Informal Learning Insight of the Week: Informal Learning in Groups

In case you missed it, check out Juana Llorens’ summary of opportunities for informal learning in groups. 

http://www.astd.org/Publications/Blogs/L-and-D-Blog/2012/06/Thinking-About-Promoting-Informal-Learning-in-Groups.aspx

Slides from Recent ASTD Webcast

In case you missed the webcast, Informal Learning: What ARE the Basics? here's a link to the slides: http://www.astd.org/Publications/Blogs/L-and-D-Blog/2012/07/Slides-from-Webcast-with-Saul-Carliner.aspx

Reminder: Textbook Suggestions for Instructional Design Courses

For those of you whom are university-level instructors, consider these titles as possible texts for your courses:

Book	Description	Suitable Courses
Training Design Basics (ASTD Press)	This book emphasizes the real-world nature of designing training programs, working with the time and resources available. Yes, trainers have to analyze needs and write objectives (after all, each trainer needs to know what they are training and why they are doing so). But often the time is limited to perform, so this book suggests ways to get the information even if they don’t have the time or access to all of the people who might be helpful. Similarly, although e-learning and other forms of instruction receive much attention in the professional literature, the bulk of training continues to be designed for the classroom. This book makes that assumption, and offers specific suggestions for preparing classroom courses and workbooks. Finally, after designing and developing courses, most trainers have responsibility for the successful launch and running of those courses. This book explores those issues, too, specifically identifying issues in administering, marketing, and supporting courses so that they are likely to be effective.	Instructional Design Designing Training Programs
Advanced Web-Based Training (by Margaret Driscoll and Saul Carliner, Pfeiffer)	This book takes instructional designers to the next level in their design journeys. It provides instructional designers, e-learning developers, technical communicators, students, and others with strategies for addressing common challenges that arise when designing e-learning programs. Balancing educational theory with the practical realities of implementation, Driscoll and Carliner outline the benefits and limitations of each strategy, discuss the issues surrounding the implementation of these strategies, and illustrate each strategy with short scenarios drawn from real-world online learning programs representing a wide variety of fields including technology, financial services, health care, and government. Some of the specific design challenges this book addresses include learning theory for e-learning, m-learning, simulations and games, interactivity, communicating visually, writing for the screen, preparing introductions and closings, mentoring and coaching e-learners, and blended learning.	Advanced Instructional Design Studio courses in e-learning Advanced Technical and Professional Communication
e-Learning Handbook (edited by Saul Carliner and Patti Shank, Pfeiffer)	This book is an essential resource that is filled with original contributions from the world’s foremost e-learning experts including Jane Bozarth, Patrick Lambe, Tom Reeves, Marc Rosenberg, and Brent Wilson. The book offers a comprehensive and up-to-date review of the economic, technological, design, economic, evaluation, research, and philosophical issues underlying e-learning. Each chapter includes a chart that summarizes the key take-away points, contains questions that are useful for guiding discussions, and offers suggestions of related links, books, papers, reports, and articles.	Advanced Instructional Design Seminar in Learning

To order and receive more information, either contact your publisher’s representative or visit http://www.amazon.com/Saul-Carliner/e/B001H9RDXU/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_pop.

Technical Communication and Training: How Similar Are They?

How similar are technical communication and training?  Although some characterize the two as nearly identical, a closer look at their occupational cultures suggests several subtle, but significant, differences exist.  

My recent article, Different Approaches to Similar Challenges: An Analysis of the Occupational Cultures of the Disciplines of Technical Communication and Training, published in the second quarter 2012 issue of the IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication, explores these differences.  

Here’s the abstract of the article:

