The British Film Institute in its tribute hailed Michael as “one of the giants of British documentary filmmaking”. His career spanned six decades and included films such as I Was a Soldier (1970), BAFTA Award-winning Lockerbie – A Night Remembered (1998) and his monumental Living on the Edge (1987) which are still highly regarded today.

Michael was always committed to education. He founded the pioneering Abingdon Film Unit  which taught school pupils from  12-18 years of age to make professional quality documentaries, and which, in the ten years since its founding, have won a string of awards.

Adam Salkeld, curator of VIDEO EDUCA says:

“We were honoured to have Michael at OEB last year. Few will have forgotten his impassioned keynote to a packed plenary session. His storytelling Labs were a real treat for delegates bringing, as they did, not only a master at the art, but one who so obviously enjoyed sharing his talent and experience.”

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With a particular emphasis on how learning moves ONLINE EDUCA BERLIN 2013 will focus on change and the role of technology in promoting creativity and innovation. Learning is changing. Learning is also changing us. The world seems ever more complex, presenting education with new challenges. New technology can seem complicated too but it offers unparalleled opportunities, changing learning and enabling us to inspire others to learn. How is the world of learning changing? How does technology help us to change the world?

 Themes include:

Creativity and Engagement                                               Work and ‘Life-Wide’ Learning

Global Learning Redefining                                               Formal Learning

Modern Problems: Smart Solutions                               Learning Analytics

During Business EDUCA, dedicated sessions with the shared objective to network, improve and explore learning in the workplace will take place. We look forward to proposals from CLOs, HR professionals and learning and talent development leaders on practical strategies and solutions related to those themes of OEB2013 which apply specifically to organisational learning.

Learning professionals engaged with the use of video in learning are encouraged to submit their proposals related to the themes of OEB2013 for Video EDUCA. Submissions would exemplify the uses of one of the most powerful communication mediums available to educators.

Detailed descriptions of all conference themes, formats as well as information on how to submit your proposal before the deadline of June 3^rd 2013 can be found at http://www.online-educa.com/call-for-proposals.

ONLINE EDUCA BERLIN 2013 will take place December 4 – 6, 2013 in the Hotel InterContinental Berlin.

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The Language Learning: Methods and Tools session at ONLINE EDUCA BERLIN 2012 allowed experts to present their research and findings on the latest language learning technologies and systems in use today.

In this session, the speakers gave a complete overview of both ICTs and methods used, covered aspects such as concrete ways to motivate students, collaborative and interactive tools, mobile applications, and criteria to ensure the quality of language learning.

By Matthew Labrooy

The session, which ran for two consecutive days, began with the question: what is the actual status of language learning in combination with the use of Information Communication Technologies (ICTs)? The speakers focused on presenting their findings with relation to three main principals: listening to learners, helping learners to learn and collaborative learning.

A key stance of speakers was that although current learning technologies are not a replacement for highly trained teachers, in the case where classes are unavailable or teachers do not have access to comprehensive educational resources, using specific learning technologies can greatly enhance the quality of learning for students and provide support in their efforts to learn a language.

In the case of Brendan Ó Sé of the University of Cork, it was the poor quality education materials, provided for use with his students, which drove him to frustration. Taking the initiative, Ó Sé scrapped the recommended books and had students begin producing their own learning content using online resources.

The initiative resulted in a collaborative learning experience for his students while simultaneously putting their language learning into real and authentic practice.

Ó Sé isn’t the only one unsatisfied with the educational content available for language learning. The British Council, the United Kingdom’s international organisation for cultural relations and educational opportunities, has also raised their efforts to aid language-learning in the UK by producing apps for use with mobile and portable devices to enhance the learning experience of ESL students. These government led projects are based on case studies that evidence great benefit in using mobile and portable technologies for language learning.

The apps available on all mobile and portable devices are being used to bring pedagogically appropriate content and activities to learners both inside the classroom and beyond. These have helped extend the educational range of teachers by allowing learning to continue beyond students. ONLINE EDUCA BERLIN 2013 will once again feature a strong thread on language learning methods and tools.

