Insights: Experiential learning is an important part of the architecture

This post continues my commentary to the Learning Insights 2012 Report produced by Kineo for e.learning age magazine. The sixth of ten 'insights' is that �Experiential learning is an important part of the architecture'.

As learning and development professionals we are most alert to those opportunities which will help employees to �learn to� carry out some task or fulfil some responsibility. We want to get ahead of the game, to equip employees with the knowledge and skills they need to meet the requirements of current and future job roles. Even when we put in place facilities and resources to support on-demand learning, we still have a forward looking focus, trying to get ahead of the game, even if only at the last minute.

Yet for many people, the greatest insights come not through �learning to� but by �learning from� our day-to-day work activities. Experiential learning is literally learning from our experience. It occurs consciously or unconsciously as we reflect upon our own successes and failures at work as well as those of our acquaintances. It introduces an extremely valuable feedback loop into our everyday work.

Without experiential learning, all we are left with is the 'doing'. We repeat the same actions over and over again, never improving and constantly at risk to every new threat that appears in our environment. Experiential learning is 'doing' plus an essential additional ingredient - reflection. Without reflection, we can have many years of experience and learn less than someone who is a relative newcomer but who has acquired the ability to learn.

Experiential learning occurs whether we want it to or not, but there are good reasons why, as learning professionals, we should be supporting and encouraging it:

• Because everyday work experience is rich with opportunities for learning.
• Because we don't always take the best advantage of these opportunities.
• Because, if something goes well, we want to repeat it.
• Because, if something goes wrong, we want to avoid it happening again.

We are hard-wired for experiential learning, as John Medina explains in Brain Rules: �When we came down from the trees to the savannah, we did not say to ourselves, 'Good lord, give me a book and a lecture so I can spend ten years learning how to survive in this place.' Our survival did not depend upon exposing ourselves to organised, pre-planned packets of information. Our survival depended upon chaotic, reactive information-gathering experiences. That's why one of our best attributes is the ability to learn through a series of increasingly self-corrected ideas.�

And what�s more, as John notes, this ability does not fade with age: �The adult brain throughout life retains the ability to change its structure and function in response to experiences.�

Employees are well aware of how important experiential learning can be. The National Institute of Adult Continuing Education (NIACE) asked 2076 employees in the UK to identify the activities that had been useful in helping them to do their job better. Top of the list, identified by 82% of respondents, was 'doing your job on a regular basis'.

There are many ways in which an organisation can encourage experiential learning on a top-down basis:

• benchmarking
• project reviews
• action learning
• job enrichment
• job rotation
• performance appraisals
• a policy of continuous improvement
• optimising the working environment

Whether or not learning professionals have an active role in these processes depends on their brief, but as true learning architects, they need to have a handle on all the ways that learning occurs in the workplace.

Insights: E-learning design is changing

This post continues my commentary to the Learning Insights 2012 Report produced by Kineo for e.learning age magazine. The fifth of ten 'insights' is that �E-learning design is changing'.

For at least ten years I have been trying to broaden the use of the term 'e-learning' to include any use of technology to assist the process of learning, whether that's synchronous or asynchronous, interactive or linear, collaborative or self-study. The term has always been used this broadly in education, but in the corporate sector it continues to mean one thing only: interactive self-study tutorials, in the style of good old CBT (computer-based training). I have now just about given up on this. I'm beginning to accept this narrow definition and use the term 'learning technologies' for the broader perspective.

This diversion into semantics matters when you try to interpret this fifth insight. It matters because the term e-learning is so ambiguous and there are, in fact, two very different developments taking place:

E-learning itself is changing

This change is evolutionary and based on an improved understanding of what works and what doesn't when it comes to formal e-learning tutorials. The better and more successful materials are much shorter (or at least much more modular, making it possible to learn in small chunks), visually more rich, more focused on key concepts and principles rather than mountains of detail, and much more interactive.

I don't think gamification or virtual worlds have had that much of an impact, interesting as they are - perhaps when the economy improves, we'll see more risks taken in these areas. What we are seeing is better storytelling and, above all, a much-improved use of learning scenarios. These are all very positive developments as far as I'm concerned.

