If you don’t understand basic maths then Excel won’t make you numerate.

If you are a boring public speaker, then you will be even more boring with PowerPoint.

On the other hand I also believe that all of those skills are trainable. In the process of learning to use the tool you may also pick up the fundamentals of the technology.

Because the good time manager can spend a lot less of that valuable time if they learn to use a good tool to manage appointments, deadlines and contacts. The great speaker, who is used to connecting with an audience, won’t abuse the slide-show technology to the detriment of the audience.

The mathemagician will make Excel models that dazzle one the tool is understood.

So how about e-learning. Does the technology make it easier to learn?

After a semester using e-learning technology to learn about e-learning my essential bias remains that if you can’t do it without computers, then computers won’t suddenly make it easier by themselves.

As a learning tool, though the learning has to take place on two fronts. First learn the technology, then learn the subject content. I found the technology we were given to work with very easy to use. we were asked to prepare a blog using Edublogs.org, asked to communicate through a social networking system - Ning.com and asked to prepare a wiki on wikispaces.com. The tools were new to all of the members of the learning team I joined, but we all had enough computer literacy to pick them up pretty quickly. Our comfort with the tools increased progressively, and this is evident when I scan the progressive contributions.

But learning to use 3 bits of software is not a masters level subject. It was the content, rather than the process that we were interested in. did using these tools teach us more about e-learning?

I would have to say a resounding yes. But it would not have happened if we didn’t have some basic study skills and high motivation.

An example of the course design was posting our assignments as blog posts. for the first time in many years of formal and informal study, it was the first time I was ever able to see exactly what my class mates were learning. not only did I know what they were reading - as might happen in a face to face class - I could also see what insights that they gained from it. The technology didn’t make it happen, it just made it possible.

So like the good speaker with PowerPoint where the audience’s experience is enhanced, or the good time manager with an electronic organiser, where contacts, appointments and tasks are brought together with a few keystrokes, the e-learning tools made the subject more beneficial for the students who did the work.

I suspect that many of us put a lot more effort into this subject than others we have done. I think the technology aided this for two reasons, interest and possibility. we were interested in the content, rather the process. The process just made it possible to satisfy our interests.

The person who made it possible was Anne Bartlett-Bragg, our lecturer from UTS. To her we owe a great debt, because she provided the tasks and the tools that helped us learn for ourselves. I’m suspect Anne is a great face to face lecturer. To reinforce my bias - she couldn’t have designed and facilitated the on-line course if she was not. But with the tools that she arranged for us to use our learning was exponentially greater. 

Thanks Anne. and a special thanks to my teammates, Prue, Heather, Mal, Nic, Debra and Michelle for taking advantage of the opportunity. I learned lots from you all.

But it also to say that the learning is over so now the learning can start.

I have been reluctant to commit to a blog in the past because i feared that I would not be able to come up with enough material to post regularly. In this subject i have learned otherwise.

I also had some questions about what would make interesting reading. My area of interest is adult learning, in particular experiential learning. I also have some rather strong views on what makes a presentation interesting. A third area of interest is making the findings of adult learning researchers accessible to people whose most positive memory of a classroom is leaving it.

This subject has given me plenty of material to work with in each of those areas.

I have also learned about new tools, in particular wikis, RSS feeds and aggregators.

I am setting up a private wiki to allow a number of trainers to develop assessment materials to meet some national competencies. Without the collaborative experience that went into making the JuJu wiki that a team of us developed for the course, that idea would never have seen the light of day.

I also intend to use Jing to develop five minute explanations of software features - primarily for my clients, but links will be posted on a public netvibes page. I doubt that I would have found the tool or the content without the course. I also intend to move a directory of on line tools there from my current public page. If those pages are not up yet, they will be shortly.

The most valuable part of the learning, though, was the people.

I participated in the best team I have ever worked with. And it was on line - a virtual team. We came from a variety of backgrounds and had a range of objectives. We were a truly self managing team.

I will have more to say on the reasons i believe that the term worked together so well in future posts. But the most valuable piece of learning from the whole course was that virtual teams work.

Thanks to all who helped me learn that. I look forward to hearing how your implementation of our learning develops.

It was great JuJu.

On the first day of “flying lessons”, Clarence could barely control his excitement (and Felix could barely control his bladder). Clarence explained that their apartment had 15 floors and each day Felix would jump out of a window starting with the first floor eventually getting to the top floor. After each jump, Felix would analyze how well he flew, isolate on the most effective flying techniques and implement the improved process for the next flight. By the time they reached the top floor, Felix would surely be able to fly.

