E-Learning : If it doesn't work - continue!

E-Learning is by definition of it's flexibility and ease of acces, is seen as a major enabler for lifelong learning in the 21st century especially among SMEs, which account for around 99% of all businesses and employ over 70 million in Europe alone.

E-Learning is surely not unknown to almost everyone, although recent studies carried out in Europe have shown that it has had little or no impact on SMEs in Europe due to several reasons, including the lack of planning of a training in culture in the majority of cases, attitudes of senior management to E-Learning and technical problems such as ba

ndwidth limitations in some areas.

On one hand we have ideas of technology being embraced as THE way forward for training and learning and on the other an almost complete disregard of individual learning goals, aims and objectives. 

Broadly put, E-Learning is a nice buzz word that sounds modern, technological and convenient but the outcomes are often debatable. 

Senior trainers must remember the nervous flutter in the stomach at the advent of the CDROM - The trainer is dead, long live the trainer. 

Broadcast statements were uttered as to how the CDROM based learning would replace trainers. A similar opinion was (is still, in some cases) spouted about E-Learning - how easy it is to learn on-the-go, cutting down on absenteeism and travelling expenses as people would no longer have to leave home or the office to attend training and learning events.

What has often been underestimated is the need for self-direction in learni

ng that E-Learning can surely encourage - if it is already a feature of the learner's make-up. E-Learning does n

ot create self-direction, it often stifles it in place of reliance on the content.

Yes, it can in some cases capitalise on down-time and it can be carried out in the time that the learner travels to the seminar. 

However, we can't guarantee that this will be the case and it is often that a learner partakes of E-Learning when they have nothing better to do but not necessarily at their peak-learning period. 

How can we explain the dramatic drop-out rates from E-Learning courses? 

The courses that are established with the best will in the world but gradually peeter out in time? 

Learning must be perceived to be useful in order for any learning to occur, it cannot be used as a stop-gap to eat up lost time. 

It must be attractive in order to attract learners and must also provide opportunities for 'success' and not failure or Game Over! 

The materials must be pertinent, realistic, authentic and answer a real need whilst remaining thought provoking and engaging in order to foster active learning. 

Modules must be set-up to guide learners and help them to track their progress and to help them to objectively self-evaluate their progress and to continuously improve learning experiences and outcomes.

E-Learning, in all but some isolated cases, cannot be seen as a stand-alone entity. 

Effective E-Learning must be well situated within a structure and more importantly, within a blend whilst enabling knowledge sharing, collaborative learning and teaming.

E-Learning cannot be deployed as a famous fast-food hamburger - Cheap, Quick, Convenient as it is not always appropriate ---- but we will also see the bad effects of the "snacking-learning" culture in years to come.

E-Learning need not be all-singing, all-dancing, bells and whistles if it doesn't address real learning needs - but often this is the case.

Perhaps this accounts for the volume of 'e-drop-outs' in companies today and the vast ammonts of money wasted on E-Learning packages that ammount to little more than a standard bookcase of content online.

What do you think?

Do you have experiences of E-Learning that you would like to share?

Lined paper - the n° 1 memory killer?

Ever used Mindmaps? Know what they can be used for? Ever heard of Mindmaps?

Mindmpas are a great tool for quick and dirty brainstorming, especially when faced with complex problems to solve that may present several solutions at the outset and even more as you go through the thought process.

Mindmaps can be used for as many tasks as you want - from brainstorming problems and isseus right down to improving memory.

You know the scene, language learners who scrabble to write down gems of information as they cascade from a learning session - anything from individual words to idiomatic expressions. All thrown into a basket of crabs that is a notepad. Some put translations into their own language - Table = Table (french & English although the spelling doesn't show that straight away). When the learner needs to use the word / expression, the first thing that comes to mind is the translation that they wrote in their own language - if they are lucky they may then, after a lapse of time, find the translation into English but all hope of any spontaneity have flown rapidly out of the window.

So back to the scene - a list of random and unconnected words / expressions taken down as they occur. If the learner is 'organised' they will then write them up again (good for the memory for visual learners? - maybe). I often ask learners how they have worked since the last sesion / seminar and 99% state that they have worked on or revised their vocab that they have learnt - great! or maybe not.

If I were a real sceptic, I could think that their 'revision' ammounted to little more than reading through an unconnected and often disconnected array of random words that held little meaning at the time they were written down, and after a couple of days (or more) mean even less that when they were written.

Luckily I am not a sceptic and my optimism is illustrated in my belief that everyone finds their own way (sooner or later).

How about trying something different - if you aren't already converted to Mindmapping?