Often what people really want is not e-learning at all

By contrast, this change is revolutionary and driven by the very different experience that we have when we access information online on a day-to-day basis. If you want to know about, say, photography - one of my current interests - the first thing you do is go to Google and YouTube. Your search doesn't lead you to slide shows full of bullet points and multiple-choice questions, but to blogs, Wikipedia articles, screencasts and lots and lots of videos.

You know the detailed information will always be available online so you don't bother trying to learn any of that. You want the big picture, the important ideas, lots of tips and tricks, and demonstrations of the key skills. If you have questions, you go to the forums. If you want to benchmark your progress against that of your peers, you join groups, share your work and provide helpful critiques to others. We are completely accustomed to learning in this fashion and very satisfied with how well it works. We cannot see why things should be so different at work.

So e-learning design is changing because, more often than not, it's not traditional e-learning that people want. They're looking for resources not courses. They want these resources in all sorts of forms - plain text will often do, graphics are nice, but they particularly like video. They are not expecting these resources to be fully-functioning learning objects, that take a learning objective through to its conclusion. Rather they want to pick and choose from a range of materials that can each make a contribution to whatever evolving goals they may have.

We're looking for a new breed of digital learning content designers. Yes, they will be able to analyse a need and understand an audience but, most importantly, they will be great communicators in a wide variety of media. Some will specialise in the e-learning tutorials with which we're all familiar, but many more will never get to write a multiple-choice question.

Insights: Organisations need multi-device learning solutions

This post continues my commentary to the Learning Insights 2012 Report produced by Kineo for e.learning age magazine. The fourth of the ten 'insights' in the report is that �Organisations need multi-device learning solutions'.

It used to be that mobile learning was thought of as something quite separate from e-learning - a parallel path for learning technologies. The experience that millions of people have had over the past few years of working with high resolution mobile devices (my third generation iPad has the same resolution as my 27" iMac!) is that you can do most of the same things when you're on the move using a touch screen device as you can on your desktop PC. True, you only tend to get one window on screen at a time, but as far as learning is concerned that's a big advantage. Whatever you call them - desktops, laptops, tablets, smart phones, even games consoles - they're all computers and increasingly they work in very similar ways.

Buyers of e-learning services don't care about the technical difficulties involved in building content that works across all these platforms. And, quite frankly, why should they? It is quite reasonable that they ask that any content that's developed should work on any device currently available or likely to arrive in the next few years. Not that many employers are yet using mobile devices that much for learning. But they will, if only because the early adopters - of tablets in particular - in most organisations, are senior executives. It is absolutely de rigeur that they carry an iPad when on the move, and there's always a chance they'll want to take a look at the latest corporate e-learning programme, if only to check how they look in the introductory video. If they find out that it won't work they'll demand solutions.

So how do e-learning developers respond to this demand? One way is to use an authoring tool that will output to HTML5, which in theory at least will work on most devices (although not if your organisation is still using IE6). This may mean you end up with different versions for different devices, which is not quite meeting the objective.

Another solution is to create content that intelligently adapts to the device on which it is being viewed, something that Kineo itself is pioneering. Responsive HTML is now quite common for major websites, which format content according to the screen size, but certainly not usual for e-learning. One of the interesting side effects of this is the need to move away from the slide show model and to embrace scrolling pages (see my post on the return of scrolling and why this should not be a cause for concern).

Having recently advised that e-learning is (nearly) dead, I'd have to admit that m-learning is going the same way. Our customers don't acknowledge a difference, so why should we?

Insights: Formal courses are not dead, just different

This post continues my commentary to the Learning Insights 2012 Report produced by Kineo for e.learning age magazine. The third of the ten 'insights' in the report is that �formal courses are not dead, just different'.

Formal courses have taken a bit of a beating in recent years, as the pendulum has swung towards more informal approaches. There has been a realisation, I believe, that courses have failed to deliver in terms of real performance change and that there's much more to learning at work than sitting in a classroom. Way back in 1970, Peter Honey pleaded for us to 'stop the courses, I want to get off.' He argued that organising courses was the easy option, but that to create effective learning interventions which were meaningful in terms of the job called for much more effort, imagination and innovation. Forty years later, we're getting the message.

