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A Way To Work, Connect and Learn in Your Job

Many who have been following my blog, know my love of MOOCs – the connectivist kind.  Having completed many of them in the past few years, they have been instrumental in my broadening my own personal learning networks (PLN) but also giving me the confidence to use, explore, play and apply different social tools in my work.

(If you would like to know the difference between the cMOOC and the xMOOCs (like those offered by providers such as Coursera, EdX and many others), check out this short video by Dave Cormier).

All arguments aside about what constitutes a MOOC, whether it’s massive, open, online or whether it’s a course – or even questions about the lack of numbers completing MOOCs, for me, they’re moot points.

What I like to look at is its effectiveness as a medium to solve a particular business problem.

So What’s The Problem?

After my first experience of a connectivist MOOC, I immediately saw an application for cMOOCs in a corporate learning context to solve a problem that I was observing.

That problem was that many people in organisations simply do not know how to use the social and virtual tools that their workplace provide them to do their job –  instead continue to rely on email and file directories.

Before laying blame on the IT or the Learning and Development department for not providing adequate training, what becomes obvious is that simply getting people to complete systems training courses is only half the solution.  The other half is to encourage people to find out how to use the tools for their own work and context so they become more productive.

Social Learning Experience Guided Design or a cMOOC By Any Other Name

MOOC

Jane Hart used the term Social Learning  Experience Guided Design when she made a case for it to be used in workplace learning in her blog post of the same name.  In effect, it’s connectivist in nature because learning happens through creating connections and expanding the complexity and strength of networks.  It’s people learning with each other, through each other – the tools simply allow these connections to occur quicker and easier.

The beauty of the cMOOC or social learning guided experience is that you can use these same tools to create the experience that will teach people HOW they can use them in their own work.

So in effect, you are not introducing any new tools, you’re not using any costly external vendor solutions nor developing any new online learning courseware.  Also, there is no need to use learning management systems (LMS), buy new specific “MOOC-like LMSes” or create meaningless assessments.

Instead, you create experiences that allow for your people to learn how to use the tools for their own work with the ultimate performance outcome of improving their work productivity; efficiency and engagement.

So What Tools Can I Use?

As a guide, you can create a cMOOC/Social Learning Guided Design Program if your organisation has any of the following tools:

  • A webinar tool (eg Lync, Webex, GoTo Meeting, etc)
  • Intranet (eg SharePoint)
  • Social Learning Platform (any Enterprise Social Network eg Yammer, or SharePoint Communities or access to Google+ communities)

No, you don’t need your LMS here.

Repeat.  You don’t need an LMS.

What I’m Working On

Back in June 2013, I blogged about an idea I wanted to try out on a mini MOOC on Digital Literacy Skills.  At the time, I was employed with an organisation who was open to learning and trying new things and had Webex (virtual classroom and webinar tool); podcasting; SharePoint and an enterprise social networking platform called Yammer.  I created a strategy paper to outline the proposal and even sought out assistance from people across the organisation who could act as subject matter experts and community moderators for each topic, unfortunately a restructure stopped this going ahead.

Two years later,  I am now working with one client at the moment to create a connectivist MOOC. Although we will not be calling it a cMOOC, nor a Social Learning Guided Experience Design (bit of a mouthful), we are calling it the “Work, Connect and Learn Program” which is a 5 week program that will enable Engineering and Maintenance team members to be able to use the social and mobile tools effectively so that they could share their knowledge, collaborate on projects across sites and increase their social networking skills.

The program is currently in design and I will commence development over the coming weeks for the program to be rolled out in the new year in a similar format to a cMOOC structure which is a blend of real time webinars; curated resources; podcasts and activities within SharePoint communities and newsfeeds.

  • Module 0: Learn How to Learn Online:
  • Module 1: Learn How to Connect:
  • Module 2: Learn How to Network:
  • Module 3: Learn How to Collaborate Part A: Using the Social & Mobile Tools
  • Module 4: Learn How to Collaborate Part B: Applying the Tools to a Work Problem

Overall, the program will build upon the knowledge sharing, virtual collaboration and social networking to create a community of practice.

What’s It All Mean In the Grander Scale?

While working with this client, one of the things that has struck me is that I’m continually learning too and sharing what I’m learning.  Together, we are feeding ideas and possibilities then trying them out to see how it would work within the organisational context and environment.

For example, as I work from home, I do not have access to the enterprise tools such as SharePoint 2013 or Lync so that they are not as ‘second nature’ to me as to say tools like LinkedIn, Twitter or Yammer are to me.

However, as I use other social tools and platforms and I understand the various functionality that are within these social networking platforms, you can experiment and try out new ways to make the tool work for you.  Added to the fact that there are an abundant resources on Google and YouTube and scattered in forums within Yammer, LinkedIn forums and Quora, it won’t take long to find an answer.

What has become evident in this whole process is that social learning guided experience is that it need not have learning and development teams to design or develop the programs.  In effect, these can be created anytime and anywhere by anyone in the organisation who has the skills to use the tools, the curiosity to learn and apply and the drive to connect people – and this could pose a threat to learning and development teams but it need not do so unless they too are open to this as a medium for learning.

Yeah But What About the LMS?

For those who may be thinking that we need a Learning Management System to track assessments or completions, think again.  We are not measuring the learning but measuring the performance and business impact of that learning.

Ultimately the success measure of this program will be against achieving strategic objectives through:

  • Number of identified process efficiencies or cost savings through a hashtag (eg similar to #Yammerwins) – total the dollars saved for every #WCLWin
  • Increase in the number of cross-site projects
  • Decrease in the number of emails to the Senior Managers
  • Greater than 80% of all Engineers and Maintenance team members to have full Lync and SharePoint profiles
  • Greater than 80% of the team following each other
  • One new innovation identified within 6 months of the WCL Program nominated for an Innovation Award

Where Can I Learn More?

