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Learning Design Applied to Conferences

2009-05-12T11:47:21Z

Have you been truly inspired or experienced deep learning at a professional conference or seminar? Are you looking at these words cynically about now? For me, these moments are unique opportunities, bringing people together, away from our daily work routines, to get informed and inspired from our field, to connect with others and to gather feedback on our work and ideas. From my learning designer standpoint, these are learning events - ideal informal learning opportunities.

The good news is that the traditional formats of these professional pow-wows are evolving: the techniques, the technological tools and the shift towards collective intelligence are making gatherings more meaningful. Traditional academia is pondering on how to improve the conference model, (Spaces of Interaction: An Online Conversation on Improving Traditional Conferences), geek world has developed its own formula known as Barcamps, while Open Space Technology and World cafés are making their way across the world. Twitter backchannels are gaining in popularity for facilitating a parallel dialogue amongst the audience. And simple storytelling techniques are being refined for their communication potential. The architect world has brought us the fun formula known as Pecha Kucha.

Jacques Raynauld, Director of MATI, making use of the projected twitter back-channel going on as he presents, Web 2.0 conference, Montreal, 2009.

But, how to go about making the appropriate match between the needs/context of an event and the format, techniques and technological tools that work it? I have begun a list of questions/thoughts that might help in improving the learning design of events:

1. How much do you want/need to pre-program the event? Perhaps it’s our need for security that makes us automatically tend to want to pre-program events. Sometimes, especially if a wide-open common topic is to be explored, it is more powerful to allow attendees to determine the agenda. Open Space Technology is a technique supporting this approach.

2. Are the participants experts or novices in the field? When uniting many experts it makes sense to tap into the collective intelligence in the room rather than have only a single expert speaking. There are all sorts of techniques to open up to allow this. In Possibilities for Transformational Conferences, Tree Brens outlines various such participatory activities.

3. How much should the specialists be provided a structured framework for their documentation? For example, in a “Conversations event” organised by percolab, we requested that the 8 “presenters” present their work based on the same 8 themes and limit their summary to 1 page. This took multiple iterations for everyone to be on the same track, but the foundation allowed for rich conversations to follow and also provided helpful documentation for the attendees. This is particularly interesting when dealing with international situation whereby cultural and vocabulary differences need to be overcome.

4. How much do the participants know each other - want to know each other? Perhaps participants would like to know who else is attending, where they are from, and maybe even easily find a person attending with a common interest? But from information sharing to building a community there is a leap. Event-based social networking is often lots of energy with little payback (see here). But if this group regularly meets there should be a structured way to harness the learning from the event.

5. How can technology support and amplify the impact of the event? For example a twitter feed, during the event, is not appropriate if attendees are without laptops. However, a pre-event poll (short and sweet) can be a meaningful way to begin conversation with information on audience perception or state of play. I have yet to attend an event that allows those that present to upload their own presentations. Still people collecting them and inevitably creating that bottleneck that causes such delay you almost give up. Personally, all my presentations are on slideshare and I await the day whereby people simply request my link, or wip it into a web cast (such as this one).

6. And finally, a question we don’t always dare to ask: How much is the event contributing to real transformation and tapping into people’s souls? I don’t really know where to begin here, but let’s just throw out some words that come to mind: stories, authenticity, spoken word, music, humanism, vulnerability, imagery poignant…

Would love to hear some positive experiences/stories and ideas.

ECTO, espace coopératif de travail, recherche des membres

2009-04-21T12:13:33Z

En démarrant percolab, nous nous sommes posés la question - parmi tant d’autres - de ce que devrait être notre futur espace de travail. Dans notre esprit, il était clair que nous ne voulions absolument pas nous retrouver dans un bureau anonyme dans le centre-ville de Montréal. Nous nous sommes mis à imaginer un espace qui conserverait la flexibilité du travail nomade, qui disposerait des ressources matérielles permettant différentes formes de travail - solitaire, à deux, en équipe, en groupe - et qui permettrait de profiter de la richesse des échanges au sein d’un groupe de travailleurs de pratiques diverses et d’horizons variées.

