My informal learning sources have been

• my genetic mix: I love colour but have a kind of dyslexia with maps and other wholistic, non-linear images;
• my ongoing attempts to understand visuals both moving and still;
• my husband, who studied film, including art, at BU, and continues to read and explore museums and other visual worlds;
• colleagues who have formally studied art and/or graphic design; and
• books such as Robin William's The Non-Designer's Design Book, which I highly recommend.

So I'm a autodidact in visual content, kind of in the position of "I don't know art, but I know what I like."

And what I like is simplicity and contrast. When I look at Jay Cross's graph on informal learning, above, I can understand the information immediately. When I was early into the web and both Yahoo and the upstart Google were young, I chose which to follow by appearance.

For me, there was no problem choosing - I went to the visual simplicity of Google. I found the Yahoo page overwhelming and confusing. But I don't think that's visual literacy; I think it's just the way my perception works. Other people may well prefer the complexity and detail of Yahoo's page.

Currently I'm working on preparing a presentation for MERLOT in August so I've been looking at what's online about PLEs, (Personal Learning Environments) - part of my topic. I found this wonderful wiki filled with visualizations of PLEs - http://edtechpost.wikispaces.com/PLE+Diagrams My favorite is Dave Tosh's -

I like it because he uses icons and different shapes to help convey the meaning, before text comes into play. I like the contrasts and repetitions  that help me sort out the information. Whenever a representation simply positions relatively similar shapes filled with text in different parts of the page, my dyslexia kicks in and it's so much work to decipher it, that I give up unless it's really, really important to me.

However!

That's not the whole story (or even very much) of my take on the importance of visual thinking. Even we visual illiterates can use visual thinking, which I take to mean sketching and laying out information visually as a form of drafting, as part of composing. Mostly when I write, I just start writing, letting my words lead me to a structure that I then use to shape the second draft. Even outlines with their phrases and indenting didn't work for me. I was solidly text-based, figuring out what to say by writing, sometimes in journal-style, without worrying about correctness or structure. Then I would mine this ore for the thoughts I wanted to shape and present to readers.

Over my adulthood, the culture has become much more visual. Over the previous century photography, visual and audio recording, and the increasing use of graphic design have led to our receiving more information visually. Visual composers use sketches and storyboards; they think visually. Even text-based people now add images to their written pieces, use PowerPoint, and sometimes venture into short videos. Plus, with the advent of the possibilities of word-processing, text has also become a visual experience that affects how people read.

When I started preparing the PowerPoint expected for my conference presentation, I found, as I have previously, that I was having trouble writing my way into composing my content for a visual medium. I needed to do something visual to help me compose my presentation. A delightful coincidence occurred. I was inspired by Michele Martin's PLE mindmap.

and in my Twitter explorations, I discovered Wisdomap. Michele's inspiration and the stumbling onto a new web app to play with led me to create my own current PLE mindmap -

And here's what the whole Wisdomap screen looks like -

I really like the added features - I can attach videos, images, files and sites to my mindmap for a richer collection of information. And, when I had some problems with this beta app, they responded quickly and sorted out the bugs.

So I'm thinking with visual tools; both my Wisdomap page with my PLE mindmap and associated materials, and my PowerPoint presentation allow me to think visually.

However, I believe this doesn't mean I'm visually literate, just that I can (and need to) use visuals in my composing, in my thinking. Peter Elbow, I think, wrote that the person that benefits most from writing a textbook, is the writer him or herself. Even poorly written textbooks (and there are many) make the author think through the information and put it into context, thus learning it more deeply. Writing is a way of learning. Writing theorists universally encourage the keeping of journals and engaging in free-writing, informal writing, to think with and learn through. I think learning the habit of informal visual thinking is an important addition to free-writing as ways of thinking and learning.

Using visual tools to think with, using them informally, is increasingly a neccessity in this increasingly visual age. You don't have to be visually skilled and/or literate to think visually informally; you just have to figure out what works for you and find those tools.

