You're So Immature: e-Learning in Some Organizations

Earlier this week I was musing about messes in Messy Learning OK. Messy Training Not OK. This post had some great comments which got me thinking about maturity cycles in e-Learning among organizations.

Karl Kapp commented, "We need to create formal learning events and surround them with messy learning opportunities for people to exchange ideas and try things out but we can add just enough structure and direction to make it possible."

So that's a vision of the future of e-Learning. That's mature e-Learning.

I'm just about to kickoff a new project with a manufacturing organization to produce some custom courses. I'm gonna call them an "immature e-Learning organization." They seem to want page-turners, more or less. Games are scary. No collaboration. Nothing too "messy." When pressed, they respond "That's not in our budget" or "That's not in our plan" or "We don't have the resources for that."

Contrast this to a project Karyn Romeis is working on. She says, "One of the things I am trying to do is to include in my designs the means for learners to interact with one another and with acknowledged experts in the subject at hand." That is forward-thinking; very hip and now; very "mature" e-Learning. It includes some of those messy learning opportunities.

Vendors -- of which I am one -- are often in the position of just answering the mail. By the time a project gets to my door, the organization has often decided upon their approach. Our influence, in these cases, can be minimal. Needless to say, it can be a hard process to educate these clients.

And maybe such clients just aren't ready. Maybe they're immature. Maybe they need to go through the process of creating linear, page-turning e-Learning before they're ready to move into the here and now. Maybe they need to create old-school e-Learning before they can start adding messy to the mix.

Dan Roddy was expressing a similar frustration. He was venting about Kirkpatrick evaluations. What stood out to me in his post was this, "Perhaps, sadly, what it made me think about was just how out of the loop I am when it comes to the whole training cycle. For our clients we are simply a means to an end - nothing more than the design phase of the training - so I never get to learn how the training went down; I never get any learner feedback or statistics."

These are the challenges of being the external vendor.

Second Life Backlash and Controversy

The Second Life naysayers seems to be gaining ground lately. And I'm not implying that I'm a Second Life naysayer. As you may know, I've only been there once.

1) Donald Taylor provides a little summary of some of the recent talk in Second Life Backlash:

After all the hype Second Life has had, there is bound to be some push back. In some cases I am sympathetic, in other cases it’s just professional complainers at work. But underneath all the froth, there are some real concerns and some real victories.

Donald does a great job recapping various articles and provides some useful links, including the following:

2) Second Thoughts on Second Life by Sylvia Martinez. A thoughtful post on one educator's experience in Second Life (and a nice historical perspective). The comments are insightful as well, including some more on the issues of gender in SL.


3) And then this morning, I was pointed to this one by my CTO: Gartner: five reasons why business should avoid Second Life by John Pospisil.

Apparently, Gartner has issued a warning about Second Life, citing these five main reasons:

1. IT Security Risks
2. Identity Fraud
3. Confidentiality
4. Brand and Reputation Risk Management
5. Productivity

The Gartner report that Pospisil is referring to, seems to be talking solely about corporations "setting shop up in Second Life" -- brand names with online spaces using SL for advertising purposes. It's not talking about training or education per say.

Steven Groves in the comments writes:

What the Gartner report went on to say that you left out was a recommendation to continue on in a SL effort anyway, albeit with eyes open and cautiously, keeping a lookout for all the problems they cited.

Christopher Simpson also comments:

As for doing business, holding meetings and such in SL, it's really a matter of what works and what doesn't. Second Life isn't always the answer, anymore than e-mail or phones, or face-to-face contact is always the answer. It takes brains and a bit of technological savvy to figure out what route to follow for any individual situation — something many corporations seem to lack when it comes to new media.

4)In yet another recent post on SL, Brent Schlenker writes, "If people don't have a reason to be in Second Life they will NOT go there." He cites a USA Today article which says, Students "don't like it for activities that can be done in a real classroom, such as lectures or slide shows. But they do like to use it to visit new places or do group activities."

So. "Real concerns. Real victories." And thoughtful experimentation must continue.