Problem:  Perhaps it is presumptuous of Technical Communicators to assume that, because some of their skills that might be employed in developing and delivering training materials, that those skills alone are qualifications to work in training, much less the source by which the processes of Training might be examined.  Using data from one survey and one interview-based studies of the work of Technical Communication and Training groups, as well as participation on committees responsible for certification examinations for Technical Communicators and Trainers, this tutorial analyzes differences in the occupational cultures of the two fields.
Key Concepts:  The work differs: Technical Communicators produce content that explains how to perform tasks; trainers produce programs that develop skills that a third party can verify.  To do so, Technical Communicators follow a process that emphasizes writing and production; Trainers follow a process that emphasizes the analysis of intended goals and evaluation of whether those goals have been achieved.  The guiding philosophy of Technical Communication is usability; the guiding philosophy of Training is performance.  Although both disciplines are rooted in cognitive psychology, the primary intellectual roots of Technical Communication are in rhetoric and composition, while the primary intellectual roots are in education.  The preferred research methods of Technical Communication are critical; the preferred research methods of Trainers are empirical qualitative and quantitative methods.
Key Lessons: As a result, Technical Communication professionals and researchers who want to work in Training should approach the field in a culturally appropriate way by (1) recognizing distinctions between a communication product and a training program, (2) recognizing distinctions in work processes, (3) recognizing distinctions in language, (4) recognizing differences in values and (5) acknowledging that an academic discipline of training exists.  

To see the complete article, visit http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/RecentIssue.jsp?punumber=47.  (Note: Only free to members of the IEEE Professional Communication Society and to those entering through university libraries with a subscription to IEEExplore.)

Some Textbook Suggestions

For those of you whom are university-level instructors, consider these titles as possible texts for your courses:

Book	Description	Suitable Courses
Training Design Basics (ASTD Press)	This book emphasizes the real-world nature of designing training programs, working with the time and resources available. Yes, trainers have to analyze needs and write objectives (after all, each trainer needs to know what they are training and why they are doing so). But often the time is limited to perform, so this book suggests ways to get the information even if they don’t have the time or access to all of the people who might be helpful. Similarly, although e-learning and other forms of instruction receive much attention in the professional literature, the bulk of training continues to be designed for the classroom. This book makes that assumption, and offers specific suggestions for preparing classroom courses and workbooks. Finally, after designing and developing courses, most trainers have responsibility for the successful launch and running of those courses. This book explores those issues, too, specifically identifying issues in administering, marketing, and supporting courses so that they are likely to be effective.	Instructional Design Designing Training Programs
Advanced Web-Based Training (by Margaret Driscoll and Saul Carliner, Pfeiffer)	This book takes instructional designers to the next level in their design journeys. It provides instructional designers, e-learning developers, technical communicators, students, and others with strategies for addressing common challenges that arise when designing e-learning programs. Balancing educational theory with the practical realities of implementation, Driscoll and Carliner outline the benefits and limitations of each strategy, discuss the issues surrounding the implementation of these strategies, and illustrate each strategy with short scenarios drawn from real-world online learning programs representing a wide variety of fields including technology, financial services, health care, and government. Some of the specific design challenges this book addresses include learning theory for e-learning, m-learning, simulations and games, interactivity, communicating visually, writing for the screen, preparing introductions and closings, mentoring and coaching e-learners, and blended learning.	Advanced Instructional Design Studio courses in e-learning Advanced Technical and Professional Communication
e-Learning Handbook (edited by Saul Carliner and Patti Shank, Pfeiffer)	This book is an essential resource that is filled with original contributions from the world’s foremost e-learning experts including Jane Bozarth, Patrick Lambe, Tom Reeves, Marc Rosenberg, and Brent Wilson. The book offers a comprehensive and up-to-date review of the economic, technological, design, economic, evaluation, research, and philosophical issues underlying e-learning. Each chapter includes a chart that summarizes the key take-away points, contains questions that are useful for guiding discussions, and offers suggestions of related links, books, papers, reports, and articles.	Advanced Instructional Design Seminar in Learning

To order and receive more information, either contact your publisher’s representative or visit http://www.amazon.com/Saul-Carliner/e/B001H9RDXU/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_pop.

Informal Learning in the News

Social media has sparked interest in informal learning; the topic is addressed throughout Informal Learning Basics.

 I recently came across some articles online that clearly and effectively introduce some popular tools. Although the articles are written for members of the academic community, they’re actually valuable to anyone interested in learning more about these tools:

• Utilizing Pinterest as a Learning Tool by Rochelle McWhorter, published in the June 2012 issue of the Academy of Human Resource Development (AHRD) digest describes the excitement generated by Pinterest—a social bookmarking tool that McWhorter identifies as a “social bookmarking tool” and is the “third most-used social media [sic] behind Facebook and Twitter,” then suggests ways that readers might use Pinterest. To see the article (membership might be required), visit http://ahrd.org/displaycommon.cfm?an=1&subarticlenbr=179. 
• Why are you on Twitter? By Liz Meyer and published on the Freire Project blog, explains not only why Meyer uses Twitter, but then proceeds to provide a primer on how to use Twitter. She explains the @ and # symbols, how to organize tweets, and Twitter etiquette. View the blog post at http://www.freireproject.org/blogs/why-are-you-twitter.

