The Learning Strategist

Learning more about the world through photography, has been the motto of these websites— Trek Earth , Trek Nature and Trek Lens , that I ardently use to learn about my hobby—Photography! I think this has been a noble initiative that has been helping amateurs like me around the world learn the art and science of photography. I believe this site works, as I have seen people who initially had very regular photos and have now shown such improvement that I was amazed! The reason I choose to speak about these sites is not to advertise them, but to highlight how the whole learning process here is a collaborative one, relevant to what we all speak about in informal learning. The users of this website range from professionals to mere beginners like me, from people with the most high-end DSLRs to basic Point and Shoot versions. Whatever you use, does not deter you from posting your photos here and having people critique your work. These sites have some common features like: Regional Groupin...

I'm surprised to see such a strong post supporting Instructor-Led Learning only, in times when Web 2.0 reigns and the learning trend is slowly changing. Tony Karrer makes very good arguments in his post Long Live ? and I suggest reading his views. I don't agree when Saul says that people in the community claim that ILT is dead. I am quite in touch with most of the posts on the community and that is definitely not what people are trying to say. From what I understand, we are in a transition stage where in people are exploring other possibilities of learning, and the means provided by informal learning was a welcome change for several reasons: - Accessibility to classroom training when you need help on the job - The cost of attending an ILT is high - Online courses were not sufficient to cover all that a learner needed So, I think, the whole initiative is coming about as an attempt to make information accessible to the larger group, and enable them to learn on their own, by w...

How amusing that the very topics I had planned for my blog became a topic of discussion before I could even write up my post. I was planning to list some best practices in my field of work since quite sometime now, as I'm a believer in the concept due to the goal it intends to achieve—better and efficient performance. Looking at the posts and comments on Jane Bozarth and Tony Karrer's blogs it appears that the term is either 'overused' or misunderstood. I never had any doubts about what it meant until I read these posts. I read Jane Bozarth's post on The Myth of "Best Practices" the day she posted it and empathized with her point of view that people expect to get best practices for almost anything they want to learn. She's right from her perspective in saying that before asking such questions, one needs to understand that... ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ A "best practice" is ...

I found these slides by Cathy Moore Design Lively elearning with Action Mapping that illustrate the concept of action mapping most precisely . I thought this information to be valuable for most of the industry, as we often tend to lose focus on the business goal and what learners really need in order to perform their job better. Some of the points that I highlighted , in this months big question on learning circuits , speak about how learner-centric design, reference-hybrids, and learning outcomes will become more important in future work places. So though the term 'action mapping' seemed new, Cathy's slides made it evident as to how focus, focus, and more focus on the business goal and the learner needs in our training courses will get us the desired business benefits. The goal of Action Mapping is to successfully help you convert your formidable 'information dump' into a no-nonsense meaningful course, that focuses only on 'actions' that the learner need...

This month's Big Question question is Workplace Learning in 10 years? A very pertinent question to ask in such times, as we hear of more and more failure rates in formal and push learning. Most of our generation have learned this way, and some like me have always found such learning boring from the very beginning. My parents, would force me to learn the way the other 'good' kids learned, and I would resist and prefer to stay in my own dreamworld, that I found more fascinating than my study books. Fortunately for me, every year before the final exam my mom would hound me into preparing for the exams and I would come out scoring reasonably well. Now I can owe my 'decent' job to all the 'push' I got from my parents. But given a chance, I would not like to go back to studying the way I did in school, though I owe my 'formal' degrees to the 'formal' learning I received. But I did have some pretty good teachers. My Geography teacher had a unique s...

Donald Kirkpatrick coined this model in 1975 and it could most probably be outdated. He talks about the four levels of evaluation of a course: Level1: Reaction- Observe and record learner reaction to a training. Level2: Learning- The extent to which learners change attitudes, increase knowledge, and/or increase skills. Level3: Behavior- The extent to which change in behavior occurs on the job. Level4: Results- The final outcomes that occur as a result of training. I find this interesting though not surprising as the levels seem to be quite obvious. The model says you need to use 2-3 tools to evaluate each level and you need to define the measurement at the beginning of every project. The figure gives a matrix of the measurement required at each level. Another thing he says is if you don't get past level 2, you aren't using Kirkpatrick. Also he claims that using this model will cause a minimum wastage in your training investment. I would like to try this out whe...

Background I recently read this post by Tony Karrer discussing the development of what we traditionally call pure courseware versus the creation of Reference Hybrids Shift in eLearning from Pure Courseware towards Reference Hybrids . Though posted in 2006, this post seems very relevant even today and I feel like I have a lot to say about the probable solution to the discussion that this course brought out. Citing past experience In one of my previous organization, our management was looking at buying a rapid elearning tool that would make the creation of courses faster and easier. Now thats the impression the general audience has about rapid elearning tools, and is also the obvious reason why they think that buying the tool will solve all their training problems. Exactly what the vendors would love you to believe when they sell their tool. But, I think it's time we start being more realistic and start looking at what it is that we really want, and not conclude on using rapid elear...

Here a quick list that I came up with: ID Theory and Concept: Understand and apply ID concepts, theories and models based on relevance. ADDIE Process: Understand and implement the ADDIE process. Business Requirement and Problem: Understand the business requirement that led to the demand for the training, and the business problem that the training is intended to be solved. Suggest appropriate Training Solutions: Suggest appropriate training solutions based on the requirements and audience needs. Audience Analysis: Understand the target audience profiles and analyze how to design the courses to appeal to such an audience and enable them to perform their job better. Task Analysis: Structure and chunk course contents and present it in a format desirable to the target audience. Write Measurable Learning Objectives: Write high-level (terminal) learning objectives and drill them down to the low-level (enabling or task level) task specific objectives. The focus while writing objectives s...