As ever, the pendulum tends to swing too far. There are some powerful arguments for keeping formal courses somewhere on the agenda:

• Employees who are new on the job and have lots to learn, are more than happy for their induction and basic training to be formally structured and supported. They don't know what they don't know and cannot be expected to just get out there and network.
• There's truth in the notion that 'qualifications only matter if you don't have them'. When you're young, in particular, and building a career, your qualifications mean a lot, because you can't point to a great deal of job experience. That perspective may change as you get older and wonder how much your formal qualifications have helped you in actually doing your job, but at the time they're very welcome. In fact some people never tire of collecting badges and certificates, particularly those who didn't achieve so much through their formal education.
• Pretty well all employers need to know for sure that certain learning has taken place (or at least training, which is not the same thing of course). Obviously this includes the compliance agenda, but could well extend to other key aspects of working life, where knowledge and skills are critical to the organisation's success. The best way to satisfy that need is through some sort of formal course, whether that's face-to-face, online or a blend.

Which brings us to the other part of this insight, which is that formal courses are changing in nature. Blended solutions, whether or not we call them this, are without doubt the strategy of choice among larger employers around the world. Blended solutions do much more than provide variety or choice. When well designed, they apply the right strategies at the right point in each intervention and use the media that can most flexibly and efficiently deliver these strategies. Most importantly, they can cross the boundary from formal to informal, making sure that learning is embedded in real-work experience.

In other words, formal courses are becoming less formal; less of an event and more of an on-going process. Designing interventions this way requires a serious change in thinking and we're not there yet. However, many L&D managers have already embarked on a process of transformation and are prepared to do whatever it takes to get there.

Insights: L&D is playing a key role in supporting informal learning

This post continues my commentary to the Learning Insights 2012 Report produced by Kineo for e.learning age magazine. The second of the ten 'insights' in the report is that �L&D is playing a key role in supporting informal learning'.

Informal learning is a broad term, covering everything from on-job instruction and coaching, through to the use of performance support materials, collaborative and experiential learning; anything, in fact, that doesn't come bundled up as a full-blown course. In the Learning Insights Report, they use the term in quite a restricted way, to refer to the use of digital content on an on-demand basis - resources rather than courses. They see evidence of increased involvement of L&D in providing or curating content that is 'good enough' to do the job, although rather less progress with user-generated content. If this really is a trend, then it's a very important one.

For some in L&D, the only learning resources they get involved with are the printed handouts they provide alongside their classroom courses. While these may be useful to some, they are in the wrong form completely to meet contemporary needs. They are a relic of another age. Practically everyone on the planet with access to a PC or a mobile device is used to the idea that you can get any information you want, anytime you want, in practically any format you want, just by typing key words into a search field. It might be a technical miracle that this is possible, but for the general public it's simply expected.

The message does seem at last to have got through to L&D (and to e-learning developers). While there is still a need for formally-packaged courses, these are for special occasions, when we or our employers require some formal record of achievement (or at least of participation). In the meantime, there's a job to be done, and that's far better achieved through access to videos, PDFs, forums, blogs and simple web articles. These are much easier to produce than highly-structured e-learning and just as easy to consume. Nothing lasts more than five minutes and the emphasis is strictly on practical application.

In the Learning Insights Report, they refer to this as a 'disaggregation' of learning resources. Why bury useful material, such as videos and decision aids, somewhere in a hard-wired monolith of an e-learning course, when they can be accessed in an instant as separate resources? By producing digital content in this granular fashion, you dramatically extend it's usefulness. A great example of this is the ubiquitous YouTube video, which can be embedded just about anywhere from a blog post to an email, perhaps even played in a classroom! In some ways this is a realisation of the concept of 'learning objects', which failed to make any impact ten years ago, but which could soon be taken for granted.

