Whose Education Is It Anyway?

CILIP rebrand part two – aka for the love of ‘qualifications’

I had not intended to follow up my previous post with another but the disaster* that has been the CILIP corporate rebranding exercise has perhaps allowed for just as big an issue to go seemingly unnoticed.

This elephant in the room is what is happening to CILIP Qualifications. Firstly, I will admit it’s not all bad but this just seems to make it even more disconcerting, the PKSB is good (as I’ve already suggested) and the simplifications in process make sense. So what’s bad then? Well…

Fixed time (20 hours) for CPD – many members will know the problems this causes in their industries. Lawyers, accountants, teachers and many more have professions backed by timesheet driven box ticking – no focus on learning outcomes or application of learning in the workplace or other professional activity. Building a portfolio of evidence can be a pain but if we genuinely want reflective practitioners, working from a strong research basis, then portfolios are far better than saying ‘yep I’ve attended a course for two hours’. This time driven approach is also difficult in light of 70/20/10 and other models which recognize the fuzziness of informal learning. Again a portfolio, which for many people will be based on a blog they are maintaining anyway, allows for better recognition, articulation and reflection of and on learning. I presume this is a change to encourage members to re-validate chartered status rather than doing it once and then letting it lapse, I fear it will simply water down the status of the ‘chartered’ role. Of course a name change, from CILIP, within the rebrand may do this anyway.
“Registration” – from primary school to Ellis Island this implies, to me, something you have to do. Something you are forced into to make sure a greater power is aware you exist. This is not how I envision my professionalism. It is a tricky one, granted, but why not ‘career path’, ‘development path’, etc? Perhaps the logic is that new professionals can be told to ensure they are ‘professionally registered’. However, it again implies something you are doing for the good of CILIP rather than yourself.

* I’m taking “disaster” as the correct term on the basis that:

it has split the membership (the General Meeting vote being roughly 50/50) and undoubtedly alienated many people (the c.90% of members who did not vote).
correctly singled out on JISCmail lists and elsewhere as how not to perform change or communication management.
seemingly led to CILIP HQ being on the defensive and even less representative of the members than normal; the decision to call on branches and groups to support the rebrand seemed particularly odd as branches should be the conduit for membership concerns, not the other way around.
it even led to a horribly tabloid piece in The Times.

What does this all mean – well it encourages me to become even more withdrawn from the organization. Indeed I may well fall into the ‘paying my dues and revalidating for the sake of it’ group I hint at above. Amazing that a group I had such enthusiasm for six or so years ago can sap it away from you quite so impressively.

Did the Corporate University kill the Learning and Development department?

A lot of interesting stuff in the LPI’s report on the first results from L&D professionals mapping their skills to their new capability profiles.

For me, the big question which emerges seems to be if the trend for ‘corporate universities’ (CU)/’academies’/’business schools’/etc. have ultimately restricted L&D down a path they will struggle to come out of. Yes, the CU focus can be argued as having created rigor in course development and deployment, often decreasing the reliance on third party training providers or off-the-shelf content, but they have in places restricted L&D to a fairly narrow subset of the the parent organization’s focus. The LPI summary suggesting the results show L&D professionals “lack the breadth of skill required”.

Where L&D is disparate from other support functions (including HR, IT and KM functions) there is immediately a risk of disconnect when it comes to actually building an overall framework for employee development and increased work efficiency.

Of course this isn’t necessarily a problem, yes you might need a wakeup call but, in some organizations delivering/developing trainings might be just what is needed. It might be that the organization needs what LPI results would suggest, at least historically, the respondents can supply.

The challenge from the LPI and other benchmarking would be for these professionals to reflect and consider if their team really offers what their organization needs and, perhaps more importantly if they do not, is another department at least filling the gaps. As an L&D professional you might want a role that we can see as the “21st Century profession” but other professionals are similarly looking at expanding responsibilities so I slightly question if the “Training Ghetto” is inevitably a bad thing.

Just as an academic university is only as good as its student support (including libraries, IT and facilities) perhaps the challenge now for corporate universities is recognizing how to create the collegiate atmosphere around courses (social learning) and user generated content management (library services). That information architecture and developing communities/collaborative learning are identified as weaknesses in the LPI results then it would seem to be an area L&D departments need to improve in or at least leverage other teams in their organizations.

RSA videos on the school system

A One Nation Schools System (Stephen Twigg)

Stephen Twigg has emerged from the shadows, aka the often criticised for being policy-light opposition benches, with a ‘One Nation’ take on schools. His talk is on the RSA video channel and his opinions have been picked up elsewhere, including on the Local Schools Network (LSN) and The Guardian.