OK, I thought - what we need to do is to set up an online community of practice for staff to share resources and discuss issues using forums, blogs, podcasts and wikis and the rest of the Web 2.0 paraphernalia that we all know and love. After all, for teachers, there is nothing like actually using this stuff  to develop a feel for how it might work with students.

Being a member of several such communities, I thought that the best solution for us would be a Ning-powered site and this was duly set up. It was deliberately left open, because my view is that external input is highly desirable for any community of practice - even when that community's primary focus lies within a more narrow institution-based environment.

And the response from management? Oh my. But it's on an external site! That means we are at the mercy of an outside provider! What if they go broke? No, no - we have to create a private site on our own in-house system (which incidentally has very few 'features', is not accessible outside the institution's network and is still in beta!) And (gasp) what about our IP? You put this on Ning and other people will be able to read our thoughts and ideas!

Aaaaaaaaaaargh!! 

So after this shining example of institutional scotoma, I calmed down (just a tad) and got to thinking about what a 'Community of Practice' ideally should be, what it is in practice, and what it is seen to be in the eyes of institutional managers. I can see that IP issues can be important where sensitive commercial matters are involved, or where knowledge inadvertently released into the public domain might give a competitor a strategic advantage. I can see that management might have a preference for in-house systems when time and money has been spent to develop them. But I can't see the point of an in-house re-invention of the wheel when outside providers have products which are free (or very inexpensive), are loaded with features, talk to each other - and actually work.

I fail to see how quarantining collaborative conversations about learning can have any outcome other than the creation of an insular and counter-productive educational climate. Such avoidance of external scrutiny means that we end up with a dearth of critical friends, whose input is vital to the healthy growth of a robust eLearning philosophy. How else can we develop operational fluency with learning technologies if not for the input of a large experienced user base outside our own borders? How can we make valid generalisations about strategies, techniques and technologies when our sample is restricted to those within our walls?

Jay Cross got it in one in a recent blog post:

"If your learning plans don't embrace the power of networks, go back to the drawing board for another look. Learning occurs in conversations, collaboration, knowledge transfer, focused news, and other network phenomena ... In learning, being authentic means admitting that we don't have all the answers. It's hooking people up so they may learn from and with one another."

A community of practice for teachers is no different to one for learners. We are "hooking people up so they may learn from and with one another." The more people, the more diversity. The more differing viewpoints which enter the conversation, the more learning that will take place. That, to me, is a community of practice.

Anything less is a committee.

Here are some of the key ideas and conversations that Jay started:

• All learning is the same  - kids, adults, novices, experts etc all learn in the same way
• Learning is looking at the world and looking for patterns to control the environment
• We learn more from our mistakes – BUT reflection is key!
• The greatest technology for learning is human conversation – it’s the heart of learning.
• The prime activity of web 2.0 and informal learning is collaboration
• The long tail in L&D: we need to let learners go out and learn things for themselves because we won’t always have a course for everything.
• Be the catalyst, start things off then leave it. Let people connect the dots, don’t do it for them – this is the secret of informal learning.
• Individuals don’t make things happen – it’s groups that make change happen. Relationships are crucial. The only way to do things better is to link arms and collaborate – do things together.

Tools:

Blogs:

• endless streams of memos
• empowering people to create content
• participation through comments so may be limiting – the major message is coming from one source.
• More control than a wiki
• You can know it’s a blog but others don’t need to know it’s a blog – terminology might scare some away.
• Start with “plogs” – project blogs
• You can keep free, internet based blogs private – maybe start with one of these?

Wikis:

• participation is the key
• it’s a book with blank pages that we can all change
• you need to water these things, to make the plant grow.

 How do you deal with the “what if’s..” – use the analogy of a restaurant: restaurants serve steaks – people need sharp knives to cut these steaks but do you see cages in restaurants so people don’t attack each other with the sharp knives? The same applies for blogs/wikis – in a work environment staff know how to behave – at the end of the day they are still at work and need to comply with existing policies etc.

