The Other 80%

At work we learn more in the breakroom than in the classroom. We discover how to do our jobs through informal learning -- observing others, asking the person in the next cubicle, calling the help desk, trial-and-error, and simply working with people in the know. Formal learning - classes and workshops and online events - is the source of only 10% to 20% of what we learn at work.

Yet corporations, non-profits, and government invest most of their budgets in formal learning, when it?s apparent that most learning is informal. This stands common sense on its head. It?s the 20/80 rule: Invest your resources where they?ll do the least good.

Informal Learning -- the Other 80% is the theme of the May 16th meeting of eLearning Forum. We'll offer numerous suggestions on how to leverage informal learning. I need a little help fleshing out our agenda. Specifically, I'm looking for:

• Anecdotes about informal learning in corporations (which might include such things as story-telling, blogs, IM, mentors, creating space and time for informal learning, etc.). We'll post the stories on the Forum website.

• A brief, whiz-bang demo of Instant Messanger from someone who uses IM in their work. The more remote the location, the better.

Learning & Training Week

A report from Learning & Training Week from my pal Rick Huebsch, the head honcho at Open Minds Learning.

Hi Jay,

Winding up here in D.C.  Wanted to report back about your request to look for social software/informal learning information.  I was very surprised to find only one session about Learning Communities and none specifically about the topic of informal learning. 

I have been attending conferences about eLearning for the past five years.  I guess I am discouraged because I see that presenters are not focussing on the value proposition that eLearning offers.  From the session topics it is clear that technology and business issues are still driving the definition and implemention of eLearning.  Many, many sessions about LMSs, ROI, content migration, eLearning strategies, etc.  Other sessions were neutral and provided little direction about the psychological or educational rationale that should underlie blended learning solutions.  Most demonstrations showed the learner operating in isolation.  I did not hear but one presenter discuss the social needs of the learner or the relationship between learning and potential communities of practice, purpose, expertise or interest.  Only one presenter, Paul Clothier, provoked his audience to think of eLearning as an opportunity in increase the quality of interactivity, but his demonstrations did not show the relationship between the learner’s experience with interactive digital learning in isolation and his application to his job or his relationship with his colleagues.

Several presentations discussed informal learning in the context of discussion blended learning models.  One speaker from SkillSoft, Dorman Woodall, probably came closest to addressing informal learning in his session entitled “Blending Formal and Informal Learning for Performance Impact.”  He talked about eight key learning steps from formal to informal learning, presented six blended learning models involving formal (self-paced) and informal (collaborative) methods, and provided some examples.  One of his slides was particularly useful in representing support for formal and informal learning.  He showed this on an axis, the y as depth of the learning application, the x axis as time.  It shows that the more integrated formal and informal training methods, the deeper the learning application.  All of this was presented in 45 minutes, so it was cursory at best.

The one session about Learning Communities was led by Andy Snyder.  He advised that we should be moving from the information age, (ease of access to information) to a people-centric model (fostering relationships).  eLearning, he posited, provides a stepping stone to learning communities that can enable transition of formal learning to informal learning.  He  kept his presentation at a high level, so he did not delve into the hows and whats of informal learning.

….

So I propose that the eLearning Forum focus one of its sessions on the topic:  The value proposition that eLearning in fact provides and the technologies and models that enable this proposition.

Rick Huebsch

Jay again, wondering who these people from the conference masthead are and why the center one appears to be pressing the enter key upside down.

Please add your two cents about Learning & Training Week as a comment.

eLearning Life Support?

I don't mean to beat a dead horse, so to speak, but I must respond to the last item in today's eLearning_Insider newsletter from the eLearning Guild.

Insider: Did you hear? e-Learning is Dead. That's right... dead. Shot down in the prime of its life. Six feet under. Kaput.

Jay: I presume they mean this , which was part of my Eulogy for eLearning presentation.

Insider: A few weeks ago a few of our industries infamous "thought leaders" announced that the term "e-Learning" was dead. On the "Ins and Outs" lists, it was in the "outs" column. Their reasons included 1) the death of the dot-com era, 2) failed e-Learning projects, and 3) the suffering of e-Learning vendors....

No, what I really said was that eLearning would go on because it brought too many benefits not to. But..."eLearning" is a marketing term, an attempt to get under the halo of eBusiness, and that it has outlived its usefulness as a marketing term because many senior managers consider it a fiasco.

Insider: .... But Insider argues that we shouldn't toss away a perfectly good term. Think about it for a moment...

I go further out on the limb than that. I don't think learning is an easy sell in the executive suite. They're called executives because they want to execute. We need to position what we do as the key to execution.

Insider: The term "e-Learning" has served many of us really well. For one thing, it is a term that CEO's, CIO's and CFO's understand. Granted they may not entirely get the big picture of the breadth and potential of e-Learning, but they know the term. Remember, they actually sat up and took notice of our requests to fund e-Learning initiatives, even if only because Wall Street took notice too. This was a good thing! It was the term "e-Learning" that opened the discussion about how we can create substantial and sustainable organizational value.

"Was." Past tense. In today's lean and mean economy, executives pay for performance. They often defer maintenance, including maintenance on human capital.

Insider: Another reason to keep the term "e-Learning" is because it is easy to remember and our students "get it". Those of us in the training/learning industry get really caught up in the "performance improvement", "knowledge enhancement", and "productivity accelerator" terms, but our students and their bosses are really much more responsive to a simpler term. "E-Learning" fits the bill. When they hear the term, folks know that they are going to use technology to get the information/learning/training they need to do better on their job. And that is all they really care about.

If eLearning were synonymous with performance improvement, I'd be a happy camper. The most popular title at ASTD Press is Telling Ain't Training. You know what? Business people do not care. Better numbers will make them happy whether they result from training or telling or taking smart pills or prayer. They want performance from their workers. (We're the only ones who call them learners.)

Insider: While we have had ups and downs, I have not seen a better term appear to replace "e-Learning", and until I do, and until the hundreds of thousands of people developing e-Learning and the millions using e-Learning stop using e-Learning, I think I will stick by it for a while longer.

We agree on this. I haven't come up with a replacement. As I said, I'm working on it. I no more relish changing the name of eLearning Forum than you guys want to rename the eLearning Guild.

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Note:

This is about all I've got to say on this issue. We have bigger fish to fry than semantics.

While I enjoy sparring with my friends at eLearning Guild, I am a big fan. If you didn't get eLearning_Insider in your email today, you probably haven't upgraded your membership from Associate to Guild Member. For $99, it's a great deal.

