have. Fact is, hundreds of millions of other people around the world are in exactly the same position. You can still make a difference.
Claudia Escribano - Getting Unstuck: Lifelong Learning Lab
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