One of the main things that stayed with me after the day was it’s not about the technology – it’s about the people and making the connections and flow of  conversations easier. Learning is about how you can do a better job – it doesn’t matter how you get there.

And the most important thing: get out of the way and let people do their thing and they’ll teach each other. We can’t control everything..informal learning is about letting go of that control..something that may be very hard to do in some L&D departments!

Are we out of date by even mentioning the term e-learning here? Is it even necessary these days? Let's look at the facts.

According to learning entrepreneur Jay Cross he coined the term "elearning" in 1998.

Then Blackboard Inc. were awarded a patent for the term "e-learning" in January 2006.

A web backlash against Blackboard Inc. came about shortly after and a wiki was formed which attributes e-learning to Vannevar Bush all the way back in 1945 when he wrote an article about a proposed hypertext-like machine called the Memex.

Does this mean that if we offer "e-learning" as one of our services we run the risk of infringing on a patent set by a competitor?

Elearning, e-learning, electronic learning, enhanced learning  whatever it's called it would appear to have been around for a while now.  Does this mean elearning is an old term though?  Does the term e-learning have any place in this technologically advanced world?

Our company, Marton House is of course synonymous with the term e-learning as it is a massive part of our company offering.  Though we quite often recommend instead a blended approach to learning, with facilitators and trainers supporting the material or vice versa with the materials supporting them.

So does that mean e-learning as a stand alone product has had it's day?  On the whole probably not as the benefits of e-learning still outstrips many more traditional approaches.  It's cost effective, it can be simultaneously rolled out in multiple locations world wide, it can feature data and accurate result tracking which is very difficult and slow to achieve in more traditional forms of delivery, and it can replicate and simulate complex systems during the learning process which means training mistakes do not occur on live customer facing systems.

Is it evolving though?

I'm currently doing some e-learning myself in the form of learning Spanish via my Nintendo DS.  Suddenly I find myself as the student rather than the deliverer and as much as I have every belief in this game and what it can offer me on my path to speaking Spanish there is sadly one thing that is sorely lacking - the human touch.  I met up with a buen amigo of mine at the weekend who speaks Spanish and for the first time I could put the individual words I had learnt into sentences.

Having someone to quiz and bounce off is sometimes the most vital need for the learning process.

The trick to effective training and learning is all about support.

So we mix e-learning with more traditional methods of delivery and we get "blended learning", a term that does the job but doesn't exactly get everyone in the room jumping up and down with excitement.  It's not a new term either.

Then we have feedback and peer learning as an extension to that approach.

So should we be pioneering a new term?  Maybe it's just me but electronic learning does make me think of the children's learning aid machines from the 1980's such as Speak 'n' Spell and blended learning makes me think of learning how to make cocktails.

We are dangerously close to the term "e-learning 2.0" cropping up and that makes me shudder.  It's too easy these days to strap on the term "2.0" to anything which is new but, as the evidence shows it is happening across all areas (see web 2.0, business 2.0, Jake 2.0 etc.)

Tomorrow we take a look at the journey from "e-learning 1.0" to "e-learning 2.0".  How did we get here and how on earth did we end up versioning everything?

Jay Cross

]]> http://webpedagogy.wordpress.com/?p=22 Wed, 19 Mar 2008 15:07:27 +0000 Pelle Filipsson http://webpedagogy.wordpress.com/?p=22 A somewhat hyped expression the last few years is "informal learning". I have heard it, used it and at last I came to think about what it really means. "Informal" in popular adult education is a welcome and positive way to regard learning. You learn everywhere, in any situation. It is a central aspect of the sociocultural learning theories too. But what do I learn? When I get really drunk at the pub  I learn something, apparently. When I watch a stupid youtube clip for the tenth time too?  But how do I experience that I have learned something? How do I measure that learning? How do I know how to use the experience and the things learned?

