Exciting new online comms and collaboration tools from Adobe

I had planned today to continue my series on organizational learning and e-learning ecosystems, but I have become aware of an interesting new hosted productivity and collaboration suite from Adobe called Acrobat.com, so I thought I'd discuss that today. Ryanair boss Michael O'Leary is known to respond with the acronym "IMFA" (It's My Airline) when others disagree with his decisions, so in the same spirit, IMFB.

Now read on...

Aligning with their stated aim to become a major force in so-called webtop software, Adobe released two new products on Monday: Acrobat.com and Acrobat 9. Product manager Erik Larson has stated that Acrobat.com is another big step towards bringing more desktop-like experiences to the Web.

It is [Adobe's] intent to blur a lot of the lines of the past.

Acrobat.com is a combination of three online services:

• Adobe ConnectNow (a "lite" version of Acrobat Connect 7 for web conferencing and desktop collaboration)
• Adobe Buzzword (and online word processor)
• Adobe Share (online file sharing)

In my view, this represents a serious attempt by Adobe to compete with many of Google's Web 2.0 tools like Google Docs, YouTube and Picasa, as well as solutions like Microsoft Office Live Workspace, WebEx, and GoTo Meeting, usually associated with organizational collaboration.

Buzzword
Buzzword is the default word processor in the suite. it enables multiple collaborators to edit and comment documents. As well as providing a pretty nice WYSIWYG editor, tabs along the bottom of the UI represent the people who have accessed the document most recently, as well as their status (author, reviewer, etc.).

Uniquely for a web-based word processor, Buzzword paginates documents, supports a range of fonts, and lets you generate a pretty good equivalent to a PDF document. However, this is still in beta, so you will likely encounter some frustrations if you are used to creating documents in a desktop environment (i.e. during cut-and-paste operations) and there is no easy way to export a document to a blog or other Web publishing system other than via the previously mentioned cut-and-paste.

However, I have found this to be the case in similar apps such as Windows Live Writer (which I'm using to create this post); the software is still buggy - I'm happy to live with this in a beta app, though some might not be.

Adobe Share
This is a file-sharing application that focuses on document sharing.
You get one gigabyte of free storage, and it enables you to embed a Flash preview of your documents into any Web page (quite similar to FlashPaper). Adobe say that this enables anyone to download and print a PDF of the file (though I have yet to test this myself). I guess that you could describe this tool as 'Flickr on steroids', given Share's facility to make available a range of document types in an environment that those familiar with that tool can easily appreciate.

ConnectNow
I love ConnectNow. I've long been an advocate of online communication and collaboration tools as a powerful solution to the challenges organizations face, particularly if employees work in distributed teams, as well as for hosting training and non-formal learning interventions. I have to declare an interest here: the organization I work for relies heavily on Adobe Connect Pro (currently version 6) for training and informational purposes and I think that it's a great system, not least because it uses the Flash plug-in, so no large player downloads or quirky clients to be installed.



Even in it's cut-down form, making this functionality publicly available is going to be very popular (no more excuses not to talk to the relations in New Zealand!).
ConnectNow allows up to three people have free online meetings, with

• screen sharing
• desktop video
• voice conferencing
• IM-type chat
• white-boarding

Note that significant portions of Connect's functionality have been removed, including the recording facility, as well as the asynchronous meeting playback facility. You can also forget about hosting your on-demand e-learning content on the system, because that's been excised too, though that doesn't mean that you can't use the tool for synchronous learning, such as small-group online mentoring and so on.

Interestingly, ConnectNow (kind of) replicates Connect Pro's ability to integrate with telephone conferencing system via a fee-based toll line (currently only available in some territories like the US, UK, Germany etc). Now that the Flex-based UI uses Adobe Flash 9 rather than Flash 6, the screen looks great - a small thing, but it's attractiveness will certainly enhance users' enjoyment of the product.

Other commentators have suggested that the business model is clearly pay-for-what-you-use:

while right now the service is just a free beta, restrictions on things like file space and number of users will presumably be addressed by monthly subscriptions – moving Adobe from a licensor of desktop software to a web-based software-as-a-service company. We’ve already seen that with Photoshop Express, and with Acrobat.com, Adobe now has all of their major applications available in a Web-based version too.

I would assert that while this may be the plan at the moment, the ubiquity of other free-to-use applications (not to mention the competition in this increasingly hot marketspace) will force Adobe to either make these tools available gratis or include so many extra features to entice paying users that Acrobat.com will becomes a professional-level hosted solution, which presumably is not the consumer market that Adobe are attempting to dominate.