The time machine rides again

Five years ago at TechLearn, I asked people to join me for a ride in a time machine to see what corporate learning might look like in 2004. Reflection on the past is a wonderful teacher, so this afternoon I looked back at my presentation to see if it rang true.

Our attitudes about learning seem to slant too far toward numbers & mechanics or too much toward people & relationships; a good balance is rare. In late 1998 we were headed to the numbers extreme. Web-based learning was going to cut costs, eliminate jobs, reduce face-to-face meetings, automate training, and boost ROI. Having found that you can only take that so far until it bites back, in 2003 the pendulum is swinging back into the extreme people-side. The focus is shifting from mechanics to community, connections, collaboration, social software, faith in worker self-determination, mentors, and coaches. In sum, the pendulum is still swinging to extremes and overcorrecting on its return.

NumbersPeople

Learning Objects are creating more buzz now than in 1998 but they are hardly new.

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Learners weren't being treated as customers fast enough for my taste, so Lance Dublin and I wrote a book about it to try to speed things up. Most organizations have yet to buy into this concept.

=

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No one talked about Web Services in '98, but it was no secret that interoperability based on the notion of XML was on the way.

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Well, okay, not all my predictions come true. If you, too, drank the dot-com Kool-Aid, you'll remember when the sky was the limit, Moore's Law applied to everything, and Wired magazine could pass for truth.

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Most of my uncertainties in 1998 remain uncertain today:

• What to do about public schools? Create corporate schools?
• Will telepresence ever replace a human teacher/coach being there in person?
• Will learning become elitist or will it drive equal opportunity?

By now, I expected us to have recruited our corporate "village elders" as mentors.

My vital questions in 1998 were:

• Will the net lead us to become empowered individuals or helpless serfs?
• Will different peoples getting to know one another lead to world harmony or perpetual clash?
• Is mediocrity now becoming more important than quality later?

Jay in 1998.

Future eLearning

The Longer Term Future for eLearning

About fifty of us participated in the April meeting of eLearning Forum this morning. Forty people met F2F in a classroom at the HP Nonstop Learning Center; eight to ten people joined us remotely via HP Virtual Classroom, a private-labeled Placeware derivative.

Our host, Tom Hill, is Program Manager, Advanced Learning Technologies, Hewlett Packard Education & Training Center, NonStop Enterprise Division, and a long-time member of eLearning Forum (back when we were the Silicon Valley eLearning Network).

Tom explained that our topic is the future of eLearning, but not the close-in future one can predict through extropolation so much as the future five years from now when things will be really different.

Jerry Neece comparing early eLearning to our microphone holder constructed of Bic pens and Scotch tape.

Jerry Neece, an eLearning pioneer in his years with Sun, noted that Mosaic is celebrating its tenth birthday this month! For many of us, this first browser was the wake-up call for the idea that marrying technology and education could yield tremendous results. Yet eLearning has failed to live up to the promise. Why?

1. The (non) Human Factor – first systems were built from the administrator’s standpoint, not the learner’s
2. Inherited, outdated paradigms – “put a week of learning on the web”
3. Piecemeal solutions – have to log into three or four different systems with different passwords
4. Proprietary systems – defendable from competition but not interoperable

The future is promising because of such things as:

1. Open architecture based on J2EE, modularity, and learner-centricity. MIT is offering a free LMS. U-portal is free, developed by colleges, now 500 institutions. Hundreds, maybe thousands, of engineers are working on these open systems. Web standards such as SOAP, XML, UDDI, etc. mean that engineers can work on a module rather than the whole enchilada. For example, Villa Nova University, has tied together registration, the grading system, and student information to provide professors with a composite class list (with photos) and a single interface for attendance and grading.
2. More personalized learning enabled by identity management, profiling, and quality of service. Adaptive, based on learner’s historic behavior. Rank-ordered list of what I need to know (based in part on what I already know).
3. More standards, leading to reusable learning objects, giving increased quality at lower cost
4. Paradigm shift: learning comes to you rather than you to the learning. Take the mountain to Mohammed.

Trace Urdan, Research Analyst, Think Equity Partners

Trace Urdan joined us by phone, identifying three seismic shifts in eLearning:

1. shift of training responsibility from corporations to individuals

volatile employment conditions, labor a variable cost
proven benefit of credentials and degrees – the boost pay and are portable
rise and redefinition of trade schools, e.g. University of Phoenix
web-based degree programs

2. outsourcing

EDS, IBM, Thompson making their moves
Farm out what you don’t understand well

3. disintermediation of content development

companies will roll their own
steadily advancing power of tools

Wayne Hodgins, Autodesk futurist, phoned in from a car hurtling along an L.A. freeway. Wayne starts 3-5 years out and tries to go out another 50 years. Our world is speeding up. Like driving, the faster you go, the further ahead you have to look. Wayne shared three alliterations with us.

Small, smart, standards
No one is thinking small enough
How small? So small it’s never used by itself
This maximizes flexibility in reassembly

Low level of intelligence we gain thru pattern recognition
Substitute proactive for reactive
Subjective metadata – gathering peoples’ opinions
Use this for predicting what people will and won’t like
NetFlix can predict how you’ll rate a movie

Standards are a long haul but an important one
Progress is being made. XML, XMS derivatives, RSS, SOAP…
MOTO = metadata, objects, taxonomies, ontologies

Personal, proactive, performance
Teacher for every teachable moment
“When the learner is ready, the teacher will appear” (Confucius)

Key on the proactive side
We have set our expectations way too low

Results and performance are what matters
Readiness to respond to the unexpected
Business trend: performance-based contract payouts

Content, collaboration, context
Current content sucks. Neither compelling nor relevant
New kinds of content, e.g. visual language, Scott McCloud’s comics, simulations – compelling, not entertaining

Collaboration -- check Wikipedia, 100,000+ nodes generated by readers
Once you start to provide enabling things, responsibilities shift to the users

Customers will develop the taxonomies and vocabulary

< Peg Maddocks describes the changes at Cisco.

Peg Maddocks told us about her exciting new assignment at Cisco, working in a new business unit, Learning Strategy and Development.

John Chambers recently observed that Cisco "was not flying in formation," i.e. the company was trying to tackle too many things in too many ways. Peg's new group was established to create a unified learning strategy for all of Cisco. One of their objectives is to enable employees to move around, cross-fertilizing the organization. To pull this off, Peg foresees creating common learning models and supportive business processes, taking a user point of view, and making content interoperable across all Cisco divisions. New eLearning business council has SVPs; they will make decisions about learning strategies.