I find it interesting that the YouTube comments have picked up on why online learning is not considered in the debate. I’ve mentioned on various platforms in the past that online education should allow for better interaction between educators and parents and more consistency for students. It sounds like ‘One Nation’ Labour are still looking for ‘local challenges’ to schools rather than recognizing the need to educate, not for local communities, but for a globalized world. To raise aspiration, I would argue a key aspect is to make young people aware of the opportunities available to them by not looking locally but to the national and global level. This would help deal with a number of issues facing our nations, including assisting with making young people more entrepreneurial and aware of the importance of exporting goods and resources.

Twigg calls for “networked” schools but the focus seems to be on local communities playing their part, it will be interesting to see if the announced work for David Blunkett simply recommends a return to more LEA style-coordination. Presumably, as Labour introduced academies, they are potentially just as likely to ignore reports into their weaknesses as Twigg suggests the current Education Secretary has around Free Schools.

He also suggests schools working together, but still doesn’t mention online learning and tutoring specifically in this speech. I would say the physical bringing together of children in schools immediately puts up walls, physical and metaphorical. Schools create a “them and us” mentality; online platforms ignore location in a way that would enable the level playing field Twigg desires. This would include sharing the best teachers to more pupils and dealing with the challenge of meeting the crisis of students outside educational institutions, again ignored here.

Twigg says Free Schools, via their current approval process, will dry up but I don’t think he actually sets out how he will deal with the challenge of places he acknowledges (and is asked about). The necessity of likely school building costs needs to be seriously considered, and has probably been made even more pressing by the axing of the Building Schools for the Future programme. There is a suggestion in the Q&A that Labour will not throw money at the challenges, thus how will One Nation labour save money and deal with the exploding issue of class sizes fuelled by immigration under the last Labour government? Twigg identifies quality of teaching, by qualified teachers, as a way to improve schools. This includes making outstanding schools partner and support those that are struggling. He does not, in such a short speech, get into specifics. However, class sizes were the old argument piece in education (pre-Free Schools) and I would argue a shift to online would allow us to move from worrying about class sizes, within physical schools, to the better measure of 1-2-1 educator to pupil time.

I would agree with the LSN post that Twigg’s positivity is a big step forward, as opposed to the current cycle of argument between schools and government. However, whilst the current anti-Gove atmosphere in schools is one thing it should not be forgotten that the Shadow Chancellor, Ed Balls, was not particularly popular with educators either when responsible for schools. A move to online could offer the teachers, who feel stressed and alienated by the current environment, a flexible working model that allows them to continue to contribute to the profession. Those who excel in 1-2-1 coaching could concentrate there whilst large group presenting masters could specialize in that area.

The following speaker, from Kings College, identified the current patchy quality. I would again argue an online schooling system can deal with this challenge. Bringing the sector together online would help to deal with the inequalities she highlights, including pupils identifying themselves by their local hierarchy.

Overall, the talk and Q&A confirms the insular approach of schools, I would say regional government has to be seen as failing here. The public sectors advantage should be in freedom to share and network, league tables have not helped but are not solely to blame for the cultural problems. There are clearly a whole host of challenges to tackle; online schooling, I would argue, is a potential solution. Pitching it to teachers unions, educators, parents and evidently politicians is the next step – and I would not be keen about using the ‘cloud’ term.

Redesigning Education: Shaping Learning Systems around the Globe (Global Education Leaders’ Program)

This second video has a vision more in line with my own, as hinted at above. However, the six design principles ‘GELP’ highlights are hardly revolutionary in their own. Indeed there is still talk of ‘classrooms’ and brining technology into the classroom. In addition, a lot of the ‘ecosystem’ talk is largely meaningless, at least in the detail afforded by the presentation format.

There is a growing consensus that system transformation, not school improvement, is the necessary response.

This excellent comment from the GELP website does not really seem to get followed up in the presentation as their ‘transformation’ seems to be about schools working together (as Twigg advocated) but not transforming the system. Again, I would argue there is no reason why such collaboration has not existed in the past. Whilst league tables can be blamed, universities do collaborate in a similarly competitive admissions market. The argument for forcing change on schools would be that have they failed to transform themselves.

The Q&A inevitably leads to the point that schools are effectively forced by parents/students demand to focus on grades due to their implications in the post-school (work/university) world. This, again, is a common complaint in the university sector where educators fear students are solely interested in reaching the 2.1 benchmark. Personally I would advocate that Open Badges, ePortfolios, etc might be what is needed here. Ultimately a ‘young persons’ LinkedIn’ (like http://tyba.com/) to make young people more transparent to employers could be built out of online schooling and help with the crisis of youth unemployment?

