A strong statement indeed!  However, it’s one that does seem to be held (but I hope not by the majority).

I had an interesting debate about this recently on one of my courses about designing engaging eLearning.

Actually, the conversation we had was more about whether eLearning that is designed to cover what people should do rather than what they should know would be accepted by the stakeholders requesting the eLearning.  Previously we’d had some great discussions about how scenarios and stories can help the learning come to life and simulate what learners might experience when doing their jobs.  Most people, when asked what they dislike about eLearning, usually talk about the boring, information laden, page after page of text followed by the obligatory multiple choice quiz – or as Cammy Bean recently called “read ‘em and weep” eLearning.

Great eLearning focusses on performance.  Allowing learners to exercise their cognitive skills and learn through problem solving.  All learning should be focussed on helping people do their jobs properly.  Classroom learning has improved by leaps and bounds packed full of case studies, role plays, realistic and work-based examples designed to replicate as closely as possible their own roles.  They’ve become sandpits where people can experience tasks, make mistakes and learn from each other with immediate, constructive feedback from the facilitator.  The great news is that eLearning can be designed along the same lines.  It doesn’t matter whether the topic is about learning to give great customer service, identifying fraud, the importance of hand washing in patient care or introducing people to a new purchase ordering software.  In each of these examples people are needing to learn how to do something to a given standard.

Then of course the question has to be how we might assess the learning more appropriately?  How else can we prove we are complying with legal or organisational policies and guidelines than to show we can apply critical thinking to a given situation in which we might be faced with during our day to day job.  Reading pages of dos and don’ts, why’s and wherefores and then testing how well we remember them doesn’t prove we can apply a particular piece of legislation to an unexpected situation at work.  The only way we can do that is put people in the situation.  Of course this can still include using multiple choice questions but not the type we are most familiar with.  We just need to be more creative with them by using mini-scenario questions or case studies so we’re testing actions rather than recall.

Is it really impossible?  If you put such a solution forward to address compliance training in eLearning would you be laughed out of the boardroom?  Would your stakeholders just summarily dismiss the idea as unworkable?  My argument is that its more than possible, complience is crying out for it but you’ll have to sell the benefits carefully.  Will you just assume your stakeholders won’t buy-into it or will you be prepared to spend time and effort in producing something you know will engage and produce real results instead of ticking the attendance boxes?

Why is there such resistance by some organisations to producing quality eLearning.  Why are we still faced with this situatioin where the goal is just to get as many people through the sheep dip as quickly as possible, so they all come out the other end with a stamp to say ‘done’ rather than ‘can do’. In Craig Taylor’s comment to an earlier blog post ‘How do we ensure competency’, he has been faced with the same brick wall.

Perhaps our stakeholders need more persuading.  Perhaps they aren’t aware how compromising the quality of the learning actually has a negative impact on efficiency.  If the learning is poor then organisations will still see costly legal procedures continue, mistakes may still be made and productivity may still be down.  Retraining may be required but if the learning is poor, the whole cycle starts again.

Perhaps organisations are under pressure from their governing bodies to meet ever more demanding targets in shorter time scales that it’s become more about counting virtual bums on virtual seats than making sure staff are fully equipped with the skills to do their jobs.

Perhaps instead of saying how high and jump to the orders from those who really have little experience in producing quality learning solutions, we should change our strategies from being order takers to becoming the consultants we really are.  Supporting learning and performance is everyone’s responsibility, not just the L&D but the line managers, the senior managers and those doing the learning they just could do with a little help.

Only when we know we have tried our best; only when we have put forward all arguments; only when we’ve provided a taster, a working example based on scientific and evidence based practise; only when we’ve managed to pilot and collated feedback; only when we have measured both the efficacy and the efficiency of the solution (like Craig Taylor)can we honestly admit defeat.  At least we can say we’ve done all we can to persuade the sceptics.

If, after all that effort, our conscience is still in turmoil and “if you can’t beat them, join them” is not an option for you, there is only one thing left to do …..

My advice?  Keep chipping away.  Even though your head might bleed from hitting it against that proverbial brick wall, keep going.  As Confucius said “a journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step”. Before long you’ll have supporters walking along side and one day the rewards will be great.

