Books Not Recommended by Members of #lrnchat
Last Thursday, #lrnchat’s topic was “book talk” and question five was great fun. The question posed was “What are book titles you hope never to see?” Here is a list of just some of the responses. They are not just very amusing, they are also a great reflection on so much of what we should avoid, or at least rethink, in our industry.
Dave_Ferguson: “I Can Haz Smarts: Lolcats Guyd to Learnin Stylz”
JaneBozarth: “More Levels for Evaluation by Autopsy”
sillym0nkey: Rapid Oganizational Change
kelly_smith01: I’m OK, You’re my SME?
trchandler: “Mandated Learning Made Easy”
billcush: ADDIE for Dummies
Quinnovator: “Adapting Learning: Learning Styles, Generational Differences, and Brain-Based Learning”
susannahrl: How to outsource all eLearning design and development in 3 easy steps
Quinnovator: “Content and a Quiz: your guide to meaningful change”
moehlert: @lrnchat Compliance Training for Fun and Profit
sillym0nkey: how to bring back ppt lectures to the classroom
trchandler: “How to Squeeze More Bullet Points into your Presentations”
Quinnovator: “The LMS: your complete learning solution”
mpetersell: “101 versions of jeopardy for learning”
odguru: How to keep them guessing: Butchering the socratic method to make people feel dumb
Dave_Ferguson: Management Secrets of Donald Rumsfeld (a new musical)
kasey428: The Audio Book of Advanced Calculus
minutebio: “Incorporating Informal Learning into Your LMS”
jsuzcampos: Speak When Spoken To: Your Guide to Lively Classroom Discussion
mbr1online: Death by PowerPoint: A Manual
Dave_Ferguson Are you not a fan of lateral thinking or is it interpretive dance that annoys you?
Quinnovator: “Investing in Organizational Learning: The Cost Center Approach”
Dave_Ferguson: Take It to the River: How Hammurabi the CEO Dealt with Naysayers and Nitpickers.
TriciaRansom: The Complete Guide to Standard Clip Art
Dave_Ferguson: “How to Rail against Social Media while Maintaining Eight Twitter IDs, or, Easy Self-RTs”
kasey428: Improve the Classroom Experience: Adding Motion to Your PowerPoints!
Quinnovator: “Social Schmocial: Why Formal Is the only Real Learning”
NYChase: The Client is Always Right.
sillym0nkey: How to use smile sheets effectively
TriciaRansom: More Time in Training = More Learning
mbr1online: Idiot’s Guide to Organizing Your Files and Catching Up on Email while Watching Webinars.
trchandler: “Class Evaluation Questions that Guarantee a Raise”
minutebio: ”Google Wave and How it Will Change Learning”
Want to see the books that ARE recommended? See the book list from the early #lrnchat and the full transcripts can be found on the #lrnchat page.
An important note: If you have not participated in #lrnchat (online chat via Twitter), you are really missing a great experience. It is great fun and a chance to interact, learn and share with many great instructional designers. They have both an early and a late version every Thursday. The schedule and helpful information on participating is available on the #lrnchat blog. See you next Thursday!
Keeping Up - April’s Big Question
April’s Big Question from Learning Circuits is “How to Keep up?” This is in reference the immense and rapidly expanding technology tools.
It is tough to stay on top of all the emerging tools. However, being involved in an e-learning community is a big help. For me it is a blog community and following many experts on Twitter. Not only am I often made aware of new tools, but also get opinions, tips, and examples of their use. You can never keep up with it all, but access to many experts who are also finding and sharing the lastest tech tools make it much less daunting.
Many of the blogs I follow are part of the eLearningLearning community. So, I browsed “Tools” by keyword on eLearningLearning. Here are the results and the level of exposure to technology tools this community provides:
That is a lot of tools this blogging community has discussed and introduced to its readers. I also like to make occasional visits to Google Labs and Adobe Labs to “keep up” with the tech tools they are working on and to test drive any beta versions available. When I do find interesting tools I will keep track of them using my Delicious account. Tagged either under Development Toolsor Cloud. When it comes to free cloud apps, I also share them on my blog’s Free Cloud Apps page.
It is tough to stay on top of all the great stuff being offered out there, but the blogs and social media certainly help.
