Weird blog post title right?

I’m taking two performance courses this semester. In one of the courses we are studying the origins of Human Performance Technology (HPT). I’ve been blogging that homework (see here , here, and here). As I’ve learned about the history, I’ve had a growing feeling of unease.

I blame it on CCK08 – last year’s Connectivism and Connected Knowledge course. That class really got me thinking about what it takes to create an environment for learning. And what I learned there is very different than what is in practice, and to some extent what I’m learning at school. (The course has started up for this year, check it out here).

I made a nice network of folks from that class as well. One of them, Mike Bogle, wrote a post a couple of days ago that describes part of how I feel. In the post he said this:

How on Earth can I make a difference and affect change in a culture that is almost diametrically opposed to my way of thinking?  How can I reconcile the growing notion that so much of the culture I am currently situated in, I completely disagree with, and likewise disagrees with me?  Quite literally I’m grasping at straws for an answer right now.

He was talking about his experience in higher ed, but I feel the exact same way sometimes. Mike and I aren’t in the “mushy middle”, and I want to believe that at some point we’ll start to see the change we hope to affect.

But then I do my HPT homework.

Why am I studying about the guys that dismantled indigenous ways of learning in favor of industrialized performance management? Are these guys really the founders of HPT? Or were the behavioral scientists of the 50s and 60s trying to undue the damage that was done by treating people as mere extensions of machines (or resources)?

I know I have lots of explaining to do. What is indigenous learning? I’m going to save that for an upcoming blog post. All I can say is it is the opposite of the Gervais Principle of management, which states:

Sociopaths, in their own best interests, knowingly promote over-performing losers into middle-management, groom under-performing losers into sociopaths, and leave the average bare-minimum-effort losers to fend for themselves.

I think its all triangles as opposed to circles. I’ll explain more in the next post.

I delivered a beta class last week, and I have been totally consumed with that activity. So sorry about the lack of posting!

The fall semester also started last week. This semester I am taking Introduction to Systematic Instructional Design. My organization (Education Services @ EMC) actually does a very good job with this, so the readings so far have been reinforcement of what I do at work.

However, this project I am doing is a little weird (developing training for a new rev of a new acquisition’s software), so there are lots of places to note where the system we have may need a few tweaks. Right now I am at the place where politics meet instructional design (it’s a scary place!).

We are reading Dick & Carey’s book The Systematic Design of Instruction. I have to design a 30-minute self paced course for the class project, and it can’t be one on configuring software. Rats! So far my ideas are:

• Teaching parents to text (part of an idea for a seminar on using technology to help aspie teenagers)
• Evaluating online information (doable, but my objectives will have to be rock-solid

That’s all I have. Any suggestions?

This post has been bubbling in my brain for about two weeks. Our group finally turned in our midterm project, so I have a little time to get these thoughts out of my head.

Before I start let me say something to my group. I am just using our collective painful experience to illustrate a point. If you disagree with anything I say, please leave a comment and set the record straight!

I am in a class this summer called “Designing Online Collaborative Learning”. To the best of my recollection, there were no technical prerequisites for the class. I took the class because I wanted to become more familiar with how the principles of group theory could be applied to a Learning 2.0 environment.

After completing a survey, we were put into groups to create a lesson that has learners define factors that make Computer Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL) successful, create causal maps, create a shared theory of CSCL, do research to support that theory, and finally create a web page.

Now my group are self-professed non-techies. And they really are not very technical (it’s true guys!!). About 75% of my time has been devoted to helping and coaching everyone to learn some of the social media skills needed to complete our project. We used a wiki, slideshare (which went down for most of the weekend the project was due!), polldaddy, meebo, and  edublogs.

Now I’ve been using tools like this for about 12 years, so I can figure out the nuances between different sites. If you don’t use them all the time, those nuances are huge barriers. It takes time to figure them out. And if you want the project to look professional, it may take even longer!

My classmates became frustrated because they had to learn these web 2.0 skills PLUS the academic information. I am frustrated because I had to spend so much time coaching my teammates that I don’t feel I learned the academic information at all.

So how does this tie into my corporate life?

Learning 2.0 will not be successful unless it is implemented with good design principles.

Opening up collaboration and communication with the web 2.0 tools is not as easy as just pointing students to one of these sparkly tools and telling them “Go! Learn!”. Asking non-technical people to just learn a new technology places an unfair cognitive burden on those learners. It also places an unfair burden on the technical person in the class.

If the class truly becomes a collaborative group, and I feel mine was, the techie will try and bring the others in their group up to speed. That may take up all the time alloted for instruction – meaning the team learned to use a shiny toy, but did not learn the materials assigned to the course.