Here’s the 4th and final instalments of my interview with Clive Shepherd. Our final visit discovers Clive’s thoughts behind his choices for the 10 real learning architect profiles and some parting advice for all of us.

Here are links to all previous posts:

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

Many thanks again to Clive for his time and to First Light studio in Brighton. It was a fascinating and rewarding experience and I hope you’ve enjoyed the results. I’m looking forward to sharing with you some of what I learned.

The full version of the interview will be available early next week.

If you’ve enjoyed the previous two instalments of my interview, here comes the third. Here we explore how the 70/20/10 model matches across to Clive’s model, thoughts for those sceptical about the role informal learning plays in an individual’s development and advice for those wishing to measure informal learning.

Here’s the links for the other clips

Part 1
Part 2
Part 4

Here’s the second part of my interview with Clive. This clip covers:

Thoughts on recent research into the human brain and how it’s being taken on board by L&D
More behind the 4 contexts for learning
Thoughts behind taking a top down and bottom up view on these
Hopes on how the model may be used

Click the links below to view the other interview clips.

Part 1
Part 3
Part 4

I’ve always enjoyed watching video interviews and I’ve had a hankering for a while to try my hand at them.

My blog has already featured a review of both the Blended Learning Cook Book and The New Learning Architect. When looking for a guinea pig as my first interviewee, I immediately thought of Clive Shepherd especially as I was interested in his inspiration behind his recent work. Clive very kindly agreed to help out.

We arranged a mutually convenient date and travelled down to Brighton to the First Light studio to record the interview. I’ll tell you more of what turned out to be an eventful trip another time but I’m sure you are all keen to hear the first instalment of a 4 part interview with Clive Shepherd. I have added all the question topics in each instalment below.

You’ll be able to view the full interview on YouTube once they’ve all appeared on my blog by the end of the week – just to keep you all in suspense. Click on the links below to view subsequent video interview clips.

Part 1:
The inspiration to write The New Learning Architect
Describing a learning architect
Explaining why order takers are like builders rather than architects
Thoughts about why there may be more builders and architects in organisations
Advice to those nervous of challenging orders

Part 2:
Thoughts on recent research into the human brain and how it’s being taken on board by L&D
More behind the 4 contexts for learning
Thoughts behind taking a top down and bottom up view on these
Hopes on how the model may be used

Part 3:
The 70/20/10 model and The New Learning Architect
Thoughts for those sceptical about the role informal learning plays in individual development
Advice to those wishing to measure informal learning activities

Part 4:
Exploring thoughts behind including the 10 profiles in the book
How these case studies might be helpful to potential learning architects
Final piece of advice

I recently read an article in this month’s eLearning Age by John Helmer about informal learning. It’s about the 70 20 10 rule but in essence, the 70 and 20 of that rule equates to a lot of informal learning. I was particularly interested in a reference John Helmer made to “Jay Cross et all decreeing the shutting down of training departments”. It reports on suggestions that if 90% of learning actually goes on informally, “need they (L&D professionals) even show up for work?” It goes on to reference Epic’s Oxford Union debate raising concerns that we couldn’t risk the professional development of our medical experts, pilots etc to informal learning.

Like I said in the title of this blog, the trouble with informal learning is people. And the problem with people is they sometimes act rashly without thought. Or they think but don’t analyse properly. Or they misinterpret. And all too often they hear what they want to hear like ‘if informal learning means workers learn as they do their jobs and from their colleagues, we obviously don’t need all those trainers and learning developers’. The problem with some other people is when they hear the word ‘informal’ they really hear ‘haphazard, chaotic, left to chance, won’t happen’. It’s a bit like when people hear the term ‘blended learning’ they really hear ‘eLearning + classroom + a little more eLearning’.

So some people think informal learning is an excuse to axe L&D teams while there are others who when they hear ‘informal learning’ think “that’ll never work – can’t measure that – what statistics can we report back with that?”

Now before I go on any further, I’d like to share a little secret you may not know. Jay Cross isn’t advocating no formal learning at all – formal learning will be essential for certain areas such as training novices or for compliance and where death/safety/litigation etc might be a consequence of learning being left to the motivation of the individual. And of course this relates back to the 70 20 10 theory.