 

Tom Hill described trends he's seeing at Non-Stop University.

< Tom Hill talks about trends at HP Non-Stop.

Overseas online learners are two to three times more active than the typical North American.
90% of content champions are from Europe
Caution: don’t be America-centric

Economic – MIT Technology Review says next major information technology corporation may come from India
Realtime, around-the-world financial markets
Strategically, you’re either selling the product or building it

Collaborative – increase engagement, two-way, organic. Nurture -- you can't force it.
Agents – learner controlled, centric
Embedded learning
Mentoring – accompaniment, great book on this: Working Wisdom
Self publishing – user contributions

UI – fewer steps, clicks, and pain; “more dashboard” but make it a customizable dashboard

End user
Anxious User/Customer (no travel, fewer offices, more products coming out)
IBM – I’m by myself. (Gerstner). We live in a technology envelope. More high touch coming.
Self-efficacy. Managing my own learning, Flow
Iterative – spiral, adding to mental map.

< Katie Povejsil debriefs the discussion groups.

Katie Povejsil of Catalyst Consultants facilitated the formation of discussion groups on technology, users, and content.

The Technology group wanted an expert voice in the ear that follows them around. Social network analysis will help pinpoint expertise. For the next five years, most knowledge will still come from people. The Learner group figured that everyone will be a learner; the term will lose meaning as learning becomes part of the tapestry of life. The Content group foresees a shorter distance between SME and learner. Already, knowledge centers (think call center for learning) are being established in India.

 

 

 

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Our next meeting, on May 16 at the Microsoft Campus in Mountain View, will deal with informal and social learning. Google will be joining us, along with leaders of the social software movement, edu-bloggers, and a new technology. You'll need to sign up early since attendance is limited to sixty.

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This is only a prelminary report of our April meeting. This is what I would have blogged live if HP had Wi-Fi in the classroom. Mentorware is creating an electronic summary for the eLearning Forum archives. The results of our pre-meeting member poll are already there.

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Additional links

Emerging Technology Conference wiki

Social Software Alliance Wiki

Social Software and Social Capital

 

Learn More

E-Learning’s Unique Capability by Will Thalheimer answers a great question: What can you do with eLearning that you can’t do by other means?

Thalheimer begins with a precious metaphor, “Sensible people don?t pound nails with paintbrushes, turn screws with hammers, or paint walls with screwdrivers,” and then asks what the eLearning tool is good for. Part of the answer is “Among all the learning media, e-learning is the only one that has the potential to have meaningful and renewable contact with learners over time.”

He goes on to explain how proper timing can increase retention 112% (with spacing, repetition, delayed feedback, and shorter retention intervals.) Neither LMS nor learning objects nor current corporate practice take advantage of these techniques for improving learning.

His “Percentage Improvements that are likely when Key Learning Factors are utilized” should be pinned above instructional designers’ desks for ready reference.

What would Carly do?

While sitting in the little tiled room right off my office, where I do a lot of my reading, I came upon a one-page article by Seth Godin in Fast Company.

After Godin’s recent rap on seeing a Purple Cow, I was about ready to give up on the guy. The cow thing is such a blatant rip-off of one of the few famous alumni of my prep school, Ogden Nash, who wrote:

I’ve never seen a purple cow.
I never hope to see one.
But I can tell you this right now.
I’d rather see than be one.

Besides, if you’ve ever been to Lenk, in the Bernese Oberland of Switzerland, you’ve seen lots of purple cows. They are the symbol of Milka chocolate, whose milk comes from the cows of Lenk. But I digress.

This month Godin talks about hard work. He points out that neither Richard Branson nor Carly Fiorina work longer hours than you or I. They just pick the right balance of stuff to work on. You know, the challenges that others don’t find reasonable.

This is inspirational. We’ve got as much time to work with as they do!

I’d better start picking better challenges to work on.

eLearning Business Translator

Noted in Ten Reasons Why, this item by Kevin Kruse totally cracked me up.

I’ve been tyring to swear off cynicism: it’s fun but it doesn’t get you very far. Nonetheless, you absolutely must experiment with the eLearning Business Translator. Not only is the EBT a brilliant piece of work, it also raises the bar for how to introduce a white paper. Bravo, Kevin!

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This graphic from Agora ‘03, could accompany Kevin’s business translator.

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eLearning Newsline doesn’t appear to have gotten the news about eLearning magazine.

A Return to Common Sense

Today I read some very obscure academic white papers on instructional design. Later, in the bathtub, I read several chapters of There Are No Accidents, a psychiastrist's trip through Jungian synchronicity, a place where causality either doesn't exist or doesn't matter.

Time to get back to reality. First principles. And once again, I'm going to turn to David Forman. His essay on common sense in instructional design is a wonderful, down-to-earth counterpoint to my spacy reading earlier.

Please leave a comment or drop me an email about publishing other people's stuff here. Is this good? Or a diversion? Give me your opinion.

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Common Sense Learning Principles

Lessons from Sages, our experiences and each other

By David C Forman

As learning becomes increasingly central to our lives and more complicated, a growing array of templates, methods, blends, objects and knowledge repositories have been created to facilitate wider distribution of information. This is both useful and inevitable, but is it all that learning should be? This article looks back at memorable times when learning was enjoyable, meaningful and relevant. It looks at both formal educational and training settings as well as at informal, real-world learning events that can happen anywhere at anytime. Nine common sense learning principles, often overlooked in many of today's programs, are presented for possible inclusion in future programs and events.

David C Forman is founder and president of Sage Learning Systems, a consulting company dedicated to the effective use of technology in learning. He has also founded e-learningjobs.com, the first Internet job board for e-learning professionals. David has held management and executive positions in the training industry for 25 years. He has worked with many of the country's leading corporations to design, develop and implement multifaceted learning systems. David has written over 30 articles and books in the fields of training, evaluation, return on investment (ROI), and instructional design; and has presented at major industry conferences and seminars, both in the United States and abroad. Contact info: dforman1@cox.net, 619 656-2920

Current training and education programs have moved away from essential, tried and true, practical principles of learning that have endured for centuries. These principles are derived as much from our own experiences as children and adults as from clinical research or learning theory. They are from memorable times when the "message took", learning was exciting and meaningful, and we remember elements of it to this day. These common sense lessons become part of life's wisdom and should not be forgotten or lost.

