The Boggs e-Learning Chronicle

Will the Prosumers/Folksomies Trends spread to e-Learning?

In a recent post, Godfrey Parkin talks  about the 'prosumer/learner created learning' concepts in e-Learning and sees areas like informal learning, work-flow learning, and collaborative learning  coming into vogue.   He is advocating that organizations spend more of their budgets on these types of learning because there are many new technologies that make this more practical.  I do agree that to a certain extent, learners find creating their own content motivating and compelling and enjoy interacting with others as well.

Johsua Porter of UIE, Brain Sparks also talks about user driven sites, folksonomies, in a recent post, pondering how it works in other online environments.

In addition to these modes of thought being hard to conceptualize and manage, I think another reason why mainstream learning professionals consider these trends and technologies interesting but unrealistic is because they are difficult to measure.  Or at least, measure in a way that is significant and demonstrates value in how their collective organization looks at and evaluates learning.  I think this is even more pronounced in corporate environments because by their very nature are pragmatic and focused on the bottom line.

Previous post on Folksonomies:

Folksonomies in an e-Learning Context

Dave Boggs, SyberWorks

Retaining Gen-Xers

A new book, The NeXt Revolution: What Gen X Women Want at Work and How Their Boomer Bosses Can Help Them Get It, is being released by Davies-Black in November. It's written by a mother-daughter, Boomer/Gen-X team.

Excerpt:"Nothing typifies Generation X more than career dissatisfaction. Gen X women are especially frustrated. Successors to a generation of feminists who fought for equal opportunity, these young women expected to reap the benefits of their mothers’ struggles—only to find that not much has changed. Disillusioned, many have chosen to leave the professional workforce. If this "opt out" trend continues, the corporate world will lose an invaluable pool of talent, just when retiring Boomers will trigger a labor shortfall. Worse, Gen Xers will lose the chance to take their place as tomorrow’s leaders.

In this perceptive study, Charlotte and Laura Shelton, a Boomer mother and Gen X daughter, examine the roots of this frustration—in part, the feminist revolution—and what it will take to change frustration to transformation. In the first half of the book, the authors use surveys with more than 1,200 Gen Xers and interviews with many others to create a multidimensional portrait of this generation at work. Personal stories are interwoven with analysis to reveal how Gen Xers experience work, how Boomer workplace attitudes clash with Xer expectations, and how men and women differ in what they want from their careers. "

Interesting tidbits from the Shelton's study:

• 77% of Gen Xers say they’d leave their current jobs if they found 'increased intellectual stimulation' elsewhere.

• 61% of Xer women said they’d leave their job for one that was more flexible.

• 51% of Gen Xers said they’d quit if another employer offered them the chance to telecommute.

• The average Gen X worker in his 20s stays at each job for only to 1.1 year.

• 'Having a best friend at work' was one of 12 key predictors of both job satisfaction and high performance."

This is the group that grew up with computers & is extremely technically savvy.  They have probably already been exposed to some level of e-learning or represent a group of people that has very few, if any barriers to using software, e-learning, or for that matter, understanding the importance of learning management systems.  If anything, they are seem like they would be heavy consumers of this technology, more motivated, and very savvy customers!

Dave Boggs, SyberWorks

Workers staying in the workforce longer [aging baby boomers] and its impact on e-learning and learning management systems

Interesting expose on older workers staying in the workforce longer from the Washington Post Online.

Heaven Can Wait

It makes me think about the usability factor in e-learning content development.  Now let's remember, these folks will be used to using computers.

Will older workers training online for a new responsibility be inclined to lots of interactivity?  Will they need bigger type?  Funny, even the major search engines, google.com, yahoo.com , msn.com, have yet to design options for people who need bigger interfaces to perform searches, like big.com.

Is a blended learning scenario a better fit for these folks?  How will this trend impact learning management systems?  It may create an acute need for more certification tracking and skill progression planning since people are in the workplace longer.  Then there is the whole knowledge management question....much to ponder.....

Dave Boggs, SyberWorks

Questioning the e-Learning Fun Factor

Godfrey Parkin has a great post, "Who says learning should be fun? "

In the post, he discussed an alarming trend that "fun" is required as a specified learning design requirement.  Excerpt:

"E-learning’s rise has brought this issue to the fore. The constant admonition from instructional designers that e-learning has to be punctuated every couple of minutes with “interactivity” is one of the saddest mantras of our time. It’s like the American notion that food cannot be palatable unless you smother it with ketchup. If you are working with training that is bland and dry, by all means bring on the sauce. But would it not be better to make the training itself more engaging in the first place?

The distinction between engagement and interactivity is crucial, and it’s one that many instructional designers – and those who commission the development work – do not appear to understand. Engagement is intense mental absorption; interactivity is often just busyness or sugar-coating. It is vitally important that learners be engaged. Interactivity, entertainment, and fun can contribute to cognitive engagement. They can equally well distract from it. "

Now, because he is from the other side of the pond and may not know that much about the rich diversity of American eating habits, I will forgo the ketchup inference, but I do agree with his underlying premise.

I would also apply this in another context in regards to e-learning and learning management systems.  Some of our industry's top pundits are preoccupied with need for over-the-top, latest and greatest, whiz bang, special sauce,  functionality that must absolutely be applied to e-learning, especially in a corporate context.

No can argue that  blog technology,  pod casts, wiki's, text messaging....etc. are cool, fun tools that have expanded the way in which we can communicate and impart information.  They make great fodder for articles and blogs and it is good to stay on top of the latest technology applications and uses.

Depending upon the program, the context, and the application of these tools, sure--its nice to use these things, but in an e-learning context, they themselves may actually add to the distraction if they are not used auspiciously, or as we would say on this side of the pond, with a grain of salt.

Dave Boggs, SyberWorks

Top Synchronous Training Myths and Their Realities

Interesting post up on ASTD's web site,  good, practical insights.

Top Synchronous Training Myths and Their Realities

Dave Boggs, SyberWorks

Generation Y, now at a workplace near you!

Fascinating posts in a Fast Company weblog about Generation Y in the workforce. 

Dave Boggs, SyberWorks

R.I.P. WYSIWYG

Jacob Nielsen, yet again has a great article out about the the death of the WYSIWYG. 

Summary:
Macintosh-style interaction design has reached its limits. A new paradigm, called results-oriented UI, might well be the way to empower users in the future.

R.I.P. WYSIWYG

Dave Boggs, SyberWorks

The SyberWorks Learning Management System Product Suite introduces online question creation

It can be found here:

The SyberWorks Learning Management System Product Suite introduces online question creation

Dave Boggs, SyberWorks

E-learning 2.0

Interesting stuff, well articulated.

Excerpt:

"E-learning as we know it has been around for ten years or so. During that time, it has emerged from being a radical idea—the effectiveness of which was yet to be proven—to something that is widely regarded as mainstream. It's the core to numerous business plans and a service offered by most colleges and universities.

And now, e-learning is evolving with the World Wide Web as a whole and it's changing to a degree significant enough to warrant a new name: E-learning 2.0."

E-learning 2.0

Dave Boggs, SyberWorks

Apple's New Video Ipod

Apple released its long awaited Video Ipod.   The new Ipod

Video iPod, At Long Last

Dave Boggs, SyberWorks