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When questions pop up inside our head we no longer grab a heavy encyclopaedia volume, but we do a search on the Internet instead. People in different age groups approach this search in different ways: the younger ones no longer search for articles, but find answers directly on video hosting platforms like YouTube. Online video is becoming more important each year. In the VIDEO EDUCA Master Class at ONLINE EDUCA BERLIN 2012 a team of highly experienced broadcast and film professionals shared their expertise with delegates on how to make video in learning even more effective.

By Abe Pazos

The language of video

The decreasing cost of video production and post-production makes it easy for educators and enthusiasts to create video material and share it online. Unfortunately, affordable technology does not magically create good content. Quality still requires expertise in the language of video, and those with no previous film-making experience have to learn what it is that makes an educative video successful.

Adam Salkeld from Tinopolis, UK, directed the VIDEO EDUCA Master Class. He argued that “the technology is there, the audience is there” and praised “the incredible talent and knowledge the young people have, who are exploring video making themselves”. Salkeld used his experience as a documentary filmmaker to direct the participants’ attention to different segments of Hollywood films and carefully study how cameras and sound are used, how scenes are edited and how directors approach storytelling on film. Comparing successful films with a variety of learning video content found online is a great exercise which helps us notice quite how much we might be missing in educational video.

Laurie Burruss, from Lynda.com, shared a perfect example of what to avoid during a presentation titled “Online Video: How It Changes & Enhances the Way We Learn!”. She showed a very long lecture recording produced by a recognised university. The video included a still professor, shot entirely from one static camera, with poor audio quality, unreadable slides and with students walking in and out of the classroom in front of the camera.

Salkeld pointed out during Wednesday’s Masterclass that “from all the wonderful things you can do on film, you don’t have to just put a camera in front of the teacher and record it. It’s not using video to anywhere near its potential. It’s actually making the content worse! Of course there are budget constraints and time constraints, but there are still things you can do to make it a little bit more of a pleasant experience rather than torture,” he joked.

Emotion and connecting with the audience

The Master Class continued with Martin Addison sharing the story of how Video Arts has used humour during its 40 years of existence while adapting to media and technology available in each decade. Humour is a very effective technique for connecting with the audience. On Friday’s session Ms Burruss made obvious the importance of this connection by showing a video clip in which a teenager explained how to create a certain hair styling – this clip being much more popular than other pieces produced by professional and experienced hairdressers of older age.

As Salkeld pointed out, “we must think about who we are communicating with, and we must be extra careful when talking to a younger audience. They are much more demanding”. During the session the participants could see many examples of corporate videos that completely missed this connection with the audience: they felt utterly ridiculous and embarrassing.

Talking to a person right next to the camera instead of talking to a camera standing on its own, and having people talk in natural environment with no artificial light were some of the ideas suggested that make recordings more natural.

Performance

The former BBC television producer added, “Performance is a big part of making an entertaining video. You do have to consider performance of the people you are going to be using”, which led to ideas from the audience like “making the teacher a movie star”. Maybe there is space for a new profession: the educator-performer?

Storytelling and emotion

The presenters in the Masterclass made it very clear that “you need a message. If there is no message, it doesn’t matter which techniques you use”. Rebekah Tolley, from Tarian Films, emphasised that “emotion is very important and not necessarily extreme emotion, but an emotion you can connect to. If you got a good story to tell in your film then you can film it in a simple way, with very little budget”. Two examples with powerful stories but low budgets were screened: Baseball in the Time of Cholera and Caine’s Arcade. Salkeld stated that “even the dullest lecture should have a story that you can tell”.

Is video the solution?

It’s important to keep in mind that video is not always the right format. Sometimes a good solution is a combination of media: maybe a short exciting introduction video covering the most important aspects, working together with longer audio and text documents. We must consider “what is video going to provide that other media fail at?” Salkeld advised.

