Learning & Teaching – Page 14

Learning 2.0 = ROI?

It seems the discussion that has been going on (cf. Gina, among others), on where Learning 2.0 is (and I recently posted about this with some very inciteful comments). Her last post, and my response to Jim Groom on his reaction to my thoughts has me going in a new direction.

With talk about Web 2.0 and Learning 2.0 and Academic vs (&?) Corporate use of individual and engaging learning applications, I am now thinking about the cost issues and ROI.

Now, take a deep breadth — I am not a proponent of measuring ROI, especially with applications that are difficult to even explain to the uninitiated newbies. But, if I wanted to (read between the lines — perhaps my organization won’t do anything without an ROI study), what could I do? It is already enough of a challenge to demonstrate how any expenditure can provide an ROI, especially after Corporate America (to limit my sweeping statement a bit) lost its shirt in the rush to embrace all things eLearning a few years back. With those calculations out the window as really involved and interactive elearning takes much longer to develop (and thus determine its ROI), as per Bryan Chapman whose blog post lists these amounts (which I am reproducing from his ASTD 2008 presentation handout, which he claimed during his session was a bit outdated):

34:1 Instructor-Led Training (ILT), including design, lesson plans, handouts, PowerPoint slides, etc.

33:1 PowerPoint to E-Learning Conversion. Not sure why it takes less time then creating ILT, but that’s what we discovered when surveying 200 companies about this practice

220:1 Standard e-learning which includes presentation, audio, some video, test questions, and 20% interactivity

345:1 Time it takes for online learning publishers to design, create, test and package 3rd party courseware

750:1 Simulations from scratch. Creating highly interactive content

then what do we do?

If we have enough trouble determining pure ROI (meaning a financial return, not the unmeasurable peace of mind knowing the new orientees get the approved HIPAA training and nothing else), then how on earth can we measure successful implementation of Learning 2.0?

Now, off to go and Tweet about this now.

Where Is Learning 2.0?

There are some interesting discussions that are occurring around the edublogosphere right now about corporate learning vs. edupunk. I just commented on items that Gina and Tony discussed, with their thoughts partly in response to Jim’s and recent thinking about edupunk ideology. As an aside, all three of their blogs are well worth reading for different perspectives on Learning 2.0 (and if I may, Jane is also doing some interesting work in this area).

In a nutshell, they are all discussing corporate and academic learning using Web 2.0, which is (oversimplified, I know) fundamentally what Learning 2.0 is all about. While we can debate the hows and whys of this, I am more immediately interested in the wheres right now. Where is all this happening? I struggle to get my graduate and undergraduate students to use Twitter, a wiki, del.icio.us, and a host of other technologies, and while some do adopt them, most are not interested in anything other than what they are already using (which, once again in a Nutshell, means YouTube, and to a lesser extent, Facebook). In my corporate work, the issue is similar–many people struggle even using internal podcasts, much less blogs or anything Ajax-based. It would seem short-sited to only use what students already use (somewhat like teaching them only what they are already comfortable doing, which would even more limit education, but I digress).

Where are these teaming populations busting at the seems to use corporate and educational Web 2.0 elements in learning? I live and work and consult primarily in Manhattan, and this is where most of my learners are as well.

I am wondering if the questions we are considering are perhaps too limited. Perhaps we should be asking “where?” these learners are, as I am wondering if these social and networking and learning and sharing technologies out there are not more proliferate in less demographically busy areas, such as New York? Can it be that Web 2.0 is more popular where people are not so concentrated, due to necessity? Thinking pragmatically, why should I take an eLearning class when we have enough people and expertise for face to face instruction? Why should I post to a discussion board when we can discuss it face to face in class (which is how most NYC academic institutions seem to prefer to operate)? Do I really need to post my pictures when I see all of you and can send you a link? Doesn’t RSS work better when I don’t readily have access to what I need?

Thinking about this in another way, how many people do I follow and speak with on Twitter who live near Manhattan? How about the bloggers I follow (as I heavily use RSS to process the information overload I face), are they also here? With exceptions to be counted on less than one hand, the answer is no.

Yes, I am intentionally taking a contrarian position here, and those who know and work with me know I have a passion for integrating technology so thoroughly into learning that they are no longer seen as parts of a whole, but just “learning.” Instead, I am hoping to move this discussion forward by considering another element I think we need to more actively consider.

Networking and T&D’s Uncovering the Unconnected Employee

The May issue of T&D (Training and Development, the ASTD monthly magazine) had an interesting article on networking and the value of establishing and promoting business networking. While the article is not online, there is a related podcast for this).

The article by Anne Baber and Lynne Waymon focuses on the phrase “unconnected employees,” by which they mean “employees who lack the skills to build effective business relationships.” As I find business and academic networking a challenge, I thought at times they were writing this article about / for me!

They describe 8 ways that employees who do not network can hurt a business:

They get off to a slow start as new hires
They are less productive
They don’t make it their business to recruit
They don’t know how to make their expertise known so it can be used, and so they can advance in their careers
They are less successful as managers
They make poor decisions
They aren’t creative and innovative
They fail to bring back business intelligence from conferences

Wow, do I have a lot of work to do, especially having just returned from the ASTD conference last week!

While I am not sure how the authors created their list (there was a mention in the article about the literature, yet I would like to have seen something a bit more methodological so I can read more about this, especially from an evidence-based perspective), the list does in fact seem to make some sense to me. The authors speak briefly about each of these, though I hope they consider writing a follow-up with more concrete suggestions for how to address each of these.

To take a concrete first step in addressing these issues in my own professional practice, I revised my LinkedIn profile and am committing to try to leverage the system. Take a look at it; any suggestions are most appreciated!

Technorati Tags: ASTD,LinkedIn,Anne Baber,Lynne Waymon

ASTD 2008 Tag? Let’s Use astd2008

Come to think of it, since ASTD does not seem to be promoting Web 2.0 connections with its members, it should not surprise me that I cannot locate a conference tag to begin tagging my blog (and liveblog) posts and Tweets.

Thus, I will take the lead and create a tag for this year’s conference ~ astd2008. I invite anybody else to use this while blogging, submitting to Technorati, using via Twitter, del.icio.us, and the like.

Technorati Tags: astd2008

ASTD 2008 ICE Meetup?

I am attending the ASTD 2008 International Conference & Exposition next week in San Diego, and have been trying to locate others in the workplace learning and performance field who blog and also Tweet who may want to schedule a meetup. Thus far I have located Tony Karrer and Beth Griese, neither of whom I have previously met. There have to be others attending the largest training and development conference who blog and Tweet, haven’t there?

I wonder why ASTD is not furiously working to catch up and connect its members in the Web 2.0 sphere?

Technorati Tags: ASTD, ASTD2008