I'm working on several projects with clients at the moment which take the form of collections of resources in a wide variety of formats. Often this material already exists, and where it doesn't, the gap can be filled with rapid content. This is a far more flexible, scalable and manageable process than we've seen before, but it doesn't take away the requirement for professional outside help. Even making content that is 'good enough' requires strong communication skills and lots of concentrated time for analysis and creative thought. Many L&D departments are stretched to the limits and simply don't have the capacity.

Which brings us to the idea of user-generated content, which should, in theory fill all the gaps that cannot be resourced on a top-down basis. Clearly this is one aspect of contemporary online living that has yet to transfer on any serious scale to the world of work. Perhaps we are expecting too much. The 90:9:1 rule suggests that only one in a hundred will start up a blog, create a new thread on a forum or put a video on YouTube. We're not going to see people do things like this at work unless they are seriously incentivised. On the other hand, nine in every hundred will keep the conversation going and contribute in some way with a comment or refinement. That is more realistically where we should expect to see user-generated content emerging in the workplace - as thousands of short contributions to hundreds of conversations. With powerful search facilities on a corporate intranet, these can provide the answers to the everyday questions of the remaining 90%.

Insights: Improving performance still matters the most

Over the next few weeks I'm going to provide my own commentary to the excellent Learning Insights 2012 Report produced by Kineo for e.learning age magazine. The report is largely the work of Steve Rayson. In his own inimitable whirlwind fashion, he interviewed 30 or so major UK employers this summer to get a handle on the key trends in workplace learning. He did a good job and the report adds an interesting alternative perspective to the research carried out by others in the UK such as Towards Maturity.

The first 'insight' from the report is that 'improving performance still matters the most'. In particular, Steve makes the point that, if you can prove that a learning intervention will positively impact on performance, the necessary funds will be made available.

For me, the interesting word in this first insight is 'still'. I'm not at all convinced that performance has driven decisions on learning interventions in the past. I'd say quite a few other issues could come into play:

1. Complying with policies and regulations
2. Providing training and development as an employee benefit
3. Delivering learning as an end in itself

Let's take these in turn.

1. Compliance may drive learning interventions but it doesn't have to

Now every organisation does, to some extent, have to comply with regulations of one sort or another, whether that relates to employment policies, health and safety, the prevention of money laundering, the marketing of pharmaceutical products, and so on. The implications of breaking these regulations � and being found out � can be devastating for an organisation, not only financially, but in terms of public reputation. In extreme cases, executives and others lower down in an organisation could face criminal charges. Not surprising, then, that organisations � sometimes on the insistence of their insurers � take great pains to ensure that infringements are kept to a minimum. An obvious step in achieving this is to ensure that everyone involved obtains adequate training.

There are two ways of looking at this sort of training: (1) you can regard it as a simple box-ticking exercise in which employers and employees go through the motions of delivering and receiving training, in order to satisfy regulators and insurers that the job is being done; or (2), you aim to bring about a shift in behaviour such that infringements are very unlikely to occur, because employees believe in the policy and have the necessary knowledge and skill to put it into practice.

Option (1) is based on the assumptions that infringements are unlikely, the regulations are a nuisance and that compliance is a necessary evil. Option (2) is founded on the principles that infringements can and do happen, that the regulations are rightly in place to prevent harm to third parties, and that policies are not enough � delivering on those policies requires competence. Quite a difference. It is possible to comply with regulations but to do this with a performance focus. Let's hope that this is increasingly the case. For a fuller discussion, see my post: From compliance to competence

2. Training and development can be provided as an employee benefit but it can go further than this

There is nothing irrational about providing training and development as a benefit. First of all, it helps in attracting new employees, which can be critical when skilled labour is in short supply. It also helps an employer to retain the employees they already have. No longer can you demand or expect loyalty from your employees: the events of the last five years have made it quite clear that employers do not themselves show much loyalty to their staff when the going gets tough, so it's not surprising that people now look first and foremost to their own interests. As a result, an employer has to work to retain their best employees and an on-going programme of learning and development will undoubtedly help.