As a finale to the Masterclass Steve Anderson, Editorial Director of the Tinopolis Group, led the “Video Doctor” session, which screened material submitted by the attendees. Mr Anderson provided ideas for improvement and all attendees shared comments and related experiences.

The VIDEO EDUCA Masterclass was a fantastic opportunity for exchanging video production knowledge and learning from experienced creative professionals.

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Distance Learning is not a new concept in education, but the way that it is delivered has changed dramatically from the days of correspondence courses or even the inception of The Open University in 1969, which then utilised television and radio broadcasts.

By John Lugo

ONLINE EDUCA BERLIN 2012 brought together three speakers in the session Distance Learning and the Virtual School whose research and experience looked at students as young as nine years old to adults in the United States, Finland and across the European Union. The session was chaired by Paul Bacsich with Antti Huttunen of VIRTA in Finland, Nikolaos Zygouristas of the Lambrakis Foundation and Margaret Korosec, University of Hull & Hymers College, UK speaking about her experience and findings at the Western Governors University in the United States.

The three speakers explored similar issues such as: Who were the target students? What were the tools available? And discussed what they viewed as successful components of distance learning delivery. The age range covered by these sessions challenged the notion that distance learning and the virtual classroom were a benefit to time-limited adults who were looking to gain qualifications for career advancement, or for students suffering from disabilities who physically could not access the traditional classroom.

In the Finnish city of Turku, the VIRTA project, underway since 2008, has been looking at how foreign language and orthodox religion courses could be administered to students between the ages of nine and twelve in a distance learning environment. The project used web conferencing to connect the students with the teacher from their own school locations, minimising the need to travel and allowing them to interact with one another. During his presentation, Antti Huttunen stressed how this model was beneficial to Turku and how it was being encouraged in other parts of Finland to address basic access to learning in a cost effective manner. One such project connected several schools who had students interested in learning Spanish, but not one school had enough students to merit hiring a teacher, so by connecting them in this manner, the students were able to access their choice language and the schools were able to share the cost of the course, which in an increasingly difficult financial climate is important for educational institutions. The programme did highlight that while the technology needed by the user could be either a laptop, tablet or mobile device with operational camera, the technical glitches could have an effect on learning, particularly with respects to foreign languages, but that overall the project found that students who learned through the web conferencing format had equal results to those who learned in a traditional classroom setting.

Nikolaos Zygouritas of the Lambrakis Foundation explained that the VISCED project found 70+ virtual learning programmes were in operation across 19 countries. The project identified some key factors in the success of virtual schools across Europe, by no means a definitive list, but they translate across international borders. These include usability and the need for systems in place to be user friendly for all levels involved in the educational process. This ensures that there exists a sustainable technical infrastructure ready to meet the needs of its users in a timely and efficient manner. There was also a need for clearly defined and assessed learning outcomes on an individual basis and a leadership in e-learning on an institutional level. These key factors and challenges for educational institutions in an increasingly competitive market were also discussed in another session New Ventures in Online Learning where Matthew Mermagen of Pearson discussed their current partnership with institutions like Leeds Metropolitan University, in which the public and private sector were working together to enrich the student experience, but most importantly, retain students.

Margaret Korosec presented the session with her experience and findings from Western Governors University (WGU), a non-profit private online university in the United States. She stressed in her findings that distance learning was not intended to replace traditional institutions. With respects to WGU, she states, “The competency-based, fully online, self-paced model is intended to address the needs of the adult with work experience but no degree. It is a model that fits in the spectrum of available higher education options.” In terms of alleviating fears that distance learning options – as they increase – become a direct threat to traditional academic institutions, it is important to stress that in each of the cases presented by the speakers and Korosec in particular, the target group in question were still those who were not able to access the traditional classroom whether for personal reasons or in the case of Finland, a need to deliver cost effective education. Some key factors in the competency-based model at WGU for success included combining their approach with the ability to self-pace, no requirement of seat time, having the courses completely online, flexible and offering rolling enrolment. Margaret also believes that “interaction with both the student mentor and the course mentor is a critical component of the WGU model. The student mentor follows the student through their entire program. They are available for weekly check-ins and for tracking overall progress. The course mentor is available for specific content of specific courses.”