Rien de tel que de parler d’un tel projet pour réunir un groupe dynamique partageant cette même vision d’un espace de travail et d’apprentissage. Nous avons créé au printemps dernier la coopérative de solidarité ECTO et travaillons depuis à concrétiser la réalisation de cet espace de travail partagé (ou « coworking space »).

Située au coeur du Plateau Mont-Royal, sur la Place Roy, la coopérative ECTO occupe le dernier étage de l’ancienne Phonotèque de la Ville de Montréal. L’espace ECTO, c’est

16 espaces de travail pour travailleurs et petites équipes
Une dizaine d’espaces pour travailleurs nomades urbains
Une salle multifonctionnelle pouvant accueillir de 8 à 12 personnes
Une cuisine et un espace de détente

L’espace ECTO vient avec

Internet à volonté
Impression, télécopie, copies
Espaces de rangement (physique et virtuel) sécurisés
Le café et les muffins!!

L’espace ECTO vous permet

de travailler seul, en équipe ou en groupe
de tenir vos réunions de travail
d’organiser des rencontres avec vos clients
de tenir vos activités de formation et de promotion

L’espace ECTO se veut

accessible (jour, soir et week-end)
flexible (plusieurs forfaits selon vos besoins)
un espace d’échanges et d’apprentissage

Les travaux d’installation de l’espace ECTO sont en cours et l’ouverture des locaux est prévue début janvier 2009.

Vous pouvez devenir devenir membre (350 $ : part sociale 100 $ et part de capitalisation de 250 $ - remboursable dans 5 ans avec avec un taux d’intérêt non cumulatif de 6 %) et réserver votre place. Vous pouvez également opter l’un des autres forfaits flexibles que nous proposons.

Pour plus de renseignements, contactez la coopérative à info@ecto.coop ou encore écrivez-nous à Sam ou Yves à percolab. Et merci de faire circuler cette information dans vos réseaux!

Learning of today and tomorrow

2009-05-12T11:49:24Z

During the past month I had the opportunity to “hang” with students in two completely different types of learning institutions in France. One, an “alternative” private school (students age 21- 48) and the other a standard university (students at masters level). Beyond the french context, the lessons I learned apply everywhere (I believe).

The first school is an innovative business school in its “birthing” stage, Team Factory. I spent a day there with Marc Tirel of In Principo “helping” the students in their process of setting up their collaborative working environment and working tools.

This years cohort of 6 students are all dynamic souls determined to be part of a new and better tomorrow and in the process make the careers that feed their dreams and sense of self. They are brave because they are engaging in a “school” that is not yet clearly set up and is still without formal recognition - but they know that this school has something to offer them that they can’t find elsewhere.

Of course, we did not meet in a classroom, but in a company working space. We did not “teach” but simply coached students through their process that they own and are engaged in. A lot of listening and open explorations interspersed with some practical decision making and prioritising. It’s a workflow in tune with the real world.
These students are taking on responsibility, tapping into their collective competence, leading their own futures. Inspiring!

Elsewhere in France, in a more conventional university setting I “gave a lecture” (not very comfortable with this term, the expectations are strong) on the subject of “social innovation”. In my “North American style”, I refused to provide a definition and theory, but worked the concept via a smorgasbord of examples.

Students had the task of identifying the common elements in the initiatives and figuring out their own definition of social innovation. And yes we were in a classroom, and yes they were told that it would be on the exam…

Here, the students are looking in on a concept - visiting it, playing with it from a critical intellectual approach. In their place of learning (university), they are following “someone else’s program”.

In Team Factory, the learners are turned on because the program connects to them and their personal and professional future. There is theory and critical thinking, but everything ends up relating to them as individuals who can act and who have their own project. This is the learning of tomorrow. When we talk about competence based approaches, Team Factory is walking the talk, students are confronted on a daily basis with novel challenges that they act and reflect upon, in a continuous process of learning and competence development.

