Some simple ideas on how to redesign the conference experience

Yesterday I got caught up in (or to be more accurate, butted my way into) a Twitter conversation that Sam Burrough was engaged in that was part of the great work he’s involved in around ‘rethinking/redesigning’ the conference experience.

Part of that exchange involved this tweet

@burrough @kategraham23 @craigtaylor happy to hear any ideas you have that will make #learninglive even better

— LPI (@YourLPI) April 13, 2013

I had a think about it overnight and have come up with these ideas

@yourlpi Allow speakers to add multimedia to website session content pages (or have you do it for them)

— Craig Taylor (@CraigTaylor74) April 14, 2013

I’ve spoken at quite a few conferences/workshops etc over the past couple of years and always strive to produce ‘something’ (blog post, podcast, video etc) for the attendees to access prior to the actual session itself to help them prepare, add context and ultimately help them get the most out of their investment in the session. Unfortunately the majority of organisers don’t allow that sort of material to be included in the official conference webpage – I know, I’ve asked! Instead they suggest that I market the material via Social Media (d’uh, hadn’t thought of that!), of course there are several short falls to this approach, some of which are:

Not everybody follows me via Social MediaNot everybody uses Social MediaNot everybody will be aware of hashtags

For me the almost guaranteed place that you will find attendees will be on the conference website and in particular on the session overview pages. So come on conference organisers, don’t hinder those speakers who have gone the extra mile – let them include a ‘link out’ in their session overview, maybe even an embedded video?

@yourlpi Create a *decent* conference app (see #Devlearn app for example) — Craig Taylor (@CraigTaylor74) April 14, 2013

I’ve been to many conferences that had a conference app. I’ve only been to one that had a good conference app and that was Devlearn. If you’re planning on having a conference app for your next event, pleeeeeeeease make it a decent one!

@yourlpi Record each session (or audio as a minimum to allow speakers to sync it with their slides)

— Craig Taylor (@CraigTaylor74) April 14, 2013

I’ve never researched this, but I’d be happy to concede that a full-on video recording/slide sync recording is an expensive matter, particularly if you’ve got a lot of sessions taking place, however in this age of affordable HD video recorders, tripods and editing software why not set up some DIY recording of each session? An even simpler option might be to record the audio of each session and then ask the facilitators to sync it with their slides (Hey, if they want to speak at your conference make them work for it!). Here’s one I prepared earlier (won’t work on an iPad/phone)

@yourlpi Conduct 15 min Adobe Connect sessions with each speaker to allow them to pitch their sessions ‘ in advance’. Help ppl make decision

— Craig Taylor (@CraigTaylor74) April 14, 2013

Let’s be honest, when your conference attendees have a number of concurrent sessions to select from, other than previous experience/recommendations of the facilitator, all they’ve got to go in is the session overview on the conference website. Why not invite each speaker (and potential attendees) to participate in a 10 minute online session in which they pitch their session and take part in a Q&A. It may also give the potential attendees an insight into the presentation skills of the speaker (AKA are they going to rattle off a load of bullet points at me?)

@yourlpi Run an online session a wk or 2 *after* the event to provide a reflective Q&A session for attendees.

— Craig Taylor (@CraigTaylor74) April 14, 2013

If you decide to conduct a ‘pre’ conference online session, why not go the whole-hog and think about a ‘post’ conference session. This could be a 15-30 minute session in which session attendees (I think ‘only’ session attendees) could follow up with any reflective questions and share any experiences that they have had in relation to trying to implement the speakers subject (if applicable). I’m sure this would help to break down the perception of the conference/workshop being a stand-alone event.

I’m sure that Sam and the rest of the guys ‘n’ gals that have been thinking about redesigning the conference experience will have tonnes more ideas, so make sure you keep your eyes peeled on their blog as I know that Sam is about to produce a write up on their thoughts.

Do you attend conferences/workshops?

How would you change things to maximise the experience?

Do you plan/host conferences/workshops?

Have you tried implementing any of the ideas above?

Did they work?

What have you tried in the past (regardless of whether it worked or not)?

Image source

View the original article here

Virtual Learning Show 2013 – Day 2

As mentioned in a previous blog post, I’m participating in the 2013 2-day Virtual Learning Show. Whilst I was directly involved as a panel chair on Day 2, I also attended as a participant .

Here are my reflections on Day 2 and in particular each session, with a particular focus on:

A key ‘take-away’ from the sessions content itselfThe way in which it was facilitated (in part or in whole) with a view to what can I re-use/build upon for myself.