The message coming through from the speakers is the need to explore and utilise distance learning tools currently available and share successful models trans-nationally as well as continue to develop techniques whilst retaining the ‘human’ element of interaction, whether it be through web conferencing or Skype. Distance learning and the virtual classroom will not destroy traditional modes of learning but rather bring non-traditional students together in the building of a new tradition of learning.

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Collaboration in practice and content is increasingly accepted as a component of forward-looking educational thinking. In this session on the last day of ONLINE EDUCA BERLIN 2012, the presenters took a broad look at how the use of digital technologies supports creative collaboration, including examples which illustrate how content and collaborative practice change education for the Arts.

By Abe Pazos

Sarah Eagle, from the University of Bristol, started by presenting examples of learning that involve collaboration and creativity. She described how a successful scientific team worked smoothly together, never really needing to explain matters to each other, because they had developed short-hands in communication. However, “by bringing somebody else in from a completely different discipline, they had to start explaining things. Suddenly, the light bulb went on, and there were new scientific discoveries. This justifies why we now see many artists in residence at scientific laboratories”. Eagle mentioned the work of Gerhard Fischer, whose team “looks at using technology to support breakdowns in processes or teamwork, because it’s at those moments when creative insights take place.”

Eagle continued detailing the results of two different CoCreat projects, whose objective is to enable creative collaboration through supportive technologies. In one of the projects, pupils in elementary schools create digital stories in order to illustrate their home area. The stories are shared in an online portal in order to promote knowledge exchange. A second project involves aged people working in groups, who together find ways to manage their everyday duties and hobbies and to contact their relatives and friends. One surprising outcome of the research was that difficulties with technology improve social interaction. The collaborative learning took place because the technology was not just in the background, but it had to be dealt with.

The second presenter was Gisle Johnsen, founder and CEO of Grieg Music Education, Norway, who talked about an online music learning platform for children which allows students to listen to each instrument in a symphony one by one, then collaboratively mix popular musicians with instruments played by students from other countries to create complete songs and discuss the pieces online. It results in students who are more engaged in the music production. “When the education system focuses on music education, it only focuses on people who want to play an instrument.” That means, according to Johnsen, leaving behind 80% of the students with no interest in playing instruments. “This project is not just about music, but about enhancing creativity”. Johnsen argues that “the European society now needs creative people who can find new ways of earning their money and creating new businesses. If you look at the time schedule of any schools you won’t ever find the subject creativity. Music is a great way to be creative if you provide the right tools.”

To complete the session, Nicoletta Di Blas, from Politecnico di Milano, HOC-LAB, Italy, introduces PoliCultura, a project in which groups of students are given three months to create a multimedia story which is later shared online.

“Teachers tell us students are engaged, they love doing stories, they are willing to work the night to finish the story. But do they learn?” asks Di Blas. “Many times when you introduce technology in schools the students are very happy. But do they really benefit from the experience in an educational sense?” PoliCultura uses mandatory questionnaires before and after the experience, meetings and Skype interviews to carefully evaluate its effects. The findings are encouraging: students not only gain a better understanding of the presented subject, but also get “atypical benefits like development of professional skills. They begin to understand what a deadline is, they learn to be tolerant towards other students, they learn to listen to each other, and, surprisingly, they increase proficiency in all school subjects because they experience what it’s like to be good at school, and want to taste this again.”

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Any teacher knows that within a single class, student diversity can be vast. Globally, that picture is much the same and developers and policy makers must be equally attentive to the variety of needs presented by regional difference.

 By Alicia Mitchell

Speaking at ONLINE EDUCA BERLIN 2012, Michael Trucano, Senior ICT and Education Policy Specialist at the World Bank, pointed out that there is no such thing as a one-size-fits-all approach to education: good practice becomes best practice only when it is locally contextualised. During the conference the ONLINE EDUCA news team went in search of delegates with their own stories to tell of local challenges and local solutions.

