Dave Ferguson reflects on the training industry’s progression based on his own career and makes some observations about where workplace learning is (struggling) today. He wonders if the chaos of the “Web 2.0″ environment is easily transferable to areas of performance with high risk “where compliance with standards or outside regulation is mandatory…or where consequence of error is significant.” He suggests ‘informed learning support.’
Most people don’t want to stumble around in the basics. If they don’t know anything, they’d like to get quickly to where they do know something, so they can try to do something.
(Dave’s post is part of the Working/Learning blog carnival hosted this month by Xyleme) (JC)
Training, performance, results, learning | Dave’s Whiteboard | Dave Ferguson | 20 October 2008
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{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Hi, Janet — thanks for the mention. We got a little confused about this month’s carnival, so we’re rescheduling it for October 27th. (Links to details about the carnival here.)
I think it’s easy for people who read a lot of blogs related to training, learning, and education to forget the challenges faced by many people in organizational settings. I just read an eLearning Guild report on a major training program that, except for the specifics of software and hardware, could have been Amtrak’s reservations training back in the 1980s:
We’ve got all these folks in all these places who need to be able to do X and Y and Z. We can’t send out itinerant classroom instructors; we have specific outcomes in mind; the vast majority of these people are not computer-philiacs.
I think the Work Literacy ning site for 2.0 and learning is great, but not for getting people to learn how to do specific things in specific jobs. Just as that wasn’t the site’s goal, so too many large organizations have predictable, understandable performance goals in mind that can’t be realized exclusively (or maybe even optimally) by 2.0 for 2.0’s sake.
You raise excellent points Dave. To me, with some 20 years experience in learning behind me (gee that’s a worry), there is no one answer to the performance needs of learners in organisations. Web 2.0, like job aids, EPSS, elearning, classroom learning and even KM, offers yet another set of tools to choose from to help people learn.
‘Informed learning support’ sounds a little like EPSS to me. Gloria Gery’s lasting legacy to the world, EPSS as we know provides just in time access to the details and facts about doing work accurately and efficiently – it is ‘informed’ because the facts supplied are provided by SMEs.
To me Web 2.0 promises to address the behavioural side of knowledge sharing – connecting people quickly, getting teams up and running regardless of geographic location, pulling disparate sources of information into one place, sharing opinions, broadcasting news and views. Where EPSS assists the individual to work as an expert, no matter how much experience, Web 2.0 is aimed more at the team, the group, the organisation – working and communicating together.