Professional Development – Page 20 – Whose Education Is It Anyway?

A webinar day: global love for learning

Yesterday (19th Nov) I planned to attend a few webinars – some rough notes below for the ones I made it to:

The Connected Global Educator (Global Education Conference)

The first session from this year’s GEC I have been able to attend. The GEC schedule is always hugely impressive and a great example of virtual tools being used to learn globally. However, it does not seem to attract huge audiences, at least live, with only 7 attendees (split between US, UK, Belarus, Nepal, Argentina and possibly elsewhere) for this session (with the presenter and moderator from Australia).

The presenter (Anne Mirtschin) talked about how she develops learner curiosity through global tools and collaboration. She connects with people globally with her countryside school in Australia talking to experts, community groups, other schools, etc. around the world to help learning be “far more effective than a textbook”. Using webcams, etc. also gives the students transferable skills, recognizing that people will talk via Skype, etc. in increasingly global workplaces, as well as with friends and families abroad. As well as synchronous sessions she has also used asynchronous tools, for example sending video recordings back and forth with US schools.

As well as her own activities can make us of globally organised events, for example, “International Dot Day”. Lots of good examples were run through, including using WeChat to communicate with Chinese students. She has had other educators contact her directly – finding her via Google – for example a rural Japanese school connected with them.

My take on all of this is it is amazing for cultural awareness and other learning opportunities.

Showing the value of learning as a service (LSG)

About how the presenter has changed the perception of learning and L&D at Rentokill during 3 years at the company.

Have made the move away from L&D being the experts, controlling things through a center of excellence model. Looked critically at their setup, for example, was the LMS just there for L&D rather than there to facilitate and democratize learning? Partnered with a start up (Fuse[?]) to see what could impact on business, lead to creating community based platform to source and share knowledge. Have given subject matter experts content creator/recorder tools – would have been doing it anyway locally but ability to do it easily amplified this. Particularly powerful as do on mobile whilst doing job. Realize time for 40mins eLearning had gone, follow lead of YouTube.

Made use of other tools, including mobile assessments and reflective questions. Including observational assessment guidance for managers.

Need to assess UG content? No. Likes, shares, etc. will see cream rise to top. Similarly, advantages if previous misunderstandings are now being communicated out as those people can be corrected.

Put price on items to change mindset – give business choice of going to them or elsewhere. Made people realise the benefit for L&D. Show can provide value compared to external vendors, make it easier to increase headcount based on demand from business.

Measure total of ‘learning interventions’, measure of access to digital resources – like YouTube play counts. However, even existing content has had big increases in use – not just growth through chunking.

With good content, created a revenue generating external learning platform for customers. This is same Fuse platform. For bigger customers they provide content so they can deploy themselves via an LMS or other system.

Overall a fantastic presentation on how they have transformed learning, changing the approach to learning and the business relationship.

Linking Colleagues, Researchers, Industries and Investments Today – Dr. Mirzi L. Betasolo (GEC)

Joined but unfortunately the presenter had not made the session.

Love Sharing, Love Learning (LSG)

Presentation based on some of points from new booklet Charles Jennings has done with Cornerstone.

Opening question on how people are supporting learning and sharing – wide range of ideas and tools put forward by the audience, as you would expect.

Humans are a social species – talking about natural behaviors. Technology now driving how we do this.

New work environments emerging, as a result of digital and social for many organizations the “20%” is much bigger in the mix.

Conversation a key learning tool. Need to create the correct environments, with openness and sharing. Need trust, honesty, etc. Can use questions, for example, if a performance manager you should not be talking for the majority of a conversation – mention for US after action review process.

UGC, shared search, all mentioned as playing part in wider changes. L&D role can be in speeding up knowledge sharing, [step out of the way].

No longer information scarcity, world now is one of information abundance. Mention for Jarche with KPM/SSS and those skills important in new world.

One role of L&D to find what is not available on the Internet [i.e. the real USP knowledge of your organization] – but now have options to do that seeking/sharing quicker.

Survey of College & University Faculty Workplace Engagement (Inside Higher Ed)

This sounded like a really good session considering the current focus on engagement in the corporate world. The figures, from US Higher Ed, showed some very low numbers in terms of workplace engagement. Clearly work to be done in this space.