Felix pleaded for his life, but it fell on deaf ears. “He just doesn’t understand how important this is…” thought Clarence, “but I won’t let naysayers get in my way.” So, with that, Clarence opened the window and threw Felix out (who landed with a thud).

Next day (poised for his second flying lesson) Felix again begged not to be thrown out of the window. With that, Clarence opened his pocket guide to Managing More Effectively and showed Felix the part about how one must always expect resistance when implementing new programs. And with that, he threw Felix out the window. (THUD!)

On the third day (at the third floor) Felix tried a different ploy. Stalling, he asked for a delay in the “project” until better weather would make flying conditions more favourable. But Clarence was ready for him. He produced a timeline pointed to the third milestone and asked, “You don’t want to slip the schedule do you?” From his training, Felix knew that not jumping today would mean that he would have to jump TWICE tomorrow. So he just said, “OK. Let’s go.” And out the window he went.

Now understand that Felix really was trying his best. On the fifth day he flapped his feet madly in a vain attempt to fly. On the sixth day he tied a small red cape around his neck and tried to think “Superman” thoughts. Try as he might, though, Felix couldn’t fly.

By the seventh day, Felix (accepting his fate) no longer begged for mercy. He simply looked at Clarence and said, “You know you’re killing me, don’t you?” Clarence pointed out that Felix’s performance so far had been less than exemplary, failing to meet any of the milestone goals he had set for him. With that, Felix said quietly, “Shut up and open the window”. He leaped out, taking careful aim on the large jagged rock by the corner of the building. And Felix went to that great lily pad in the sky.

Clarence was extremely upset, as his project had failed to meet a single goal that he set out to accomplish. Felix had not only failed to fly, he didn’t even learn how to steer his flight as he fell like a sack of cement. Nor did he improve his productivity when Clarence had told him to “Fall smarter, not harder.” The only thing left for Clarence to do was to analyze the process and try to determine where it had gone wrong. After much thought, Clarence smiled and said, “Next time…… I’m going to find a smarter frog”

That started me thinking about the things that I now do by internet that 10 years ago would have required a physical world activity.

Looking up a phone number is now an on-line activity for me. Do they still print phone books?

Books. That’s another major change. Looking around my office and home, i guess I must have been a pretty prolific book buyer, once. I still read. Often i reread books that i bought years ago, but now I am more likely to download an article from the web and read it. I have almost completed a masters degree without going to the physical university library. A very different approach to my earlier studies. The on line library has replaced the physical one. Downloads and print outs have replaced books. 

The ones I do buy are, as often as not, bought from Amazon.com.

They still make great gifts though, and I suspect that most of the books I have bought in the past few years have either been as gifts or for my 9 year old son. He shares my love of reading, but also has an extensive collection of (approved) sites in his favourites folder.

I cannot remember when I last used a street directory. For years I used Whereis to print out a map and directions. These days I have a GPS unit in my car, so even online maps have been superseded.

My banking is predominately online. I cannot recall the last time I visited a branch. 

I have always had a dictionary very close to my desk. it is still there, sitting beside the thesaurus. They are rarely opened now, though. I go straight to one look when I need a synonym, antonym or definition.

I haven’t quite got into Skype, yet. I have made a few international calls and conference calls that way, and found it useful.

I used to subscribe to a number of international magazines. Now I access them on line.

I still buy a daily newspaper, but also have Google news alerts delivered to my inbox on key topics and as RSS feeds for more general updates.

When I take a photo it is on a digital camera and I view it on my computer before deciding to (rarely) print it out.

When I started this blog, it was part of an e-learning subject. Now I realise I am not just into e-learning. I have adopted e-living! 

Engineers Australia list 7 forms that CPD may take in order to retain chartered status:

• Formal post-graduate study not undertaken for award purposes;
• Short courses, workshops, seminars and discussion groups facilitated by recognised practitioners in the field;
• Learning activities in the workplace;
• Private study;
• Service to the engineering profession;
• Presentations at seminars and symposia;
• Tertiary teaching and/or academic research; and
• Other structured activities that meet the objectives of the policy.

But how do trainers stay up to date?

There are some great training conferences. The Australian Institute of Training and Development (AITD) hosts one most years. They also hold professional development events in most capital cities on a regular basis. There is a usually a large Australian contingent at the American Society for Training and Development’s (ASTD) annual conference.   