So what’s the future for L&D professionals with this movement towards more self-directed, workplace learning and less formal courses? If L&D professionals are shrewd enough, shout loud enough and they have the backing from senior managers, they can become the cement that holds the organisation together by working with individuals as coaches and cultivators of their personal learning journey. People will need support from learning professionals, they will need to learn how to use the new tools, they will certainly need to learn how to critically appraise the information they find. L&D professionals are just that – professionals in learning and development.

They have the opportunity to be the consultants they really are and advise senior managers how to encourage their staff to, as Jay Cross and the Internet Time Alliance refer to as ‘work smarter’. Formal learning will not disappear but its future will be more meaningful and relevant, more in line with business goals and therefore more effective.

Ok – so now we’ve accepted that informal learning is being taken on board how on earth do we know if it’s doing any good? Here’s my question to you. How do we know when a person is capable of doing their job? Does tracking every click through a screen or have everyone sit for hours in a classroom do that? Or is it by assessment of their skills?

In my view, the ONLY way we can assess competency is in them applying any learning to a work-based task. In preparation for that they may undertake a formal assessment followed application in the workplace. Tracking what I call ‘bums on seats’ or clicks through pages only tracks attendance. It doesn’t tell us anything about whether those individuals have even paid attention let alone learned anything. Therefore, does it really matter how they gain the knowledge or skills?

Formal assessments will still have your learning objective. Afterall, a learning objective is merely a description of the assessment anyway. It’s referencing the END of the journey. How your workforce get there will depend on the level of experience of the individuals. Those dependent learners i.e. newcomers, or those with no prior experience will likely need a more formal approach. Those more experienced, who can build on prior knowledge and are used to a more self-directed way of learning would benefit from a more organic learning journey. So what if the individual has gained the majority of their knowledge by being self-motivated enough to follow current research, have conversations with experts whether face to face, by blogging and reading blogs attending conferences, connecting through tools such as Twitter, asking colleagues on best practice. At the end of it all, it’s still an assessment which will prove how effective any learning method has been.

If we are to believe adult learning theories, Informal learning seems to the perfect method for us. Afterall, isn’t that how adults are wired to learn? Aren’t we supposed to be following the adrogocal principles in our learning solutions? Ryan Tracey has an excellent post on this. Quoting from his article, androgogical principles are based on the assumptions that adults are…..

1. Adult learners are self directed.
2. Adults bring experience with them to the learning environment.
3. Adults are ready to learn to perform their role in society.
4. Adults are problem oriented, and they seek immediate application of their new knowledge.
5. Adults are motivated to learn by internal factors.

And we all know what assumption is the mother of don’t we? No? You might need to Google that one.

Ryan goes on to say that life isn’t that simple. We know from experience that adults’ motivation for effort (whether that’s for learning or working) is directly affected by curcumstances and they can range from how pressured they are by deadlines to having to learn something brand new where they become novices again (and the actions of their superiors). Sometimes, a more formal approach to learning will be the solution, sometimes a more experiential, self-directed, informal approach will be the order of the day but what is a fact, it’s not about battling them out against each other but more about how they work together.

Going back to the article in eLearning Age, John Helmer calls for a ‘north star’ and says that “until we have templates, until we have frameworks, until we have proof, informal learning will remain more style than substance”. If you’re looking for guidance, there are plenty of case studies from major organisations who have successfully encouraged a more informal approach to learning which you can find on the Towards Maturity site www.towardsmaturity.org. As for templates and framework, you need to check out Clive Shepherd’s new book The New Learning Architect which not only gives an excellent framework to work with.

And finally, in defence of informal learning I would like to share with you how it has played an enormous role in my own personal development and, as such directly influential in my career progression, expertise and growth that has constantly helped shape the blended courses courses I deliver for my employer in the field of online learning.

When I joined the eLearning team at where I work, I attended formal courses in all my now areas of expertise. It started with a blended learning course. That was the only ‘formal’ element of my learning journey in these topics. I was hooked. I always had a liking for technology and a passion for learning so I already had motivation. My destiny was then delivering that same course and I sat and observed, then delivered a bit at a time, then all on my own. That’s what I would class as application back in the workplace which embedded the learning. Since then, it’s instilled a passion that set me on my eternal informal learning journey. I also have amazing support and encouragement from my colleagues and line managers.