Towards Maturity preview event: October 21st 2015

This week, ahead of the formal launch coming up in early November, I was at the “VIP Preview” of this year’s industry benchmark report.

Whilst a copy of the report was provided, much of the presentation was under a twitter embargo so I wont blog too much about the content.

Overall, as one would expect, a lot of the messages are a continuation from previous years. Indeed the idea that it is “the time to change” is not necessarily new, as I commented in 2013, it is getting increasingly difficult to continue along old paradigms.

The scale of the report continues to impress, this year c.600 L&D professionals from 55 countries fed into the data set that has led to a 20 page report.

During the event’s presentations there were a lot of points made that were good to hear, including:

findings that learners are self directed but need support
the self directed nature of learners is not generation specific, this is not a ‘millennials’ thing
need a vision of the future for learning, lots of people have one but not getting there fast enough
the vision needs to focus on improving performance, L&D need to ensure business see this – it is not about course formats
silos within HR need to end, or at least have better working across them (to foster workforce engagement)
the ‘top deck’ of higher performers are increasingly enhancing performance through access to communities, content, technology and clear communications – all where and when they are needed
fundamentally, there needs to be an end to the logic of ‘business’/’learner’/’L&D’ silos [indeed the point was made that we are all ‘colleagues’ – something I’ve argued for a while].

None of the above points will really come as a surprise to people who have followed the thinking of previous reports and the move toward ongoing “maturity”. One nice new feature, however, is a section written in a way that can be given to business leaders to challenge them to better understand what learning should be and what they should expect from their internal learning professionals.

Overall, a great evening and another interesting report.

#bethebest15

Why we should all be a little bit more like Faith No More

I’m not a huge music fan, certainly when compared to a number of my school and university friends who have been in various bands over the years, I have never really been a big follower. Sure, I tend to have LastFM (old format anyway) or YouTube on in the background when working but my gig attendance has always been fairly limited.

The gigs I have attended over the years have tended to be those bands that caught my attention in my youth. These are the bands who have kept a place in my ears, through my not particularly rebellious years, the dance floors of my student days and into our modern streaming world. One band that has made it through that whole journey is Faith No More.

An excellent Guardian article on Faith No More’s most recent comeback and album got me thinking that their style and refusal to be easily classified into one musical genre or another has, perhaps, had a more profound impact on me than I had ever realized.

So what did I take from that article? Well, messages such as:

make decisions based on your desires and convictions
be prepared to take the implications of your decisions
don’t fall into a box just because people think you should
we are all unique.

I still see a lot of comments in the workplace related literature that is keen to put people into some kind of ‘social style’ or other box – be it based on sex, age, characteristic or other factor. I have never been keen on this kind of profiling and perhaps the variety of my music tastes (from early 80s hip-hop to early 00s cheese; from Elvis Presley to Edith Pilaf) suggest some ‘out of the box’ thinking on my part. However, I suspect I am far from abnormal in not being easily ‘profiled’.

So let’s celebrate our differences, let’s recognize our individual capabilities, let’s share our experiences and let’s combine all of this into something even greater than the sum of our parts. This is at least part of what L&D should be doing, encouraging people to reflect and make the workplace better through their unique contributions, as one member of FnM puts it in the article:

“We came back and we made it better. If that’s the only lesson we learned, that’s a good lesson.”

Webinar live blogging: A 3D virtual business simulation for experiential learning in first year accounting

As mentioned many a time on this blog, I do not post all the notes I make from webinars, reading and the like on here. This is partly as they totally consumed my old blog and made more reflective posts difficult to find.

Anyway, I was up early today to attend a “Transforming Assessment” webinar from ascilite in Australia and thought I would post some thoughts here in real-time, [in brackets is me rather than session content].

