In this model learning strategy drives methodology which determines delivery technology

Source: IBM
 

There are a number of products and services that enhance the learning experience for the users. These products and services are an important elements of a learning architecture. Examples are:

• Learning Design and Instructional Design
• Audio/Video Streaming, Video Scripts and Production
• Web Graphics
• Advanced Multimedia Design and CD-ROM Creation
• Advanced Web Development
  Evaluation and Feedback
  Authoring
  Surveys
  Tracking
  Usability
  Programming for Sign up Sheets, Online Scheduling, etc

Source: Harry Wittenberg

An online learning community is a place on the Internet where people work as a community to meet a shared learning objective. There are two types of online learning communities: a) e-learning communities, b) blended learning communities. Online learning communities may be knowledge-based, practice-based, and task-based.

In an online learning community members can use text, audio, and video for communication, exchange of information, and collaboration. Some popular tools and technologies utilized by online communities are: wikis for collaboration, instant messaging for communication, message boards for discussions, learning and content management systems for posting and managing of content, structured and unstructured repositories for knowledge mangement and access to resources, blogs for reflection, and social networking applications for sharing information and linking to other networks. Click here to view the Tools That Enhance The Learning Ecosystem, and click here to view the Technologies of Social Software.

Organizations that set up professional learning communities foster collaboratove learning. They create a learning environment where learning is linked to collaboration and knowledge shaing much more tightly. In addition to formal training and access to organization’s resources, users will also be enabled by:

Finding the right person to contact to learn from
Learning from the experience of the other person
Learning from the resources of the other person
Learning from the professional social network of the other person

When put into a learning context, communities provide an environment for connecting people to other people’s stories and experiences, as well as mentoring, all of which result in better and faster learning and the sharing of tacit knowledge within an organization.

When creating collaborative learning communities, it is important to consider more than just the technology. The first step is to clarify the business objectives and how your strategy translates into group and individual competency requirements. From there, learning objectives may be defined that support competency gaps.

In summary learning communities can offer their members:

Learning and capacity development (empowering employees to take charge of their own learning and development)
Create opportunities for informal learning
Staff Interacting with experts
Exchange of knowledge and resources
Enabling the emergence of best practices

It is clear to me that more and more organizations will start building communities into their business startegies. Although choosing a good platform is important, what really is going to matter is strategy, service, support, and know-how.

There are a number of elements to consider when you are planning to launch a learning community. First things first: to ensure participation organize your learning community around some startegic initiative in your organization; and define clear roles and responsibilities for the community facilitator, users, and sponsor.

While designing an online collaborative experience, besides identifying the learning objectives of the course, selecting the contents, preparing the learning materials, setting up the communication system, it is important that the instructional designer devotes special attention to the creation of the learning community and to its social structure: this includes identifying the most effective strategies and techniques to be enacted in order to promote the collaboration among the actors, designing how to organize groups and sub-groups in the various phases of the activities, and defining the most appropriate modalities of interaction, etc.

I like the approach of the Learning Labs and Innovation. I suggest that you start with launching a prototype. Use an iterative design and development approach as a vehicle for communication and requirements definition/refinement. In this approach the participants provide input and ideas to the evolution of the design. This approach helps users to conceive of how a solution could work, particularly from a user interface point of view. Ultimately, as iterations conclude, incorporate the user feedback into the overall design. At this point a pilot may or may not be executed as a means of fine tuning the whole solution before launch. This method would be a perfect opportunity to test the more intangible aspects of the design such as usability, change readiness, barriers to adoption, implementation timing, methods, required support, and integration with other aspects of change.

An organization must learn so that it can adapt to a changing environment.  With all the advances in technology and all the developments in the workforce environment, creating a culture that learns and adapts as part of everyday working practices is essential.

Organizational learning is a social process, involving interactions among many individuals leading to well-informed decision making. A learning organization actively creates, captures, transfers, and mobilizes knowledge to enable it to adapt to a changing environment. The key aspect of organizational learning is the interaction that takes place among individuals.

Capturing individual learning is the first step to making it useful to an organization. There are many methods for capturing knowledge and experience, such as publications, activity reports, lessons learned, interviews, and presentations. Capturing includes organizing knowledge in ways that people can find it; multiple structures facilitate searches regardless of the user’s perspective (e.g., who, what, when, where, why,and how). Capturing also includes storage in repositories, databases, or libraries to insure that the knowledge will be available when and as needed.

Transferring knowledge requires that it be accessible to everyone when and where they need it. In a digital world, this involves browser-activated search engines to find what one is looking for. A way to retrieve content is also needed, which requires a communication and network infrastructure. Tacit knowledge may be shared through communities of practice or communitieds of experts. It is also important that knowledge is presented in a way that users can understand it. It must suit the needs of the user to be accepted and internalized.