 Presented by Matt Turner
 11.00 – 12.00 UK BST

In many organisations, Virtual Classrooms are accepted as an efficient, powerful and flexible way to deliver learning. However, the tipping point has not yet been reached and some decision-makers still appear fearful, confused, or even downright scared of adopting VC, leaving L&D practitioners puzzled at the challenge of the internal sell-in.

“Fear and Loathing in Las Virtual” will be an enjoyable and frank look at why some are slow to move into the Virtual Classroom and what others have done to introduce it successfully.  The session will use a variety of examples, scenarios and tips on what works well, touching on content, communication, attitudes, terminology, sell-in and more in the process. As part of a collective responsibility to ensure VCs reach their potential in the UK, your experiences and contributions in this session will help its success!

My key content take-away

There was a great deal of discussion around what we ‘call’ this approach to delivery. There seemed to be a split between those who thought we shouldn’t worry about the language we use to describe it and those (myself included) who thought that it was worth the effort to get the ‘language/terminology’ correct.

I’m always conscious over the language that I use when talking within my organisation, but I’m going to check with the rest of my team to gain their perspective.

My key facilitation take-away

Matt asked us to post any links we had to the host ‘privately’ so that she could put them up at the end of the session. I’m not sure that I’d ever ask this…. surely if a person posts a relevant, contextual link into the slide panel there and then it provides an opportunity for people to immediately take a look ‘outside’ of the session and potentially bring a different perspective into session?

There’s also the distinct possibility that some people may leave the session early, so any links that are dropped into chat at the end of the session will be missed.

 Presented by Claire Line
12.30 – 13.30 UK BST

Claire Line is Learning Technologies Manager at global law firm Hogan Lovells. As part of that role, she has carried out extensive research into virtual classroom and online learning technologies.  Since 2004, she has introduced a number of learning technologies for IT training and legal learning, including virtual classroom, web conferencing and video production.

In this discussion-based session, Claire will take you through her journey of how virtual learning was implemented at Hogan Lovells and will discuss the successes, the barriers she encountered, and some of the key points she has learned that will help you in your project to implement virtual learning in your organisation. Be sure to bring your questions to ask!

My key facilitation take-away

No matter how much you are rushing for the start of the session ALWAYS undertake any audio setup process. Claire was very muffled at the start of the session which led to me stepping away for some time and by the time I got back the microphone issue had been resolved and I’m missed a good chunk at the beginning.

 Presented by Julie Dirksen
 14.00 – 15.00 UK BST

Game designers have been using concepts like a structured flow of goals, levels, and accomplishments to create a sense of engagement and efficacy in players. One of the key elements in creating fully engaging game experiences is the psychological concept of flow-creating game environments that keep players in tenuous balance between their level of ability and level of challenge. Learners should have the same sense from learning experiences. The speaker will take a look at the way games and other forms of entertainment media create flow states, how to create that in learning environments, and why the act of learning is crucial to this type of engagement.

In this session, you will learn:

What we know about attracting and maintaining learner attentionHow game designers create sticky and compelling experiencesHow to structure learning experiences that will engage learners

My key content take-away

People’s personal challenges will ALWAYS be better than anything I can come up for them. I need to make sure that this is carefully woven in to the upcoming ‘campaign’ that I am working on.

My key facilitation take-away

Julie invited us to tell her what the ‘most boring subjects’ were that we had been asked to create training on. She then (bravely) used those topics to craft a significant chunk of her session around. This is something that I’d be keen to explore.

I found that there was a lot of talking at the beginning of Julie’s session and limited interaction, coupled with the somewhat scientific content and it being immediately after lunch led to a reduced level of concentration on my part. I need to think about the scheduling of any online sessions in the future taking part immediately after lunch (just as I should in a f2f environment)

Chair: Craig Taylor
Panellists: Bianca Woods (Canada), Koreen Olbrish (US), Barbara Thompson (UK), Ryan Tracey (Australia)
15.30 – 16.30 UK BST

You’ve probably seen, attended or perhaps even participated in ‘panel discussions’ before, but how many of them have been online? That’s why we thought it was time to extend people’s perceptions as to how online classroom tools can be used. In this session you’ll have the opportunity to participate in a live online panel discussion which will include workplace L&D practitioners from 4 countries and 4 time zones!