Are You an Informal Learner?

(Excerpted from my book, Informal Learning Basics (ASTD Press, 2012.)

Before Training and Development professionals can effectively provide and promote informal learning for others in their workplaces, they need an awareness of their own interests in, and preferences for, informal learning.

This activity, which is excerpted from the new ASTD Press book, Informal Learning Basics, is intended to help sensitize you to your informal learning preferences.

Instructions:  Answer these questions.  For responses, see the answer key below.

1.   One morning when you start your e-mail program, everything looks unfamiliar.  You quickly notice a special notice at the top of the screen, “We’ve unveiled a new look. Click here to learn more.”  What do you do first?

a.     Click where indicated to learn more about the changes to the program.

b.    Ask the person in the office next to yours to explain what’s going on. 

c.     Ignore the invitation to click here and fumble your way through the interface. 

d.    Sign up for a class to learn about the new e-mail interface.

2.   You’re the new coordinator of vendors for your department, which has never used vendors before but plans to start using them in the future.  To prepare for this new role, what do you do first?

1. Ask your friend in the Purchasing Department what to do.
2. Find the company policies and procedures on managing vendor relationships on the Intranet.
3. Sign up for a class on managing vendor relationships.
4. Start the job and figure things out as you experience them.

3.   Your partner was recently diagnosed with pre-diabetes and the doctor has urged your partner to start eating a healthy diet.  Although you thought you knew what healthy eating was, apparently your daily diet of bran muffin breakfasts and meat-potato-and-salad dinners isn’t producing healthy results.  To learn about healthy diets, what do you do first?

1. Continue cooking but remove fat and sugars from the diet. 
2. Join a local diabetes support group and ask for help with questions related to diet.
3. Register for the “Diabetes Diet” class offered at the hospital. 
4. Visit a website or buy a book with dietary recommendations for pre-diabetes patients.

4.   In a meeting this morning, the executive makes several comments related to the company’s most recent annual financial report.  You’re embarrassed to admit this: you don’t know how to read a financial report.  To correct this problem, what do you do first?

1. Ask your friend in the Finance Department to give you a crash course in reading financial reports.
2. Buy Financial Reports for Dummies at your nearest bookstore—and read it cover to cover.
3. Read the report line-for-line and try to figure out what it’s saying.
4. Take the e-learning course, How to Read a Financial Report, available through the library of e-learning courses in your company.

5.   You have accepted the invitation to serve as webmaster for your neighborhood association for the next year.  OK, so you have no experience with webmastering.  To prepare for this new role, what do you do first?

1. Ask the outgoing webmaster to provide step-by-step instructions.
2. Start your job and figure things out as they arise.
3. Take an introductory course for webmasters through your local continuing education department.
4. Watch a series of videos on YouTube about how to be a webmaster.

Scoring

Compute your score using Table 1-B.

Table 1-B: Scoring the Exercise

Assign Points as Follows	Tally Points Here
1--a-4, b-3, c-2, d-1 2--a-2, b-4, c-1, d-3 3--a-3, b-2, c-1, d-4 4--a-2, b-4, c-3, d-1 5--a-2, b-3, c-1, d-4	______ ______ ______ ______ ______
Total	______

Determine what your score by checking Table 1-C. 

Table 1-C: Interpreting Your Score

If You Scored:	You Are a:	Which Means that:
5 or below	A formal learner	You generally prefer formal situations for your learning.
6 to 9	A social learner	Although you're able to learn on your own, you often prefer to learn in groups or from other people
11 to 14	A go-with-the-flow learner	You use a variety of means to learn new skills, sometimes just trying things out to see how well you can perform.
15-16	A self-directed informal learner	You develop new skills on your own, but to make sure that you correctly understand them, you frequently refer to outside sources to do so.

With this awareness of your own preferences, you can begin to appreciate the different preferences of other informal learners.  You can use that awareness to better identify which activities might work with which learners—and which ones won’t—so you can use informal learning to achieve given goals.