Now I research, connect, analyse, blog, read, collaborate to keep my knowledge fresh and up to date. No-one has forced me to do this, it wasn’t asked of me at work and it certainly hasn’t been managed or directed (apart from it being necessary to keep out of date). It’s all purely self-directed and informal. Without the technology such as Twitter (my biggest and best professional development tool), blogs, white papers, and then dabbling in blogging myself, I doubt I would have been as successful. Even thought I work from home I can assure you that I’m also able to access these tools when in the company office. None of our staff ‘waste’ our time on it – we don’t have the time to waste. But my passion has extended beyond work and I continue my professional development in my own time probably unhealthily so.

If you were able to track how many Tweets I read, how many websites and blogs I visit and read, how many people I speak to, that wouldn’t tell you whether I actually learned anything. My self-directed, informal path may not be measured by tracking but it is measured in the success of the courses I run, the feedback I get, the achievements of those individuals who have benefited as a result of my own efforts.

So the only piece of advice I can give to organisations is if you think it’s a risk to allow your staff to pursue a more informal approach in their own development and ban the use of the tools that facilitate that learning just take a moment to think about the risks of not doing it. Think about what you are are not achieving as a result. And for those individuals who are frustrated and complain that your organisation won’t allow you to learn this way, if you value your own personal development you will find a way on your own in your own time. It may not be fair but life rarely is.

To re-iterate my initial thought. The only problem with informal learning is people!

It’s full of very thought provoking stuff and matches my own ideals one of which is using authoring tools for the right job. So often they’re the proverbial hammers cracking nuts with equal devastation.

I’ve popped a reply on Ryan’s post but it has piqued my interest that I may well explore some of those points further.

Read and enjoy!

Since the Learning Technologies Conference and Exhibition, there have been some great blog posts pondering on the results and looking to the future. I was also interested in the short Voxpops interviews (Voxpop1, Voxpop2) with a selected few from the event. The question posed to interviewees was “What changes would YOU like to see in L&D for 2011?” I was going to do a short review of what people said in their interviews but instead thought I’d just capture the main points in the Wordle you can see above.

It’s interesting that the advice for L&D is to focus on the learning, the learners, the business goals, performance based.  Surely that shouldn’t come as any surprise to anyone and it’s a shame that we needed reminding.  There was a lot of references to the learning being effective.  Quality certainly should be at the heart of developing our staff.  In order to produce quality learning we need to make sure the learning is relevant, learner-centred, bite-sized with plenty of practical application and which can be assessed in a more realistic method that handing out quiz questions no matter how you dress them up.  It’s our responsibility to help people learn to do their jobs well which has a direct effect on the bottom line.  We shouldn’t be teaching them how to pass tests – where’s the learning in that?  Give them work-based projects instead.  Help them feel they are contributing.

At the same time as calling for more effective learning, there was also a call for it to be more efficient and to make use of more online learning.  The danger of taking our effective courses online is we may leave out what makes it effective in the first place.  That’s all the learner-centred stuff.  The conversations, the group work, the feedback, the questioning, the collaboration.  Where will that all go?  So they become efficient but now their ineffective.  Efficient without efficacy actually leads to more inefficiency.  Without good quality learning, people won’t learn well (or at all in some cases).  So what happens?  They make more mistakes in their work and/or have to retrain.  If they retrain using the same ineffective materials as before, what’s going to happen?  Yep – a never ending circle.

What’s encouraging is the recognition that training – the formal stuff – is only  a small part of the development of individuals in the workforce but it’s what happens after they’ve had the formal training that really embeds the learning.  We’ve heard a lot about formal training accounting for only 20% of our knowledge on the job. The rest being attributed to informal learning.  However, there’s a little more to it than that as Clive Shepherd points out in his ‘The New Learning Architect’ but performance support will be the cement that makes the learning stick after the formal events have long past.

What I also found interesting from the Voxpops (considering we were at a the Learning technologies) conference was the low key references to using technology for learning.  Oh yes, there was a whole floor at least dedicated to technology but when speaking to the L&D people not the vendors, there was little emphasis on using new media or more technology in their solutions.  James Clay’s post ‘Focus on the technology or not’ puts it brilliantly.  He says:

… it is vital that practitioners are aware of the potential and availability of technology. When they know what is available and importantly what it is capable of then they can apply technological solutions to their learning problems.