Whose Education is it Anyway?

In answer to this website’s fundamental question there is clearly a flaw in both of these presentations – the ‘Global Education Leaders’ and politicians may decide what they think is best (based on varying research/practice bases). However, as shown in a recent report, parents and students (at least in the US) are already recognizing the value in online. The challenge for the UK, in my opinion, is for the online developments to be led by teachers and school leaders rather than having a system imposed upon them. Success will make it impossible for politicians, or anyone else, to then pull the rug away.

“No more sitting on the fence” (Learning Technologies 2013 Summer Forum)

It was great to hear this, just a shame it was from a Learning Management System (LMS) vendor talking specifically about Tin Can. However, it was my take away message from the recent Learning Technologies 2013 Summer Forum (LTSF). The statement acts as something of a wakeup call; Learning and Development departments need to deliver, not just responding to fads but offering a joined up approach. A Learning Management System that offers holistic support is, realistically, probably the easiest way to structure that support.

The challenge in my eyes, however, is if a LMS remains realistic. In many ways they have evolved to the point where they cross over with many other systems, not least the near universal SharePoint. Their USP remains testing/SCORM tracking and as such a stripped down basic LMS might work better than one which supports all the possibilities now discussed at events like LTSF. If you are going beyond this then you need a joined up approach between L&D, Knowledge Management, competitor intelligence and other teams for:

Internal communication,
Sharing resources
Learning

With this in place professionals’ (in whatever company) know where sharing is recommended (although they’ll of course still use Twitter), how to collaborate, where to access relevant learning (preferably embedded with the relevant work tools) and have a clear understanding of how their career can progress both within their current organization or elsewhere.

Fad – A fashion that is taken up with great enthusiasm for a brief period of time; a craze.

L&D now have tools to deliver what a business needs by combining pieces of the puzzle so they are no longer seen as fads. Indeed the LTSF presentation I attended from MindClick outlined some of the ways an LMS can be used for 1-2-1 support (the importance of which has been recognized by Bloom and others) at a distance, including via personal development plans, BYOD and badges (which in isolation could be seen as fads). One way for your new LMS to not be seen as impractical is to make money and the SAAS LMS model is increasingly being sold as one to enable course sales via the extended enterprise. This could be a fundamental shift for some L&D departments from pure internal support and, arguably, help drive up quality as a result.

The LTSF was dominated by a number of topics/tools for me:

1) Tin Can/The Experience API/xAPI

2) (Open) Badges

3) (Learning) Analytics

4) Mobile (Learning/Delivery/Authoring)

5) Social (Learning/Collaboration)

6) 70/20/10

7) Personalization (development plans/personalized curriculums)

8) LMS/Portal developments

9) eLearning

So, when is a fad not a fad? Perhaps items 8 and 9 on this list can now be seen as evolutionary rather than revolutionary but the others are still gaining slow adoption. The struggle for mobile adoption picked up by Andrew Jackson’s article (The shortest lived technology fad ever?) over on TrainingZone. He also points out that eLearning is still revolutionary for many businesses which, whilst keeping some e-learning companies and consultants going, is – I would say – just a little depressing really in 2013.

I would agree that mobile was a fad but I would say it must now be considered as part of the learning designers’ toolkit, just as it is for marketers and other industries. I would effectively consider 3-9 ‘traditional’ tools and 1-2 simply new ways of doing old things. Ultimately the speed of ‘new’ technologies has changed and working them into a learning model should not be as hard as many people at such events seem to feel they are. That said, they are not always as easy to adopt as the vendors would like to suggest but that is technical adoption rather than the enthusiasm of working something into your learning approach. Enthusiasm, vision and a willingness to try things do not really need to be restricted by budgets either. It was clear from a number of LTSF stalls that ‘phase 1’ deployments are something vendors are willing to support to prove concepts locally.

Yes, as Andrew says, we shouldn’t get hung up on the technology but neither should we discount the potential (especially of Tin Can) to transform learning and development. Both 1 & 2 potentially open us all up to the world and make us think about our skills development in new ways, which can only be a good thing in my opinion (taking into account certain risks of course). That said, LMS tracking, certifications and other tools did some of this in the past. The outstanding question at LTSF seemed to be if capturing experiences should be automatic via Tin Can or rely on self certification. I can see a value in a learning log of the (noun>verb>object) statements but reflection is also needed somewhere in terms of goal setting, and understanding your own learning. I can see TC and Badges reinvigorating the personal web space and ePortfolio debate (or at least pushing LinkedIn into full adoption).