To more about informal learning, check out the book Informal Learning Basics. For ordering information, visit http://saulcarliner.blogspot.com/2012/05/order-books-including-informal-learning.html.

Upcoming Presentations and Webinars

Presentation	Event	Sponsor	Date and Location	For more Information
What’s the Real Scoop on Online Learning	Thought Leader Webinar	eLearning Guild	December 11, 2012	www.elearningguild.com
Host, Research-to-Practice Day and Presenter, Performance, and Perceptions: Research on Our Evolving Roles	CSTD Conference and Trade Show	Canadian Society for Training and Development	October 31, 2012	www.cstd.ca
Keynote Presentation: The Future of the Technical Communication Brand	TCANZ Conference	Technical Communicators Association of New Zealand (TCANZ)	October 25, 2012	www.tcanz.org.nz
Workshop: A Crash Course in Writing e-Learning Programs	TCANZ Conference	Technical Communicators Association of New Zealand (TCANZ)	October 25, 2012	www.tcanz.org.nz
Workshop: Practical Tips for Effective, Efficient Projects	TCANZ Conference	Technical Communicators Association of New Zealand (TCANZ)	October 25, 2012	www.tcanz.org.nz
Webinar. Evaluating Informal Learning	ASTD Webinar	American Society for Training and Development (ASTD) Learning and Development Community of Practice	September 27, 2012	http://www.astd.org/Communities-of-Practice/Learning-And-Development.aspx
Webinar. Informal Learning Basics: So What Are the Basics?	ASTD Webinar	American Society for Training and Development (ASTD) Learning and Development Community of Practice	July 17, 2012	http://www.astd.org/Communities-of-Practice/Learning-And-Development.aspx
Keynote Presentation. What the Research Says about Informal Learning (and Implications for Practicing Professionals)	International Conference on eLearning in the Workplace	International Conference on eLearning in the Workplace	October 14, 2012	www.icelw.org

Informal Learning Basics Now Available

Informal Learning Basics has officially been published by ASTD Press.  

If you are an ASTD member, you might have received an announcement about the book through email. If not, here’s the notice.

Informal Learning Basics explores one of the hottest topics in training today.  It describes how training and development and other Human Resources professionals can better harness informal learning.  By some accounts, informal learning—in which learners define some combination of the process, location, purpose, and content of learning and may or may not be conscious that learning occurred—provides as much as 70 percent of all learning in the workplace with little or no involvement of training and development professionals.  

So readers have realistic expectations and plans for the application of informal learning in the workplace, the book first describes how informal learning works and identifies how to use it effectively at key touch points in the life cycle of a job.  Then, to help readers harness the power of informal learning, this book describes how readers can support 22 specific types of group and individual informal learning,  how social, enterprise and other instructional technologies can assist in those efforts, and how to evaluate informal learning.  Each chapter includes exercises that help readers apply the concepts presented in the book and worksheets that readers can use when planning informal learning efforts in their organizations.

To find out what type of informal learner you are, check out the next post on this blog.  

To order, visit http://saulcarliner.blogspot.com/2012/05/order-books-including-informal-learning.html 

Order Books, Including Informal Learning Basics

Informal Learning Basics	e-Learning Handbook	Training Design Basics
Advanced Web-based Training	Designing E-Learning	Techniques for Technical Communicators
Information And Document Design: Varieties on Recent Research (2nd edition)		An Overview of Online Learning (2nd edition)

Integrative Literature Review Workshop Canceled

Because of low enrolment, the Integrative Literature Workshop that was scheduled to begin this Thursday has been canceled. 

I hope to offer a section at a later time.  

Differing Attitudes Towards Professionalization

Check out, The Three Approaches to Professionalization in Technical Communication, one of the articles in the special issues on professionalization in the journal, Technical Communication.    

The article explores internal divisions within the profession by exploring a spectrum of attitudes towards professionalization.  At one of the spectrum is professionalization, which seeks to formalize the practice and preparation for the profession. At the other end of the spectrum is contra-professionalization, which actively resists efforts to professionalize.  