While the opportunity to maintain currency is available, it is not required. The standard qualification for trainers in Australia is the Cert IV in Training and Assessment. It lasts forever.  

I believe that the value that good trainers add to industry, commerce, government and society is so high that there must be a requirement for continuing professional development, if only because of the value that poor trainers subtract. 

Her question started me thinking about the many terms in social networking and in IT generally that have been appropriated from everyday vocabulary. 

I thought we were designing a system, which to me met a way of working. system to an IT professional means hardware. I thought we were networking - each of us contributing our knowledge and experience to the whole group and involving others we knew so that we could use their expertise, too. It seems networking is done with blue cables in IT. Of course these are not the sort of cables that used to carry text messages fifty years ago. They were named after the cables that carried the message, but soon became synonymous with the piece of paper they were printed on.

According to the Global Language Monitor there are an estimated 1 million English  words.

The monitor also says that there are:

• 450,000 words listed in the Merriam-Webster’s 3rd International edition, according to its introduction;
• fewer than 100,000 words in the French language; 
• About 50,000 ideograms in the various Chinese dialects (though countless more words);
• in the order of 7,000 human languages and dialects
• 12,143 different words of a total 787,137 words in the English version of the king James Bible,
• 8,674 different words in the Hebrew Old Testament,
• 5,624 words in the Greek New Testament;
• 24,000 differing words to be found in the complete works of Shakespeare, about 1,700 of which he invented.

Even with so many words we need to double up.

Left and right mean more than sides. Top and bottom are not just a toy and a base. Tear can be pronounced two ways, each with a different meaning.

As far I can see, the word set is the one that has the most meanings. think about it, what does it mean to you?

Place down? Collection? Harden? A series of tennis games? Prepare to run?

My favourite resource, the One Look Dictionary search found definitions in 99 dictionaries and gave 45 different meanings in their quick definitions - a feature that normally has between one and three meanings. By contrast the word system only featured in 66 dictionaries and had a mere 9 quick definitions. Reification was only found in 18 dictionaries with 2 quick definitions, while bricolage only made it into 12 dictionaries without a quick definition. 

Back to the program that I thought I was designing, no it was not the booklet that lists the cast and order of events in a theatre, it was not to be broadcast on TV, it was not even computer software. It was a set of training materials. 

On the subject of words, do you know why golf was given that name? All of the other four letter obscenities were already taken. 

50 years later there is no shortage of Theory X and Theory Y managers in organisations throughout the world.

I can’t help thinking that if McGregor was writing today he would notice a very different approach to the introduction of new technology for communication with the workforce which aligns with his seminal work.

A study of the use of a Virtual Synchronous Classroom in a global consulting firm was described by Thompson (2004) at the World Conference on E-Learning in Corporate, Government, Healthcare, and Higher Education (ELEARN) 2004.

This response is typical of a theory X organisation.

A YouTube video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4VhoWGZ2eA shows a theory Y attitude. The video is about school students, but those students are going to be in the workforce before very long and the technology they are using was purchased by their parents.

This is how I would categorise the beliefs of today’s theory X and theory Y managers

21st century Theory X managers believe

• There is not enough server space or bandwith to store all of the data that we need to provide if we used podcasts (technology)
• There are too many security concerns. we could not be certain that people outside the company were not viewing our confidential material (security)
• The material would become out of date and people would be relying on old material (currency)
• The technology is not good enough yet. (technology)
• We would have to cater to people in several countries and so would have to provide the information in multiple languages (diversity)
• The media devices would be used for non work activities. They could also be stolen. We would have to be able to clear them remotely if they fell into the wrong hands. (trust)
• Most of our people are not tech savvy enough to use the equipment. training costs would be exorbitant. and the equipment becomes superseded every year. (competence)

21st Century, Theory Y managers believe

• The stuff is out there. To maintain competitive advantage or even a place in the market we have to use it. (currency)
• Communication means using whatever our people use to communicate. (currency)
• We trust our people to deal with our customers face to face. Surely there is no more important priority. If we have got it wrong there we are in trouble already. (trust)
• The volume of information that we need to participate in the market place is so huge we have to have the server space and technology to cope. It is just a cost of doing business. (technology)
• This will help us deal with our customers, suppliers and other stakeholders as well as our employees (diversity)
• Security and privacy is a priority. We need to be using best practice. (security)

So

When McGregor published in 1960 his approach was politely acknowledged by most, and included in every supervision course ever since. Meanwhile, back at the coal-face Theory X continues to dominate. 

