I’ll just been asked to help moderate Monday’s NELA event on Serious Gaming. It should be a great event. I’ve seen Scot Osterweil speak before, and he is very good. If you are interested in how to use Gaming or Simulation in your eLearning this is a must-see event.
You can read the full description on the NELA blog, or just register here. It’s a free event sponsored by the British Consulate.
I hope to see you there.
As part of my talk Moving from Training to Collaborative Learning I talked about how to reinforce learning in a seminar by following it up with assignments and discussion. If you came to the talk and would like to participate in that, or if are interested in the topic. Please fill-out the comment info below, and I will include you on some e-mailed assignments to help with the follow up and reinforcement of the session. This will provide a nice Blended Learning solution for our talk.
There was also some talk about doing a Second Life meeting in the future. That is new for me, so if you are interested, let me know and we can set something up. It is always fun to try out new technologies for learning and collaboration.
Today at the eLearning Guild’s Annual Gathering a number of people asked if I would post my handouts. They claimed that they couldn’t make my presentation on Moving from Training to Collaborative Learning and wanted a copy of the handouts. You should know that the handouts don’t really stand on their own really well. You miss all the hand gestures and discussion that happens during the presentation.
But, in the interest of Collaborative Learning, you can download them, and then post your comments and questions here and we can get a discussion going. In fact, if enough people are interested, we can do follow-up exercises from the talk and use some of the collaboration tools that I discuss to help further define the topic.
My presentation “Moving from Training to Collaborative Learning” which won the 2006 NELA Choice Award has been selected by the eLearning Guild for the 2007 Annual Gathering. Take a look at the conference info, it should be a great event. I’m also being interviewed for a podcast prior to the event, and I will post a link to that as soon as it is live.
I hope to see you there!
I wanted to take a few minutes to summarize some notes from last weeks CMASTD & NELA Roadblocks to Learning Technology Seminar. You can read the description on the NELA blog.
The seminar started with Mike Brennan from Knowledge Infusion giving the key-note. He spoke of the K-I “Strategy -> Plan -> Action” Methodology using some of his current clients as examples.
One interesting quote he used was from a Towers Perrin study that said
“92% of reasons for failed projects are ‘soft issues’ – organizations, people, and culture.”
Mike said that delivering value is the universal key factor in driving success. To do this he recommended focusing on:
Another key item I wanted to share came during a discussion on ROI and how you can quantify the softer side of internal training initiatives. Mike suggested that a metric he has used successfully is to measure the number of people promoted internally as a measure of training success and succession management effectiveness.
I’ll have some more comments from the panel discussion that I moderated, and I’m working to get Mike’s slides posted on the NELA Blog as well.
Last night at the NELA Choice Awards my presentation “Moving from Training to Collaborative Learning” was selected by the audience as their top choice. The competition was fun and very challenging, with all seven presenters working hard to get their points across in just five (okay really six) minutes.
I have posted my full presentation here on the site in web format, but it may not work on all browsers and without me explaining all of it you may be a bit confused. I will work over the next week or so to write up parts of it to post here and explain what the concept is. But for now, feel free to comment here and ask me questions and I will answer as best I can.
Thanks again to Pat O’Malley, Allan Cole, and all the presenters for their hard work and for making this such a fun event. And thanks to the audience members for voting for me… I’m sure I owe a couple of you the drinks that I promised if you voted for me! 
My presentation “Moving from Training to Collaborative Learning” has been accepted for the NELA Choice Awards coming up on Wednesday the 14th. If you want to see me talk for just 5 minutes (not easy for me) then you should register and come on by.
There are a number of other great presenters, and the event will allow you to see eight different presenters give what they feel is their best 5 minutes of content. Then the audience will vote for their three favorites. So, please come by and vote for me!
It has been quite an exercise for me to try and get my ideas for collaborative learning down to five minutes, but I’ll be giving it a shot. I’ll be posting my presentation and comments from the event here on Thursday.
I just wanted to let everybody know about a great opportunity to speak at a New England Learning Association event. You can get all the details on the NELA Blog, but basically they are looking for people to provide a 5 minute presentation that showcases their best e-Learning case study, best practice or technique. I’ll be giving a presentation on “Moving from Training to Collaborative Learning.” If you have ever wanted to speak, but didn’t want to give a one hour presentation, this is it!
If you are more interested in learning about growing your business, then you could also join me at the Beechwood Forum.
Or just come join me for a night of Art, Wine & Networking
I look forward to seeing you at one of these events!
I had a great time moderating last night’s NELA panel discussion, Creating a Learning Culture in a Biotech Setting. The audience was great and only let me get through a few of my questions before they jumped in with their own and turned the night into a wonderfully interactive discussion.
One of my favorite debates came after we had finished discussing the difficulty faced by the panel due to the wide range of audience and learning types, from sales reps to scientists and researchers, internal support staff such as finance, IT, and marketing folks, and down to the folks on a 24×7 manufacturing floor.
A member of the audience pointed out that while we were talking about having to support multiple “learning styles”, we were talking mostly about “learner types.” The distinction seemed subtle, but it pointed out that many times we all assume that a specific audience all has a similar learning style. We assume that *all* sales people are outgoing and interactive, or we assume that all scientists are analytical.
This led to a discussion of how important it is to not make those types of assumptions. We should always remember to separate learner types from learning styles and do as much as we can to support them by providing multiple delivery methods if possible, or at least instructional strategies that take this into account.
A final point was brought up by Mike Laffin of Serono, who reminded us all to remember that our own personal learning preferences can color our designs and we need to keep an open mind and focus on the learner.
I have some more notes on this that I will share in the next few days, and you can also see my notes and other discussions that have been posted on the NELA Blog.
I will be moderating a talk on Thursday March 30th with the New England Learning Association. The topic is Creating a Learning Culture in a Biotech Setting, with two great speakers:
They will be discussing the challenges of creating a Learning Culture with a diverse learning audience ranging from scientists to sales representatives, each with a preferred learning style.
If you have questions that you would like me to ask the panel, or make sure that we cover, please e-mail them to me, or you can post your comment on the NELA blog.
I hope to see you there!
