Over at the TogetherLearn site, I’ve added a post about ‘what it takes‘.  I guess it’s the ‘how do we make this work’ in me, but I wanted to wrap some concrete definition about their ‘the future of  the training department‘.  I very much agree with their view, but was concerned it could be viewed as too difficult.

Note that they are largely talking about a move to a self-help environment, as I discussed in my last post on the training department of the future.  I reckon, however, that a truly deep revisit and rethink will look at formal learning, portals, content governance and more, as well as the social learning component.  Still, the process is largely the same, it’s just that the scope is larger.  Just doing the social component, however, is likely to be the best short-term investment to get large benefits from a small step.

Realize that the roadmap isn’t going to be as specific as might be desired, but it helps to take an objective look from an experienced perspective and at least line up some near-term goals as well as some long-term desires, and figure out some steps that will take you there.  I can’t see an alternative, can  you?

In addition to working on the technology plan for my school district, I’ve also been assisting a not-for-profit trying to get strategic about technology.  The struggles are instructive, but looking across these two separate instances as well as the previous organizations I’ve assisted, I’m realizing that there are some common barriers.

The obvious one is time. The old saying about alligators and draining the swamp is too true, and it’s only getting worse.  Despite an economic stimulus package for the US and other countries, and (finally) a budget in my own state, things are not likely to get better soon.  Even if companies could hire back everyone they’ve laid off, the transition time would be significant.  It’s hard to sit back and reflect when you’re tackling more work with less resources.  Yet, we must.

The second part is more problematic.  Strategic thinking isn’t easy or obvious, at least to all.  For some it’s probably in their nature, but I reckon for most it takes a breadth of experience and an ability to abstract from that experience to take a broader perspective.  Abstraction, I know from my PhD research on analogy, isn’t well done without support.  Aligning that perspective with organizational goals simultaneously adds to the task.  Doing it keeping both short- and long-term values, for several different layers of stakeholders, and you’re talking some serious cognitive overhead.

We do need to take the time to be strategic.  As I was just explaining on a call, you don’t want to be taking small steps that aren’t working together towards a longer-term goal.  If you’re investing in X, and Y, and Z, and each one doesn’t build on each other, you’re missing an opportunity. If you’ve alternatives A & B, and A seems more expedient, if you haven’t looked to the future you might miss that B is a better long term investment.  If you don’t evaluate what else is going on, and leverage those initiatives because you’re just meeting your immediate needs, you’re not making the best investment for the organization, and putting yourself at risk.  You need to find a way to address the strategic position, at least for a percentage of your time (and that percentage goes up with your level in the organization).

To cope, we use frameworks and tools to help reduce the load, and follow processes to support systematicity and thoroughness. The performance ecosystem framework is one specific to use of technology to improve organizational learning, innovation, and problem-solving, but there are others.  Sometimes we bring in outside expertise to help, as we may be too tightly bound to the context and an external perspective can be more objective.

You can totally outsource it, to a big consulting company, but I reckon that the principle of ‘least assistance‘ holds here too.   You want to bring in top thinking in a lightweight way, rather than ending up with a bunch of interns trying to tie themselves to you at the wrist and ankles.  What can you do that will provide just the amount of help you need to make progress?  I have found that a lightweight approach can work in engagements with clients, so I know it can be done.  Regardless, however of wWhether you do it yourself, with partners, or bring in outside help, don’t abandon the forest for the trees, do take the time.  You need to be strategic, so be strategic about it!

For sins in my past, I’ve been invited on to our school district’s technology committee.  So, yesterday evening I was there as we were reviewing and rewriting the technology plan (being new to the committee, I wasn’t there when the existing one was drafted).  Broken up into five parts, including curriculum, infrastructure, funding, I was on the professional development section, with a teacher and a library media specialist.  Bear with me, as the principles here are broader than schools.

The good news: they’d broken up goals into two categories, the teacher’s tech skills, and the integration of tech into the curriculum. And they were measuring the tech skills.

The bad news: they were measuring things like percentage of teachers who’d put up a web page (using the district’s licensed software), and the use of the district’s electronic grading system. And their professional development didn’t include support for revising lesson plans.

Houston, we have some disconnects!

So, let’s take a step back.  What matters?  What are we trying to achieve?  It’s that kids learn to use technology as a tool in achieving their goals: research, problem-solving, communication.  That means, their lessons need to naturally include technology use.  You don’t teach the tool, except as ancillary to doing things with it!

What would indicate we were achieving that goal?  An increase in the use of lesson plans that incorporate technology into non-technology topics would be the most direct indicator.  Systematically, across the grade levels.  One of the problems I’ve seen is that some teachers don’t feel comfortable with the technology, and then for a year their students don’t get that repeated exposure.  That’s a real handicap.

However, teacher’s lesson plans aren’t evaluated (!).  They range from systematic to adhoc.  The way teachers are evaluated is that they have to set two action research plans for the year, and they take steps and assess the outcomes (and are observed twice), and that constitutes their development and evaluation.  So, we determined that we could make one of those action research projects focus on incorporating technology (if, as the teacher in our group suggested, we can get the union to agree).

Then we needed to figure out how to get teachers the skills they need.  They were assessed on their computer skills once a year, and courses were available.  However, there was no link between the assessment and courses.  A teacher complained that the test was a waste of time, and then revealed that it’s 15-30 minutes once a year.  The issue wasn’t really the time, it’s that the assessment wasn’t used for the teachers.

And instead of just tech courses, I want them to be working on lesson plans, and, ideally, using the tools to do so.  So instead of courses on software, I suggested that they need to get together regularly (they already meet by grade level, so all fifth grade teachers at a school meet together once a week) and work together on new lesson plans.  Actually, I think they need to dissect some good examples, then take an existing lesson plan and work to infuse it with appropriate technology, and then move towards creating new lesson plans.  To do so, of course, they’ll need to de-emphasize something.