Innovation Sociale

View more presentations from Samantha Slade.

Le travail digne

2009-05-12T11:49:49Z

Le Congrès annuel des CRHA/CRIA (Conseillers en ressources humaines agrées et Conseillers en relations industrielles agrées) m’a étonné. J’ai senti dans l’air un vent de renouveau dans le milieu des ressources humaines. Et ce renouveau semble naître de plusieurs constats : celui du défi de recruter et de retenir des employés dans un contexte de pénurie de la main d’oeuvre, celui de l’épuisement professionnel et des maladies mentales qui assiègent le mileu de travail. Pas étonnant que c’est la dimension humaine qui a dominé pendant ce congrès.

C’est dans cet esprit que j’ai écouté avec empathie le film Histoire d’une vie et la discussion avec la réalisatrice Maryse Chartrand. Pour ceux qui n’en ont pas entendu parlé, Mme Chartrand et son mari Simon avait le projet de faire un film sur leur expérience incroyable de leur année de « décrochage », pendant laquelle, avec leurs trois enfants, ils ont fait le tour du monde. Un an de retour aux sources. Malheureusement, au retour à Montréal, Simon, papa, s’enlève la vie. Le projet doit se transformer en un film sur la santé mentale.

Les hommes, plus que les femmes, s’identifient par leur travail et ils vivent dans une société où la communication de leurs émotions est vue comme une faiblesse. Or la « souffrance » professionnelle n’est pas reliée au nombre de jours et d’heures que l’on travaille. Par exemple, dans le film, lorsque la famille visite l’atelier d’un artisan dans un pays du Sud, où ce dernier travaille des longues journées 7 jours sur 7, Simon est frappé que malgré les longue heures de travail, cette personne ne semble pas atteint de stress professionnel. C’est qu’il y a encore de la dignité dans son métier.

Et le congrès a enchaîné dans cette direction. Un atelier a porté sur la démarche appréciative qui base des interventions de solutions sur l’attention sur les forces, les moments d’excellence, des facteurs de succès. Une démarche qui réussit et dynamise au même temps. La conférence de Serge Marquis intitulée Est-ce que la peur de la mort rendrait nos entreprises malades? qui parle de « transparence et de valeurs », « d’une vision sereine du travail et de la vie », « de mobiliser les personnes par le désir de vivre pleinement et profondément ». Et pour finir, Laurent Saussereau est venu parler de deux manières de gérer et d’agir, « soit par la peur, soit par l’amour ».

Dans le contexte de ce congrès, mon intervention a été mieux reçue que j’aurais jamais pu l’imaginer. Je parlais de notre approche « inside out » pour avoir du recul dans une entreprise, pour valoriser collectivement le chemin parcouru et pour mieux s’avancer dans la direction donnée par ses valeurs et ses croyances. En fait, c’est une démarche simple qui permet le développement en continu d’une mémoire organisationnelle et d’une identitié numérique sur le web qui est le reflet véritable des compétences de l’entreprise. C’est aussi un moyen pour développer sa capacité d’être une organisation apprenante. Pour en savoir plus, voici la présentation :

Bilan des competences organisationnelles : un processus de renouveau

View more presentations from Samantha Slade.

Widgets for flexible learning environment and ePortfolio

2009-05-12T11:50:20Z

Education and competence developement circles are becoming active in the widget world. Building systems using these small devices is indeed a means to enhance flexibility and personnalisation.

A widget is essentially a small block of code - using javascript, (X)HTML and CSS - that can be embedded in a web page to display information typically from news feeds (RSS/ATOM) or from distant web services - mail, photo archives, weather, etc.

Until recently, the work of widgets suffered from fragmentation. However, some players like Netvibes and Widgetbox are offering tools to create or convert widgets to run on multiple platforms. Not to mention the current work by W3C on a specification for these small but useful web applications.

So what can we do these with those so-called “gadgets” in Personal Learning Environments (PLE) and ePortfolios? Well, a lot!!