This is your opportunity to hear the thoughts and opinions on how emerging tech can be used to enhance and enrich our offerings and ultimately add value to our businesses? Perhaps you’d just like a second (or third!) opinion on a plan you have. Maybe you’re struggling with a particular aspect of a solution and would like to hear how others have approached it or would approach it.

My key content take-away

Here’s a blog post from Jo Cook who’s done a great job of capturing the essence of my session.

My key facilitation take-away

Don’t be put off by what other people tell you can/can’t be done. The use of 5 webcams simultaneously, across 5 countries and 5 time zones is something that many people will tell you is a foolhardy exercise within an online classroom. Well we did it today and it worked! Admittedly there were 2 occasions where there was a short ‘freeze’, however I’ve been in sessions that are faaaaaaar less webcam dependant and the same thing/worse has happened, so it’s not going to put me off in the future.

Did you participate?

What did you take away from the day / each session?

View the original article here

Homework time…. CWCCM Task 6.3

As part of the ‘communicating with website users’  unit within the Certificate in Web Content Creation & Management(CWCCM) programme I am undertaking, I have been asked to ‘create a plan for maximising interaction with users on the internet site on which I will be working’ (i.e. this blog)

So without further ado, here is my plan:

Make better use of online polls and surveys (I am currently doing this within the online Joining Instructions that I create for work colleauges) however perhaps I could start to use them for standard blog posts.Continue enabling comments on my blog post.Include a question(s) towards the end of the post in order to encourage feedback via the comments section.Thank everybody who contributes even if their contribution is not what I had hoped for/expected.Publicy thank those who ReTweet my tweets advertising my blog post.

Are you the sort of person who leaves comments to blog posts (if so, you know what to do next)….

If you are not that sort of person…. there’s a first time for everything…

Image source

View the original article here

A word of warning, be careful…

… as to what media you use if you are ever asked to produce a festive tip for the eLearning networks 24 tips advent calendar

Why a warning?

Well, because you might just be asked to facilitate a session on it at a future eLN event!!

Joking aside, I was privileged to be asked by Rob Hubbbard to co-facilitate the recent eLN event How to produce rich media learning materials. This was something of a departure for an eLN event as it was planned to be very ‘hands on’, so it was great to be asked to be a part of it.

Each of the speakers had been asked to promote their individual topic areas for 20 minutes. Not to delve into the technicalities and intricacies of each method, but to prick the interest of the attendees so that would be sufficiently enthused prior to the practical session in the afternoon. (that was the plan!)

Here’s what the guys had to offer…

Exploring the elements of online communication – Clive Shepherd

Clive got us off to a great start by asking each table of delegates to consider a different media element; text, images, audio, animation, video and to suggest the pro’s and con’s of each. This was a fairly simple exercise, however he then asked us to consider which of the ‘other’ types of media would/wouldn’t work it and why. This stimulated a great deal of debate around the ‘mixing’ of media types.

Why not give this simple exercise a go yourself?

Writing for audio  – so that it works – Tony Frascina

Tony conducted a great interactive exercise which involved each us all reviewing a small number of simple slides containing text and an image. As each of these slides were playing there was an accompanying audio track. The content within that audio track varied slightly for each slide ranging from being very similar to incredibly in-depth.

Tony then asked us all to answer some paper based questions relating to the content that we had seen/read. I would like to say that I had taken a keener interest in this exercise as it would have been interesting to focus 100% on it, however as I was due to speak next I’m afraid that I was a little ‘distracted’!

UPDATE – Fortunately Stephanie Dedhar has done a great job of reviewing this session.

If a picture paints a 1000 words, how many does a moving, talking picture paint? – Craig Taylor

I was quite pleased that I was asked to speak on this subject as the very nature of screencasting meant that I could use screencasts themselves to deliver the content.

Simples!

I chose to use Prezi as the vehicle to deliver the material. I had used Prezi in the (distant) past and hadn’t been too enthralled by its functionality, but I was pleased to discover that they appear to have made several welcome updates to the service. I’m still hoping that they will figure out a way to have accompanying audio, in the same ilk of PowerPoint and Slideshare and that they can come up with a way to use a remote presenter, so that I am not tied to my laptop whilst presenting. It is that lack of audio track which persuaded me to record my session and release it in  a future blog post podcast.