Today's education and training programs have industrialized learning. This has been done because the emphasis is on courses and chunks of knowledge that can be distributed through existing classroom and electronic delivery vehicles to thousands of people. Templates, standards and content repositories have been created so that mass dissemination is accomplished efficiently. The result is that this type of engineered learning is often antiseptic, almost alien, from what we do, who we are, and what we know works.

Common sense is a powerful force. It provides a framework for "the way things ought to be." It is practical wisdom. In educational measurement terms, it is face validity. Historically, Common Sense is the name attached to Thomas Paine's pamphlet that helped arouse America against the rule of England. Paine believed that it was simply a matter of common sense that an island could not rule a continent. Seems reasonable. Six months after publication of this pamphlet, America declared her independence from the strongest military power on earth and created a form of government that had no historical precedence in the modern world.

It is certainly true that one person's common sense may not be another's. But there is often a shared collected wisdom or common sense that most people would recognize as being valid. This emphasis on common sense is also not intended to detract from research and more structured forms of inquiry. This perspective would be wrong and it would ignore the great contributions provided by researchers, scientists and educators over the years (e.g., Clark, 2002; Clark and Mayer, 2003). But it would be equally wrong and too easy to dismiss common sense learning principles, simply because they are not footnoted or the subject of a formal study. There are other ways of knowing, albeit more subjective and less scientific.

Early in my life, my mentor explained to me the three paths that lead to the creation of knowledge: The analytical path, where philosophers reflect, meditate, and make sense of objects and events; the empirical path, where scientists manipulate variables and conduct controlled experiments to validate reliable principles; and the pragmatic path where practitioners struggle with real-world challenges and come up with strategies for effective and efficient performance.

Sivasailam"Thiagi" Thiagarajan, 2001

If these familiar learning principles make sense, try them out, learn from the experience and make modifications as necessary. These principles can be kept in the forefront of what we do as mentors, learners, teachers, parents, caregivers and neighbors in every day life as well as in educational settings. They can be applied in formal learning contexts as well as in informal learning events that can happen anywhere at anytime.

Tell stories

Long before schools were established, information was conveyed in conversations around the hearth, out in the field, or in the shop. These conversations passed along the skills, tradition and understandings needed to be successful in the next job or challenge to be confronted. These conversations were often in the form of stories.

Story telling is the original form of teaching. Stories can include drama, tension, memorable characters and events within a real life or fictional context. Stories have a beginning, middle and end; and they can bring to life, lessons and information that would otherwise be mundane and ordinary. We remember stories. The lessons from good stories endure.

In the classroom and with the self-paced training products of today, there seems to be little time for stories. The emphasis is on funneling through as much information as possible, and not making the most important elements come to life and be remembered. It is also harder to tell stories now, since we do not practice and appreciate this skill. It is, afterall, much easier to simply convey information.

Why was Solomom recognized as the wisest man in the world? Because he knew more stories (proverbs) than anyone else. Scratch the surface in a typical boardroom and we are all just cave men with briefcases, hungry for a wise person to tell us stories.

Alan Kay

Tip: The use of stories to foster discussion and interaction is especially productive early in a class when it is important to establish common ground. Higher participation rates generally lead to greater commitment and less of a sense of isolation, which, in turn, increases retention (Neal, 2002)

Play games

School and learning have become synonymous with hard, tough, serious, and relentless work. Many believe that if it's not hard and demanding, it's not worthwhile, and that school and learning should reflect life's tough lessons. While this thinking has predominated the education and training professions, it doesn't coincide with common sense. It doesn't account for many wonderful, fun and effective learning moments we all have experienced.

There is no reason why games should not be an integral part of schooling and training. They involve the learner, foster higher-level thinking, boost interest, involve many senses, reinforce the value of goals and rules, and show outcomes. Games, like stories, have a meaningful context and wholeness to them. They can become ideal teaching vehicles as people reflect on what they did in the game and why.

Anyone who makes a distinction between games and education clearly does not know the first thing about either one.

Marshall McLuhan

Current research in the areas of stress, anxiety, creativity, self-efficacy and neuroscience shows that more play will improve our learning and performance. While "more work and less play" has been touted for a long time as the way to improve human performance, there is much evidence that such thinking is wrong.

Marc Prensky, 2001

Tip: It is not easy to create engaging and meaningful games, either in the classroom or in standalone training products. There are, however, excellent resources that contain pre-existing games and teaching resources. Leading authorities in the field of game-based learning are Marc Prensky, Thiagi, and Roger Schank. While these experts and available resources are valuable, it is still important to develop or customize games to your own audience needs and learning requirements.

Explore and experiment

Do you remember times when you were exploring something new? It could have been hiking over new ground, trying to fix an engine problem in your new used car, baking bread for the first time or working on your initial chemistry lab. It was exhilarating, exhausting, challenging, frustrating, and maybe even scary. It was, in fact, a very real and impactful learning experience. It defined what you needed to know so you could do it better next time.

The prevailing way we learn today is through instructional models that present the content you need to know before actually doing something. It is the structure of content and the instructional design process used to create it that frequently defines what we learn. Sometimes this approach is necessary and appropriate (it is best not to explore brain surgery), but often its not. Furthermore, this content centered approach leads to the popular perceptions that training is little more than "chalk and talk," "hose and doze," or "spray and pray" presentations.

Flip the traditional approach around and begin to learn with a problem, issue or experiment. By immediately engaging learners, they become interested, motivated and discover what they need to know more about. This "problem-centered" as opposed to "content-centered" approach can be initiated by games, activities or even simple questions. As with other common sense learning principles, "explore and experiment" has been described and recommended for decades, but its actual application and use remain limited.

From the very beginning of his education, the child should experience the joy of discovery

Alfred North Whitehead

The art of teaching is the art of assisting discovery

Mark Van Doren, Poet

You can talk and talk and talk, and the kids don't learn. It's that wow experience when you go out and do.

Fraser Randolph Model Teacher, USA Today Oct 17, 2002

Tip: The problem-centered approach is particularly useful in building interactivity, motivation, and interest; all very important and often missing elements in current training and education programs. But because it is a less directive teaching technique it can take more time than conventional practices and require different types of feedback and guidance. Allow enough time so that the exploration and subsequent debriefing are not rushed. The problems that are presented should be challenging and a "stretch," but not too sophisticated or difficult so that learners become lost and confused.

Use pictures

A picture is worth 1,000 words and probably a lot more. But all too often pictures, graphics, and visuals are an after-thought in the text-heavy learning materials of today. Because these materials are mainly derived from books or lectures, text is used to convey the core message. Visuals are usually just an adornment. It is easy to forget that centuries ago pictures and visuals were the primary means for conveying information.