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The E-learning Ecosystem in organizations

In the previous E-Learning Curve Blog entry on this topic 'adapting to knowledge workers learning needs in organizations,' I made a case for the benefits of e-learning as a means to providing workers with the appropriate and relevant learning interventions as they progress from neophyte to mastery of their particular skills, experience and expertise.

By adapting the well-known learning curve, I developed a conceptual model that maps Bloom's Taxonomy of Learning Objectives to learner requirements as they progress along the curve (see Figure 1).

Figure 1. Learning Curve model aligning Bloom's Taxonomy and components of the E-learning Ecosystem

In today's blog post, I'll look at preconditions for introducing learning modalities to this model.

Now read on.

There are two components involved in investigating this aspect of e-learning as a means to enhance knowledge worker performance:

1. E-learning tools and technologies
2. Applying effective learning modalities to learning requirements

E-learning tools and technologies

In their influential white paper Powering the leap to maturity: The eLearning ecosystem, Dillon & Hallet define the concept of the "E-learning EcoSystem." The authors assert that a "blended approach" where instructor-led resources are deployed at the earliest stages of a learner's development, and increasingly, e-learning solutions are implemented as the learner develops.

With Web-based training, as with its manual counterpart in the classroom, the zone of applicability is actually quite limited. The only time it makes sense to pull workers off their jobs for training is limited precisely to those times when no other alternative will suffice. Off the- job forms of training make good business sense only when workers are at the bottom of the learning curve and are not yet equipped to perform at any acceptable level of competence.

(p.19)

Through "pervasive connectivity" (p.19), characterized by the growth of deployment of corporate portals and intranets, as well as learning support technologies such as content management systems and knowledgebases, and is the foundation for their e-learning ecosystem. In my view, the choice of terminology that the authors use is interesting; by employing the term ecosystem -

a system whose members benefit from each other's participation via symbiotic relationships... It is a term that originated from biology, and refers to self-sustaining systems,

(LearnThat.com)

they imply that the nature (no pun intended) of organizations parallels complex natural systems. Similarly, a functioning learning ecosphere holistically supports a diverse range of learning modalities which enable the learner to thrive in the corporate environment.

As workers move up the e-learning curve, they quickly leave the relative isolation of pure asynchronous courseware. Initially, they enter the more richly supported environment of the online university, backed by an enterprise-level learning management system.

(p.20)

Progressing along the curve, the authors note the introduction of just-in-time forms of learning content delivery.

As we move even further up the e-learning curve we encounter yet another interesting revelation. Most of the learning technologies at this end of the curve are not generally recognized as “learning” technologies at all. Rather, such items as collaboration tools and intelligent search are more typically thought of as knowledge management technologies. Deploying and utilizing these types of tools are what differentiates an employee from a “performer.”

(pp. 20-21)

Having characterised the e-learning ecosystem, Dillon & Hallet define the components of it:

• Web-base training
• Online university
• Learning Objects
• Electronic Performance Support Systems
• Collaboration
• Intelligent Search

As they suggest, these components "put the 'system' in ecosystem" - a statement that I would suggest is doubly true: by describing the technologies (and to a lesser extent on technology and learning solutions vendors) in their white paper, they neglect to lend appropriate weight to how these systems are implemented.

More.

FÓGRA: Malinka Ivanova of the Technical University in Sofia has an interesting perspective on this topic. Click here to find out more.
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References:

Definition of "Ecosystem." Learnthat.com. [Internet] Available from: http://www.learnthat.com/define/view.asp?id=302 Accessed 30 May 2008.

Dillon, P. & Hallett, C. (2001, October). Powering the leap to maturity: The eLearning ecosystem. Cisco Systems white paper.

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Leaving Cert funnies: tales of woe and cruelty from past exam answers

The final course in the Irish secondary school system the Leaving Certificate Examination - commonly called the Leaving Cert and equivalent to A-Levels in the UK or le bac in France - starts today.

As a tribute to those fine young men and women who - even as you read this post - are tentatively turning over those pink and blue papers, and wondering what exquisite tortures the words within possess, I thought I'd post a few contributions to Leaving Cert lore as produced by their predecessors.

Now read on...

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Quotes from (real) leaving cert English essays, with some interesting takes on maths + science. Click on the images to enlarge them to full-size:

His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances like underpants in a tumble dryer

The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn't.

McMurphy fell 12 stories, hitting the pavement like a paper bag filled with vegetable soup.

He was as tall as a six-foot-three-inch tree.

The hailstones leaped from the pavement, just like maggots when you fry them in hot grease

Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced across the grassy field toward each other like two freight trains, one having left Ballina at 6:36 pm travelling at 55 mph, the other from Claremorris 4:19pm at a speed of 35 mph.