In a country the size of China, which had a university enrolment rate of just 14% of those eligible to attend in 2002, higher education provision offers up unique obstacles. Dr. Carsten Ullrich, an associate researcher at the Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China, described how online courses have now – ten years later – enabled over 900,000 students to enrol at 67 online colleges. These colleges offer an alternative for those who failed the notoriously difficult university entrance exam and provide remote access to the sparsely located brick-and-mortar institutions to whom they belong.

Apart from the size of the country, the Chinese education culture, based on Confucian values and intensely teacher focused, presents a particular kind of learning environment in which attempts to simply cut and paste eLearning models based upon European pedagogical theories have had little success in the country.

Passing the university entrance exam can have lifelong consequences in a country that still places a very high value on diplomas, both socially and within labour markets. Therefore, parents are rarely supportive of methods that may encourage student collaboration but provide no direct preparation for the test awaiting them.

Another issue arises as lecturers and students may be hesitant to adopt new technology into their learning environment for fear of technical failures causing loss of face – something that carries a heavy weight in Chinese culture. To combat this at SJTU, live-streamed lectures are taking place in lecture theatres and are structured just like conventional lectures, with the recording technology making as little impact on the experience of the lecturer as possible.

Mauritius offers a contrasting example of how a country’s size can impact education. In spite of having a population of less than one and a half million, the use of distance learning models in the tertiary education sector has made up for low funding and scarce facilities.

Suresh Munbodh spoke of the partnership between his private institution with India’s Sikkim Manipal University and the London School of Business and Finance. Through these partnerships, Global Learning is able to offer any of the bachelor, master and doctorate courses available at the universities, even when there is just one student interested in enrolling.

As one of the most sparsely populated countries in the world, Namibia faces its own problems. Despite covering a landmass over four hundred times larger than that of Mauritius, its population is not even twice that of the tiny island. Divided into 13 regions, co-ordinating education and ICT integration efforts can prove to be an administrative headache.

Namibia will be hosting eLearning Africa 2013 and, during a session to introduce the conference, delegates were keen to share not only the successes of their nation’s efforts to transform into a knowledge based society, but its challenges and mistakes as well.

In response to the strategic issues raised by the country’s geography, Namibia’s government has initiated a variety of schemes, including decentralised financial control to allow local administrators to respond to the specific needs of their communities, school clustering to encourage inter-school technical support and skill exchange and a national education management system that links all ICT-connected schools to a central ‘cloud’, to facilitate the sharing of learning resources and experiences.

Hilya Nghiwete, Under Secretary to the Ministry of Education, pointed to some fundamental resource and infrastructure issues that have held back development in Namibia: how can the government allocate funding to ICT when there are competing issues such as text book shortages and lack of electricity supply in rural areas?

However, solutions are on hand. Wilfred Kuria, Trust Secretary at Xnet, highlighted the collaboration between Xnet, Telecom Namibia and the Ministry of Education to provide cheap and reliable internet access to all educational institutions in the country and the potential within the mobile sector. Namibia has the third cheapest mobile network service in Africa.

Speaking on behalf of the African Development Bank, Tunisian based Awuese Oku pointed out the specific challenges within Africa, particularly focusing on the obstacles caused by single-skill training, low investment and poor infrastructure. She also noted the damaging effect of political instability and disparate policy goals across African nations on attempts to bring about wide-spread change.

Despite this, Oku remained positive and emphasised the side of Africa which the wider world rarely recognises: a continent undergoing an increase in wealth, growth and optimism, where more children are attending school than ever before and where 99% of the population will have broadband access by 2060.

Whilst cultural, geographical and political diversity demand flexibility and resourcefulness in all education sectors, there are still universal truths to be remembered. Oku finished her presentation with a notion that does not stop at national borders: education and learning are not the same thing, she says, “education provides the foundations essential to successful lifelong learning. It is our responsibility to be clear in our goals for both to ensure that everyone, everywhere, has access to high-quality, locally relevant education”.