Mobilizing knowledge involves integrating and using relevant knowledge from many, often diverse, sources to solve a problem or address an issue. Integration requires interoperability standards among various repositories. Using knowledge may be through simple reuse of existing solutions that have worked previously. It may also come through adapting old solutions to new problems. Conversely, a learning organization learns from mistakes or recognizes when old solutions no longer apply. Use may also be through synthesis; that is creating a broader meaning or a deeper level of understanding. Clearly, the more rapidly knowledge can be mobilized and used, the more competitive an organization.

Learning Organizations

In the Fifth Discipline, Peter Senge describes learning organizations as places “where people continually expand their capacity to create the results they truly desire, where new and expansive patterns of thinking are nurtured, where collective aspiration is set free, and where people are continually learning to see the whole (reality) together”. They do so by:

• Seeing, learning and practicing to work with interrelations (circles of causality or “feedback”) as well as processes of change (or the time (delays) it takes for change to happen). The extent to which we see and work with these feedbacks and delays hinges on the frames or lenses we are using to help us make sense of our realities. Are we learning to see (practice) the “whole story” or a part of it (linear cause-effect)? The extent to which we see our frames determines the extent to which we understand our realities.

• Sharing a set of tools / methodologies and theories: A learning organization creates a common and agreed upon understanding of terms, concepts, categories and keywords that apply within that organization that facilitates this work. See: http://www.lopn.net/60_Tools.html.

• Building Guiding Ideas: Leaders and members in a Learning Organization, see primacy of the whole (understand complexities), the generative power of language (generative conversations by recognizing one’s frames that get in the way of seeing another’s frames) and the community nature of self (seeing oneself and the connectedness to the whole and the world). The true learning organization is redesigning itself constantly or not merely led by the leader (and his frame). A leader in the organization instead supports this redesigning by acting as a steward (stewarding persons’ visions), teacher and designer (bringing different views together for all of us to see the extent of the system (or ship)as compared to the merely being the captain of the ship).

Source: Peter Senge & Wikipedia

According to a recent study by Accenture, organizations that focus strongly on interpersonal skills learning are on average 27 percent more productive and have 40 percent higher revenue growth than their competitors.

In-depth knowledge and the required skill sets are necessary conditions for success and promotion; however, most successful people have certain personalty traits and practice a certain life style behavior that facilitates continuous growth and learning. The following are suggestions from the Harvard Business Review article titled “How The Best of Best Get Better and Better”, and Dr. Kenneth Nowack a licensed clinical psychologist:

• being conscientious and achievement oriented
• having a long term perspective
• identifying and deploying hardwired talents and strengths
• blocking out distractions
• practicing forgiveness and redirecting anger to more constructive feelings
• utilizing the support of others
• seeking candid feedback
• stretching development
• reflecting on ways to improve and celebrating success
• actively acknowledging stress and practicing stress reduction techniques
• maintaining regular sleep cycles
• taking time for physical activities

One of the first things required to be successful is self-awareness and the key to making self-awareness work is versatility. Research by Tracom found that managers who exhibited higher versatility were 27 percent better at leading teams and twenty five percent better at coaching others. With an increasingly global marketplace, the growing emphasis on social networking and connectivity, and the younger generation expectations from the workplace, more organizations are realizing the importance of team units. Therefore, interpersonal skills and working well with others is becoming more important in the emerging collaborative working environment. According to another Tracom study organizational, time management, and behavioral skills not only have a direct effect on the individual’s productivity, but also they are tied to improving bottom line successes.

Keeping this in mind learning organizations can leverage the work styles, choices, and techniques of their successful employees to improve the overall productivity of their work force.

Training Tips and Techniques

There are many techniques learning organizations can use to train employees on the self-awareness, versatility, and interpersonal skills necessary for workplace success.

• techniques for putting the individuals in the right mindset for self-awareness
• training and assessment of individuals work styles and personality traits; provide real life examples and how the materials and cases are related to their everyday work routine
• building in metrics to monitor the behavioral change
• celebrating and rewarding success at the specific achievement point
• deploy relapse prevention strategies when necessary

Source: CLO Magazine

Metaskills are skills needed to learn how to learn. They are higher-order skills – like critical thinking, the ability to organize information, the strategy of building on what was previously learned, and the belief that repeated practice can make perfect, or at least result in some improvement.  Going very deep into one subject, learning and understanding it over a course of several years, acts as a point of reference that is useful when we learn other subjects.

The subject or topic is almost unimportant – only it’s easier and more enjoyable if we choose something we are interested in: basketball, Jane Austen’s novels, the gastrointestinal tract, martial arts – the list is endless. The principle is that in the process of learning how to do one thing really well, we learn how to learn.

The question is does learning how to do one thing really well have any economic or personal significance anymore?  According to many experts since we don’t know what skills tomorrow are needed, we must strive to impart real understanding and the ability to apply knowledge to new situations. 

Perhaps the deep learning of a single subject can provide that required general reference point to handle different and new situations, not to mention the patience and fortitude to try, try again.

Source: By Ranjani Iyer Mohanty, June 7, 2010 The Christian Science Monitor