Video editing - James Stoneley and Solomon Rogers

James and Solomon rounded the morning off with an overview of recording video and editing. The feeling from some people on my table and via the backchannel was that it would have been preferable to show examples of how video could be used for learning purposes with ‘lower end’ equipment i.e. Flip cameras/smartphones etc. From a personal perspective I was happy with what was delivered BUT I do have an understanding as to how video can be used in a learning context.

After lunch was the point at which the eLN entered new ground by providing an afternoon of experiential learning by allowing attendees to practice making screencasts and recording/editing videos. From the 2 groups that I worked with this ‘hands on’ approach was warmly received and provided a fantastic opportunity to apply the theory in the real world (isn’t this what we keep saying our learners should be doing?)

Bearing in mind that they only had 30 minutes to discuss the subject, download software, create the media, edit, publish and that the purpose wasn’t to create a ‘real-time’ screencast, here is a sample of what they produced:

All in all, a really useful event, the format of which I hope the eLN repeats in the future.

A big Thank You to Mark Jones for coming up with concept of this event and for facilitating the entire day.

View the original article here

Getting Beyond Bullet Points (visuals only)

Once again, I consider myself extremely lucky and privileged to have been asked to speak at the Learning and Skills Group Annual Conference earlier this month at London Olympia.

I always try to facilitate a session that (I hope) has  immediate take-aways for anybody that has attended. I believe that there are enough people speaking at a strategic and theoretical level about L&D and it’s associated disciplines without me throwing my hand in too, so I always try to ensure that I do what I can to offer what I call a ‘Monday morning quick win‘ i.e. something that can be implemented immediately (or at worst very quickly back in the workplace) following the attendees return to the ‘real world‘!

This time around I wanted to offer people the next step in improving their presentations. I get the feeling that there are more and more people who understand the need to move away from bullet-point riddled slides but are not sure exactly ‘what’ should replace them.

It was this uncertainty that I hoped to address during my session by showing some examples. It is these examples that will form the basis of my next few blog posts:

Part 1 – Getting Beyond Bullet Points with visuals only

Part 2 – Getting Beyond Bullet Points with visual and audio

Part 3 – Bringing in the backchannel

Part 4 – The Learners Voice

Part 5 – Getting Beyond Bullet Points live recorded podcast

Part 6 – Tools and resources

But let’s get things started, by having a look at the Slideshare presentation below. At first glance it ticks all the boxes in terms of reducing the bullet points and using images to illustrate my story, but there’s something missing. It would be great if you could take a few minutes to progress through the slides and leave your thoughts in the comments box below……

View the original article here

Podcast #8: Talking to a brick wall!

Today’s podcast sees Craig being joined by Kate Graham and James McLuckie to discuss the subject of internal communications.

How are businesses enabling technologies to enhance and enrich their internal conversations?

What tools are organisations and individuals turning to enable their staff to connect, communicate and collaborate?

Kate and James provide some answers to the above questions whilst Craig complains about them rubbing salt in his wounds!

Download podcast in mp3 format: I feel like I’m talking to a brick wall!

Subscribe to the podcast in iTunes.

Shownotes

Music Source.

View the original article here

From Compliance Course to Campaign Part 4 – The Campaign!

If you haven’t read this series to date it may be worthwhile doing so in order to set the context for this post…

At the end of my last post, I said the following

Keep on reading this series of posts to discover what happened after we’d received the proposals and what I’m calling the ‘end of the beginning‘

What I didn’t realise at the time was that my employment would end with that organisation prior to the project completion. To that end I’ll be unable to continue blogging about the status of the campaign, however what I am able to do is provide you with a glimpse into the ‘proof of concept’ that I delivered to internal stakeholders. I’m hopeful that even without seeing the final campaign, there will be something in the movie below that will inspire you towards making a change in the way that you design and deliver your compliance training. (you only need to watch between 43:43 and 54:28 to get a grasp of the campaign element)

If you’d like me to speak at your next event or discuss how I may be able to work together to bring about a fundamental change in the way your organisation delivers its mandatory training, then please get in touch.

View the original article here

Podcast #18: Radio GaGa

Craig chats with his gaffer Neil, on the subject of podcasting to an internal audience with a particular focus on their shiny new toy…..

Download podcast in mp3 format: Radio GaGa

Subscribe to the podcast in iTunes.

Shownotes

Music Source.

View the original article here

Podcasting pain…

… is what I’ve been experiencing this weekend.

I’ve just spent the best part of 24 hours, hunting for a WordPress HTML5 audio player, wrestling with its incompatibility with the Jetpack WordPress plugin and then finally trawling my way through my blog history converting my audio player from Flash to HTML5 for all 23 podcasts to date.

