Tag Archives: reviews

Another good read ahead

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I’m very excited….. I’ve just received Clive Shepherd’s new book The New Learning Architect which is now available from Lulu and on the Kindle.

I’m going to be digesting Clive’s work over the next week or so and will post my own humble thoughts on it. In the meantime though, I thought it would be a good opportunity to re-introduce you to Clive’s Blended Learning Cookbook.

With the need to do more for less in this current economic climate businesses are increasingly coming under more and more pressure to continue to equip their workforce with the knowledge and skills to perform in difficult circumstances. Clive Shepherd’s book is an excellent place to start if you need some practical advice to provide more efficient learning and development solutions but at the same time, maintaining effective learning to take place.

The book is a refreshingly clear explanation that cuts through the fog by determining exactly what blended learning really is. It is written with an unbiased view of media which so many others fail to do. It will open up a whole new range of opportunities to organisations that is beyond what we might call traditional training methods. Afterall, it’s about blended LEARNING not blended TRAINING.

What it doesn’t do, and rightly so, is insist that a blended solution HAS to include specific delivery methods to be a true blend; for example, blended learning isn’t just combining classroom and e-learning which is a common misconception.

What makes this book the most valuable asset to anyone involved in providing learning solutions, whether classroom designers, e-learning designers, trainers, managers, senior managers or freelancers is take you back to basics and keeps you focussed on the learning rather than the media. Quality learning has too often taken a back seat in the struggle to find cheaper, quicker ways of delivering training. This book shows you how to keep the balance.

The reason it is a ‘cook book’ is that it gives a rich collection of real blended examples – or recipes to follow. There are plenty and I’m guessing there will be one that will be close to the situation you are currently facing. Even when we eventually rise out of the current downturn, The Blended Learning Cookbook will prove a useful, well-thumbed reference for its recipes.

Without having read Clive’s new book The New Learning Architect yet apart from the back cover and Clive’s own blog posts about it, I’m anticipating that it will take blended learning beyond formal training solutions to a more appropriate and integrated approach to development that reflects how we live and work today.

Social Media for Trainers

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A review of Jane Bozarth’s new book

If trainers are to secure their futures, it’s important to evolve beyond training and be there where the learners are most comfortable. They need to find out what social media is all about; really all about – not just what they hear in the hyped up media. They need to understand the pros and cons, what they can use it for and above all, try it out for themselves. Jane Bozarth’s Social Media for Trainers is a great place to start. You may also be interested in a previous post where I reviewed an interview Cammy Bean had with Jane on her virtual book tour.

Altough the book concentrates on the most popular of social media tools such as Twitter and Facebook, as well as general tools such as wikis and blogs, Jane stresses that the tips and ideas can easily be transferred to similar tools such as Yammer and Elgg to mention just two that may be allowed within organisations’ firewall.

The book demystifies these tools in laymans terms. It highlights the advantages and disadvantages of each and when and how we could use them. But what the uninitiated would really find useful is the ‘how to get started’ section. As you read through the wealth of ideas for learning activities within the formal training environment you will also discover how to help your leaners continue their learning back in the workplace with various social media tools. You will also disover a little about other media tools you may not have thought of as learning tools such as TeacherTube and SlideShare. However, as technology evolves quickly, the downside of printed material (as the author points out at the beginning of the book), information can often become out of date at the point of publication. This has happened with Google Wave (a promising collaboration tool) which has since been discontinued.

Unusually, the glossary of terms appears at the beginning of the book and is a perfect place for it to be to prepare you for the read.

The book is more than a bunch of ideas on how to use social media tools in your training. It goes beyond training and how trainers can become part of the ‘spaces in between’ the formal training events to nurture and facilitate learning back in the workplace. It will help trainers help themselves grow and ensure their viability in organisations. But even more than that, it gives trainers an opportunity to try the social media out for themselves.

So if you want to get to grips with starting and keeping the conversations going beyond the training room – read this book.

If you want some tips on how you can persuade others that having conversations is where the learning is at and social media will help them do it – read this book.

Or if you want to start your own personal social media learning journey – read this book and start your own conversation.

Bogus website reviews

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I was sitting watching Click, the BBC’s flagship technology programme, the other morning where they reported on bogus reviews on some websites (Websites take on bogus reviewers).  It was saying that although customer reviews on websites can be valuable to us when deciding on using a business or service, there has been a spate of spam reviews potentially damaging firms’ reputations.  I have certainly found reviews very useful when booking hotels, buying a new Bluetooth headset or deciding which car to get next.  It is easy to focus too hard on a bad review and let that cloud our thinking even when there are a great many great reviews for the same business.

There was a good piece of advice at the end of the article on the TV programme which isn’t reflected in the web article here that advised to ignore all the excellent reviews and the extreme bad reviews and concentrate on the middle ground.  Something that I am careful to do.   It doesn’t take away the upset for the businesses or person targeted however.

The article brought back thoughts of what it is like when you put your all into delivering an engaging training course and everyone has enjoyed themselves and accomplished what they set out to do with no indication of anything being wrong and then when everything has been packed away and you receive feedback –one person appeared to have been on a totally different course.  It may be one in a thousand that may call your reputation into question and it is human nature to dwell on that one in a thousand rather than the other 999 satisfied learners.  We forget that external fears, problems at home, work politics etc can influence a person’s experience not forgetting how our own moods can affect us when reading reviews.

Not that we should totally ignore poor reviews – there may be something that needs to change – but we do need to put them in perspective or suffer sleepless nights and questioning of our own abilities. Remember the majority not the minority and to take criticism as an opportunity.

Does this ring a bell with you?  What are your experiences?