Naturally, I suggested that they use wikis to share the efforts across the schools in the district, but that’s probably a faint hope.  We need to drive them into using the tools, so it would be a great requirement, but the level of technology skills is woefully behind the times.  That may need to be a later step.

One of the realizations is that, on maybe a ten-year window, this problem may disappear: those who can’t or won’t use tech will retire, and the new teachers will have it by nature of the culture.  So it may be a short-term need, but it is critical.  I can’t help feeling sorry for those students who miss a year or more owing to one teacher’s inability to make a transition.

At the end, we presented our results to the group.  We’ll see what happens, but we’ve a new coordinator who seems enthusiastic and yet realistic, so we’ll see what happens.  Fingers crossed! But at least we’ve tried to show how you could go towards important goals within the constraints of the system.  What ends up in the plan remains to be seen, but it’s just a school-level model of the process I advocate at the organizational level.  Identify what the important changes are, and align the elements to achieve it (a bit like ID, really).  If you’re going to bother, do it right, no?

Well, this spring is shaping up differently than I expected. Instead of the doing the familiar talks or workshops in the usual places: Training’s Conference, eLearning Guild’s Annual Gathering, and ASTD’s TechKnowledge and International Conference, I’m doing new things in old and new places.  Not that I don’t like those conferences, in fact I recommend them, it’s just that life takes funny turns (and I like challenging myself). Which isn’t to say I won’t be at those conferences again (I hope and intend to).

So, where will I be showing up?  At VizThink, for one.  A conference I’ve been very interested in, and managed to get a chance to present at.  That’s really just in a few days (Feb 22-25), and I’ll be talking about the cognitive underpinnings behind diagrams (and more).  As well as soaking up some great thoughts from others!

I’ll also be talking at the 5th Annual Innovations in eLearning Conference, hosted by the Defense Acquisition and George Mason Universities in the beginning of June.  My topic is myths about new learners, and I intend to debunk much of the hype just as I like to do around learning styles (which will probably show it’s head in the talk), as well as provide practical guidelines.  Folks like Will Wright and Vint Cerf are keynoting, so this is bound to be special.

Finally, assuming there are enough registrations, I will be at ASTD’s ICE (end of May), not speaking but running a pre-conference workshop on elearning strategy.  This is based upon my chapter in the forthcoming Michael Allen’s eLearning Annual 2009 about both the important principles of elearning tactics like mobile, portals, social learning, and more, and tying those tactics together into a strategy.  The focus is on an integrated ‘performance ecosystem‘, and I reckon it’s the most useful thing I can offer in this economic uncertainty.  I’ve given it as a talk before, but not as a workshop, and this is for managers and executives to take the next step in improving their organizational learning infrastructure.  It’s time to work smarter, folks!

One of the ways I work smarter and keep learning is to push myself into new areas that are beyond my comfort zone but that are within my reach (e.g. Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development).  I recommend it to you too.  It’s a way to keep learning, and expanding.  I welcome new challenges, got any handy?

I’m on the Board of Directors for an educational not-for-profit that has had almost 30 years of successful work with programs in classrooms, nationally and internationally.  However, 5 years ago or so when I joined, they were doing almost nothing with technology.  Since then I’ve been working systematically to get them to the stage where they’re leveraging technology not just for education, but for the organization.

It’s been a slow road. There were several false starts along the way, with two separate groups within the organization having a go, but each withered.  I wrote a vision document, laying out the opportunities, but they just weren’t getting the message; they were already successful.  Several things have helped: the economic uncertainties of funding for the past few years,  an external group that looked to partner for online delivery (which went awry, sadly), and the growing use of technology by their ever-younger employees (and their audience!).

Mainly through persistence, consistently better messaging, and a growing awareness on the part of both Board and organization, I finally managed to get the Board to push for an IT Strategy from the organization, which led to the formation of an IT Committee on the Board.  (For my sins I got to chair it.)  Since then I’ve been working with the organization to start developing a strategy, though I can only advise.

Jumpstarting may seem hardly the right phrase for a several-years long process, but actually it’s a significant shift and real progress.  They’re still having trouble getting a real strategic vision, focusing a bit too much on tactics like a killer website instead of back-end system and information architecture, but it’s within grasp now.  I likely will be going down and giving the organization’s team a more in-depth view, and the Board has asked to get an overview of the new technologies and the opportunities.  I’m even going to run a survey to see if we can move to more use of technology for the Board’s communications (the number of trees…).

Persistence pays off, even in the most hidebound environments.  Serendipity helps, but you get better at getting the message across.  And the number of examples now available makes it even easier.  Jumper cables, anyone?

The Learning Circuit’s Blog Big Question of the Month is “What is the impact of the economy on you and your organization? What are you doing as a result?”.  Heavy topic, but appropriate for the times.  I’ll answer two-fold: myself, and what I see for clients.

First, the impact: for some organizations it appears mostly an issue of scale, trying to do more with less, but for others it’s more cataclysmic; layoffs, no ability to secure capital for activity, no new business.  For me, it’s several projects that have gone on hold (extra capability available, call now, operators are standing by).

I’ve gone off already on the economic times and what I see are valuable steps for organizations: investing in capability.  I very much believe in walking the walk, so I’m investing in my own capability .  I’ve checked out some non-fiction books from the library that I’m reading to expand my abilities, I revamped my website (and continuing to improve it), writing a new article,  and I’ve started a new blog series on ID.

The point is to use down-time to be prepared to capitalize on the up-time.  Fingers crossed for all of us that it occurs soon.