We know that learning is enhanced if the message is presented through both words and visuals with each channel reinforcing the other. We know that there are visual learners who prefer to have information conveyed graphically. We know that the visual elements of children's books and Sesame Street are vital parts of the message and essential in sustaining the child's attention. Common sense tells us that visuals can add meaning, spice, a framework, and relevance to material. But we also know that this rarely happens.

In order to change the excessive reliance on words and text in today's education and training materials, we need to think differently. Flip the traditional instructional model around and start with the visual, not the text. Try to represent each major concept or objective with a key visual, and then develop the surrounding text. Show a visual outcome first, and then teach backwards. Lead with strength.

People remember 10% of what they read, 30% of what they see, and 50% of what they hear and see.

Nick Van Dam, 2001

Tip: An important step in enhancing visual treatment is to recognize the various types of visuals that can improve a presentation. Among the key types of visuals are: fact, concept, process, procedure, relationship, visual outcome, topic organizer and thematic. A visual must have meaning and purpose. As bad as a visual-less, straight text presentation can be, learning can be equally impeded by too many irrelevant or competing visuals. Learners can become easily confused unless the visuals have a role, work together, and add value. For an excellent review of research findings related to the instructional role of graphics, see Clark and Mayer (2003)

Have a coach

I have learned a number of practical lessons over the years, and few of them occurred in formal educational settings. Among these lessons: looking for unique value propositions in products and companies, trying to distill a presentation into 3 to 5 salient points that I can remember, beginning a course development project by developing a job aid first, putting a splash of water in as I make my two egg omelets, and always catching a ball with two hands. Why?

I was taught these lessons by coaches and mentors, found them to be valuable, and have never forgotten them. These lessons weren't learned in a class or a course; they were passed along by people with experience, wisdom, and dedication to their craft. These lessons were made personal, relevant and part of an ongoing dialog related to personal development and apprenticeship in professional tasks.

Current training systems seem to have forgotten the long-standing almost revered role that mentors have had in learning. We don't seek out mentors or try to make these connections; and are therefore missing tremendous learning opportunities. Interestingly, one of the fastest growing areas in leadership and executive development is the rise of the executive coach. There is a return, in some disciplines and companies, to the practical common sense understanding that mentors matter, are enriching, and add value.

We do what our mentors teach us to do

M.F.K. Fisher

Tip: It is important for learners to recognize the value that coaches provide through different stages, projects, and occupations. We can design systems and courses that include provisions for personal dialog and discussions with experts and mentors over a continuing time period. Technology can even be used to foster mentoring. Seek out coaches and be one yourself; learning is incomplete without them.

Learn with others

We learn more from each other than we do from formal teachings. An EDC study reported in Training Magazine (2000) stated that 70% of what people know about their jobs they learn informally from each other. What does this say about how we approach education and training?

It says that learning is a social activity. It says that learning devoid of the human touch and personal contact is limiting. It says that self-paced training can breed a lonely long distance learner unless these systems put people back in the equation. It says that learners learn most from each other.

The EDC findings are not as humbling as they first seem. No one is suggesting that formal training courses should be drastically reduced because they can impact only 30% of job performance. What it does suggest is the importance of the informal, human context around formal training as a rich learning experience. This interaction among peers is where ideas get discussed, reality checked, applied, and adapted.

I think peer interaction is where you learn. Having students work in groups is essential. The course is not just the material that we present to them.

Don Norman, 2002

None of us is as smart as all of us.

Satchel Paige

Tip: The classroom and campus are well suited to human interaction and informal learning opportunities. This is a primary reason for their enduring success over the years. But effective and creative uses of technology can also bring a spirit of community to distance learners. David Grebow (2002) provides the following advice:

"We need to use technology to facilitate the informal as well formal transfer of knowledge by including expert locators, e-mail connections with instructors, real-time Internet meeting places, virtual learning support groups, instant messaging, expert networks, personal e-learning portals, moderated chats, and more. We need to create the 100 percent learning solution, in which the proscribed formal learning events and the serendipitous learning moments are given equal value."

Focus on the important

Most training courses today opt for complete coverage as opposed to making the tough decisions on "what is really important to know." It is easy to develop programs that try to teach everything. It is hard to make choices and prioritize to only focus on the important, relevant and meaningful. Courses, therefore, are often an inch deep and a mile long; and present more information than could ever be comprehended.

Our short-term memory is much like RAM in a computer: it can process only so much information at any one time. In general, short-term memory can process 7 ideas (plus or minus 1) effectively. More information leads to overload and confusion. This personal bandwidth limitation is why it is so necessary to not try to teach everything. Select a limited number of the most important ideas or concepts, and then teach these in depth and effectively.

Put first things first

Steven Covey

At harvest time, separate the wheat from the chaff.

Anon

Tip: The 80/20 rule is worth remembering. It states, for example, that 80% of what you do in a software application is accomplished with only 20% of its features. The essence of the 80/20 rule is that "you can do a lot with a little." Performance is largely determined by a relatively few activities, lessons, or skills. The art of the 80/20 rule is determining what the core 20% is that drives the 80%. How do we separate the consequential few from the inconsequential many?

Take recess

Learning takes time. The movement from data to information to knowledge to wisdom (Davis, 1995) requires time to think, question, percolate, apply and test. The ability to really understand something in depth is not a quick fix. It takes time. Common sense tells us that this is true.

Because education and training today have largely focused on fact acquisition, there is an emphasis on faster delivery of more and more facts. Consequently, a relentless barrage of facts and figures is conveyed in our courses, with very little assimilation or retention. What really sticks? What is retained from this flood of information?

The irony is that when we are not spending time in formal classes we are probably learning the most. It is this time "not on task" when knowledge settles and understanding starts to emerge. Using other parts of our mind and body, as we do in recess, often unlocks the brain to welcome learning. How many times have insights come while taking a run, walking on the treadmill or playing a set of tennis?

Understanding cannot be rushed, crammed, delivered immediately, or accessed by a clicker. "Aha" moments are not manufactured or created on demand. They evolve and emerge as information, ideas, time and the situation interact.

With time and patience the mulberry leaf becomes a silk gown

Chinese proverb

Real learning is the state of being able to adopt and adapt what you know and can do under a varying set of informal circumstances.

David Grebow. 2002

Tip: Structure key learning activities and exercises over a period of time. Allow learners to have days or weeks to adopt and adapt what they have learned. Let them test it against different contexts, people, and events. Enable them to refine and shape their ideas over time and with more experience.