Using visuals, space and connected ideas that stimulate discovery and stay organic, unlike the 20 or so lines on a sheet of A4.

Often learners can explain how idustrial textiles are made, how an aeroplane cockpit is put together, how SAP is deployed in a company and what purpose it serves. Get them around a table talking about their likes and dislikes can pose a few more stumbling blocks, get them suggesting and recommending food and wine to their foreign colleagues and .........

The simple ways are often the best - try taking a food catalogue (Internet or otherwise) cut out the cuts of meat and vegetables etc. and start a Mindmap:

Meat - Cuts

Poultry - Types

Ways of cooking - steamed, fried, grilled, etc.

Fruit etc. etc.

the simple act of finding the picture, cutting them out and arranging them on a Mindmap gives a strong underpinning to the memory - then the 'revision' will have a lot more meaning and will be active!

Here are a couple of examples - you are only limited by your imagination and the application that you want to use the Mindmaps for.

If you use Mindmaps - How do you use them and what for?

Self-Evaluation & Feedback

I gave a 2 day, training seminar on communication skills in the last week and stressed at the beginning of the first day that we would be using some tools to help the participants self-evaluate their progress.

The tools were mainly self-evaluation questionnaires and a video camera used extensively during the two days.

Filming was then followed by a debrief and peer assessment from other participants. I thought it important to underline the fact that whilst I could contribute to the feedback debriefing, my feedback was of the same value as feedback from another participant.

Further preparation was made up of an exploration of how to give feedback and work on the points raised and most importantly, how to accept feedback and double check the finer points of another's perception before reacting and putting actions together to work on issues raised.

It was made clear that self-evaluation was a skill that needed to hones and put in place to ensure continued development after the training seminar, where the bulk of the development would be achieved on an ongoing basis. It is also important to take into account that any feedback whether it emanates from self-evaluation or from a third party ammounts to pure perception free of solid truths, at a given point in time and nothing else. 

It is then our ability and skill to fully understand the issues in hand and then to react positively and proactively that triggers self-development and growth.

The value of feedback and self-evaluation springs from the trust and objectivity of the observer, whether it be oneself or otherwise 

Anyone who goes through any learning event will at some time need to know where they are in terms of where they have progressed and where they need to focus. 

Self-evaluation can be carried out in many ways to check the ammount of information that has been assimilated and the areas where work is needed in order to achieve observable and palpable differences. 

But I guess there is a limit to the validity of self-evaluationand - where that is, is open to debate. And how do we know when things are 'right'? How do we know when we are beating ourselves up over things that frankly don't need to be improved on? There must be a watershed at some point...

Ok, back to the seminar - lots of filming, lots of debriefs and feedback, lots of honest and open self-evaluation, return to the original questionnaire taken at the beginning of the seminar.

Then to the participants feedback of the seminar and the facilitator. 

The participants gave great feedback with some interesting comments and - to no great surprise, the statement "We would have benefitted from more feedback from the facilitator".

In their own, personal self-evaluations all of the participants stated that they could feel that they had progressed and identified areas that they feel they need to concentrate on. I am often loathe to go further in feedback than "I noticed that ...." or "I feel that you could ...." or "I thought that you handled x very well" etc. 

But it still seems that learners need more - perhaps I am the same too at times....

Learner Autonomy - Don't just leave me stranded!! part 1

Autonomy doesn't necessarily mean that you are left alone to figure things out for yourselves. 

There is a strong argument that would prove this point to be pretty impracticle in all but exceptional cases, being that autonomous learners have the tools that facilitate the job of learning.

Tools to build learning strategies that work, tools that help raise awareness of learning styles / memory preferences / prime-time and low-times / deep and surface learning.

Tools that help rais confidence to a level where learners are ready and able to take risks that form the core on purposeful and incidental learning alongside the almost serendipitous learning that often occurs by total 'chance'.

 This means that you are going to be learning some of the time alone and you are : 

 

 Empowered in your own personal learning process 

 Going to set your own learning objectives 

 Prioritise your objectives 

 Plan your own Self-Managed Learning 

Choose when you work, what you work on, how you work etc.

You choose to work alone, with another person in tandem learning, as part of an on or off-line learning community.

I guess the operating words here are 'choice' and 'empowerment'. Being empowered to make choices and thus choosing to be empowered.

Effective learning, in many cases fosters and nurtures the step-back and a further step-back from the content of learning and shifts the focus on the pure process. 

The first step-back is a necessary phase that includes planning and objective / aims and goal-setting - if you don't know where you are going you often end up elsewhere! Which may not always be a bad thing, but if experienced repetetively can cause confusion and loss of motivation - and in extreme cases despair.