Informal Learning - 2010
Informal learning (a.k.a. social learning) grew immensely in 2009. I think there is little doubt that it will grow further in 2010, but I also expect it to find more of a foothold in corporate training departments where its adoption been a challenge. Now I know there are corporate training departments that have embraced informal learning, but those are the more innovative companies. There are many that are slower to change and often do not adopt new approaches until they see others, including competitors, reap the benefits of such approaches.
As I am confident we will see informal learning become more prevalent in the corporate environment, companies must also be cautious when jumping into the social media and informal learning stampede. There are many social media tools and approaches. Be strategic when identifying social media tools, how they will be implemented, and how you can facilitate learning within the media. Remember, you cannot truly manage informal learning, but you can facilitate learning along with coaching others to facilitate learning. You can also coach learners on how to effectively use social media to meet the learning objectives they set for themselves.
Here are some great resources on informal learning that help us understand this transition from the formal to informal.
First off, Jay Cross and Clark Quinn on how meta-learning subverts the traditional training hierarchy.
Jane Hart’s “From e-Learning to Social Learning.”
Plus, last November the Learning Circuits blog’s Big Question was “Presenting the Value of Social Media for Learning,” which had many valuable comments and advice for anyone implementing social media in the workplace.
I think this democratization of learning will be a benefit to corporate staff and if engaged by corporate training departments it will be boon to their ability to assist learners in acquiring the knowledge and skills necessary for their success.
TweetDeck and Adobe Air
Here is an interesting interview with Iain Dodsworth, TweetDeck founder, about his experience developing his now prolific Air application.
Want to create your own Air app? The video below will show you how to convert a Flash project into an Air app.
Big Question - Presenting the Value of Social Media for Learning
Learning Circuit’s Big Question this month is ”How do I communicate the value of social media as a learning tool to my organization?” In response, I have put together a list of strategies I feel are important and if done right can be effective.
Management buy-in
- Demo its use to decision makers.
- Show them case studies (from your industry, if possible, and emphasize return on investment (ROI)).
- Emphasize ROI again. Can it increase sales, reduce losses, limit errors, etc.?
- Teach them how to use it and continually encourage them to use it.
Staff buy-in and prototyping
- Get a willing group of staff to use and evaluate the prototype.
- Make sure content/communications are relevant to its users.
- Stay very involved in its implementation, facilitating discussion.
- Get its users to help you market the course…creating a “buzz” about the initiative.
- Document any success stories that come from the prototype and share with the entire organization.
Get IT buy-in early
- We all now IT can sink your initiative quickly, so get yourself buy-in from a decision maker in the IT department.
- Do as much leg work as you can before you bring it to IT. Not only will they appreciate any prerequisite work you have already done, but you will be that much closer to implementing the initiative.
- Find numerous people in IT who are already using social media and ask them to use the prototype. They mayhelp you push the initiative through the possible IT bureaucracy and can provide additional evaluation and advice from a tech perspective.
- Read more about Working With IT.
Communicating the value of social media and informal learning is far from an easy task and overcoming the challenges of getting management and staff on board differs with every organization…some are more open to it than others. Either way, communicating its value does not have any end point. Like any learning initiative, it needs constant encouragement.
Searching Screenr
I am still exploring Screenr. While exploring, I wanted to find Flash tutorials… I can never learn enough about Flash. Am I missing something? Believe it or not, there is no search function on the Screenr site. Luckily, I eventually found a Screenr tutorial on how to search Screenr. Thescreencast is below and was created by onEnterFrame.
Remember, if you are looking for Screenr tutorials, just use a search engine to conduct a site search - site:screenr.com yoursubject. And yes I know one could search Twitter for Screenr tutorials, but keep in mind many companies still do not allow access to Twitter.
Thank you onEnterFrame for sharing this simple solution.
Using Screenr to Create a Video Post
With all the hub-bub around Screenr, I had to check it out. It is extremely easy to use. If you have not heard about it yet, Screenr gives you the ability to capture your computer screen, mouse movements and audio (e.g. software simulations). Once you click done, it compiles it and sends it and your text description out as a tweet.
While I was playing around with it, I realized I can capture my webcam on it…what an easy way to create a video post that I can tweet. Here is the result of a 2 minute investment of time.
If you would like to see it in my Twitter timeline, you will find me at http://twitter.com/minutebio (@minutebio).
Video on Twitter in the Classroom
Here is a really well done video about Twitter being used in a UT Dallas classroom. It provides perspectives from the professor and the students. Goes to show ya, in the classroom Twitter is a great medium for increasing participation.