Have lunch

Recess is good, lunch is better. Lunch can involve all the senses, be a time when friends get together and share conversation and laughter. It is a time to nourish the body, refresh the mind, connect with others and learn. Meals and the discussions that surround them can provide the fuel for both the mind and the body.

In the Forman home of working adults and children in school and activities, meals-in this case dinner, not lunch-were the touchstone. We all came together to sit, eat, and converse. Rarely was anyone excused or absent, because this informal tradition became so important. The candles, tablecloth, folded napkins all signaled a time for discussion, news, casual conversation and probably not much else. But maybe a lot more than we recognized at the time.

For eighteenth and nineteenth century farming families the core meal was, in fact, lunch, although it was called dinner. It signaled a break from the fields and provided an opportunity to refuel for the afternoon's work. These gatherings provided more than just nourishment. They helped to convey information, expectations, traditions, and values, not always smoothly or easily; but the forum existed and was used for these purposes.

Learning thrives when nurtured, nourished and encouraged. It can whither without the attention, sustenance and support it deserves. It does not occur in a vacuum or in an antiseptic, controlled environment. It occurs outside the classroom in real life settings with an ever-changing mixture of people, ideas, debate, challenges, senses, and support. It is just like having a good meal with friends and family.

Dining is and always was a great artistic opportunity

Frank Lloyd Wright

I never try to teach my students anything. I only try to create an environment in which they can learn.

Albert Einstein

Tip: Be interested in fostering learning in casual and informal settings. This doesn't mean that dinner or social conversations become monopolized with homework reports. In fact, it is best to talk about ideas and questions and not school schedules or training activities. Good questions are often more valuable than good answers in these types of conversations.

Become passionate

Do you remember listening to someone who became so involved and invested in delivering a message that she became animated, her voice rose, her intense vision permeated the room, and she was visibly exhausted when finished? Politicians and actors do this for a living; but it is rare to see such passion in learning and education. When it happens, it can be magical.

Learning is heightened and invigorated by the senses and emotions. While most current training programs try to isolate knowledge and discard affective and psychomotor factors, we know that life does not work that way. All of these domains work together. The higher the emotional component and passion, the greater the retention of knowledge and skills. Perhaps a key reason why current retention rates in training programs are so low is that knowledge becomes isolated from affective and psychomotor elements, devoid of context, and adrift; and therefore difficult to remember.

It is certainly true that all learning cannot be wildly exciting. It is hard to be passionate about foundations of knowledge such as sentence construction, geometric principles, historical timelines, vocabulary words or learning to use a software application. But passion can be directed at why these foundations are important to know, and how they can be used to solve problems or improve performance. This passion can have a direct bearing on the learner's motivation to learn. If learners are motivated to learn, they will not only learn the material but retain it longer.

All learning has an emotional base Plato

Education is not the filling of the pail, but the lighting of a fire

William Butler Yeats

Tip: There is a simple abbreviation that is always good to remember: WIIFM-or what's in it for me. All too often, training and educational programs are created with little understanding of how it can benefit the learner. At the very least, the benefits to the learner are not well communicated. It is hard to be passionate about something that does not seem to be connected to what you do, who you are or what you want to become. If WIIFM is clear-and conveyed with passion and meaning-it becomes much easier to devote mind and body to learning.

Keep learning

It is ironic that this is the most important lesson of all. It is true that learning is not being accomplished with the joy and passion that it deserves, but it is also true that learning today is more important than ever. Knowledge is both being created and obsoleted faster than ever before. There is a great deal to learn and unlearn to keep abreast of changes and stay informed.

Continuing to learn is both a state of mind and a skill. It is fueled by a belief that there is more to know and more to life than already exists. It is fanned by a passion for ideas, improvement, growth, personal and professional development. It is enjoyable to be with people who question, seek, read, want to know more, and set a standard for continuous learning and development.

The ability to keep learning is valuable for both personal and professional reasons. In business today, a key metric is time to competency. Given the compressed half-life of products, markets and knowledge, the ability to become knowledgeable and skilled quickly in changing conditions is a major competitive advantage. The quicker an individual can learn about a new product, procedure, process, or initiative, the more valuable he or she is to the enterprise. Learning how to learn and learning quickly are core competencies for being successful in today's world.

Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps learning stays young. The greatest thing in life is to keep your mind young.

Henry Ford

In a time of drastic change it is the learners who inherit the future. The learned usually find themselves equipped to live in a world that no longer exists

Eric Hoffer

It's what you learn after you know it all that counts

John Wooden

Tip: One skill necessary for continuous learning is the ability to digest and synthesize large amounts of information into meaningful lessons. Without this skill, we are overcome and paralyzed by the flood of information and choices, both now and in the future. The Web is the perfect example of both the power and fizzle of so much information. Activities and exercises can be designed to expose learners to the vast resources of the Web, but should also guide them to analyze, synthesize and make choices from this rich repository. This is a life skill that fosters continuous learning for both personal and professional improvement.

Remembering common sense

These common sense learning principles are not new or breakthrough ideas. They are all in our conscientiousness. They have played an important role in our lives for many years, and we know that they work. But these familiar principles are often absent from contemporary education and training programs where the emphasis is on expediency, delivery platforms, granular learning objects, engineered learning, and formal programs.

It is easy to overlook familiar and common sense learning principles, especially if they don't neatly fit the present learning mold. The result is a set of formal educational offerings that can be efficiently presented but lack soul and connection. This does not have to be the case. It is possible to develop more enjoyable and challenging learning solutions that: involve each other, include mentors, incorporate the best ideas tested over time, use our full mental, physical and emotional resources, recognize the value of informal as well as formal learning, and can lead to our own continuous learning.

These common sense learning principles cannot be present every time, all the time. But they are too important to be discarded or forgotten. They should be considered to be part of future learning systems or simply part of our daily lives as learners, mentors, teachers, parents, caregivers, and neighbors. If they can help instill the passion and desire for learning, and keep the fires burning, then the old lessons are well worth remembering.

References

Clark, R. C. & Mayer, R. E. (2003). E-learning and the science of instruction. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Clark, R.E. (2002). Turning research into results. PerformanceXpress. October, 2002.

Davis, S. & Botkin, J. (1995). The monster under the bed. New York: Touchstone Books.

Grebow, D. (2002). At the water cooler of learning. The Batten Institute at the Darden School, University of Virginia.