[I have attended a few of this series and thought this one might be interesting in understanding what my organization’s grad hires might be expecting going forward].
[Business sims are, of course, tricky but they have the scope to really achieve practical learning].
[Quick screen shot at start – looks like using Second Life].
800-1000 students per semester.
Title: “Accounting for Decision-Making”. Not intended as a technical, debit/credit, course. Instead focus on supporting business decision-making.
Includes face-to-face lectures and seminars and some traditional assessments. However, reviewed course off back of some negative student survey feedback around engagement (business students not enjoying the accounting element and therefore not picking up the correct outcomes).
Therefore, try to get more active learning with students more actively participating.
Reviewed in 2015, including simulation and web based assessment – complete overhaul of lectures, seminars, etc. too, all with active learning focus.
Not off the shelf – worked with piersim.com/about : International Education Services who had used a 3D world for a number of years. Collaborated with them to develop the world for their use.
Developed the Virtual Business Enterprise (VBE). 20 student operated businesses with a supporting central bank. Students control a number of things, including product pricing.
App is available at all times, can plan work around the trading session.
http://pier-enterprise.com/
[ran through some of the functionality] VBE dashboard allows students to communicate, to view financial reports, manage their profile, select their ‘job’ in company.
To access the VBE requires download of the VBE Viewer.
What happens in a session: uses avatars, preplanned and agreed tasks as well as in-world decisions (buy inventory or not, pricing of products, advertising decisions).
Software based on OpenSim.
Once a week for six weeks: 50 min trading session within the world.
One student per group use avatar, others communicating and performing tasks on dashboard.
Use financial statement from each session to consider what to do for next.
VBE is a shopping mall [showed some screenshots].
Game elements – if do not trade then the character’s health drops. Had a staff member in session to rejuvenate any character that died[!].
Want them to take risks and make decisions (based on the accounting information) in a safe environment.
Can go to bank and take loans if they think appropriate: balance repayments/interest rates/etc.
In world law court for dealing with disputes [sounded like quite a lot of logic behind it] – if you cut quality of products you can be sued via court. The in-house staff member (‘controller’) decides as judge.
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYDaYgt7i-M&feature=youtu.be – slower than real: is more frantic in the 50 minute trading sessions.
Assessment was linked to: business plan assignment combining lecture, tutorial and virtual world learning.
Business plan was to support a loan application on next 12 months worth of planning.
Induction session [https://www.facebook.com/uqbusiness/videos/988464357871851/] run for people on the VBE prior to first trade session.
Student feedback: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-y6WhIhrLc&feature=youtu.be : overall has gone well, with positive feedback, but not all students liked it – including due to technical problems.

Overall a good presentation and an interesting approach for trying to deliver the learning outcomes.

The (Work)Force Awakens

There has been a lot of interest recently in the importance of engagement in the workplace. My view would be that this is not as generation influenced as some commentators would believe and has to be looked at as part of the bigger picture.

Emergent trends such as the rise of holocracy, and apparent disappointment with it, can be seen as part of a growth in thinking, again, about the nature of work. Even if it is easy to see holocracy, itself, as the latest management fad.

The rise of the ‘manager class’, seen in many fields (including Chinese Higher Education), seems to be slowing through association with unnecessary bureaucracy. Therefore, we are left with valid questions about what the alternatives may be.

Some politicians would have you believe that workers are no longer exploited, the argument from many quarters would no doubt be that without some kind of partnership model for all staff there remains inequality and a lack of engagement.

If we consider organizational knowledge management, in the format it has emerged around SharePoint solutions at least, as reinforcing silos in organizations through endless permission setting. The ‘circles’ of holocracy and alternative structures offer an appealing alternative. Indeed If we consider the future to be that of ‘learner workers’, not ‘knowledge workers’, then we can perhaps go so far as to say the individual finally moves to the position of prominence beyond any kind of team structure.

There would be additional options here, data can now be gathered and presented in so many ways that an appeal by the workforce for more engaging workplaces and better representation will likely come at a cost of closer (and often automatic) scrutiny.

This is all in an environment where the ‘war for talent’ might be hotting up with demand outstripping labor supply in some markets. In the UK at least this will likely result in further brain drain from public sector austerity and then more finger pointing when public expenses come in over budget, projects delayed and seemingly using never ending streams of temporary staff (from high-end consultants to the large volume of agency nurses plugging NHS staffing gaps).

There are plenty of suggestions for ways to engage the workforce, such as opening the books, to make people better understand their influence on the bottom line. The challenge is that many options come back, again, to the ownership model and if that supposed end to exploitation sees a future of joint ownership rather than one of zero hour contracts, freelancing and uncertainty.

This all obviously has huge implications for any local learning and how fit for purpose models such as PLC will be going forward. L&D can play their part, but the post-recession awakening in high demand jobs is only likely to lead to your people following the dark side (of more money at your competitors) if you can not fundamentally consider them as equals.