I've been exploring the use of Second Life for a client for whom I'm developing an e-Learning strategy. My initial recommendation is going to be to proceed with caution. Theirs is an audience comprised only of women and I'm not convinced Second Life will feel appropriate to them. Don't invest any money. Have a few online meetings. Thoughtfully experiment with 3D worlds and keep our eyes out for other environments that may be more appropriate. But perhaps we can do some of the key things (e.g., create a virtual recreation of their museum) they'd like to do using other tools like Flash.

The Real World, SecondLife and FaceBook/MySpace

Over the past few weeks I've conducted about 17 interviews with current college students and recent graduates. All women. A few of my interviews have been with older alumnae, but I'll leave them out of this discussion for the moment and stick to the younger crowd, the "digital natives." These are real people, about to enter or recently in the job market.

I've been asking various questions about technology and tools in order to get a sense of where people are at, while also soliciting ideas and input for improving the use of technology to support learning throughout their member organization.

In general, the young women I have interviewed describe themselves as "very comfortable with technology." Some claim to feel lost without an Internet connection, but hey, don't we all? Computers are a fact of their lives.

Some things have surprised me, most have not. A few trends:

• Not ONE person has even heard of Second Life. This was a little wake up call to me as I sit in my little e-Learning world, trying to immerse myself in all that is new. The rest of the world is not in this technology bubble yet. I would explain a bit about SL and the general response was, "that sounds interesting."
  

• Not ONE person has a blog. A few people have "read" a few blogs -- written by friends with photos of children. One woman told me that she used to blog in LiveJournal, but there was just way too much personal information that was getting shared with the universe, so she deleted her account.

• Everyone who has graduated from college since 2005 has a FaceBook account. Most everyone accesses it multiple times within a day. This is a main way of staying connected to friends.

• A couple of people also had MySpace accounts. But mostly not. MySpace is seen as being too "creepy". Too much information is out there. "It's not safe." I'm not sure how this relates to danah boyd's recent blog article on Viewing American class divisions through FaceBook and MySpace. These young women are all college educated. I had read Danah's article before starting my interviews and was listening for any judgment based on class. I didn't hear anything direct or obvious. Safety and creepy were the big buzzwords I heard. A few people commented that MySpace is too garish; the FaceBook look and feel is more classic.
  

• Only two people admitted to any regular game play. One of the gamers plays with her brother; the other described obsessively playing Dance Dance Revolution with college roommates at her house. I wonder how this would differ if I had been asking young college males about gaming? Hmm....It appears to me that the gaming gender divide is alive and well.

• No Blackberrys or Treos in the crowd. Lots of cellphones. Lots of laptops.

Can you confirm or deny any of these trends? Does any of this matter?

Check out A Deserted Second Life and My First Second Life Experience if you want to hear more about how actual people are interacting with Second Life.

I Heart My Wiki

I have finally thrown myself into the wiki waters. And I love it. Bye bye Word.

We installed MediaWiki on our local server a couple of weeks ago and I've been using it to record everything I can for my e-Learning strategy project.

The kickoff meeting agenda and notes went in the wiki. Interview transcripts go in the wiki. Notes from conversations with staff members go in the wiki. Brainstorms and project ideas go in the wiki.

In fact, it seems like the Strategic Plan is being written in the wiki. You might even say it's being written by the wiki. It just sort of flows that way.

I started off cutting and pasting a lot of documents from Word into the wiki. Now I've left Word behind and am writing everything directly in the wiki. I've had to get used to the formatting -- or lack thereof. I'm a Word power-user and love all the little tricks and shortcuts. I miss them.

But the payoff is huge. All of my project information is in one place. I don't have to open 800 documents. I have links galore.

I feel like I've created an actual thing, instead of just a bunch of words on a page.

So far, it's been highly uncollaborative. Just me with my wiki love. Next week, we'll have an internal project meeting. Everyone will have to look at the wiki first. My sense is, they'll learn a lot and come into that meeting with great ideas.