The politician was gone but unnoticed, like the full stop after the Dr. on a Dr Pepper can.

John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met.

The thunder was ominous sounding, much like the sound of a thin sheet of metal being shaken backstage during the storm scene in a play.

Even in his last years, Granddad had a mind like a steel trap, only one that had been left out so long it had rusted shut.
Shots rang out, as shots are wont to do.

The plan was simple, like my brother Phil. But unlike Phil, this plan just might work.

The young fighter had a hungry look, the kind you get from not eating for while.

He was as lame as a duck. Not the metaphorical lame duck either, but a real duck that was actually lame.Maybe from stepping on a landmine or something.

Her artistic sense was exquisitely refined, like someone who can tell butter from the "I Can't Believe It's Not Butter" ad.

She had a deep, throaty, genuine laugh, like that sound a dog makes just before it throws up.

It came down the stairs looking very much like something no-one had ever seen before.

The ballerina rose gracefully en pointe and extended one slender leg behind her, like a dog at a lamppost.

The revelation that his marriage of 30 years had disintegrated because of his wife's infidelity came as a rude shock, like a surcharge at a formerly surcharge-free cashpoint.

It was a working class tradition, like fathers chasing kids around with their power tools.

He was deeply in love. When she spoke, he thought he heard bells, as if she were a dustcart reversing.

She was as easy as the Daily Star [newspaper] crossword.

She grew on him like she was a colony of E. coli and he was room-temperature British beef.

Her voice had that tense, grating quality, like a first-generation thermal paper fax machine that needed a band tightened.

It hurt the way your tongue hurts after you accidentally staple it to the wall.

Her face was a perfect oval, like a circle that had its two other sides gently compressed by a Thigh Master.

...Good luck to all!

E-Learning along the curve: adapting to knowledge workers learning needs in organizations

As I discussed in the previous blog entry, formal, structured approaches to learning (such as to both instructor-led and traditional CBT-type training interventions), which by their nature are long in duration, relatively generalized in terms of subject matter, and are best deployed to novices in the relevant discipline or skill area. As such, they represent the best value for organizations when to knowledge worker is not expected to be a full contributor in their role. In this context, I would suggest that organizations can justify using these learning solutions for situations such as

• entry-level or new hire orientation and competency building
• internal transfers to a new discipline (i.e. the worker moves from Production to QA)
• retraining on a new production system (i.e. a new type of widget-making tool or a new software system)
• employee career advancement (i.e. from individual contributor to manager)

Psychology tells us that the learning curve obeys what is called a power law (Ritter & Scholler, 2002).

As such they are often said to conform to "the power law of practice". Cognitive psychology has shown that the power law of practice is ubiquitous, and cognitive modeling has explained both the general speedup and variability in performance.

(The Learning Curve, p.2)

So, as a worker learns a task, skill, or process ("progresses along the learning curve"), their competency improves and productivity increases with some variations but broadly within generally accepted parameters.

As workers advance from their neophyte status, they begin to attain what Marc J. Rosenberg (2006) calls "performer" status; the are transitioning from being Novice to Competent, along a path that will enable them to become Experienced, until they achieve Expert (or Master) status.

We can also say that once a worker reaches a certain level of competence, their learning needs are met less by generic courses and curricula, and more by specific, even personalized, learning interventions such as task/skill practise and coaching, access to knowledge and performance resources, and collaboration and problem solving (see Figure 1).

Figure 1. Levels of mastery and appropriate learning strategies (after Marc J. Rosenberg, 2006)

As an extension of this (and effectively demonstrated by Rosenberg), organizations failing to move beyond the classroom or traditional CBT-type courseware for their ongoing learning and development needs, are probably impeding the development of their workers, as well as negatively affecting their (the organization's) own potential (see Figure 2).

Figure 2. Advantages of workflow learning (after Marc J. Rosenberg, 2006)

In order to provide effective learning and performance support to workers after they become competent, organizations must strive to develop their workers' skills as employees undertake their regular workplace activities. It is my view that this level of performance support can only be provided through access to networked knowledge assets.

And that is what I'll be discussing tomorrow.
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References:

Dillon, P. & Hallett, C. (2001, October). Powering the leap to maturity: The eLearning ecosystem. Cisco Systems white paper.

Ritter, F. E., & Schooler, L. J. (2002). The learning curve. In International encyclopedia of the social and behavioral sciences. 8602-8605. Amsterdam: Pergamon.
[Internet] Available from: http://www.iesbs.com/ Accessed 27 May 2008.

Rosenberg, M. J. (2006) Beyond e-Learning. San Francisco, CA: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

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