It almost feels as if Web 2.0 has been hijacked by the Informal Learning crowd. I'd like to commander it back to the middle. To share it with Informal Learning and Formal Learning. And as I'm pretty sure what Formal Learning is and is not - and unsure about what Informal Learning is and is not - that's the safe place to be.
Is Informal Learning unguided or not? Open Range with no street signs? No GPS? No N-E-S-W directions on any compass? Any Library card and/or Internet access or bub on the street is a source, a link into some network of content/opinions/good stuff and garbage. No Learning Objectives need apply?
As the research suggests that only 15% of the population learns best in an open, non-context specific, non-directed manner - Informal Learning is for the few. For the masters looking to grow further. Not for the new guys/gals climbing the learning curve. Not without sufficient "prior knowledge."
And I still believe that 80% or whatever is learned informally for most jobs - because management made a decision about what to resource and what to not resource. The 80% figure would impress me if I thought that 100% was addressed in the first place - and then only 20% of it worked. But that's not how the numbers are used/presented.
So if management has made this decision - to not fund addressing the learning/performance needs of certain groups of employees - hey, most employees for few are critical to the many important! - then why would they want to buy into addressing the 80%? It's low hanging fruit - unworthy of resourcing from an ROI or RONA or RO-anything perspective - it's a business decision.
As Mark Twain said: "there are lies, damn lies, and then there's statistics!"
I think: If it better enables Performance (the heck with Learning) go get it!
Put it in place. So...
First: Determine Performance Requirements - and then Enable them!
A Rose is a Rose is a Rose?
The references to Web 2.0 as Learning tools still bothers me - as I see them as Performance tools first, that I might need to learn how to use, second.
And in using any tool I'll continue to learn - such as with that router I used in a company effort to build a local theme park for kids in north Charlotte a month or so ago. I learned from that - drill & practice - feedback coming back to me immediately before my next effort right from the look of the wood edges I was shaping with the router. I still think of the router as a Performance Tool and not a Learning Tool.
I believe that my thoughts about "architecting content" - "By Design" - performance-based Instruction & Information to enable the workflow/ the process/ the human performers - seems an anachronism to many. Too controlling. Too restrictive. Too "old school." Too "not so open range" - whatever.
But to me the alternative is Chaos. By Design.
Chaos about content. Chaos about about how to find what you need quickly. Separating wheat from chaff - good stuff from garbage. Getting 900+ hits back from my search is not helpful. I am drowning in irrelevance and just plain wrong stuff/garbage. Opportunity rich - in this open range/open sea of content - to be very wrong about what I have learned.
Cannot someone downselect from the masses of content available and steer me in the right direction? Or one of the many right directions?
When Informal Learning - Learning By Chance - is not appropriate - then one needs to organize within the chaos - and help the learners/Performers make informed decisions about what to learn, when to learn it, and where to get those few good "learnings" from the many good-to-bad sources that might exist in cyber-space - the wisdom of the crowds.
Chaos Avoidance in Curriculum
I organize content in PACT using the concepts of the 5 Tier Inventory Structure/Framework to sort content as lego-type building blocks (of different sizes and shapes and not all 2-hour modules - or something equally silly). See the graphic below...
Note that all content leads (in a 1 going to a 2 going to a 3 leading to the terminal objectives of 4/5 sense) to "How To" content. No kidding - it's the value add propostion/promise for going through/using the content - learning for Performance Competence - by design.
Or as I like to say: why bother?
This 5 Tier Framework is a tag framework for any of our content - Instruction or Information - that is identified in the PACT Analysis efforts and then packaged in the design efforts in PACT CAD or MCD...here is CAD...
... designed and tagged in that step of a CAD effort where the Event's Modules are specified (on Specs/Specifications) - in the Design Phase.
And the same in MCD - the ADDIE-level of PACT - where the Event's Lessons and Instructional Activities are housed/stored in this 5 Tier Structure - which has sub-Tiers as well.
The next graphic lays out the 5 Tiers with a quick definition, an example or two, and Notes on Re-Use and Notes on Deployment/Access...and that many Web 2.0 tools are perfect ways to "deploy/make accessible" content - in an organized and un-chaotic manner.
The sub-Tier for Tier 3 is the same K/S Category structure used in PACT Analysis. And this structure takes into account that what one needs to perform isn't always Instruction! Sometimes a page or two on Lessons Learned can assist the Performer. Sometimes a wiki full of procedural/process/workflow instructions are what is really needed. In an rational/organized manner that is.
If you make it free range - then you are expecting the learner/Performer to do an awful lot of "search and decide" as to what fits, what's good/garbage/ etc. Too much work distraction if you ask me.
And as we can architect the processes of the Enterprise - we can surely sync wikiis/etc. to that architecture of the Enterprise Processes - for isn't that what we are supposed to be enabling?
In Tier 3 - where the enablers go - those awarenesses/ knowledge/ skills that one needs because they enable the real job performance requirements - is sub-structured as follows. Note the "Notes" on Re-Use and Deployment/Access. This is graphic 1 of 2 covering the Tier 3 sub-Categories...
And the un-necessary separation of Learning from Knowledge Management is enabled by this view of Learning versus Performance - or rather Learning not targeting/mirroring Performance requirements.
Tier 3 continues...
We all learn - like it or not - from every experience. Learning is incidental to all Performance. It is a necessary means to an end. Performance.
Perhaps we have the wrong label on Web 2.0 - it's all about Performance - and we in the Learning Professional field can help learners/Performers master those tools to enable better, faster, cheaper performance - not Learning for the sake of Learning. Learning for the sake of Performance!
Which sounds better/resonates more with Enterprise executives?
Learning tools - or - Performance tools?
It's your call. Your "sales call" that is. Use what works!
**** **** **** ****
I see the PACT Processes as the approach to Formal Learning when the Risks/Rewards of the performance context direct one to not leave learning/performance to chance.
A future Post will address how Web 2.0 would have affected CAD designs of the past - including that AT&T-Network Systems Product Management Curriculum referred to in the immediate prior Post on this Blog.
# # #
0 comments:
Post a Comment