Admittedly when I first started blogging and podcasting, the whole Flash Vs HTML5 debate either didn’t exist, or it was very much in its infancy, either way I have to admit that I didn’t really know what the hell it was all about, so ignorance/naivety probably played a significant in my decision to opt for a Flash based audio player for my podcasts.

However since owning an iPad and having an iPhone as a work phone, I have discovered how inaccessible my podcasts have been to other people using iOS devices, hence my decision to spend some time this weekend overhauling my podcasting process and infrastructure.

I also took the opportunity to change my podcast feed from Feedburner to Jellycast (because I’d basically ‘ballsed up’ the previous feed up completely!).

What does all of this mean?

Well it means that all of my previous podcasts are now visible in iTunes

https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/tayloring-it-podcasts/id556074469

And of course, it means that my podcasts are now accessible by people using iOS devices.

 http://tayloringit.com/category/podcast-2/

If you do take the time to listen to my podcasts, or indeed if you have already listened to some, would mind leaving some feedback in iTunes? (pretty please)

Image source

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A ‘storified’ insight into my recent Lunch & Learn session

Since I started in my new role back in September, I’ve facilitated four Lunch and Learn sessions on the following subjects:

“what is elearning”Mobile LearningThe use of technology in the onboarding/induction process

My most recent session on onboarding / inductions attracted some conversations on Twitter

Here’s a ‘Storify’ to allow you to take a nosey at that backchannel…

View the original article here

My #COLF L2 Assignment

As mentioned in a previous post, myself and the L&D team in which I work are undertaking the COLF programme.

Upon completion of each of the 9 lessons/workshops there is an assignment to undertake as well as some additional reading.

Here’s my second assignment

Image source

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Homework time… Rapid eLearning Design Text Assignments

Regular readers will be aware that I am currently undertaking an online Rapid eLearning Development programme which is being facilitated by @robhubbard. One of the assignments this week relates to the use of text within elearning and requires a number of assignment to be undertaken and then posted to the blog section of the Ning site that acts as the portal to all the other brilliant content. However, as I have my own blog I prefer to post my assignments here as it:

a) provides more opportunities for wider feedback

b) helps to promote what is a fantastic online learning programme.

There were 3 assignments this week, the first being:

Find some text that is difficult to understand and that contains jargon and or acronyms. Ideally this should be some of the source written content for your final assignment. Alternatively Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page is a great source of content written by experts for experts. Click on the ‘Random article’ link on the left-hand side until you find some content that would benefit from rewriting.Follow the Plain English guidelines to rewrite about 200 words of it in Plain English.

Here is my submission for assignment 1:

The original article is below:

Social bookmarking is a method for Internet users to organize, store, manage and search for bookmarks of resources online. Unlike file sharing, the resources themselves aren’t shared, merely bookmarks that reference them.

Descriptions may be added to these bookmarks in the form of metadata, so users may understand the content of the resource without first needing to download it for themselves. Such descriptions may be free text comments, votes in favour of or against its quality, or tags that collectively or collaboratively become a folksonomy. Folksonomy is also called social tagging, “the process by which many users add metadata in the form of keywords to shared content”.[1]

In a social bookmarking system, users save links to web pages that they want to remember and/or share. These bookmarks are usually public, and can be saved privately, shared only with specified people or groups, shared only inside certain networks, or another combination of public and private domains. The allowed people can usually view these bookmarks chronologically, by category or tags, or via a search engine.

Most social bookmark services encourage users to organize their bookmarks with informal tags instead of the traditional browser-based system of folders, although some services feature categories/folders or a combination of folders and tags. They also enable viewing bookmarks associated with a chosen tag, and include information about the number of users who have bookmarked them. Some social bookmarking services also draw inferences from the relationship of tags to create clusters of tags or bookmarks.

Many social bookmarking services provide web feeds for their lists of bookmarks, including lists organized by tags. This allows subscribers to become aware of new bookmarks as they are saved, shared, and tagged by other users.

As these services have matured and grown more popular, they have added extra features such as ratings and comments on bookmarks, the ability to import and export bookmarks from browsers, emailing of bookmarks, web annotation, and groups or other social network features.[2]

My reworked article:

Social bookmarking is a method for you to store, manage and search for bookmarks of online resources. Unlike file sharing, it isn’t the resources themselves that are shared, just the bookmarks that reference them.