The project TENCompetence is currently involved in groundbreaking work with widgets in their Learning Design Authoring Environment. In a recent interview [here], Scott Wilson explains the rationale:

We’ve been exploring how desktop and web widgets could be used to provide chat, discussion and voting services within a run-time Learning Design environment, so that users could seamlessly be offered the features specified by a particular learning design.

percolab is also experimenting with widgets for the development of an ePortfolio supporting the socio-professional integration of adult immigrants in Quebec. Our challenge was to find a way to integrate learning activities - profiled according to the context of this group of learners - with information gathered from various providers (government, educational institutions, community organisations), all this, without recreating a large unflexible anonymous portal. The idea is a “personal portal” in which learners may choose learning and personal development activities, manage their artefacts and build public pages for friends, family, teachers, etc.

The prototype we built was based on the open source portal POSH (www.portaneo.net) - acting as container and widget framework. We used a small Ruby on Rails application for the learning activities and services back-end.

The prototype testing received much positive feedback from the learners, even if the visual design was quite bare and a few bugs did show early in the testing. Also, we succeeded to render all the activities reusable outside the project environment.

In more ways than one, the use of widgets in the world of learning opens up new opportunities for the development of reusable content, rich applications and useful information services.

First, widgets makes the development of learning applications cheaper, a real case of write once, play “everywhere”. Well, not yet, but soon. It is relatively easy to convert a widget for use on different systems (WordPress, Moodle, Pageflakes, etc.).

Secondly, widgets may help leverage existing API on institutional systems. Why not a widget offering to search all the learning resources repositories, inquiring real time in the library system for books due, displaying schedules, course offers, job opportunities in a specific fields etc.

Finally, widgets make possible the creation of highly flexible PLEs or ePortfolios, for the learner as for the learning designer. And that’s cool!

Techno-pédagogie

2009-05-12T11:50:31Z

Qu’est-ce que la techno-pédagogie? Comme je me sers allègrement de ce terme, je me sens le devoir de tenter une définition. Surtout que des personnes comme Mario Asselin qui essaie (sans réussite) de dénicher un mot officiel sur le terme (voir son blogue Mario tout de go). Surtout que des amis et collaborateurs (comme Ghislain Drolet, conseiller pédagogique de la Commission scolaire de Laval), me demande souvent une explication. Surtout que nous commençons à voir des premières offres d’emplois pour techno-pédagogues! (voir l’offre de l’École nationale de police du Québec)

Et bien, voici ma prise 1 :

La techno-pédagogie est une sorte de bilinguisme, un pied dans les besoins humains et des processus d’apprentissage, et l’autre dans la technologie et tout son potentiel.

Donc, un techno-pédagogue peut encadrer le design, la réalisation et même l’implantation des interfaces, des environnements et des outils numériques qui soutiennent l’apprentissage ou divers processus. Le techno-pédagogue communique et travaille facilement avec des architectes de systèmes et des programmeurs autant qu’avec des des administrateurs, des formateurs etc. Il traduit les uns aux autres. Le techno-pédagogue réalise autant les études de besoins que les découpages techniques. Ce pont techno-pédagogique fait partie de la réalité de notre société numérique, c’est la capacité à pouvoir utiliser au maximum le potentiel des outils technologiques pour bien répondre aux besoins, qui sont d’abord et avant tout, humains.

Qu’en pensez-vous?

Pour plus encore j’ai produit un court document “La techno-pédagogie démystifiée” (pdf) (aussi en version anglaise, Technopedagogy) pour une rencontre au groupe Solvay.

Sinon, cette explication (en anglais) est pas mal : http://learningat.ke7.org.uk/english/old-english/eslplanet/www.eslplanet.com/papers/techped.html

Digital identity pay back!

2009-05-12T11:51:03Z

About a year and a half ago I embarked on a process to develop my eportfolio – though it was a personal, introspective process, I decided to allow public access to my site as it evolves. I was rather uncomfortable with so many people potentially seeing so much information about me, however, since the line of work of percolab is eportfolios and collaborative processes and I was frustrated that we could never see the result of each others “private” process, I had no choice. So there I was, in a place of discomfort – but deep down I knew that such visibility might have its rewards. And indeed it does.

