Xyleme Learning Blog

eLearning Weekly: Blogging on the article “E-Learning NO How: 7 disastrous decisions sure to sink any e-learning implementation”. Some tips to avoid failure.

Will at Work Learning: Lists of Myths That the Business Side Has About Learning (according to learning professionals).

Josh Bersin: Informal Learning becomes Formal – That is to say Informal Learning is made real and valuable.

Dale Waldt: Will XML Help this President? XML and related technology is a powerful tool for government. “I think there is a very big role for XML and related technology in the aggressive, sweeping change promised by this administration”.

Interviews at Learning Visions: Some Instructional design insight shared by Instructional designers. What skills they feel are important for instructional designers, and what they feel the future of the field will be. Students interested in instructional design, you might want to listen to this!

Weblogg-ed: Getting off paper.

Dave’s Whiteboard: Dave remembers Geary Rummler, who helped him get leaner in instructional design.

Informal Learning: A report from the DevLearn panel on eLearning research and its web 2.0 intersections.

Helge Scherlund’s eLearning News Blog: Online courses booming as the economy ramps down.

TravelinEdMan: An interview with Dr. Ellen Wagner, principal analyst at Sonoma LLP, before her keynote speech at this November’s E-Learn Conference in Las Vegas.

Welcome to the 6th Working/Learning blog carnival! Thanks very much to Dave Ferguson for kicking it off and letting us host it this time (more details and how you can host it, here,) and to all the very talented folks who’ve contributed the posts you’re about to enjoy. And we’re off …

• Ferguson writes about using training as a last resort after fully evaluating workflow and incentive structures so that it can be true performance support.
• Laurie Bartels writes about an expansive view of professional development that, as she quoted Elkhonon Goldberg saying, turns “neuroplasticity to your advantage.” Mmm, neuroplasticity.
• Karyn Romeis encourages people not to get so caught up in predetermined steps that they forget how much fun learning is and how much they can enjoy it.
• Ken Allan writes about the energy required for the learning process, and how it can be supplied by a teacher’s pedagogical and scaffolding techniques even for individualized elearning. And I’ve seen the truth of his conclusion in my own studies, that without the meta-cognition of what you’re building towards, as supplied by an instructor or a learner of a certain level, self-directed learning can lose focus quickly.
• Harold Jarche thinks that if mass marketing is dead, mass training will soon follow.
• Penny Ryder is interested in feedback about how to build links with her students’ parents so she can be a more effective instructor.

And … that’s it, everyone! I’ve had a great time reading through these contributions and would recommend hosting the carnival to anyone whose day is brightened when their inbox gets loaded with good reading material. See you around next time

Manish Mohan recently wrote a post, in response to the monthly Learning Circuits question, describing resources on how to get started with instructional design. In it, he said the following about what he looks for in recruits:

… But honestly, as a manager who has had to recruit for ID, I look for prior experience, and if there is no prior experience, I look for their core writing skills and ability to learn. Having a diploma is good but not essential.

… Basically you need to have good writing skills. This is most critical to get into instructional design job. … [They are] typically what is tested by companies for taking on new IDs. …

Which suggests that instructional design hopefuls can also get a lot of use out of resources that help them with their writing quality. So you might want to check out recent posts at Dave’s Whiteboard and Making Change on the subject of how to write for readability …

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Be sure to stop back by on the 20th, when we’ll be hosting the Working/Learning Blog Carnival. Until then, here’s a grab bag of edubloggers and others who are interested in expanding people’s capacity to think effectively …

Janet Clarey: Responding to the monthly Learning Circuits question, a look at how a newbie can approach e-learning.

Harold Jarche: Instructional design with a greedy algorithm may allow more agility.

Brain Blogger: The brain blogging carnival awaits you. (via)

Ken Carroll: Will the economic crunch pave the way for widespread networked learning as a viable replacement for many venues of formal education?

Apemyp: A brief overview of Xerox’ blended learning supported SAP software rollout, using an approach that cost them less and still boosted worker productivity.

Janet Clarey: Thoughts on the effectiveness of immersive simulations and on-demand learning.

iLibrarian: College students are increasingly interested in classes that offer online lecture capture. While the overwhelming favorite reason being to make up classes, a healthy number of them said that it improved their knowledge retention and overall scores.

eLearning Slam: In contrast to the previous item, here are several ways in which audio tracks for elearning can make it worse and less accessible.

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What’s your to-learn list? That’s the question at Learning Circuits this month, where bloggers are asked to come up with their own lists to share. But first, a story:

A monk asked Zhao Zhou to teach him.
Zhao Zhou asked, “Have you eaten your meal?”
The monk replied, “Yes, I have.”
“Then go wash your bowl,” said Zhao Zhou.
At that moment, the monk was enlightened.

I first read that story in a book where the way it was told, the monk was asking specifically to be taught something about self cultivation. That’s more or less Zen for self improvement.

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Tony Karrer: Training method trends in elearning — classroom education and learning management are in, wikis and communities of practice seem to be out.

Janet Clarey: The value of multimedia in elearning.

Harold Jarche: Employees want learning, managers want performance; can’t we all just get along?

Bryan Chapman: Free resources! Who doesn’t like that?

eLearning Guild Research: Your input is requested, as Steve Wexler considers developing an index of the best industries for elearning.

Robin Good: Visual communication tools you can use.

Live Laugh Learn Lead: You may have missed some of these New York Times articles about brain function when they were published last month, but better late than never.

Janet Clarey found a Wall Street Journal article lamenting the informal communication style of many young job seekers and what it means for business communication. As Clarey wrote in response:

… I think the communication disconnect is significant for educators. How can we support a ‘recruit/retain/train’ strategy targeted at younger workers if the organization bans their preferred methods of communication?

I suspect businesses probably have enough “proper” letter writers on staff (you remember the baby boomers don’t you?) so perhaps hiring people who communicate differently will appeal to a new (or evolving) group of customers. …

Communication, as many people who are happy to help your self-help along will tell you, is about what people hear more than about what you say. And what people hear from business communication is changing, as it has been, as it will continue to do.
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Jay Cross was interviewed for a recent TechRepublic whitepaper entitled, “Informal Learning: Extending the Impact of Enterprise Ideas and Information.” (Free registration is required, search the site’s white papers for ‘informal learning’ and you’ll turn it up easily.)

This exchange illustrated a key difference between Cross’ idea of where formal and informal learning are best used, based on whether the highly structured information is part of the course or the learner’s own understanding:

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