You can add descriptions to these bookmarks so that other users can understand the content of the resource without having to download it for themselves. These descriptions could be free text comments, votes in favour of or against its quality, or tags which are words or phrases that generally describe the resource.

i.e. a bookmarked website on ‘implemeting social media policies within Blue-Chip organisations’ would probably be tagged with the following

By adding tags both you and other users can search for different websites, all on the same subject just by selecting a tag of interest.

In a social bookmarking system, you would save links to web pages that you want to remember and/or share with others. You could make these bookmarks open to the public, save them privately, share them with specific people, shared them only inside certain networks, or a combination of public and private areas.

Many social bookmarking sites have added extra features such as being able to import and export bookmarks from directly from a web browsers and the emailing of bookmarks to other.

The 2nd assignment asked us to:

write two SMART learning outcomes for your final assignment.

One of the many elements of the ReD programme that I have found to be quite innovative is the way in which Rob has used the Mindmeister mind-mapping tool to visually portray the learning outcomes, but to also use the linking features of it to link to the various resources that are in place to help achieve that outcome.

So here is my attempt at writing the learning objectives. (quite blatantly borrowing Rob’s idea!)

The 3rd and final assignment required us to:

write two multiple-choice assessment questions based on your learning outcomes

I’m still not sure whether these questions will be pitched as a stand-alone multiple choice assessment (not my preferred option) or as part of a scenario (my preference), but either way they will look a little something like this:

1. Which of the following is the correct web address for the Diigo homepage?

a)     www.diigo.co.uk

b)    www.diigo.net

c)     www.diigo.com

d)    www.diigo.gov.uk

2. What is the user name which you will need to log into the Diigo account?

a)     Tayloring.it

b)    Tailoringit

c)     Tayloringit

d)    Tayloring it

So over to you Dear Reader, what are your thoughts?

Was the reworking on the Wikipedia article clear enough?

Were the objectives SMART enough?

Were the multiple choice questions relevant and challenging?

As always, any and all feedback is greatly appreciated…

View the original article here

Podcast #5: Now the dust has settled…

Craig chats with Lillian Soon, Kate Graham, Karyn Romeis, Laura Overton, Christie Fidura and Don Taylor on the ‘actions’ that they personally took away from their attendance at Learning Technologies 2011, along with the challenges that they anticipated in trying to achieve them!

Download podcast in mp3 format: Now the dust has settled

Subscribe to the podcast in iTunes.

Shownotes

Music Source.

View the original article here

I got it wrong….. Or did I?

I recent attended the eLearning Network event ’10 things every learning designer should know’ and whilst the event gave me a few ideas to mull over, what really had an impact on me was a chance conversation that I had during the mid-morning break, which if I’m being honest, shocked me a little and distracted me for the rest of the day.

Allow me to explain…

During the first session of the day Bryan Hopkins from UNHCR made a general reference to the fact that “people can’t possibly be learning effectively if they are tapping away on mobile devices“(paraphrased). This led to a few giggles on my table, as at that very moment I was tapping away on my iPad.

During the mid-morning break I made reference back to that incident and drew a parallel to a meeting I was in during the early Summer where everybody was taking notes, however I was the only one taking them on an iPad, whereas everybody else was taking them with pen and paper. The meeting organiser actually stopped after 10 mins and asked what I was doing; when I told (and showed) them what I was doing, they still admitted that the fact I was on a mobile device made them feel uncomfortable.

Now I had expected the people I was regaling this tale to over a cuppa to be sympathetic to my situation however I was wrong!

Instead 3 of the 4 people indicated that it would also put them off and make them question whether or not I was truly paying attention during the meeting and whether I was genuinely taking notes. We threw this around for a couple of minutes with me even pulling the old “who’s to say I’m paying attention/taking genuine notes, just because I’m using a pen and paper” but even this didn’t sway them.

I quickly popped smoke and withdrew back to the safety of the main area and discussed this back at my groups table, where, you may be surprised (or maybe not) to discover that the majority of those people also expressed doubt/concern/worry/frustration etc over people using mobile devices to take notes during learning events, meetings etc.

Had I been in any other environment than the one I was in yesterday I probably wouldn’t have been overly surprised….

… But this was an eLearning Network event!!!!

Surely eLN members would ‘get’ the advantages of using technology to aid productivity even if it wasn’t in an overtly ‘learning’ context, wouldn’t they?

And that’s what led me to this particular blog title, because it appears I was wrong.