Darren Cambridge, international researcher and author on eportfolios, chose to analyse my ePortfolio for a book he is writing and he sent me a draft of the chapter that refers to my work. Darren links my process to concepts of “integrity” and “employabilty” in ways that only someone from outside looking in could. He points out ideas that I share:

Knowing what one’s capabilities, values, dispositions and relationships are or could be is not enough. Rather, individuals must develop organizing principles to help them prioritize their attention and to establish the boundaries between their roles, developing a holistic understanding of their identity as a coherent system.

Darren gets what I was trying to do, a self-representation that is “more than an aggregation of discrete reflections on specific experiences, pieces of evidence of isolated competencies, or a repository of goals”. Darren sums up my vision for me:

..learning is a lifewide and lifelong process, requiring individual motivation to take personal responsibility for one’s holistic development. By embracing their curiosity, values, and passions, individuals can grow into more effective family members, workers, and community leaders. This learning is best supported in resource-rich environments that are welcoming to diverse people and personalized to each person, inviting connection and collaboration. Rather than being divorced form daily life, these environments should be integrated within them. Learning technology in its broadest sense – composed both of electronic tools such as wikis and conceptual tools such as competency frameworks – is most powerful when it adds flexibility and broadens access, serving as a heuristic that stimulates and guides, but doesn’t constrain individuals in their efforts to better themselves.

But Darren goes even further, he sees how I am was trying to go get somewhere different, and indeed this is part of the foundation of percolab.

Slade’s use of competencies differs from the typical approach in many employability-orientated eportfolio programs, doing more than just identifying competencies, matching them to the needs of the market, and engaging in learning that makes for a stronger alignment of personal skills and organizational needs. She goes further to document and examine both the personal and professional elements of her life using an overarching theory of how she wishes to develop as a person and to contribute to the development of others. While her approach places personal choice and personal responsibility front and center, it suggests that there are other factors that need to be taken into account in making good choices beyond what potential employers or clients say they want. In this way, it differ from the dominant discourse of employability and lifelong learning in most Western societies, which frames the individual role as shaping the self in ways that strengthen the economy.

And Darren understands also how, without ever saying it, I used my eportfolio to develop my professionalism and capacity to innovate in my area of speciality, learning design. The structure and process I developed is in line with the theory “supporting self-sponsored learning through cultivating distributed, flexible, content-rich spaces and tools that connect learners”.

Darren thinks that my portfolio is “a powerful example of how integrity, the linking of private and public life through systems thinking, is important to defining excellence within a profession” and that in general:

The health of a profession should be judged by how well it enables its members to do “good work”. The meaning of “good” in good work is two-fold: good in the sense of expertise, doing work well, and good in the sense of ethics, doing work that serves the good.” Defining the good that a profession should do and enabling it s members to do it requires more than occupation-specific competencies. It also requires taking into consideration the values, beliefs, and commitments held by its members, considering commonalities and conflict in relationship to the public’s expectations of the profession.

Darren and I both see the potential of eportfolios to help many under-appreciated professions (from waitresses to welders) that in fact involve “considerable, multiple intelligences and cognitive sophistication” to “argue for their right to the means for professional self-definition.” Indeed , percolab has been looking at how eportfolios can help develop the professional identity and credibility in the field of youth workers and volunteers.

And so my little eportfolio undertaking is put in a larger perspective, a gift Darren offers me, serving to clarify, solidify and enrich ideas that were were searching to be formalised. His words inspire me forward. Thank you Darren. I will no longer doubt that making my eportfolio publicly accessible was the right decision.

Note: The text of the book, once published, may differ from that in the passages quoted above.

