"Off the air" for a couple of weeks

Well, after (yet another) summer of soft days, rain, drizzle, rain, torrential downpours, rain, flooding (followed by rain) I've had enough, and I'm off to Italy for a fortnight; just enough time for me to miss the rain, then...

Ciao, and see y'all soon. Keep e-learning!

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Can we re-invent e-learning?

Somebody once said:

Although e-learning began as a new way to deliver training, it cannot remain that way because it is no longer able to adequately support all the learning needs of individuals and organizations by itself - if it every was. E-learning has moved in a new, somewhat unanticipated direction that is not always reminiscent of an instructional framework. To be more influential, e-learning must be reinvented. While continuing to provide a viable instructional option in a formal learning setting, it must also move toward informational and collaborative solutions that focus more prominently on the specific jobs people do. It must move beyond courseware and classrooms and into work. To reinvent e-learning is, in many ways, to reinvent learning itself.

(Marc J. Rosenberg, Beyond E-learning)

In essence, this means transforming learning, so that learning activities and resources are situated around

1. the learner
2. their environment
3. their tasks

enabling learners to construct their own knowledge in the context of what resources they need to carry out their activities effectively.

David Jonassen says:

In constructivist learning environments, technologies are used to situate learning tasks in a variety of contexts. With video, very rich and engaging contexts can be created.

He asserts that in the traditional organizational approach that

[u]nfortunately, most e-learning replicates the worst features of face-to-face instruction. So, it may be cheaper to "deliver" knowledge over the Internet, but it will not be more effective.

In the context of organizational development and workplace learning, this is commonly known as the systems-based approach to instructional design & development (ISD). A system is a set of elements or components that must integrate to perform a specific function. Every job in an organization is used by the organizational ecosystem to produce a product or output. The product or output is the means by which a organization generates its assets and remains self-supporting. In theory, this leads to the creation of a virtuous circle of continuous growth and development.

In learning and development, this systems-based approach is epitomized by the ADDIE conceptual framework, most notably refined by Dick & Carey in The Systematic Design of Instruction (1996).

The ADDIE approach has been one of the core tenets of instructional design for the best part of two decades.

I think ADDIE is a myth.

And I'm not alone in reaching this conclusion. In his article In Search of the Elusive ADDIE Model (2003), Michael Molenda undertook a Livingstonian attempt to discover the source for the original reference to the ADDIE model. Molenda’s research uncovered no original reference for the ADDIE model. This lack of an original reference led Molenda to write,

I am satisfied at this point to conclude that the ADDIE Model is merely a colloquial term used to describe a systematic approach to instructional development, virtually synonymous with instructional systems development (ISD). The label seems not to have a single author, but rather to have evolved informally through oral tradition. There is no original, fully elaborated model, just an umbrella term that refers to a family of models that share a common underlying structure.

(p.1)

My view is that ADDIE emerged from the principles of project management, and resemble the philosophy and practice to this discipline's methodology more than a pedagogy. Treating learning like a project leads to "training outcomes" equivalent to project deliverables.

While these training deliverables may have value in and of themselves, they have limited value for learners in the longer term. We could even say that the training outputs are valid; some of the objectives of the learning intervention designed according to the precepts of ADDIE may be met but

Our field of educational communications is founded on the premise that communicating content to students will result in learning. In educational communications, information or intelligence (in many different forms) is encoded visually or verbally in the symbols systems employed by each technology. During the "instructional" process, learners perceive the messages encoded in the medium and sometimes "interact" with the technology. Interaction is normally operationalized in terms of student input to the technology, which triggers some form of answer judging and response from the technology in the form of some previously encoded (canned) message. Technologies as conveyors of information have been used for centuries to "teach" students by presenting prescribed information to them which they are obligated to "learn."

(Jonassen, 2001)

So, can we re-invent e-learning?

___________________

References:
Dick, W. & Carey, L. (1996). The Systematic Design of Instruction (4th Ed.). New York: Harper Collins College Publishers.

Exclusive Interview with Professor David Jonassen (2001) IN: elearningpost [Internet] Available from: http://www.elearningpost.com/articles/archives/
exclusive_interview_with_professor_david_jonassen [Accessed 12th January 2007]

Molenda, M. (2003). In Search of the Elusive ADDIE Model. [Internet] Available from: http://www.indiana.edu/~molpage/
In%20Search%20of%20Elusive%20ADDIE.pdf Accessed 12 May 2008

Rosenberg, M.J. (2001) What Lies Beyond E-Learning? learningcircuits.org e-zine [Internet] Available from: http://www.learningcircuits.org/2006/March/rosenberg.htm Accessed 14th April 2007

Open source e-learning courseware development - Salasaga update

As I've discussed in the past, there's a whole constituency of e-learning courseware developers who, for either practical, philosophical, or even purely financial reasons have decided to create learning content using open source and free-to-use courseware.

One of the tools I looked at in the past is an open source Integrated Development Environment for producing e-learning called Salasaga. According to the author it will be

a free, easy to use GUI authoring environment that helps you create visually impressive and actually useful learning material. The short term goal for this project is to provide such an environment, and we're well on the way to a first release for doing that.
Initially similar to Adobe Captivate, but will eventually incorporate an AJAX (browser based) playback capability for advanced content. Flash has at least one serious design limitation (from [his] POV) making it nearly useless for comprehensive e-learning, and this appears to be addressed by the existing capabilities of AJAX in browsers these days.

Today, I just received an e-mail from Justin Clift, the developer behind the IDE. He updated me on the latest developments with the tool; primarily that it's in Alpha 4 version at the moment, and that going to included in Ubuntu Intrepid. He's excited.

In my view, any tool or utility that enables a wider range of people to access e-learning, whether as learners, or as in this case through leveraging the means of production can only help the future growth of e-learning as a means of educating the widest possible group of people.

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The Stark Difference between Skills-based and Knowledge Workers

I'm a big believer in attics. No, not in the spiritual sense of the word "belief;' I don't have faith in attics, but I like what attics represent: a place to store and save the accumulated bits of your life that you don't need right now, but may again need at some point in the future.

So I have a folder of my back-up HDD called Attic - you may have a similar - Archive, or My Stuff, or Guilty Secrets, for all I know. I make a point of occasionally going in to my Attic directory to have a root around among what's stored there and having a look through old folders and zip files with deliciously obscure names like toiltrouble.pdf, avalon.doc, or BladesDemo.exe that once meant something, and that I have now completely forgotten what they represent.

Opening one such document yesterday, I re-discovered a table that clearly illustrated the differences between the 20th Century and New Economies, and here it is.

Table 1 The Emergence of a New Economy

Old Economy	New Economy
A Skill	Lifelong Learning
Labor vs. Management	Teams
Business vs. Environment	Encourage Growth
Security	Risk Taking
Monopolies	Competition
Job Preservation	Job Creation
Wages	Ownership, Options
Plant, Equipment	Intellectual Property
National	Global
Status Quo	Speed, Change
Standardization	Custom, Choice
Top-down	Distributed
Hierarchical	Networked
Regulation	Public/Private Partnerships
Zero Sum	Win-Win
Sues	Invests
Standing Still	Moving Ahead

Source: John Doerr, Kleiner Perkins, Caufield & Byers

In my view John Doerr's chart should be printed, laminated and posted beside every learning & development professional's desk, so that they are constantly reminded of the value of the work they undertake, and the potential lifelong and work-based learning helps to realize in the development of individuals, and society-at-large.

That's all for today. Now, for your homework, reflect on the chart.

___________

References:

Doerr, J. The Emergence of a New Economy. Kleiner Perkins, Caufield & Byers.

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