I am currently completing the 4 week Social Learning Guided Experience Design Workshop through Jane Hart’s Modern Workplace Learning and it comes highly recommended if you are interested in creating a social learning program for your organisation.

Read more about my cMOOC experiences and How I Have Applied them In My Work:

For those interested, there are many more blog posts related to “Social Learning” too. Simply enter “social learning” in the search box of my blog to pull up all the posts.

 

 

 

Comments

  2. Interesting post as always Helen and yes I know you will not be surprised by my need to comment.

    What I was initially intrigued with is that in the opening sentences you “rave” about your enjoyment of MOOCs and how effective they can be, but when you have come to design and deploy one you state:

    “Although we will not be calling it a cMOOC”

    I hazard to guess that this may be due to the “bad press” and perceptions of MOOCs. Depending on your experiences with MOOCs , this can be real or perceived. I do though agree on your approach as the last thing you want is for staff to not use this learning due to MOOCs reputation.

    You also go on to say that L&D are virtually irrelevant (my words not yours) in the MOOC space and that anyone can create them. Although I tend to agree to some extent, do you not think a true L&D professional (not the traditional ID or eLearning pro who just pushes a button), cannot add value to the MOOC design process.

    Maybe its time we moved away from our eLearning craze and focused on developing broader L&D skills that can support the design and deployment of MOOCs. Even Laura Overton in her recent masterclass based on the 2014 Towards Maturity Benchmark Report made special mention of L&D relying “too much on the technology to solve their issues” .

    Another reason learning is shying away from MOOCs is because no one in the L&D department even knows what they are. You and I know this from first hand experience. If learning does not embrace this new way of learning then as you rightly state, others can just come in and do it because MOOCs do not need any learning theory or practice to design.

    “these can be created anytime and anywhere by anyone in the organisation who has the skills to use the tools”

    Ahhh, maybe you have finally uncovered the real reason on MOOCs success (or lack of it) ???

    Maybe this is why MOOCs are not deployed as much – the lack of detailed understanding of the capability gap or the application of any professional L&D expertise to the design of MOOCs?

    Lastly, great promo for Jane’s course, although there is a very good and low cost MOOCs course on Udemy by Ryan Tracey – highly recommended and affordable.

    Keep blogging.

  5. Hello Con and many thanks for your response. I should have clarified why we’re not calling it a ‘cMOOC’ because to the audience – engineers and maintenance people – a MOOC is meaningless for them. So it nothing to do with what a MOOC is about but more about calling it something that is meaningful to my target audience. In actual fact, I didn’t think about completion rates of this program instead we focussed on how to have people contribute in the forum – so it was more about

      participation than completion. We spent some time looking at all ways to engage people and we’ve come up with solutions such as use of mobile devices for 24/7 access and the use of email alert notifications; along with showing people HOW to follow documents, conversations, tags and people. So we’re looking at ways to engage this team to use the tools in the manner that they would want to use them for their own work.

      The reason I thought that L&D may not be the instigators of this solution down the track is that I am beginning to think that as we become more sophisticated with the way we learn, connect and network that we may self-direct our own situations where we bring together people to work on problems. What’s not to say that we can’t have an engineer facilitate these connections? Or someone else? Does it HAVE to be L&D people for situations around Independent Social Learning?

      L&D can provide so many other services, roles and options around a myriad of different performance solutions. The solution I’m looking at is one solution out of many and one that focuses on independent social learning where you’re helping people to grow a network to do their job. Do I have to continually be involved in this process once they ‘get it?’ No, I don’t think I do. In Jane Hart’s model of Modern Workplace Learning, she has this role acting as an “adviser” – and again, I think an adviser can actually be anyone who has gone through the journey – not just an L&D person.

      Anyway, I believe that L&D will look very different in the future and we have to be prepared that we don’t own the ‘learning process per se’ but that we encourage others to be socially networked, active, curious and engaged regardless of what business, industry, profession – or even age.

      (I recently attended a workshop around “community learning” delivered by two 17 year olds who really challenged me in many ways. They were articulate, intelligent and brilliant in communicating their ideas to a diverse group of people. Their workshop was interactive and informative. They challenged me to think differently but I also began to think about their age and experience and started to question it because they could be actually perceived as a threat to me as they were showing how learning can happen without the formality). So does it make it wrong if they’re not part of L&D? I didn’t think so…not for the topic matter again which was all related around how to engage students to independently learn socially through “third spaces” where they are mingling, learning and connecting with a variety of people.

  13. Nice project, nice idea also the voice. May I beg a slower rythm of reading 🙂 When listening we can’t pause to digest what was just said as we do while reading. Also English is not my first language so listening requires attention not available for understanding.

    Project wise I think there are plenty of interesting ideas expressed here on the role of learning and IDs. I think also that as the Knwoledge life cycle shorten, social learning ramping up the role of designed learning will diminish. With the help of seasonned IDs actig a coach it should be possible to make more knowledge directly digestible from peer to peer. I like also how you pick techniques in the KM field to find a match between the Knowledge to share and the way to share it. Would be nice that some tweeps from KM visit your blog. I hope we will learn more details as it progresses. May be some sneak peaks.

Trackbacks

  2. […] I am currently working with a client to design a social learning guided experience (or a cMOOC by any other name) for their engineers and maintenance staff of this beverage industry to be rolled out as a program in February 2015.  You can read more about the introduction to this program in my previous blog post A Way to Work, Connect and Learn In Your Job. […]

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