Here is the abstract of the article:

Purpose:  Explores internal divisions within our profession by exploring one particular type of tension that exists: that technical communicators do not have a unified view of professionalization for the field.
Methods:  Proposes that prevailing approaches to professionalization are rooted in theories of occupations, the exclusive right to perform a job. True occupations have such rights legally; aspiring occupations like ours are professions.  Common components of an infrastructure for occupations includes professional organizations, bodies of knowledge, education, professional activities, and certification.
Results:   Professions often establish these in anticipation of becoming an occupation, but some practicing professionals interpret and use them differently, resulting in a spectrum of approaches to professionalization.
At one end of the spectrum is formal professionalism, which views professionalization as a stepping stone to full occupational status. It is rooted in a worldview that values expertise and sees the infrastructure of an occupation supporting the development of expertise and controlling access to the profession.
In the center of the spectrum is quasi-professionalization, in which individuals participate in the activities of the occupational infrastructure but without the expectation of exclusive rights to perform the work. Quasi- professionalization is rooted in professional identity.
At the other end of the spectrum is contra-professionalization, which refers to initiatives that offer or promote professional services outside of parts or all of the infrastructure, sometimes circumventing it completely. This world view is rooted in market theory and characterized by  concepts like Do-It-Yourself (DIY), user-generated and Subject Matter Expert (SME)-provided documentation.
Conclusions:  The differing views suggest tensions regarding support for specific efforts to professionalize technical communication, including formal branding of the profession, establishment of certification, and support for professional organizations.

To see the complete article, visit http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/stc/tc.  (Note: Only free to members of the Society for Techincal Communication and to those entering through university libraries with a subscription to IngentaConnect.)

The Next Wave of EdTech: 12 Years After the Last Bubble, Have Investors Figured Out the Market As We Enter the Next One?

Over the past few weeks, the technology press has focused on a new wave of investments in online learning.  (It's interesting, those of us in the field moved from using the term online learning to e-learning in 2000; investors have remained with the term online learning.  But that's another discussion.)

For example, the Chronicle of HIgher Education has been running a series on new educational technology startups and the New York Times has run a series of similar features. Its series highlights a variety of startups, including one that helps professors manage e-mail from students.  (See Students Endlessly E-Mail Professors for Help. A New Service Hopes to Organize the Answers at http://chronicle.com/article/Students-Endlessly-E-Mail/131390/).

Many of the features in the Times focus on services providing online courses, like a feature on a series of online services that provide training on various languages for writing Internet applications (see A Surge in Learning the Language of the Internet at  http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/28/technology/for-an-edge-on-the-internet-computer-code-gains-a-following.html?_r=2&ref=business&pagewanted=all).  

In today's edition, the New York Times reports on a large investment in Coursera, a company founded by some professors at Stanford and that provides university-based courses for free online (see Online Education Venture Lures Cash Infusion and Deals With 5 Top Universities at http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/18/technology/coursera-plans-to-announce-university-partners-for-online-classes.html?ref=business).

Nestled between the enthusiastic reporting for these new ventures are some troubling details:

• The founder of the e-mail company has

"no plans to generate revenue—the service is free and does not carry advertisements. Ms. Sankar said that she didn't write a business plan for the site, because she doesn't believe in them, and that she believes that once a critical mass of students and professors are signed up, revenue models can emerges" (quote from the article from the Chronicle cited above).  

Isn't that how the tech bubble burst the last time?

• The quality of the free and low-cost courses for writing Internet applications mentioned in the New York Times article sounds pretty poor. An expert acknowledged that most students who complete these courses still cannot write applications.  One company quoted in the article admitted publicly that its courses could be improved.  

• If one reads the fine print, the free university courses offered by Coursera and its competitors don't fully compete with those from universities. If students want feedback, they only receive it from other students. Sounds like a good plan but the article never explores the participation rates of students in these students-evaluate-students programs. Avoiding teaching assistants reduces costs, but if participation rates of students in evaluating one another are low, then many students might go wanting for feedback. (This is a real concern; the courses are voluntary, after all.)

Students also do not receive university credit; they receive certificates of completion.

The courses have no measures to protect against cheating.

And, most significantly, when the article cites the impact of courses on students, they have no figures to report. They provide qualitative data.  That's fine, because it provides insights into whom and how the courses affect students.  But both of the students mentioned are working professionals, rather than degree-seeking students.

Perhaps, then, these services are not really meant to replace universities; they're the beginnings of an online system for continuing professional education.  The only problem is, it doesn't sound like the founders of these companies have figured that out yet and, even if they have, the courses might need extensive rework before they can help workers really develop the skills and knowledge they need to succeed on the job.