I think there is a lesson here too for those people who think Web 2.0 is going to save the world. You may have grown up using a computer, but there are many people in this country who can not afford a computer. There are people who can’t afford to pay for an Internet connection, or they can only afford dial-up. These people are entering the workforce too, and they don’t have the skills you have because they didn’t have access to the tools you did.

I have not heard much lately about the Digital Divide, but it’s still there. Aside from not being able to afford the Internet or equipment, there are lots of people who have to work 2 and 3 jobs to pay their rent. I can guarantee you that if they are able to be online, they aren’t worried with managing their brand. They get online to relax – play poker with their friends, play games, send stupid chain letters even though their techie daughter has told them a million times to look at Snopes first (ok off topic rant, sorry!).

What I am trying to say is, not everyone has the Web 2.0 skills because not everyone has access to the tools, and not everyone has time to get online and develop the skills. This has to be taken into consideration when creating training for a global audience.

I am NOT saying that we should avoid Learning 2.0 in our curriculum. I think these tools are powerful and should be harnessed. I AM saying this new way of instruction must be implemented thoughtfully.

We cannot afford to create instruction that requires the learner to learn how to use the instructional tools as well as learn the class materials. We either have to make the technology transparent, or we have to start teaching some of the Web 2.0 skills to our audiences.

Whew I feel better now that I’ve gotten that off my chest! Let me know what you think of these ideas.

This week in class we are talking more about CSCL – Computer Supported Collaborative Learning. So far, I am a little perplexed. I need to go through the readings AGAIN. Unfortunately we are out of printer ink, so I may put in another plea to go buy a new printer tonight.

This week we are covering Concept and Knowledge Maps, scaffolding,  using Excel to make a concept map, and explaining academic tasks to students.

One thing that is cool is we are going to learn about tools that can be used to analyze, catagorize and explain information we gather as a collective team. So far, both weeks this semester have had assignments that include using a wiki. We are going to learn how to use my advisor’s software.

The one thing I am having difficulty with is mapping the activities in our class to corporate training as opposed to classroom education (either K-12 or higher ed).

This class is going to be alot tougher than I thought.

The class I am taking for the summer semester is “Designing Collaborative Online Learning”. The book we were assigned is Cooperative Learning in the Classroom (but there are three pages of articles to read!)

My adviser is the instructor. The syllabus looks really interesting. It should be a good summer!

I ordered my book, still don’t see the class in Blackboard. It’s going to be a great class — I can’t wait.

Two colleagues and I are creating an learning 2.0 entry for my company’s Innovation Conference. Innovation is not just for engineers!!!

For now I am just making the required pages, and gathering the requirements. I have to figure out how I want to display things. Also, since alot of what I have done I have done for work, I need to get the OK to post it here.

Classes start in one week, I should probably buy my book.  I am completely certain I won’t be able to get in due to some weird database merge at FSU (having to do with the fact that I was a University employee when I was an undergrad – it’s annoying). Maybe they fixed it this semester, and I won’t spend three weeks getting dropped from the class.

I doubt it though.

I got an A in both classes. I made two dumb, dumb mistakes in one of my final papers. I hate that. But I still got an A.

Yay! I still have my 4.0. I know as an educator I should be concerned with more than grades. However, I know how much I have learned this semester (a lot!!). I am still tickled I have a 4.0.

Since finals are over, I thought I would take the opportunity to participate in question of the month on The Learning Circuits Blog.

I’d like to understand my audiences better. I’d like to be able to spend more time on creating content. I’d like to find ways to harness all the informal learning that happens around my company.

1. Introduction to Instructional Systems
   This course has helped me understand my department at work in much greater detail. We definitely use a system approach to designing instruction. The assignments in this course have forced me to do to a deep-dive on our processes and procedures.
   Artifacts from this class include:
   1. A system description of the department I am in at work
   2. A needs assessment plan for a non-profit I volunteer with
   3. A job task analysis for one of the audiences for which I write training
   4. A process model to address a needs gap in the department I work in (this one is still in progress).
2. Trends and Issues in Instructional Design and Technology
   This course has focused on tools used to create instructional design. This has been an interesting course that has dovetailed nicely with my job as well. I have been able to explore social media as an ID tool, and have been sharing that information with people at work.
   Artifacts from this class include:
   1. A research paper on using social media for corporate education – Using Social Networking to Enhance Learning in a Corporate Environment
   2. A paper showing how to use recent trends to solve a performance issue (I am planning on using the same problem I use for the other final paper, and I think informal learning may be a part of it).

I am happy this semester is almost over, and that I will only be taking one class in the summer. Just putting on paper some of the things I have accomplished seems a little crazy when I think of what I have been able to accomplish at work. I am so glad I am only taking one class next week!