L&D should more than capable of designing an effective solution that meets adult learners’ needs but a more efficient delivery means the more likely it has to include new technologies thus creating a huge skills gap. It’s no longer about content versus technology but about content AND technology. In this media filled world where people are always connected and will find it very difficult to avoid using technology to communicate, work, rest and play we can no longer separate the two. We need to think of the technology as the enabler. L&D really need to become more tech savvy and keep up to date with research. They need to try things out and exercise their creation and innovation muscle. Think about using technology not normally considered a learning tool for a learning activity (see Milo). I know we shouldn’t try and shoe-horn a particular piece of technology into a learning solution just for the sake of it but if people are already using the technology in their working or personal time, isn’t it about time we can help them continue to use them for learning.

To quote again to James’ post:

you have to start from somewhere and by explaining the potential that learning technologies offer, you are starting from a good place that will open minds to future potential and possibilities

Overall, the message I got from listening to the VoxPops was that following a logical blended approach to designing learning solutions in organisations is definitely the way L&D can become more than just the ‘training department’.  L&D can become the cement that holds the organisation together by becoming more cultivators of learning.  Helping learners learn for themselves and providing more performance support.  By increasing their knowledge, understanding and skills in using new media tools for more efficient delivery of learning, L&D will ensure their longevity in the organisation by becoming an integral part of the bricks and mortar.  Organisations will pay a high price if they don’t invest more in their L&D professionals.

The goal of action mapping is to design experiences, not information. We want to help learners practice making the decisions that they need to make on the job.

Set a measurable business (not learning) goal for your project. Show how you’ll improve business performance to justify the expense of your project.

Identify what people need to do in the real world to reach the goal and determine why they aren’t doing it. Lack of knowledge might not be the real problem.

In activities, have learners practice making the decisions that they need to make on the job; don’t make them recite information.

Show the realistic consequences of learners’ decisions (Bill is accidentally cut by the scalpel) and let learners draw conclusions from them. Don’t say “correct/incorrect.”

Have learners start with an activity, not information. Embed the necessary info in the activity and make it optional, or have learners refer to the real-world job aid.

Success in the decision-making activity shows that learners know the information. Avoid fact checks.
Surprise and failure are memorable. Let learners make mistakes—they’ll remember them.

Everything in your material should directly support the business goal. Have your client and subject matter expert participate in the entire process to get buy-in and avoid having to fight off the “nice to know” stuff.

My observations are that anyone designing any learning solution, whether it be e-learning self-study, classroom based, or indeed a blended solution, should do the same. Content heavy solutions, with no relevancy, which are all about regurgitating facts and figures, testing immediate recall of the information rather than how successfully they can carry out their tasks are all doomed to fail the learner and are just a waste of resources.

Fortunately, with some excellent ‘train the trainer’ programmes out there, how we design and deliver classroom solutions have gradually moved more towards a learner-centred and relevant work-based approach. Unfortunately, in the recent move to turn classroom courses into stand alone eLearning self-study programmes, we’ve taken a backward step. All that’s happened is the ‘nexty, nexty’ self-study course (thanks to a previous delegate of mine who came up with that description). Very text-heavy screens with the only interaction being the user clicking the next button and being tested on the facts.

Let’s revolutionise eLearning.

If anyone wanted to be convinced about the value of Twitter, this is definitely one example. It was (almost) like being there again but this time I had the luxury of checking out the links within the tweets for further information. Hail the backchannel. And hail @learninganorak who did a stirling job of Tweeting updates throughout the two days (I honestly don’t know how you do it – you must have bionic fingers).

From there I was able to catch up on various blog posts reflecting on the event both from the conference and the vendor floors. Everyone has a different perspective but there was a common theme about the mis-match of focus between floors as I mentioned in my previous post. Then I thought – hey, how about collating all these blog posts in one place and sharing them.

It was such a brilliant idea that I was pipped to the post by Cathy Moore. It certainly saved me a job. So rather than me repeat the super job Cathy has already done why don’t you check it out for yourself. And just so I feel I have contributed to the list here are a few more. Happy catch-up.

e-Learning Centre’s review
Craig Taylor’s reflections
Nowcomms Learning Technologies exit poll (an interesting read)