Neal, L. (2002). Storytelling at a distance. ELearn Magazine. August, 2002

Norman, D. (2002). Q&A with Don Norman. Elearn magazine. August, 2002

Prensky, M. (2001). Digital game-based learning. New York: McGraw-Hill

Thiagarajan, S. (2001). Foreward. In: Prensky, M. (2001) Digital game-based learning. New York: McGraw Hill.

Training Magazine (2000). Cites an edc study. January, 2000.

Van Dam, N. (2001). Training and Development, May, 2001.

Quotations not otherwise in the reference section are taken from the following sources:

www.entplaza.com

www.nwlink.com

www.quoteland.com

www.storyland.iwarp.com

www.conversant.net

Quotations in Prensky, M. (2001) Digital game-based learning. New York: McGraw-Hill

Good-bye, Blogger

Good-bye, Blogger. Say hello to Dano.

What’s New?

Friday, April 18, 2003

The Dano Rollout Plan consists of three phases. Starting today, select users will be able to create a Dano blog. Current BloggerPro users will have Pro features enabled in their Dano blogs.

The next phase, to start in a week to ten days, will allow users to migrate their existing blogs over to Dano.

Finally, in about a month’s time, all blogs will be transitioned to Dano. This includes the blogs, their posts and templates.

For more information on everything Dano, please see the FAQ.

Rettig: Interaction Design

A History of Interaction Design, a Marc Rettig. A tour de force that takes you from hand tools to social networks. Context, context, context. This delightful presentation puts things in perspective. Just do it. Pointed out by Peter Merholz, he who coined the term blog. Peter also writes for <"http://beastblog.com/">Beast Blog “because East Bay is pig Latin for beast.”

Feedster

Feedster, a search engine for RSS data, making it a search for recent info, mainly blogs.

Appreciative Inquiry

Last week I asked my friend Marcia Conner what I should be reading in my quest to deepen my knowledge of informal learning, social networking, and organizational change. She offered several names and one book: Appeciative Inquiry by David L. Cooperrider and Diana Whitney.

The first thing I noticed about the book was its length: 30 5”x7” pages of text. About thirty cents a page. This better be good, I thought to myself.

It was.

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Note: If you Google for “Appreciative Inquiry,” you’ll get some sites by followers of David Cooperrider who are pushing their own agendas. Better to go to the AI Commons site at Case Western Reserve, where Cooperrider teaches.

A recent entry:
Peter Drucker?s Advice for Us on the New Ai Project:
Business as an Agent of World Benefit
By David Cooperrider
Case Western Reserve University
March 23, 2003

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In a cover story in Training, Ron Zemke interviewed Cooperrider:

“The problem-solving paradigm may once have been the most effective approach for enhancing an organization’s performance,” says Cooperrider, “but it is out of sync with today’s reality” He ticks off a list of things that are wrong with the problem-solving approach to management and organizational change: It is painfully slow; it always asks people to look backward at yesterday’s failures and their causes; and it rarely results in a new vision. “Once we describe something as a problem,” he says, “we assume that we know what the ideal is - what should be - and we go in search of ways to close any ‘gaps’ - not to expand our knowledge or to build better ideals.”

In human terms, he continues, problem-solving approaches are notorious for placing blame and generating defensiveness. “They sap your energy and tax your mind, and don’t advance the organization’s evolution beyond a slow crawl,” Cooperrider says.

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The Appreciative Inquiry process consists of choosing an affirmative topic, discovering what gives the organization life, dreaming what might be — stories, designing what might be - the ideal, and “destiny” - sustainment. Stated that way, it just sort of sits on the page. Here’s one of the descriptions in the book:

In AI, intervention gives way to imagination and innovation; instead of negation, criticism, and spiraling diagnosis there is discovery, dream, and design. AI assumes that every living system has untapped, rich, and inspiring accounts of the positive. Link this “positive change core” directly to any change agenda, and changes never thought possible are suddenly and democratically mobilized.

Picking the right, POSITIVE topic is vital because “inquiry and change are a simultaneous moment.” The traditional problem-solving paradigm focuses on problems and limits human potential.

It’s good that Case Western Reserve is located in Cleveland. There, AI is perceived as a “radically affirmative approach to change.” In Mill Valley or at Esalen, AI would probably be cast as merely the latest chapter in the human potential movement.

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Appreciative Inquiry is for organizations what positive psychology is for individuals.

Martin Seligman’s positive psychology movement posits that we shouldn’t advise well people with what we’ve learned from the sick. AI tells us to look at what’s right rather than what’s wrong. And increasingly, I’m feeling that schools and training shoot themselves in the foot by beginning with the assumption that the learners are deficient rather than magnificent.

Cooperrider and Whitney close the book with these lovely words from Albert Einstein:

There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.

Etiquette

Imagine my surprise when a friend told me they’d seen a book that quoted me extensively. Huh? I’d never seen this book, even though it’s been out for the better part of a year. Here it is:

Online Learning Today
by Heather Shea-Schultz
and John Fogarty

Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc

Lots of people have helped me in my career, and I like to balance my karma account by providing help to people who ask for advice or favors. When a guy I had not met called me a couple of years ago for help with a book he was writing on eLearning, I freely gave him an interview and permission to borrow material from the white papers on my site. I never heard from him again.

Having recently published my first book, I may be too touchy about these things, but I cannot imagine interviewing someone for a book (mentioning him by name on pp 46-48, 76-77, 78-79, 82, 165, and 169) and not sending him a complementary copy of the damned book!

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Tonight I scanned the pages with my name on them. Rather than write yet another white paper on ROI, I‘m simply going to share Heather and John’s rendition of my thoughts on the matter. Sheesh.