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In business we are frequently told that success depends upon us standing out from the crowd. Whether you are selling a product or a service, you have to prove yourself to be better than all the rest. There are times, however, when the crowd can be your best friend. Two sessions at the recent Business EDUCA 2012 gave practical examples of how moving within the crowd can help you to achieve success. The news team tagged along to find out more.

By Alicia Mitchell

Charles Jennings, a strategic consultant who aims to help organisations to ‘work smarter’, invited delegates to take part in a highly interactive afternoon of solution seeking through crowdsourcing. Sharing a model that aims to draw upon the expertise and experience of every participant, Jennings explained that, within any organisation, valuable knowledge can often lie dormant.

When communication channels are only vertical, he says, it is possible for specific issues or successes to go unnoticed, even in a single department. Jennings’s crowdsourcing method can open up dialogue between colleagues who may have the answers to each other’s questions. The method is highly flexible, and discussion points can be either general to the health of an organisation or specific to pertinent trouble points within a team.

Example topics chosen for discussion in the interactive session included push and pull learning models and inspiring examples of good practice witnessed or implemented by attendees. Participants worked in groups to gather information on their assigned topic and finished by presenting their findings. Jennings’s method results in every participant sharing their views on every discussion topic; everybody’s voice is heard.

Dr. Patrick Blum, Managing Partner of the Inside Business Group and attendee to the session, described the concept as one that he would definitely be implementing into his business. Blum’s task had been to gather examples of best practice, and he was inspired by the responses he found, including the Scottish Social Services’ ‘ideas platform’ and a Swedish learning project that connected students across the globe to work on communal learning activities. “All four topics were interesting”, he said, “but especially the projects our group uncovered”.

Crowdsourcing can also generate new working relationships. When asked if he would be keeping in touch with any of his fellow crowdsourcers, Blum’s answer was direct: “Yes, definitely! I have swapped business cards. It is a fun opportunity to meet other people.”

But it is not only on the micro-scale that crowds can be useful. In her Learnshop, Kirsten Winkler shared practical tips for entrepreneurs hoping to extract capital from the global crowd by using crowdfunding, or a “pooling of funds from people who are passionate about the same idea”.

Winkler writes her own widely followed blog on educational technology trends and is the founder of EDUKWEST, an on-line channel broadcasting interviews with start-ups and ‘teacherpreneurs’. EDUKWEST is also an official partner to Indiegogo, one of the leader crowdfunding platforms.

Although it can be a useful and low cost way to generate investment, there are plenty of other benefits to be found in the crowd. Platforms are able to provide extensive data on your potential customer base and campaigns can offer pre-launch marketing to build hype about your product and potential PR coverage. Crowdfunding campaigns can also provide useful feedback on how viable your idea really is: if the crowd has not stumped up $10 after two weeks, you might want to head back to the drawing board.

So how can you be sure of successfully channelling funding and support from the crowd? Kirsten points to video and social media, which is now a necessity to a successful campaign. A well-produced video that shares the personal story behind your project can increase funding by 114%, whilst four active social media accounts can push it up by 103%.

But, Winkler warns, do not let things slide. Just as social media can launch a campaign into viral stardom, unattended or impersonal accounts can draw vitriol from the crowd, casting your dream onto the scrapheap.

Whether you are seeking solutions within your workplace or seeking financial backing for your entrepreneurial ideas, turning to the crowd can offer useful support. What is more, these methods require minimal to no initial investment and have the potential to draw rich rewards.

If you are thinking about how the crowd can help you, take a moment to consider Winkler’s final and favourite benefit of crowd resources: serendipity. If you never have a go, never seek help or share your ideas, you will never know what you have missed.

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In the ‘Business EDUCA Opening Conversation’ at ONLINE EDUCA BERLIN 2012, delegates shared their common challenges where they hoped to find fresh insights from attending Business EDUCA.

A guest post by Laura Overton, previously published here.

The programme provided plenty of opportunities to share ideas and hear new perspectives but we also wanted to provide a unique opportunity for delegates to get together in an un-conference format and help themselves as well.