And what can schools and learning institutions use from the informal learning? That it is a good idea to start teaching at discoteques? (A metaphore to what is going on in every social network on the web at the moment)

A fight broke out in the blogosphere when Bill Brantley went through Jay Crosses book "Informal learning". Here are some qoutes:

"Informal learning is just another hype-filled, buzzword that pretends to be a radical change from the past but is really bits-and-pieces of other learning methods badly packaged."

"Cross’ definition of informal learning is so wide open it can mean almost anything."

An interesting statement. I cant help but feeling the same way about the statements from some people I have discussed with. Informal learning has its benefits, but which ones? And in what way? I am in the middle of processing that.

Zwischen zwei Mails war er wohl in meinem Blog unterwegs und hat herausgefunden, dass ich in Heidelberg bin, worauf er mir ein Hochzeitsfoto von sich und seiner Frau mailte - mitten auf dem Marktplatz in Heidelberg. Sie haben im Heidelberger Rathaus geheiratet! Die Welt ist ein Dorf!

Ich hab ihn dann direkt via Skype angerufen und hab mit ihm geplaudert ... er hat seinen Computer im Garten herumgetragen und mir die Redwoodbaeume gezeigt ... und wenn er nach vorne aus dem Fenster schaut, sieht er Sausalito. Dort habe ich vor 20 Jahren gewohnt:-))

In den naechsten Tagen werden wir unser Interview machen, ich freu mich schon drauf! Es koennte nicht besser anfangen:-))

Und hier noch ein kleiner Nachtrag. John Seely Brown mit dem ich auch kuerzlich gesprochen habe, sagt ueber Jay Cross: "The key to the 21st Century will be in learning how to leverage informal learning for us all. Jay provides us an evocative roadmap to how we can do this."

Os defensores do Princípio de Pareto, ou Regra 80/20, defendem que este se pode aplicar a tudo apesar de também recomendarem alguma prudência. Por exemplo, o Princípio é utilizado em gestão para relembrar aos gestores que 20% do que fazem contribui para 80% da sua produtividade. Mas, será que o Princípio se aplica à formação?

Vejamos o que se passa se aplicarmos o Princípio quando pensamos em áreas como o programa, a actividade do formador ou o modo de aprendizagem. Aplicando a Lei ao programa podemos concluir que 20% dos conteúdos do programa são responsáveis por 80% dos resultados de formação. Se isto é verdade, então faz todo o sentido que os formadores se concentrem nos conteúdos de formação que realmente interessam.

Passando à actividade do formador, ao aplicarmos a Regra podemos concluir que, em termos de objectivos pedagógicos, 20% do que o formador faz é responsável por 80% dos resultados. A ser verdadeira a Regra de Juran, a qualidade da formação pode subir exponencialmente se os formadores se concentrarem, apenas, nos 20 % de actividades vitais (vital few, trivial many). A este propósito, muitos pedagogos defendem que a regra deve assumir outra forma: os formadores devem trabalhar 20% do tempo e os formandos os restantes 80%, ao contrário do que se passa actualmente na formação onde os formadores trabalham 80% e os formandos trabalham apenas 20% do tempo.

Por último, pensando em termos de aprendizagem (formal, não formal e informal), e do seu impacto no trabalho, podemos concluir que 20% da aprendizagem contribui para 80% dos resultados. Mas, de que tipo de aprendizagem falamos? Da formal, da não formal ou da informal? Segundo Jay Cross, do Internet Time Group, a Regra assume a forma: a aprendizagem não formal e informal tem um forte impacto (80%) no trabalho enquanto que a aprendizagem formal tem um impacto muito reduzido (20%).

Quer isto dizer que nos devemos concentrar na aprendizagem não formal e informal e abandonar a aprendizagem formal?

“As únicas respostas interessantes são aquelas que destroem as perguntas.”
Susan Sontag

Jay Cross, do Internet Time Group, aborda a importância da aprendizagem informal e o seu impacto no trabalho no documento “Informal Learning – the other 80%” que incluiu um apêndice com os "7 Princípios da Aprendizagem".

Anyway enough about me and my woes. Onto the good stuff....