But there's no reason whatsoever why this should preclude a performance focus. As Daniel Pink describes in Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, three factors stand out: the desire to direct our own lives; the urge to get better and better at something that matters; and the yearning to do what we do in the service of something larger than ourselves. In other words, it really helps if the development you receive is meaningful and relevant. It should help you to do a better job, to improve your performance and deliver a better service to your stakeholders.

3. Learning can be seen as an end in itself, but it can also be the means to an end

I think that some workplace learning professionals get confused into thinking that they are running a school or college, where learning is the outcome. With this way of thinking, learning objectives become the over-riding focus of attention and rather superficial tools such as knowledge tests become important measures of success. But workplaces are not primarily places of learning. True, they function more effectively and are more enjoyable places in which to work if they value and encourage learning, but that's because learning is an important contributor to changes in behaviour. And changes in behaviour are a necessary (though rarely sufficient) contributor to performance.

So, the most effective learning interventions are going to be aligned to the goals of the organisation. They are devised only after answers have been obtained to some important questions:

• What behaviours are critical to the future success of this organisation?
• To what degree are employees already exhibiting the behaviours that are critical for success?
• What influence can learning interventions have on these behaviours?

So, as will now be perfectly clear, I'm all for an increased focus on performance, not just so learning professionals get to stay in a job, but because their own work becomes more meaningful and relevant. And you can't say that has always been the case.

E-learning is dead, long live learning

I produced this short video to accompany the Learning Insights 2012 Report produced by Kineo for e.learning age magazine and due to be launched today. I'll be posting about it over the next few weeks.

What sort of journalist am I?

Having just reached a major milestone birthday (I'll leave you to figure out whether that's 30 or 40), I feel justified in reflecting on the role that blogging is likely to play in the years to come. I've just made major investments in three new all-consuming hobbies - photography, video and piano playing - and I need time to make sure I get a good return on all three. At the same time, there's plenty of demand for my services as a learning technologist (which is what I've recently decided to call myself) so surely something has to give.

Well, for now at least, it will not be blogging. I've been posting for six years now to Clive on Learning, which represents something like 750 entries and 350,000 words. That's not to mention another 100 or so posts on the Onlignment blog. Surely there can't be much more to say?

I've become more and more certain that blogging is just a new form of journalism. It breaks away from more traditional print and TV journalism in that you are not answerable to any editor or publisher - there are, effectively, no barriers to entry. But having said that, there are plenty of barriers to prevent you from carrying on once you've got started. For a start, you need a stream of material for new posts. That will only happen if you're exposed to lots of thoughts and ideas (including those which challenge your own thinking) and that means a lot of reading, listening, watching and conversing. You also need to make the most of your own experiences, reflecting on the successes and the failures and looking for the patterns that will inform new ideas of your own.

Lots of people get this far, but you also need the means, the motive and the opportunity to convert this raw material into words (and, increasingly, pictures). Even then, if you fail to find an audience, you will have to be pretty determined to keep going indefinitely. So, plenty of bloggers eventually decide to call it a day. Those that are left are the ones who most enjoy being a journalist. 

A problem I am wrestling with is how often to post. For the first five years I posted twice a week, now only once. But some of my colleagues - with the blogs I most like to read - have no regular pattern. Donald Clark goes quiet for months then has the inspiration for a new series and belts them out at one a day, like a part works. Others, such as Nick Shackleton-Jones, post only when they have something significant to say. Nick's essays have the character of major feature articles.

Then again, some, like Stephen Downes, post every day without fail. They act as curators for all those with fewer sources to draw upon and less time at their disposal. While some act as a news aggregator, recycling press releases without adding value, Stephen provides his own unique take, and inevitably makes friends and enemies along the way.

So what sort of journalist do I want to be going forward? I'd say the best parallel would be a weekly columnist who takes the odd week (or perhaps even month) off. The discipline of a regular routine suits me. WIthout this, I'm sure the posts would become less and less frequent as the task of posting slipped further down the priority list.

All sorted then.

Thanks for reading this bit of introspection. With any luck I'll be back next week as usual. Unless it's one of my weeks off.