On the second day of the conference I joined 24 people at a Business EDUCA crowdsourcing session facilitated by Charles Jennings to enable us to reflect on what we’d learned so far and to draw on the experience within the room to help each other solve outstanding business challenges.
How did it work?
Participants were presented with 6 themes that had emerged from the Opening Conversation and were asked to add any additional themes and then vote on the top 4 that they wanted to concentrate on over the next one and a half hours. The themes chosen by participants were:

1.    What are your specific challenges for measurement of impact? What ideas do you have to address them?
2.    What advice can you give to help move from a ‘push’ model of learning to a ‘pull’ model?
3.    How can you engage managers more effectively with learning?
4.    Talk about one example of good practice you have implemented or know about – and how success was shared?

We were then divided into 4 groups. Each group was provided with a question to research within the room.

Each of us then participated in a series of short one-on-one interviews with members in other groups. I was in group 1 and had interviews with 3 people from groups 2, 3 and 4. In each interview I had 5 minutes to ask my colleagues about their perspectives and experience on my question and they in turn interviewed me about my views on their question.

After 3 rounds of questions, each time meeting someone from a different group, we gathered together with our original group members to compare the answers.

Between us in each group we had gathered the opinions of 75% of the room on our specific topic and we consolidated our findings to present back to the rest of the participants. It was a powerful learning and networking experience, carried out at speed, with lots of new ideas, sources of research and case studies generated through the process.

Here are the crowdsourced ideas from our discussions – we hope you find them helpful as well.

Interview 1 – What are the challenges in measuring the impact of our learning solutions and how can we do this more effectively?

The crowd highlighted the following challenges of demonstrating value of learning:

How do we know what success looks like?

• How to overcome the challenge of understanding impact once trainees have left control of training as there are too many other factors
• The challenges aren’’t just about measuring impact but the need to demonstrate value more effectively.

How can we do this more effectively?

•  The power of questions – Smart use of surveys – we shouldn’t concentrate on ‘ did you like it?’ but ask relevant questions e.g  To what extent has your confidence increased as a result? Have you been able to do XYZ since completing the training?

• Ask managers – has the performance, attitudes or behaviours of your staff changed as a result (360 degree appraisal)?
• Ask customers – has your experienced of working with this company changed?
• Encouraging staff to log their achievements and behaviour change after the programme
• Use of e-portfolios or learning logs
• Use of action learning communities where they work together after the programme and share results with peers on line
• Sharing lessons learned online following the programme

It is difficult to measure direct impact but that shouldn’t stop us tracking progress against important business outcomes. Examples of how to do this included:

• Track data that is already being tracked and is important to business e.g. customer satisfaction, sales, attrition rates
• Consider incentives linked to directly performance. The example was given of an L&D manager agreeing with the line-of-business manager that they would all be measured and bonuses paid on the direct impact of Customer Satisfaction statistics. This ensured that everyone – L&D and business managers – were all working towards the same goal and supporting each other in achieving it

Interview 2- How do we shift from a push model to a pull model of learning?

• Get managers involved by helping them to understand the value and benefits of continuous learning
• Help teachers and trainers to understand their own role and the benefit of a model of learning that is pulled by learners e.g. their role in:

o    Engaging the learners with new techniques for learning
o    Providing learning credibility
o    Curation by experts  and simplifying the learner experience

• Help Learners to see the advantage of pulling down learning when and where it is needed e.g.:

o    Help them understand how relevant the content is to their job
o    How the content is related to their task in hand
o    How the content is related to their job, to their objectives, to their business

• Access to information must be easy, clear and simple

o    Delivered in a system that filters the information that should be pulled
o    Delivered in a process that is not complicated and requiring multiple logins

• New ideas are best introduced in a blended approach
• Crowdsourcing value:

o     Encourage peer reviews to demonstrate value =  if it has lots of reviews – 5  star others   will come, e.g. amazon /tripadvisor
o    Content created by the crowd
Interview 3 – How do we engage managers more effectively?