ROI ain’t what it used to be, according to Jay Cross, resident guru and curmudgeon emeritus of the Internet Time Group. With the possible exception of Autodesk’s visionary Wayne Hodgins, no one else on the high seas of e-learning has Cross’s foresight or humor. With a prescience bordering on the clairvoyant, Cross is constantly sought out for his industry forecasts and insights. As to ROI, Cross is typically irreverent: “ROI is a traditional financial measure, developed by DuPont, and once credited with making General Motors manageable. But it hasn’t kept pace with the times. The R is no longer the famous bottom line, and the I is more likely a subscription fee than a one-time payment.” Cross insists that traditional ROI matrices are an anachronism when applied to online learning. Why? Because traditional ROI has no measuring stick to distinguish a good idea from a bad one, so excellent training hits the books at the same value as bad. The trend and emphasis is on understanding business strategy and goals and how training moves the organization along. Maybe the future is ROS, return on strategy. Thus, Cross discourages e-learning proponents from trying to sell e-learning via ROI talk. “Consultants relentlessly drive home this message: `If you want to sell a big project internally, you’ve got to talk ROI … it’s the language senior managers understand … being fluent in ROI talk enables you to position an e-learning project as an investment rather than a cost … it’s the secret handshake that gets you into the inner circle of those who control budget dollars, et cetera and et cetera.’ “Well, it’s reality-check time,” Cross counters. “Talking the ROI talk won’t enable you to pass yourself off as an astute businessperson. You have the same chance of passing for French with a beret and Berlitz phrase book. A little knowledge can be a dangerous thing.” Cross believes that executives making a significant business decision consider a wide range of factors and intricate potential trade-offs, such as these: How risks must be weighed against rewards How short-term aims need to be sorted from the long-term ones That any undertaking must align with strategic initiatives That scarce resources call for shrewd horse trading But remember what Jay Cross said about ROI: it ain’t what it used to be. The old yardsticks no longer apply, and they can actually get in the way. As Cross posits, “Why measure incremental improvements when you’re seeking the Holy Grail?” True, traditional financial analysis works in most business accounting, but it goes askew when measuring intellectual capital and other off-the-balance-sheet improvements. Making business decisions entails a wide range of factors and involves intricate trade-offs-it’s not all bottom-line dollars and cents. Says Cross, “Unless your training (or e-learning) unit sells training for a fee-generating its own revenues-the returns on investment come from satisfying the needs of business unit managers.” He advises that linking e-learning results to business results is more useful than coming up with pseudo-ROI figures. “The only valid training ROI is business ROI.?? International Data Corporation (IDC) studied the buying behavior of corporate and IT training managers and concluded that ROI will no longer be measured in savings or reduced cost of training. Instead, attention will be directed to “measurable changes to business metrics resulting from training investments.” Those benefits will only emerge, however, if vendors focus on solid instructional design and engaging learning environments. Thus, a senior manager’s appraisal of e-learning’s impact is often visceral (gut instinct), based on how satisfied he or she is with employee performance and how much of that improvement the manager can ascribe to e-learning. As Cross puts it, “Feelings win out because the assumptions used to create the (ROI) numbers can always be challenged. Projects that evoke the best feelings make the cut.”’ Why? Because managers own the problems that training solves-online or offline. They’re generally pragmatic, and their overriding interest is to get the job done now, if not sooner. The business unit manager is often e-learning’s primary sponsor-along with HR and IT. Moreover, the manager understands the goal of any training, since it is he or she who oversees the environment in which performance gaps occur. Thus, the first step in measuring e-learning’s impact on performance is eliciting the business manager’s answer to the classic query “What’s in it for me?” When the learning is completed, assess the results according to benchmark measurements established with the unit manager. “Extrapolate behavior changes into measurable business,” counsels Jay Cross. “There’s no room for vagueness-and no backing away from visible quantitative evidence.” He also suggests that further interviewing and a review of business results may be useful. Finally, Cross advises presenting any findings and a simple cost/benefit analysis to the business manager or training sponsor-not a full-blown “ROI.” As Cross and others point out, present-day accounting is an anachronism when applied to e-learning. “Traditional accounting only recognizes physical entities,” Cross explains. “Intangibles are valued at zero. Vast areas of human productivity-ideas, abilities, experience, insight, esprit de corps, motivation-lie outside its vision field. It doesn’t recognize that people become more valuable over time.” To many corporate executives today, Cross, the traditional concept of training ROI is obsolete. Business unit managers value time more than ROI. Major decisions are based on descriptive business cases, not pro forma budgets. Senior executives tend to be more interested in the top line (dynamic growth from new markets and innovation) than the bottom line (the accounting fiction of profits). Why? The answer, according to Cross, is simple: “The ‘Net changes everything.” HOW TO CAPITALIZE ON E-LEARNING Look to the learner. What are the real needs? What are the options available? As Jay Cross points out, investment analysts seem to think that harvesting the rewards of e-learning is a breeze. “Simply convert your existing content to digital form, slap it onto the corporate intranet, and immediately save millions in travel, bricks and mortar, and instructor salaries while training all those IT workers everyone needs.” Alas, such is not the case. You’ve got to customize the learning for the learners. Epilogue: What to Do Now? WHAT WORKS FOR YOU One thing is certain-e-learning will evolve into something so simple, so eloquent yet all-pervasive and natural, that our grandchildren will wonder with dismay why we didn’t see it coming. We believe that Wayne Hodgins, Marcia Conner, Jay Cross, and a host of others in the field are correct when they say that we’re just watching this universe form. It will cool and coalesce to become so much a part of our everyday lives, we won’t even think of it as a separate facet of work or play. It’ll simply be how we do things. As we said when we began, nothing is the same as before. Old technologies are changing; classroom walls are rearranging. As Jay Cross puts it so well, “The ‘Net changes everything.” Or, the way we see it, the net of online learning that works is a net-net benefit for everyone, everywhere.

Correction: I am not a curmudgeon emeritus. A “curmudgeon” is a crusty, ill-tempered, and usually old man. (Thanks, John and Heather.) “Emeritus” is a fancy way of saying retired. (No, I’m still here.)

Open Source Ed

How much of eLearning should be in the public domain? What should be proprietary?

Training has a history of taking advantage of tools that were invented for other purposes. Consider the VCR. Or intranets.

If you are a large, global enterprise, you’re going to spend big bucks on a robust, scalable learning infrastructure. Even so, you’d needn’t reinvent the wheel. You’ll complement whatever you pay for with things like email, instant messaging, NetMeeting, and Java scripts.

I envision a future for shared content. If Linus Torwalds can line up an army of programmers to add functionality to the Linux kernel, why couldn’t we (you and me) enlist a core group of organizations and individuals to share learning objects?

I wrote those red words nearly two years ago. Happy to say, others have picked up the ball and are running with it very fast.

open-education.org

Open Source Content in Education by George Siemens

George has compiled a list of Edu-bloggers.

In autounfocus, David Wiley notes, “This group moves fast. Like, from initial conversations to working code in one day fast. Pin your ears back and get ready for collaborative knowledge development like you?ve never experienced before. “

It feels like this train is finally leaving the station. Bravo!

Change of Pace

Until now, the words here on the Internet Time Blog have all been tapped in by my very own fingers. Then I read David Forman's paper, Reinventing the Training Business, and thought to myself, "I couldn't have said this any better." So why try? Here's David's paper. Enjoy!

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