Leapfrog to the future!

I've been at the LT Conference for the last two days; I was involved in a couple of sessions and I spoke to lots of people both in the Conference and Exhibition. 

What I was amazed about was the very wide spectrum of understanding and use of the tools and technologies for learning.  There seemed to still be many for whom this was a completely untried experience, whilst others who had already used LMS and authoring tools were striving to do things better - more effectively, more efficiently and so forth - and of course there were many who were trying to come to terms with what social learning had to offer them.

But I came away with a number of concerns.  It wasn't so much the fact that there are now so many different definitions and expectations of what the term "e-learning" actually means, nor the fact that the Exhibition was dominated largely by providers of what I would call "first generation e-learning systems" which for me didn't reflect the full picture of learning technologies today, but more that as a result, delegates are receiving mixed (and therefore confusing) messages, from different quarters, as to how to implement tecnology-supported learning approaches.

For instance, I was talking to someone who was at the Exhbition to find out how to start the whole ball rolling and move from traditional classroom-based training to "e-learning", I remarked how I thought they were actually in a very good position.  They could learn from the lessons of the last decade and in fact go straight into providing social approaches to learning; the technology was now there to support it, and it was very cost-effective.  But the response was interesting to say the least:

"Really! X told me that I need to get all my content online first, then I need to think about a web conferencing system, and then when I've got all that sorted, at that point I should think about social media ... They reckon it'll be at least 4 or 5 years before I need to think about social media."

When I relayed this to my Internet Time Alliance colleagues, Jay Cross instantly sprang into action and put together this great blog posting that summarises the ITA's position on this.  In a nutshell; it's not about incremental steps that you have to go through, but leap-frogging to end-state.  Here's one of the diagrams he uses to visualise this - but do read the posting in full.

Comments

[David Hopkins]

Thanks for this Jane; I'm reading as much as I can about the conference as I could only make the exhibition, and this has been insightful.

I can only think the person you refer to above was talking to a company who could see a long-term investment in moving their materials online, and then introducing a stepped approach to eLearning and Social media integration ... I'm sure with the right input and right direction this can be achieved far quicker than the 4-5 years quoted, and far easier as well. It doesn't have to be painful, in fact it should be an inclusive and enjoyable experience the whole organisation can take part in.

All the best, David.

[Littleasklab]

A few hours ago, I was talking w/ David Smith who co-authored "Digital Habitats, Stewarding Technologies for Communities" with Etienne Wenger and Nancy White. He said something that really struck me. He said, "It's the vendors who own the conversation around organizational learning".

Thought about my own experience trying to move forward amidst big dollar, legacy contracts. It's tough. The individual who is just getting "the ball rolling" is in a much better position, and I really recommend the "Habitats" book as it has great worksheets and easy to understand tools to help configure the technologies.

John also pointed me to a very useful presentation on social learning, written in 1996 by anthropologist Brigitte Jordan with Xerox's PARC lab. Her her more recent work on "the knowledge and information flow in hybrid and virtual sites" offers some important considerations for the future of learning. http://www.lifescapes.org/Writeups.htm

[Jane Hart]

Mark Berthelemy tweeted this in reply "There was huge disconnect between #LT10uk conference & the exhibition. The buyers aren't listening."

[Leslie Lannan]

Thanks, Jane. I read Mark's excellent post this morning. He said the buyers weren't at the convo. But, even if they were, I'm unconvinced the conversation would change much.

Often, there's so much political capital invested in these learning tech contracts that even if a buyer begins to question their utility, how do you explain to your execs that the 7 figure, multi-year contract you "sold" to the organization doesn't work. For many, if you want to keep your job, your org's respect, (and your team employed), the answer is to sign another check for "the upgrade" and hope for the best.

To help "change the conversation" learning professionals need to recognize the power of these types of unspoken, organizational barriers, and go to work to neutralize them. More often than not, that requires the possession finely honed political skills, the kinds of tools mastered by almost all effective change agents.