Or was I?

Is it reasonable to expect us and our learners to use technology to aid our/their productivity in areas and in situations that have traditionally used pen and paper?

Should we maintain traditional practices for meetings but attempt to push forward with new practices when the output has an overt ‘learning’ tag attached to it?

Do you use technology to aid your personal productivity or not?

Are you encouraging/discouraging of others to do so?

Oh and for those of you who are wondering exactly what I was tapping away on my iPad for, I was producing this mindmap of the days sessions, which I am now sharing with others.

For those of you I was annoying, why not share your handwritten notes with us all?

Image sources: Click one each image to be taken to the individuals Flickr profile page.

View the original article here

What Learners Want – Part 2 – The ‘questions’

If you haven’t read this series to date, it may be worthwhile doing so in order to set some context.

Having decided to commit to deploying the survey, Towards Maturity and myself started to create the question bank that our employees would be asked to respond to. Laura Overton already had a significant foundation for this survey so as a result it was more of a process of tweaking some of the questions to be able to the language that my organisation uses.

I took the decision early on to allow the survey to be undertaken anonymously, with the ability for respondents to enter their contact details should they wish to contacted by L&D to follow up on any of their responses.

As I’m sure you’ll appreciate there is a commercial agreement in place between my organisation and Towards Maturity, so I will not be posting the 23 specific questions, however they fell broadly into the following areas:

Demographic informationHow people acquire info to do their jobHardware people useBYOD related questionsWillingness to share with othersFormal and informal methodsRating of currently available methods/tools/platforms etcBarriers

It was important that we didn’t alter the actual questions or response types themselves as our survey results will be feeding into a benchmark study in much the same way as the Towards Maturity Benchmark study, however there were some occasions where it was logical to amend the wording to some of the response options in order to provide clarity such as:

Using organisational roles instead of the default role optionsUsing organisational department names instead of the default optionsReferring to our LMS, intranet and internal collaboration platform by name as opposed to generic titles.

All in all, the questions do a great job of gathering hard facts and data in order to help inform our L&D strategy and next steps.

In my next blog post, I’ll explain how we went about marketing and promoting this survey ahead of the official launch

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Designing #mlearning Book Review – Chapter 4

As I mentioned in a previous blog post, I intend to provide a brief synopsis of each chapter of ‘Designing mlearning‘, but more importantly I intend to answer the questions that Clark poses at the end of each chapter and then pose those same questions back to you ‘Dear Reader‘

Chapter 4 – The technology it’s not about

We start this chapter with a nod to the fact that the iPad (1) was announced during the writing of this book. Given that this is still considered a ‘recent’ book, this shows very clearly how dynamic this market is.

From looking forward we take a look back at a brief history of mobile devices commencing at the Palm Pilot, skipping ahead to mobile phones, through media players to smartphones. From there we review the advent of handheld games, tablets and recording devices, before acknowledging that by the time many readers pick up this book some of the descriptions will already be out of date.

We then take a look at a trend that gives a fairly clear indication of how things are going at the moment – “convergence”. More and more devices are providing a 1-stop shop for much (if not all) of the functionality that we used to associate with multiple devices.

Towards the end of the chapter we are reminded just how quickly this field is developing as Clark suggests that we may even be moving towards wearing glasses with a Heads Up Display - imagine that!

We finish off the chapter with these questions being posed (along with my responses):

How can you take advantage of any of the dedicated devices (media player, camera, PDA, phone)?I’m not sure that we really need to go out of our way to take advantage of the plethora of dedicated devices, after all our learners are already using them within their day-to-day lives to take pictures, record video, access the web, read novels etc. Given that dedicated devices are in my opinion “High Street” what I think we need to do is to tap into learner’s familiarity with them and start to drip-feed examples of how they can use them within a workplace environment. Why not model some good examples using dedicated devices? Often when I facilitate face-to-face activities, I make a point of recording audio feedback, video voxpops and photographs of interactivity using dedicated devices in order to model good practice for the attendees to (hopefully) follow.How can you capitalize the increasing ubiquity of the converged devices?Let’s be honest most organisations (even now) are not providing converged devices (read phones and tablets) to support learning programmes or ‘overtly’ to maximise performance. I believe they are providing them so that you have little or no excuse for not responding to emails! But let’s not let this worry us, instead let’s leverage the growing distribution of mobile devices for our own ends and start to offer resources, assets etc that can benefit from the functionality of the converged device.Have you considered the tradeoffs of providing (devices) versus supporting devices ?I guess the provision of devices ensures (to a certain degree) greater control and in turn ‘peace of mind’ (wrongly in my opinion) to organisations, but hey, if it  increases the chances of mobile uptake then maybe it’s worth it? Of course, this approach no doubt brings significant expense with it in terms of providing the devices, however I’ve no doubt that it is easier to support 1 x device type as opposed to trying to support learners own devices. Of course allowing learners to use their own device means that they will be familiar with it and therefore more likely to use it and quite possibly less likely to need support, although the cost and logistics involved in trying to support multiple device types cannot be ignored.So folks, why not take a look at the questions above and provide your own responses in the comments below?

