CEdO535 Week 2 - Social Media as a Learning Platform

This week we started talking about Wikis and other social media that could be used as a way to delivering training material. I also had an opportunity to attend a 1 day workshop in Chicago called We-Learn. These two experiences gave me a lot of good ideas that I can apply to our company and some upcoming training challenges. We are getting ready to replace the main software that runs our company. This is a huge undertaking and the project is expected to last at least 3 years. In the course of this we are going to have to change the way everyone in the company works. Making it even more challenging, we are going to have to train some people who have been working there for 30 or more years, and who have never used any other software than the one we are replacing, and who will expect formal training. Then we also have younger Gen Y employees who are used to learning new software, and who like to find their training and information on their own. The workshop and this class both have stressed the use of other means for delivering training, especially ways that will allow people to find information at the moment they need it, rather than sitting in a class and passively receiving it. The workshop recommended the following ratio: - 10% Classroom Training - 20% Peer to Peer Interaction and Simulation - 30% On the Job/Experiential Training with Support It is this last category that has the most applications for the software we are talking about. Some of the ideas include: - Having early adopters create video blogs of their experiences with the new software - Letting early users create tips and tricks - Recording short videos that show a single function or work process with the new software - Having experts available by chat to answer questions - Making all of this searchable so people can find the answers they need, when they need them Also I would recommend creating cohorts of learners, so they can support each other through this change. There is certainly a lot to be done, but using these ideas we should be able to get through this change smoothly.

CEdO535 - Blogs, Blogs, and more Blogs

There is something strange writing about blogs in a blog. It is like you have created a loop in the time space continuum and the universe will cease to exist. OK maybe that is being over dramatic, but it still feels like it violates one of the basic rules of English class - Never use the word you are trying to define in the definition itself. However when we were asked to come up with one idea from class that we could use, Blogs were the first thing that popped into my mind. We have started using blogs at work as a way for people to share ideas, especially as they relate to a big project or program. They are a great way to get people's opinions about something, or to share an idea with an audience. People can read them at their leisure, take time to think about the response, and post what they are truly thinking. Multiple ideas can be combined from posts in a single thread, and anyone can go back and reference the information at any time, making it a great reference. The biggest problem with blogs is also contained in the sentence above, namely that people may take a long time to come up with ideas and post, or may not reply at all. That is why it helps to have some kind of expectation that people will read and respond to blogs. In this class it is part of our grade. In a work environment you have to be more creative, such as giving a small reward to the person who responds with the best idea. And although blogs are a good way to collect information and ideas over time, there are still many occasions when you need to have a face to face meeting to decide something right away. Those kinds of conversation are not suited to blogs. Fortunately we have Skype and other instant communication methods for those conversations.