The second step-back is the process of metacognition - Thinking about Thinking and a reflective recounting of the learning and thinking process undertaken. 

The aim of this is to enter into a continual improvement cycle based on our learning experiences and the questioning and objective reasoning can be undergone by way of a "W+H" process in two stages :

STAGE 1:

What was my objective / aim / goal?

Was my objective / aim / goal realistic / achieveable?

Why / why not?

How did I go about?

Why did I want to do it that way?

Were there any other ways I could have tried?

How do I feel about the experience (did I enjoy it for example)?

What did I get out of the experience?

What did I get out of the experience that I didn't plan / expect to?

STAGE 2:

How can I ensure my objective/aim/goal is more realistic / achieveable?

How can I improve the way I go about this?

What different ways/methods/strategies can I try next time?

What can I do to (try to) improve the learning experience for next time?

How will I address the next step?

When will I address the next step?

This can be added to and elaborated to attempt to streamline and enhance learning episodes and can be repeated in an attempt to get right down to the nitty-gritty of some challenging learning issues.

For example:

Fred has been learning French grammar - verb table in fact, off by heart - but he can't seem to be able to use them effectively when the time comes to speak in the real world and he knows deep down that his process here is flawed but can't really seem to get to grips and to why or how to rectify it.

He could start questioning why he is, in fact doing this, which may reveal some truths without actually giving an answer as to what or how he can go about changing things. He could start by a simple WHY?

Why am I learning verb tables when I really need to be able to speak simply but naturally?

>>Because this was the way we did it at school.

Why did we do it this way at school?

>> Because the teaching was like that!

Why was the teaching like that?

>>Because it was driven by the curriculum.

Why was it driven by the curriculum?

>> Because we had to pass and exam.

So why Fred are you doing this, this way when you don't want to, and probably wont ever need to pass an exam in French (unless you choose this path later).

Sometimes the most logical questions to some of the most illogical issues are actually so simple that we don't even bother raising the question.

In part two we will be musing over other aspects of learner autonomy, including deep and surface learning, self-evaluation and motivation.

Don't Move that chair!

Tomorrow I am going to be training a group of people in a nice training room in a nice hotel, in a nice city in a nice country - I'm sounding like Xavier Bertrand again!. 

The theme that we are going to be working on over two days is "Effective Presentation Skills", so we are really going to be taking the lid off of a few topics that are close to my heart; communication in many guises, confidence, sharing, tuning-in and collaborative working. 

Given these elements. Why are dedicated training rooms set up to smash any possible ice-breaking, openness, sharing, communication, team-dynamics and school-type conditioning, whilst avoiding barriers to communication. Chairs and tables set up in a rectangle facing the 'teachers' desk?

I used to think of this as a problem and often got pretty niggled about it, especially when I was given black looks from disgruntled hotel staff after I had piled tables in a corner and left buzz-group configuration where people could communicate at a level where they could maintain eye contact with all other participants. Sometimes even the participants would drag a table into the room to rest their books, bags, pencils, notebooks, pens and other paraphenalia that they wouldn't use for the duration of the two days. It was amusing to see learners build their fortress of files and books or laptops that they could peer over when the coast was clear and hide behind when approached by the enemy. Of course we can all understand this phenomena as we have all done it at some time or other but when your the nervous trainer at the beginning of a seminar that included beating stressful situations, it wasn't easy!

I've seen the light I think and now see this as a challenging opportunity to provoke questions about 'what we are doing here' and what we hope to achieve - I mean this from the narrower scope of a training seminar and not on the wider philosophical plane. 

I must admit that I was conditioned to think that my way was the best way - which was more often than not, untrue in the extremes.

 The hotel staff are more amiable towards me too, can't think why. But sometimes as the training sessions get warmed up learners will be seen to start moving the chairs and furniture to a more learning conducive configuration which definately gets things off to a good footing and continues in a very constructive way.

I suppose what I am getting around to is the need for self-direction, taking responsability and decision making that make up the essential elements of the Lifelong Learner and the power balance that needs to be equally shared between trainer who takes the posture of a facilitator and not the 'expert' and learners who make up the most important aspect as joint decison makers based on sound reasoning from both parties but often stimulated by systematic questioning from the facilitator - similar to the 5 Whys?

More of a "if it works for you - great go for it, experiment, try it, take risks" or "if it doesn't work - try something else, take risks, experiment" than  to impose my will on people by moving things around 'for their benefit'. Or is it for mine?

It may be that the next two days are spent in a smallish training room (often the luck of the draw) with learners working behind oblong desks - who cares as long as the learning experience is rich and beneficial for the learners. I may post a couple of photos to see how things pan out.