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Podcast #21: Lisa’s back!!!

Craig chats with Lisa Johnson  on the subject of her teams’ recent *award winning* work with the use of internal wikis and ‘just-in-time’ performance support videos.

Listening time: 25mins

Subscribe to the podcast in mp3 format: Lisa’s back!!!

Subscribe to the podcast in iTunes.

Shownotes

Music Source.

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The Ones That Got Away – spaced learning

As I mentioned in this previous post, I’m writing a series of posts that lift the lid on some of my plans and ideas that either never saw the light of day or (as in this post) never fully developed.

One of my plans in my previous organisations had been to implement the research that I’d read about ‘spaced learning‘, in particular using it to ‘reactivate’ key learning points thus building that all important, but often overlooked element of reflection into the programme.

At the beginning of 2013 my previous organisation launched a new product which would have an impact on both sales and ‘service’ staff. I was tasked to put together a resource to aid people within a service role. The overall approach combined:

social learningperformance supportsimulations

all encompassed within our internal collaborative platform, Jive.

The slight spanner in the works was that whilst the overall programme wasn’t designed as a knowledge transfer piece but as a ‘behaviour reinforcing‘ piece, (the behaviour being ‘use the performance support tool that you have at your fingertips’ as opposed to relying on memory and/or gut feeling), the fact that they were in a ‘service’ role and not a sales role meant there was the potential for days, weeks even months to pass between them undertaking the behaviour reinforcing programme and taking a call/email from somebody in relation to the product.

Here’s where I thought the practice of spaced repetition of the key points could be of use.

Here’s what I did:

Upon successful completion of the online programme individuals details were loaded into the database of Retenda (the tool I decided to use).The following Monday, each newly added individual started to receive an automated cycle of emails which lasted a month that brought the key learning points bubbling to the surface (we also had the option to send these reminders via SMS or postcard) Sometimes they would be asked to reflect on a question, other times they’d be ‘nudged’ to discuss the content of the email with a colleague who had completed the programme or to reflect upon how they’d react to a certain situation. None of the questions required any formal response back to L&D, in fact we explicitly asked for people not to do so – I didn’t want this to be an onerous task or be seen as another box-ticking exercise. Each email included  a link that linked the individual to the relevant section within the performance support tool.The frequency of the reminders were:

Week 1 – Days 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5
Week 2 – Days 1, 3, 4 and 5
Week 3 – Days 1 and 4
Week 4 – Day 2

The final email in Wk 4 contained a Surveymonkey link to seek feedback on the spaced reminder programme.

As is usually the case the number of people who undertook the survey compared to the number of people who received the spaced reminders was woefully small, so I’m reluctant to jump to any conclusions however there were a number of people who said that whilst they understood and agreed with the general principle they felt that the method of delivery (email) meant that it was ignored or ‘lost’ within their other emails.

Based on the limited feedback, I would:

Limit the number of emails that were sent over the 4 week period which would mean investigating which of the key learning points we could remove (this sense check had already occurred, so that would have been a tough call)

or

Keep the same amount of reminders but extend them over a longer period perhaps 5 or 6 weeks.

However none of the above would have necessarily  mitigated the issue of it being ‘another email‘ in their inbox.

I’d been planning to use spaced learning within a leadership programme that my organisation was delivering with a view to tweaking the delivery method by utilising text messaging to their mobile devices in order to mitigate the ‘email overload’ issue.

You may notice that I said

“I’d *been* plannng”

Because I left the organisation prior to being able to take this next important step in fine-tuning the delivery of spaced learning reminders.

Oh well… there’s always next time…

If you’d like to discuss how I can help you integrate spaced learning into your organisation then please get in touch

Other posts in ‘The Ones That Got Away’ series

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