When Will Thalheimer alerted me to Siftables, via a video of a presentation given by David Merrill at TED, it lightened my day. What a great idea - a genuinely groundbreaking educational innovation that opens up all sorts of new possibilities, particularly for the teaching of maths and English. It made me realise that, when times are tough and our normal working practices are no longer delivering the results to which we've been accustomed, we find ourselves under an increasing pressure to improvise, to explore new possibilities that might just keep the show on the road. Most of us respond really well to this pressure - we do innovate and we do keep the show on the road. It seems that necessity really is the mother of invention.
Some economists have argued that have lost a whole generation of entrepreneurs to the promise of easy money through property ownership and development. It seems that we are incapable as humans of recognising a bubble when we're in one - after all, who wants to spoil the party? But the gains to the economy through house price rises are illusory; there is no real net gain, just a transfer of money from those who have to buy property to those who already own it. Perhaps now we can see some of that entrepreneurial zeal applied to genuinely productive activity that creates jobs, provides some revenue to offset those mountainous budget deficits, and solves some of the really difficult problems that we are facing.
Those of us who work in learning and development may not feel very wanted at the moment - we're the first overhead to be cut and it hurts to know that, at least in the short term, we're dispensable. But for the economy as a whole, we are prime movers on the road to recovery. In any recession, particularly one that's likely to be as deep and lengthy as this one, there will be plenty of casualties in the shape of redundancies and bankruptcies. These will not simply right themselves as the recovery begins, because things never return to business as usual. A lot of thinking will have been done, hard decisions will have been made and new working practices adopted. Much of this will be irreversible. As a result, a large number of people will have to be re-skilled to take on new roles.
As learning and development professionals we will play an important role in helping displaced members of the workforce adapt to new opportunities. We are unlikely to be of much help in this process if we are not able to show how we have adapted to change ourselves and embraced new technologies for learning.
I would go so far as to say that we have a duty to use this period of lower activity in learning and development to think ahead and plan for a better future. Rather than getting depressed and blaming it all on the bankers, we should be coming up with the innovations that will take us to another level.
It has been great to see how some of my colleagues in the UK have set such a good example: Kineo has developed a new rapid response model for bespoke development that has slashed costs and dramatically improved delivery times; Caspian Learning has developed a new authoring tool which makes it possible for any instructional designer to develop virtual worlds for learning. You will be able to add many more examples of your own (and please do reply to this post to tell us about them).
But this is only the beginning and we all have a part to play. Wouldn't it be great to look back in five years' time and see how we contributed to the recovery, not by criticising the failings of others, not by championing a return to the good old times, but by completely reinventing the process of workplace learning.
Hear hear Clive. Good to focus on the positive. We should not forget that high quality, high engagement interactive learning experiences will at last become more commonplace due the fact that the major cost cutting measure in the workplace has been to drastically reduce travel expenditure. Using technology to support people at a distance is therefore an essential, rather than optional, part of the mix.
ReplyDeleteSo, it's not just about clever tools and rapid deployment. It's about re-thinking learning activity as a process rather than chunky discrete events. That requires some fresh design thinking, an emphasis on good quality communication and community building to encourage sharing as well as allowing self learning where and when its needed.
BTW - Siftables are great - but what would be the adult learning/workplace equivalent do you think? Perhaps I should inventing...
Great post Clive. Such a positive reaction to the situations we are all a part of, as a profession and as people. Milton Friedman, who some say has had a great part to play in modelling the current economic situation, did say something along the lines of (to paraphrase greatly) "in situations like these it's the ideas that are laying around that can be picked up and ran with".
ReplyDeleteWe are in a creative industry and ideas are what we are good at, no wonder you're positive about it.
It's also good that there's a place for various models as demonstrated by both Kineo and Lars. Design (and) thinking (didn't George Siemens remind us of how important it was to 'think'?) needs to be emphasised and a balance needs to be struck between rapid production and how design and thinking fits into that model. Organisations are buying into rapid (internal and external) development for a lot of good reasons but they also have to be encouraged to realise the value of design and thinking. What better time than now to convince them of the real net gain.
I agree Clive. This is not a time to sit and brood, cut down budgets, cut down workforce or churn out cheaper poor quality learning. It's the time to innovate.
ReplyDeleteThis is the right time to influence clients about the value of training employees; become their training consultants and guide them to adopt training measures that are not just another date on the training calendar. Instead show them the value of empowering employees to create their personal learning environment. Show your clients value in shedding their fears about allowing employees free access to the Internet. I believe as learning professionals we can use this crisis to shake up beliefs that - learning or training is expensive; time away for learning or training is time away from productivity; employees cannot learn on their own and many such mindsets.
Moving forward, we've got to accept the language of the day: technology! I'm working to make my very young kids embrace bits and pieces--as much as I can give them. I've begun showing them basic web design technique, explaining the concepts behind programming, introducing them to Web 2.0 tools, etc.
ReplyDeleteAs long as the advancement of technology thoroughly incorporates the value of research on learning and its purpose is to instill a logical approach to solving problems and critical thinking skills, it will be time well invested!
Kia ora Clive
ReplyDeleteHmmm. I have to admit that I think the answer may go back even a bit further than what you say. For many, what's needed is that we completely reinvent the process of learning. Never mind the workplace bit.
There seems to be a present day culture that suggests learning happens in the space around the learner, in the activities, in the community and in the interaction with the community.
None of that is indeed the case. The learning happens in the head of the learner. The learner is in charge of the portals of learning.
For as much as teachers, tutors, facilitators and instructors might like to pat themselves on the back at what learners learn under their tutelage, the learning doesn't happen if the learner doesn't let it happen.
The process of learning happens in the learner.
Catchya later
from Middle-earth