I was fortunate enough to be asked to contribute at the e-Learning Guild in two different forums this week:

Tony Karrer, hoodwinked Brent Schelenker, Steven Downes and yours truly to talk about Web 2.0 (and a bit of 3D) meets Corporate Learning -- or if that is not what it was he wanted us to talk about it is certainly where it went.

I've known Tony for a while....and I am a big fan of both Steven and Brent's via daily reading of their Blogs. I think because of this, we were kinda able to get right into it and riff because we each knew where each other stood and we got to take the conversation into the generative learning and co-creation stage very quickly.

This is also one of the coolest things about Web 2.0 that we talked about on the panel. First and foremost Steven made the point that your approach as an educator should not be "OK let me figure out what blogs, wikis, social tagging, You Tube, Second Life and Moodle mean for my learning strategy or my learners." Instead Steven suggests you start in the most obvious place...Where might that be? you ask...Why YOU and your own learning of course Steven says.

Time is on the same channel here:

First, get an account on blogger and start to converse publically. This is step one in what Steven calls your Personal Learning Environment (PLE). BTW Jay Cross is on a similar trip here and both Steven and Jay acknowledge they have not Grokked the solution but they are equally passionate about the idea.

We then got into....once you start with a blog, (Hello Wordpress/Blogger) your learning starts to take off. You start to get motivated to want to find a tool that helps make your space more conversational and co-creative/crowsourced in terms of production/interpretation of content/ideas (Hello Wiki). You then want to throw in some pictures (Hello Flickr/OFoto) and inevitibely want to find (or create) audio (Hello Odeo) and video (Hello Jumpcut, Eyespot and YouTube/Google Video) that further emphasize your point. You then want to take all these different piece parts together into a single place that is just for you (Hello MySpace....oh that is so yesterday why not build it out in 3D in Secondlife)...and suddenly you start to understand that we have finally tipped on a number of fronts:

Web services meets Web 2.0 which means that it becomes easier for people (not just programmers to be prosumers)
Centrally Created Content/Control moves towards User Generated Content/Sharing
Content is king but Context is the Kingdom
Power on all levels is moving towards the consumer (kinda like banks with ATMs only about everything) but consumers are also becoming producers.
Consumption moves towards Prosumption

In double-looping on this I ponder....Is it just me or did you notice that either Google or Yahoo is snapping everything up this food chain. So Rupert did interrupt the cycle and Cisco did Buy WEBEX...but how 'bout the 3D space. If you think about it 2D interactive platforms that have aggregated eyeballs (either Myspace in the Consumer space or Webex in the Corporate space) are, IMHO, all going to end up in the 3D space. All you gotta do is look at what is going on in Korea with CyWorld to see that. And Korea is the place to look to as they are the leading adopters in this space as it was with DoCoMo in mobile many years ago in Japan.

Anyway enough about that. Those of you who are either digital natives and just do this or digital immigrants like me who work like the dickens to live/learn/work this way know that the learning (and responsibility to contribute..which is why I am sitting here exhausted on a Friday night but feeling the need to share) is so poweful that it literally changes the game.

Keep a watch on Jay and Steven to see where they go next on PLEs...it is good stuff.

Two speakers struck a chord - both of them at the cutting edge in the debate of what constitutes 'knowledge' and 'learning' in the 21st century.  George Siemens is the rising 'commercial academic' star of new paradigms of knowledge - at the Conference, he focused on the 'changing nature and context of learning'.  Jay Cross  has published a book called Informal Learning.  Both men are compelling performers, using a fair amount of stand-up theatre plus podcasts, animated presentations, wikis, blogs, video.. the entire raft of social networking tools to turn all of us into instant publishers and messiahs.  It is no accident that they are also admirers of each other's work.  They are both convinced that something fundamental is changing in the way we are learning - and in how knowledge is created and distributed.  What was charming is that although both gentlemen had been in regular contact with each other for some five years, and even shared podcasts together - this was the first time that they actually met and could 'share a beer'.  Judging by the state of both guys in the plenary session, it had been a long night for both.