Some Theory Y managers operated in small cells and prospered. Others were run over as people raced to take advantage of them.

Neither theories were universally right. Which direction is more appropriate in the new millennium?  

Are you more inclined to Theory X or Theory Y? What other beliefs need to be considered?

References

McGregor, D. (1960) ”The human side of enterprise”  McGraw Hill, New York.

Thompson, T., (2004), “The Virtual Classroom @ Work: How Technology Shapes Workplace Learning”, In G. Richards (Ed.), “Proceedings of World Conference on E-Learning in Corporate, Government, Healthcare, and Higher Education (ELEARN)2004″, pp.2166-2171, Chesapeake, VA: AACE, downloaded (purchased) from  www.editlib.org April 12, 2008.

We have been engaged in an on-line distance learning class and she has had difficulty finding the time to do all of the things that such a class demands.

It raised for me one of the three keys to successful blogging - time, ideas and enthusiasm.

It is easy for enthusiasm to wane, but I suspect that if we start out with a genuine interest in our subject area it is often time and ideas that contribute to the loss of enthusiasm.

I intend to do a follow up post on sources for ideas, but the issue of time is one I have been looking at for a number of years.

My Time Management philosophy is based on five habits:

• Work out what matters
• Decide to decide
• Get Organised
• Share the load
• Then deal with disruptions.

1. Work out what matters.

I spent yesterday morning at my nine year old son’s soccer game and went to the park with him and two of his mates for a couple of hours in the afternoon.

This morning I went to my 14 year old daughter’s T-ball game.

Last night I watched Doc Martin on TV with my wife and the two kids. (I haven’t managed to see any of Neighbours, the Biggest Loser or Big Brother - not just this week, but ever.)

Nothing takes precedence over those.

I am working on a project for a client as my full-time (though at home) job. I spend about 50 hours a week on it.  I do have the advantage of being able to access the ning and edublogs while I am working, but that time is not counted in the fifty hours per week.

To reduce distractions I have turned off any indicators of e-mail arriving. I check my email and at the same time the ning about once an hour. When I reach an end point on my work writing tasks.

2. Decide to Decide 

If I see something that I can react to, like the classmate’s question, I make a decision on whether to respond or not. when I make the decision I act on it there and then.

That action may consist of writing the reply, as happened in this case, or making a note on my tasks list in Outlook.

A decision not to act means not doing either of the above.

3. Get Organised.

When the lecturer posted details of an article to be read as part of the course we are doing, I ran the article through an OCR program so that it was in Word format. I use the Microsoft Office Document Image Writer. It is automatically installed as a printer if you have Office on your machine. I did that immediately and added the article to my Outlook tasks.

When I decided it was uni time (priority number 3 for me) I started to read it in Word and pasted some extracts into a new Word document. When I struck “reification” I looked it up in an on-line dictionary and pasted that there too.

That one word led to a blog post, a response to someone else’s blog post and a paragraph in my assignment. All three differ, but contain the same basic thought.

When we received advice of the location of our wiki, I logged in, posted the assignment question, extracted the three or four key statements and set up a page for each.

I ran through the Ning and cut and pasted the discussion that led to the formation of our group. It probably looks like a lot of work, but as far as the wiki is concerned, it took about 20 minutes of my daily allocation of 1 hour to uni.

The one hour a day incidentally is made up of a calculation of the amount of time I would spend in a  face to face class plus travel to and from, doubled as I would still need to read and write, then rounded down.

I am about to paste this response into a database, which I go to when I want to write an article (I write about five a year for various publications) or give a speech (Toastmasters membership is my number 4 priority) or use it in a training session.

So this response will probably get at least three outings with minimal editing. This is the second, with only minor changes from the original response on the ning.

4. Share the load

The next habit in my time management philosophy is share the load - I have picked up ideas from class-mates Prue, Lorraine, Debra, Nicole and Michelle for blog posts and quoted Mal and Concetta in an assignment.  

They found interesting articles or made interesting blog posts and I built off them.

5. Then deal with disruptions

If you can get into the first four habits the number of disruptions will be much less. What to do about a disruption is a decision, based on “Does It Matter?” How can I use my organised activities and tools to deal with it?  Who else is involved? What are they doing about it? No point in two of us doing the same thing!

I still run out of time to do things that I might find attractive, but none that really matter!