Saturday, February 25, 2017
Over a 100 perspectives on L D at this blog Part 1
Over a 100 perspectives on L D at this blog Part 1
"Its easy to sound smart, when you parrot the wise" - Someone I cant remember.
I have absolutely no remorse in saying that most of my ideas are not original. In fact I dont even believe in originality. To me originality is the fine art of hiding the source, which unfortunately Im crap at - so I like to give credit to the sources I steal from. After all, isnt synthesis one way of way of expressing your creativity? Im stealing another idea today, but before I tell you what that idea is let me tell you what Im trying to do. Until sometime in 2008, my blog was just a catch all for everything that made its way into my stream of consciousness. Since then, Ive made a concerted effort to focus this blog on issues related to modern learning and development. Were halfway through 2010 now and before I write anymore, I wanted to provide my readers a map to this blog. This is also my way to reiterate the how I think about L&D and where I as a practitioner see things going.
So whats the idea Im stealing? I loved Tom Kuhlmanns format where he provided answers to frequently asked questions about rapid elearning. I have no pretensions to being an expert like Tom, but I do get into a lot of conversations in the community and I often get asked questions too. So Id love to use a similar format to explain how I think and to give you a map for the content on this blog. Given how much of a common man I am in the learning industry, this is as close Ill get to an interview! Incidentally, I have over a 100 links that Im sharing through this and the next blogpost - so keep track of them! In fact for your browsing ease, Ive also catalogued them on my delicious bookmarks. Allright, these are going to be fairly long blogposts so I wont waste any of your time - lets get going.
I confess to being an L&D industry common man. I work at ThoughtWorks, a company that defies traditional theories of management, as director of workplace learning. Of the many things I do, I run one of the best graduate induction programs in the IT industry - ThoughtWorks University. As part of my technology education background, I have a strong bias for free and open-source software, though Im also a hard-core Apple fanboy. Youll often see me as a participant on various webinars. I tweet using the handle sumeet_moghe and heres my Linkedin profile.
The most important thing you need to know about me is that I hate being a one trick pony. In fact, I prefer being a learning generalist, more appropriately a versatilist. Having said that, you cant take me too seriously because Im neither a researcher nor an academic. I cant vouch for the statistical accuracy of what I write or profess. All I can say is that what I write is true for me and my experience.
To be very frank, theres only so much I can do as an individual. I think theres heaps of interesting stuff happening all across the industry and Im particularly interested to see how people are using their skills to solve real business problems. So thats the reason I like attending webinars. Now the reportings a completely different story. You must remember that Im not the only live blogger out there. In fact, Ive taken inspiration for this from Cammy Bean, whos just fantastic when live-blogging events. Shes just so good that its impossible to match up the number of events she reports and the quality she brings to her reporting. Im just following her lead trying to share what I learn in each of these events with the rest of the world.
Theres a lot of interesting stuff youll see on my webinar reports and conference reports. Theres over 30 different events where Ive learnt interesting stuff ranging from Ruth Clarks approach to scenario based learning, to Jane Harts approach to selecting a social learning platform. And then there are brilliant experience reports by folks like Steve Ash and Lars Hyland, so I think that theres a lot going on with the webinar circuit that deserves reporting.
I dont think I do a very good job of keeping up. I have a 12 hour day at work on the best days and theres very little time I have otherwise to stay abreast with everything in the industry. That said, I think over time Ive learned how to learn and all the informal networks Im part of, are helping me grow as a professional. In addition, some thought around how to structure my personal knowledge management framework has helped, so when I do dip my toe into the river of information, I end up making the dip fruitful!
First things first, I like to believe that theres a shift happening in the way we collaborate on teams. This is not to say that things have turned on their head, but I definitely think that theres a change in the control structure and the dogma around the best ways to collaborate. I still love face to face communication (who doesnt), but I like to believe that if you cant collaborate without being colocated, youre perhaps not agile enough. There are so many great tools that can help your team collaboration soar, that you need to keep your eyes open for things that are changing in the technology space.
Well my views on presentation skills have evolved over time. To me, the McKinsey Mind quote, “Presentation is the ‘Killer Skill’ we take into the real world. It’s almost an unfair advantage.”; is an indication of how important this craft is. To contrast that with the amount of slideumentation we see in the corporate world, is depressing to say the least! This said, I dont think its rocket science to do good presentations. If you plan effectively, choose the right tool for your presentation, use simple techniques to create meaningful visuals, and avoid some of the common mistakes, you should be well and truly on your way to matching Steve Jobs!
Yes and no! I started off my career as a training facilitator and thats perhaps my strongest skill even today. I look at training as a distinct discipline from presentations, so while media skills are crucial to training, they arent all trainings about. As a trainer, the biggest virtue you can have is patience - you need to believe that your learners can do it! You need to know how the brain remembers, the effective use of language patterns in the class, ways to encourage participation and to handle QnA. There are various subtelties in being a trainer. For example, competition lends momentum to training, but how do you ensure that people learn to collaborate amongst all the fun? Another example I love to talk about is around the issue of entertainment in the classroom - how much is enough? As a trainer Im always looking to improve my skills in leading socratic discussion, eliciting well formed outcomes, reviewing concepts effectively -- and student feedback always helps. After all, its a performance of sorts and we need to ensure that its of the highest quality.
Again, most of this is experiential and I cant vouch for the academic authenticity of my opinions. Im big on rapid design of any kind. Back in the day, I was thinking about rapid instructional design with Powerpoint and Ive come down that road thinking how we can apply Agile principles to elearning design as well. Theres however an aspect of this which Im extremely passionate about - the role of an instructional designer. I strongly believe that its not about the tools - creativity is key. The typical elearning projects are late, poorly designed and just dont solve performance problems. We need a breed of passionate instructional designers, who have more skills than just writing. When we start leveraging our SMEs effectively instead of looking at them as barriers to our instructional process, were likely to produce high quality outputs.
Why just elearning? If were creative enough we can not just apply them to transactions such as simulation design, but also solve complex problems like induction. But coming to the topic of elearning - I like to apply the rapid paradigm. On this blog Ive demonstrated that it is possible to produce elearning on a shoestring. Its important to remember that you dont need to do everything within elearning - you need to find a way to integrate all of the rich media from the web. If youre big on rapid elearning just in the same way that I am, you should take a look at my 6 tips for rapid elearning success. In addition, pay attention to meaningful interactivity, your navigation scheme and your information architecture and youll find that it isnt rocket science to create high quality, yet low cost elearning.
This brings me to the end of this blogpost - in my next post, Ill cover off other stuff that I usually write about. Do let me know if you like this map to my blog. Ill look forward to your commentary.
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