In true collaboration style, Mr Siemens developed his presentation for OLEB on a wiki - and even included a discussion board duly pillaged by both fans and someone calling it all 'gobbledeegook'.  You can even download his new book.  Mr Cross, challenged by a participant to 'get down to specifics' reverted to a PowerPoint with numbers that linked to 'specific examples of informal learning'.  It was all great fun, and has already made me scamper to various blogs and papers since I've returned to Malta.

In a way, what is happening is that we are trying to find a new language to explain what has changed, what is still changing, because of the new, ever-pervasive technology that is being used by everyone.  From my seventy six year-old father in-law running U3A courses in Alton to my son Jacob, aged 4, discovering the new games on CeeBeebies. I guess I came back from Berlin experiencing an adrenalin rush of learning.    Except this time, knowledge is not the exclusive domain of the academic - but available to anyone with an Internet connection and who can browse his way to a search engine.  There is something wonderfully anarchic in this.   "Those, like Francis Bacon, who equate knowledge with power, find that the masses are flooding the pools and reservoirs of the elite," says Mr Siemens.  "I am suggesting that knowledge (as a power base) is increasingly accessible by "the many".  Tools like blogs, vlogs, podcasts, give amateurs a voice previously held by broadcasters/newspapers, etc.  Growing movements of open education are allowing individuals in developing countries access to the educational content (though not the conversation or accreditation) of Berkeley, MIT, Harvard, etc.  Knowledge that has been held in pay-only journals or the courses of elite journals, is becoming more accessible".

Mr Cross spends more time working in the business world.  He believes that executives don't want learning.  "They want execution; they want performance.  Companies are using informal learning to:

• Improve knowledge worker productivity by 20% - 30%
• Increase sales by Google-izing product knowledge
• Generate fresh ideas and increase innovation
• Transform an organization from disaster to record profits
• Reduce stress, absenteeism, and healthcare costs
• Invest development resources for maximum impact impact
• Increase professionalism and professional growth
• Cut costs and improve responsiveness with self-service learning

Training is something that's pushed on you; learning is something you choose to do. Many a knowledge worker will tell you, "I love to learn but I hate to be trained." Knowledge workers thrive when given the freedom to decide how they will do what they're asked to do. They rise or fall to meet expectations.  Informal Learning is about challenging workers (and executives) to be all they can be".

I know that these gentlemen 'get it'.  There is precious, unique knowledge in the head of most people within an organisation.  In many cases, it is the guys and girls on the customer service desk who know more about what is going on than the sharp suits in marketing.  Knowledge in the head of the few should now be a redundant concept.  Corporations now have the technology at their disposal - in wikis, blogs, podcasts... - to get their most valuable resources - their brilliant people - to share knowledge and connect with others within their organisations, and beyond.  Daily, unstructured, tagged.. whichever way works for the individual.

Both Mr Siemens and Mr Cross believe they are in the vanguard of a knowledge revolution.  My challenge is to convince the CEOs I work with, that the old paradigm of 'information is power' is now not only redundant - it is potentially damaging to the organisations they lead, and a major rock in the path of the growth they aspire to.

"...we're helping eachother learn, and we're all our own teachers..."

I came across his work just recently, and am looking forward to his upcoming book on informal learning. This interview was actually my first exposure, and convinced me right away when he said that simple conversation is the way people learn most things. And later, "Grades are related to nothing at all in later life..."

Here's the whole context of that quote:

Well, let’s compare informal to formal. I don’t think you know anything about what is in somebody’s head, just because he has a college degree. Grades are related to nothing at all in later life, not success, not wealth, not happiness, not ability to do things. It’s just totally incredible. So it would be hard to see any worth in that. I think the measure of learning effectiveness is always: Can you do what you were trying to learn to do? Can you demonstrate the skill, the knowledge and can you get along with what you learned and if not - you failed.

His white paper on informal learning, The Other 80%, will have to do until his book comes out...