I plan on creating a complete draft of the Strategic Plan in the wiki. Of course, I'll transfer that into an official looking Word document/PDF to deliver to the client. But I suspect the wiki itself will be part of the deliverable package. What a great resource they'll have. And it will serve a double-purpose in terms of educating them about the potential uses for wikis within their organization.

Yes, I love my wiki.

Photo credit: "One Heart" by Sanja Gjenero from stock.xchng

Profiles of a Twentysomething and a Fiftysomething Learner

In the fact-gathering phase for an e-Learning strategy project I am working on, I have the fun task of interviewing a whole bunch of potential end-users. I love schmoozing and getting to know people, so this is a perfect way for me to spend my work day. It's not work, it's fun!

Yesterday I conducted my first two interviews: the first was with a woman who had graduated from college in 1979; the second was with a 2003 college graduate.

Now these are just two people, but they are real people who are in the workforce who are making use of technology tools. Here's their technology stories:

"Jane" graduated from college in 1979. She works from home and is her own boss. She self-reports to be "pretty savvy" when it comes to technology. She has two kids, ages 18 and 20.

• Uses Word, Office, Excel, Outlook and communicates heavily with email.
• Watches YouTube, when her children tell her to see something that's funny.
• Her kids have FaceBook pages, but she doesn't. Nor does she see herself ever having one.
• She doesn't have a blog, but she has read a few on sports. "I hear about people’s postings on their blog, but to tell you the truth I’m so busy that I don’t have time to do that. If I have time to do that I’d rather be working in my yard. I sit at my computer all day long."
• She doesn't know what SecondLife is.
• She plays some games on her computer (solitaire), but doesn't want to download anything on her laptop because she's "nervous about getting infected with stuff."
• She uses the web every day and uses Yahoo for searching, sometimes Google.
• She's taken online continuing education classes to maintain her various professional licenses. I take continuing ed all the time for all of my license. Most of the time I do it online. It’s so much more convenient!
• She's participated in webcasts for work, but has never given one herself.
  

"Susie" graduated from college in 2003. She works at an elite academic institution and self-reports an "extremely high comfort level" with technology.

• "Tries to avoid" YouTube, although sometimes watches things with her husband.
• An active FaceBook user -- she logs on in the morning when she gets to work and leaves it open all day. "I probably check it about 5 times a day." It's how she keeps in touch with close friends.
• She's never heard of Twitter.
• She's never heard of SecondLife.
• She reads a few of her friends' blogs to keep up with their families. Has just discovered Google Reader, so sees that this could increase.
  
• Doesn't play computer games, "I never go online to play." But then she admitted to being addicted to warfish. Of warfish she says, "it’s like Risk. I’m very competitive so I hate losing. It’s addictive – they send you an email when it’s your turn. The games can last 2 days to a week. Depends on how fast people respond. I play with friends." (Warfish requires an invite from another player -- talk about creating intrigue and a desire to play. If anyone can hook me up, I'd love to take a look. It sounds like a very interesting approach to gaming).
  
• Doesn't have her own Blackberry, but uses her husband's when they're together.
  
• A personal laptop is essential.
• "If I don't have access to my computer, I feel lost."
• Used BlackBoard in college, but found it sterile and not aesthetically pleasing. "It didn't encourage you to go on unless you absolutely needed to. I sometimes went on to get notes."

Interesting, isn't it?

Defining an e-Learning Strategy: Planning the Kickoff

In the spirit of building a Community of Practice -- sharing ideas and processes -- I thought I'd try and share what I can of a current project.

This is a big consulting project -- a first for me -- in which we have this amazing opportunity to work with a large organization to help them define their e-Learning strategy. I've done a lot of e-Learning projects, created a lot of courses, but this is the first time that I've been a part of the strategy itself.

I did a lot of research in preparing our proposal and making our sales call. Apparently, that paid off since we got the gig.

And then it was time to start working. First things first -- get ready for the kickoff meeting. We had about a month between the time the contract was signed and the scheduled date of the meeting.

Here's what I did in those weeks. Some of these steps happened simultaneously or in no particular order at all. It was fairly organic.