Eclosion

2009-05-12T11:51:19Z

Récemment, j’ai assisté au séminaire “Éclosion“, organisé par l’association française Team Factory. Quel évènement rafraîchissant ! En quoi était-ce différent des séminaires habituels? Et bien, mis à part le fait que nous avons travaillé dehors, sur la pelouse, sous les arbres, avec des équipes composées de professionnels et d’étudiants, de participants de différents pays, à la fois en anglais et en français, et ce en toute légèreté - ce qui est déjà énorme -, la spécificité de ce séminaire est venue de la priorité qui a été donnée à la mise en place d’une zone de confiance et de soutien aux groupes, pour pouvoir travailler ensemble sur les sujets que chaque participant tenait à coeur. Donc, pas de conférence avec des participants passifs, pas de programme de transmission de connaissances. Non, plutôt un enchaînement d’activités à réaliser collectivement qui permettent à chacun de réfléchir sur ses préoccupations de fond et sur sa connaissance de soi. Pourquoi, dans la vie professionnelle comme dans les situations de formation, doit-on écarter tout ce qui a du sens chez l’individu? Il n’y a aucune raison valable. À Éclosion, on peut constater comment avec quelques ingrédients de base - scénarisation futée de la journée, logistique impeccable, personnes expertes en dialogue et travail d’équipe -, on peut réussir à installer cette ambiance de confiance qui permet un lâcher prise permettant le « deep learning ». Je remercie et je félicite les organisateurs. Je vous invite aussi à explorer le programme d’études alternatif « Team Time », pour créer les entrepreneurs humanistes de demain.

eCulture: what’s that?

2009-05-12T11:51:46Z

I recently participated at the 6th Forum on eCulture in Lausanne, Switzerland, an event organised by the foundation Ynternet.org.

The term “eCulture” is still up for discussion - somehow, at least in North America, it is a term that creates more confusion than anything else. No, it is not about visual art and dance in the web, but rather individual and collective behaviors and practices in the online world. eCulture relates to netiquette, online communication, as well as the free and open software movement, cooperation etc. There is perhaps also a link to the idea that cyberspace was founded on ethical, individually enlightened and public good principles (see A Declaration for the Independence of Cyberspace).

At the event, there was a launch of a great little video, Digital natives, that communicates very clearly how much the online world is part of the daily reality of the next generation, and that our institutions and organisations have an interest and a responsibility to be there in that space and accompany this generation in a responsible way.

Réflexions sur l’organisation d’un événement

2009-05-12T11:52:15Z

Dernièrement a eu lieu l’évènement Conversations sur les compétences, organisé par percolab avec la collaboration avec ses partenaires. L’objectif premier consistait à partir de récits de praticiens et de la participation d’un auditoire multilingue, issus de secteurs et de pays divers, de susciter des conversations et d’avancer des réflexions autour de l’apprentissage tout au long de la vie, de l’employabilité et des organisations apprenantes. Mon rôle d’organisatrice a pris fin avec la mise en place du site de documentation de la journée (voir vidéos, audios et document résumé des projets). À moi maintenant d’identifier mes apprentissages de l’expérience.

1. Le moment d’arrêt pour identifier les thématiques sous-jacentes aux portfolios numériques qui les relient a été revélateur. Qui parle portfolio parle en fait de :

apprentissage, dans son sens le plus large, tout au long de la vie, tous les types d’apprentissage et l’apprentissage individuel autant qu’organisationnel;
connaissance de soi, actualistation et réalisation de soi;
un travail et une vie avec un sens. Faire l’ouverture de l’évènement m’a forcé à rendre explicite ses trois thématiques avec lesquels je fonctionne depuis un certain temps, et c’est tout ça qui me motive dans mon travail (et pas seulement avec les portfolios numériques).

2. Réunir des personnes pour apprendre nécessite une ambiance de confiance - une ambiance où l’on peut se permettre de prendre des risques, de se laisser aller. Une foule de petits détails contribue à sa mise en place : le lieu, la lumière, la nourriture, une animation douce mais ferme, un formule démocratique, respect des langues des personnes, etc. Il faut créer le rire et nourrir le plaisir.