I think what Andrew tries to suggest is that, with mobile, we have simply responded to new devices, fine, but I would like to think that that response is about acknowledging issues such as flash vs. html5, app vs. browser, form factors, location of learner, etc. it should have never been about tablet vs. phone vs. laptop vs. desktop per se. Similarly Epic’s talk at LTSF correctly identified that the Experience API (aka Tin Can) is useful in what it can mean for analytics, such as assessing the impact of learning, and thinking differently about the courses rather than about the development of a Learning Record Store for the sake of the learning logs alone. KnowledgeAdvisors hinted at the potential of combining MetricsThatMatter data sets with performance data to change how L&D operates. This includes making use of data to drive “performance based vendor management”, such as paying eLearning vendors only a percentage of their bills if their materials fail to improve workers’ performance.

Now, I appreciate my main interest is in Learning Technologies but many people seemed new to Tin Can and Badges. That so many people did not seem to comprehend these is worrying and indicative that, like with mobile, we face years of presentations, white papers, etc that simply rehash arguments. Maybe I have a ‘start-up mentality’ but I would rather see people presenting on early adoption failures than introductory presentations. I hope this is what we see at Learning Technologies in January but I will not hold my breath. Even better will be successful coming together of the two with experiences (captured via Tin Can) driving badge creation. Another interesting piece will be to see the development and interaction of “apps everywhere” (as NetDimensions called them) with learning record stores and/or LMSs. However, this is potentially not too different to offline LMS access that NetDimensions, and others, have supported via USB drive LMS systems.

The problem may be that for L&D to succeed in implementing what appears to be an optimized learning strategy it would need to be all encompassing of an organisation. People will only socially collaborate and ‘surface’ informal learning in a tool if it is a tool they have to use or, unlikely, want to. Thus, new ‘social learning’ tools at LTSF do not fill me with confidence – if someone is already using SharePoint, Yammer or similar has L&D not got to leverage that? It would seem nigh on impossible to work in a light weight LMS/social tool such as Svelte Social (new to me I think at LTSF) if you have other tools in place. NetDimensions, whose presenter used the “fence” idea, did a good job in explaining if the LMS can fit in as the social tool or not by saying organisation need to decide what system will be the “social bedrock of their organization”. Here I would argue culture comes in as, say, a university has an advantage that the ‘place of work’ will be the VLE/LMS so the university’s staff can be encouraged to use that same tool for their own development as it is already the “bedrock” for their daily work. It is more difficult in a corporate context but the big tools, like Salesforce, have acknowledged it by working social into their own tools.

I came away from the main Learning Technologies event earlier in the year feeling somewhat underwhelmed. The question now seems to be, as vendors are making the jump into Tin Can and other solutions, can Learning and Development departments use these appropriately to meet business needs? Simply adding on bells and whistles to an existing, monolithic LMS doesn’t seem to be an option to me. Instead, organizations as a whole need to consider if L&D professionals in their organization really are just about running/building courses (as NetDimensions pointed out L&D and LMSs in some organisations are simply for compliance) or if they are true partners in making organizations “collectively smarter”.

For the record these are the talks I attended:

1) The use of Tin Can and Open Badges for learning programmes (EPIC)

2) Meeting learning objectives with Totara LMS (MindClick)

3) How to build a business case for formalization of learning analytics (KnowledgeAdvisors – largely the same as these slides)

4) What you need to know about portals (Redware)

5) LMS – Evolution or extinction? (NetDimensions – seemingly a follow up to this article)

6) Apps and video communications – top 5 things you need to know (Dreamtek)

Capitalism 4.0

Anatole Kaletsky’s 2010 book has a question that I had not really thought about before – when did the 21st Century start?

1815 and 1918 are the dates, as a historian, you often associate with the previous two centuries. Kaletsky considers key dates in the 21st.

Identified are 1989 (Berlin Wall collapse and the WWW being two of five “major transformations”).

However, the era of “Capitalism 3.0” ended in 2008 (with the collapse of Lehmans) and thus the 21st century began.

For the record:
– Capitalism 1.0 = laissez faire (1776-1932)
– Capitalism 2.0 = state involvement (1931-1980)
– Capitalism 3.0 = Thatcher-Reagan led (1979-2008)

As a history graduate I like to try and step back from issues and consider these trends. In-particular, the point made that it was not just cheap credit that caused the 2008 problems. It was a wider self-destruction of “market fundamentalism”, growth driven by 30m communist souls opened to western goods.

The argument is that we now face a period of balance between state and free-market.

So will we look back and consider a banking crash to be the great apocalyptic moment of our generation – when we moved into a new century of new concepts? Perhaps – its something to keep in mind going forward though.