April 14, 2008 – Silence and Voice

Jeffrey’s Twitter Updates for 2008-04-14

@moritherapy What is a "true" sabbath? #
Ever have those emails that you cannot read if the send agrees or disagrees with you? How do you handle them? #
Going for lunch. First time I stood up since I got into the office today. #
@moritherapy Perhaps it would be interesting to instead begin with a Tech Sabbath, a day when we spend time with life beyond the Web? #
@maniactive So, was it freeing or frustrating? #
@dctrcurry So, which shall we explore first? #
@Currie My snow finally finished melting on Saturday evening. We did have scattered snow yesterday, but no accululation. #
@leelefever Very cool, Lee. #
@grisonne What type of puppy are you searching for? #
@grisonne North of the city, in the Catskills. #
@pinoyboy I still love the scent of Crayola, and Play-Doh, too! #
@aidanhenry Excellent. How are they going with the recovery? #

Instructional Designers, Scholar or Practice

I just read a fascinating discussion that Cammy Bean and John H. Curry had on the Effective Design blog. They raised a number of great issues about instructional design and how the academic approach to it does not always match the work in practice.

Ahh, how I love when the gap between research and practice becomes so apparent. As a self-described scholar-practitioner in the area of human resource development (an a professional instructional designer), I found their conversation engaging and respectful, while also raising countless issues about the field of ID / ISD:

should there be professional certification?
are the certifications already out there not doing their jobs well enough?
who should decide?
does Corporate America care?
what will gap(s) will this type of certification fill?
who will make money from the certification process?
how if at all will universities change or even become part of this process?
is there enough of a market for this?
is there enough research to actually have a body of knowledge, or is it only best practice?
is research needed outside of best practice at all?
how have related fields, such as training, OD, HRD, workplace learning and performance, and what have you addressed this and to what success?

These are just my first thoughts from a conversation that occurred in the recent past. I wonder what can be next to consider with this?

Thursday F2F with George

I had lunch Thursday with George Siemens, the networked learning and knowledge strcuctures guru from Canada, at my favorite Korean restaurant near my office in Manhattan. Having read George’s work for several years now, it was nice to put a face and voice to the writing. He and his wife are in New York for some conference work, and it was rather stimulating to speak with him about his areas of research interest and the locations where George travels to speak at conferences and other events.

One theme that kept surfacing that struck me is how technology changes so much and so quickly, with seemingly every week a newer social media killer app, that things will not change unless the underlying knowledge structures and our approach to them changes. I recall him speaking about this in his book Knowing Knowledge, though hearing a similar message through a different medium (F2F) and situation (while using chopsticks to eat goon mandoo) makes it so fresh.

Enjoy your time here in New York, George, May it stimulate you to consider how knowledge is larger and wider and louder and more culturally diverse than we have seen throughout history!