Research

Google away! I googled "Defining an e-Learning strategy" and various iterations thereof. I read articles, followed links, looked at websites. You know how that's done.

All the vendors and consultants say pretty much the same thing and follow the same process. Which may mean a few things:

1. They've all got the system down and it works
2. They're all flying by the seats of their pants and have borrowed heavily from each other's sites so they sound like they know what they're doing
3. A few people know what they're doing and the rest borrow heavily from the real experts' sites....

I tagged some of the resources I found on deli.ci.ous, which you're free to grab yourself. If you have any suggestions, please offer them up! (I'm cammybean on deli.ci.ous -- try adding me to your network and make a for: cammybean list. I'll do the same for you!)

So from my research, I came up with the basic structure of the project and what information we needed to gather and define in order to help us make recommendations for the future. I wanted to discover and understand:

• Overall project goals
• Their organization and structure (Org chart, training org structure, staffing skills, cultural issues)
• Current training and communication initiatives -- what are they doing now?
• What would they like to do? Vision for the future.
• Financial benchmarking to create an ROI statement
• Technology infrastructure
• Content specifics

Ask for Help

I'd done all this research and had a general sense of what to do. But I wanted to get some input from someone who's actually done this. So I solicited some advice from the noble Clive Shepherd, who I had the pleasure to meet at the e-Learning Guild event in April here in Boston. I told Clive what I had come up with and asked for his ideas on how I should structure the kickoff meeting.

My kickoff meeting experience has been historically very focused on a specific content project. The scope of this seems much larger than that. There will be more stakeholders, more input at this stage. And I want to be sure to give the client the confidence that we have the smarts to execute it well.

I asked Clive how much should we attempt to get done in this kind of kickoff meeting. With a strategy session like this, do you just dive right down into the nitty gritty details? Do you try to keep it more high-level? Does it just all depend on who's going to be there, etc? Any suggestions for what should be done as worksheets or breakout sessions?

Clive suggested that we keep the meeting at the high level.

Don’t waste time at your meeting getting them to inform you of stuff they can send you in advance or afterwards, e.g. structures, existing training, costs, etc. Let them know what you need to prepare for the opening meeting.

At the meeting, have them explore the strengths, weaknesses of their current offerings and the threats and opportunities they believe they are facing (a SWOT analysis). You can contribute by explaining the opportunities afforded by the many manifestations of e-learning. Then you can work together to articulate goals, look at the alternative ways of achieving these and agreeing next steps.

This was really helpful input. So I scaled way back the scope of what I was going to try to do in the meeting and decided to keep it more high level. I liked the suggestion to explain about the many manifestations of e-Learning: a little e-Learning primer, if you will.

Taking Care of the Prework

I created three main worksheets and questionnaires that I sent off to my client.

• Understanding the Organization -- organizational structure, current training initiatives, resistance to change, content specifics, etc.
• Financial/ROI -- current training- and technology-related costs.
• Technical Infrastructure -- servers, software, etc.

Answers to some of the questions started pouring in well before the kickoff meeting. I had numerous phone calls with my main project contact. We dissected org charts and talked through all the details. I took lots and lots of notes. By the time of our kickoff meeting I already had a pretty good sense of the organization and some of the challenges they were facing regarding technology, education and communication.

Planning the Kickoff Meeting

Because this client had so many stakeholders that needed to be included in the meeting, we decided to break our kickoff into two separate sessions: two hours in the morning and two in the afternoon.

My goal was to get everyone on the same page, share goals and strategies, fears about e-Learning, talk about current issues and begin to identify some possible routes to take.

The agenda went a little something like this:

• Welcome
• Introductions (Have everyone introduce herself and discuss role/stake in the project)
• What is e-Learning (I talked a little bit about what e-Learning is and isn't, some of the tools available).
• SWOT Analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats)
• Vision for the Future (General brainstorming session on how we can use e-Learning to support learning and communication in their organization)
• Wrap-up & Next Steps
  

Time permitting, I'll try to write a post at some point about the kickoff meeting itself.