What are the challenges in engaging managers?

• Need to understand that some managers believe that ‘workers should work and not learn’ – starting from this basis helps us to identify how we can support them better
• Need to spend time with managers to understand what their needs are in order

o    To answer the question “What’s in it for me?”
o    Get their attention – do they even know about the problem?

• Manager’s own learning experience e.g. via the classroom or of a poor online experience, will colour their perspectives.

Solutions discussed:

• Keep managers informed about the progress throughout, not just at the start
• Lead by example – consider how you can introduce new learning approaches to managers to extend their own learning experience – the use of mobile, sharing peer-to-peer, discovery of just-in-time online content. Once they have experienced the personal benefits, they may be more inclined to encourage staff to engage
• Use research wisely to engage them e.g.:

o    Help them understand the importance of their role. e.g. the Broad & Newstrom research highlights that the managers’ roles before and after a learning intervention is the most powerful influencing factor in encouraging new behaviours and improving performance in team members
o    Highlight their influence on performance – Corporate Leadership Council research highlighted that managers who are effective at developing their people and their teams find their teams outperform those with managers who are not effective at developing their people by 16%. Their performance goes up a further 9% simply through better attitudes and behaviours
o    Use independent research to open up conversations about the bottom line benefits of innovative learning approaches e.g. the Towards Maturity 2012-13 Benchmark study.

• Use managers’ experience and build into training, let them lead by example

Interview 4 – Tell me about an example of good practice

• Encouraging innovation -The Scottish Social Services were looking to find solutions to chronic issues in the workplace. Staff were invited to contribute on an ideas Platform and were asked to identify quick wins and short tem actions to common concerns. These were then refined. The L&D were pivotal in engaging the groups with the ideas platform
• Crowd learning – An example of a young masters programme in secondary schools. Students met local teachers and peers offline and then came online to share ideas within global classrooms. The process provided instant feedback and connected local learning within a global community
• ICT skills by stealth – One school encouraged children to learn to use the computer by providing them with an interesting offline challenge/experience e.g. create a rap song or in participation theatre – and then asking them to use the computer to reflect on their experience. As a result they learned indirectly how to use the computer. This demonstrated that if you change the context you can encourage individuals to pick up the skills.

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As a speaker I had to think carefully about what to say, how to say it and why I think my message is important. I had to reflect and consider my views of learning, and which I take with me in the further development of my own organization. Being speaker gave me an experience of speaking to an audience that does not have my cultural background.

And to understand how others perceives my message, I have to reflect on how the message can be simplified with pictures that make sense to others. Thanks for giving me the opportunity to be a speaker, – hopefully you got some feedback on my talk that were positive, so I get the opportunity to be a speaker again at a later time.

What did I appreciate the most?

I loved the pre-conference with Jeff Borden. As I mentioned on Twitter – ” spending 3 hours with Jeff Borden at #oeb12 is like watching a great movie that engage, inspire and make you think – and the time just flies.” He came with great ideas, tips and tricks that I can share with my colleagues directly and translate into better learning.

At the conference I really enjoyed beeing at the session “You are a sheep” – with Jef Staes. He inspired me and made me think about what we are doing. Are we all sheep? If yes – how can we change? Jefs passion and talent is just what we need in a time where everybody has to change, rapidly. The first thing I did when I got back to Norway, was to spread the word – “you are not a sheep – stop acting like one”. And those who have listened to the message that Jef gave me – which I have retold, are all saying that it makes sense and that they are happy that I have attended the OEB – because they now have something to think about and that they have to reconsider their own working methods.

Social media

For me, the use of Twitter at OEB, was a revelation. I have made contact with other speakers/participants and established a network across borders that will help me do a better job – every day!

During the conference, I met several on Twitter first, then a physical meeting. Using social media gives education a new dimension and endless opportunities.

If you like to hear more of my thoughts and experiences, please let me know – I would be happy to contribute. You have certainly made a difference for me and my organization.

Frank A. Baklid

Special advisor in digital didactics at Baerum municipality, Norway

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