Digital Dialogues

The learning versus technology disconnect

There is an increasing disconnect between learners - students or workers - and their technology expectations.
Most people expect (and some - Gen Ys - often demand) to be able to use the same applications they have access to at home, in their workplace or educational institution.
Janet Clarey - from Brandon Hall research - sums it up rather neatly in this slide show:

Meet Charlene

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: learning 2.0)

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not advocating opening up the flood gates, but there are many ways we can integrate social software applications behind the firewalls that don't compromise the organisational security.

As educators, we need to responsibly address this disconnect - are our learning strategies meeting the learners expectations?
I heard someone reply to this the other day (they shall remain nameless for their own security): "It doesn't matter what the learners want - they wouldn't know what was good learning anyway!"
This type of response is a frightening position to be taking, in an economic climate that is seeing learning and development budgets being slashed, training being put on hold, and learners experiencing a disconnect... I fear for the future of relevance of learning in organisations and institutions if we continue to ignore the changes in society.

I've created a discussion forum about this issue over at the Learning Technologies 2008 conference Ning - drop by if you'd like to join the conversations - you don't have to be attending the conference to join in!

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Social Software Executive Mentoring

At Headshift Australia we've launched a new initiative: Social Software Executive Mentoring.
The concept was informed by the number of requests from learning and development practitioners who wanted to extend their knowledge about learning strategies with social software, had specific workplace contextual needs, and wanted to learn more - but in a less structured way than offered by participation in a structured course or workshop session.

The program is designed for small groups of executives (no more than 5), who will collaborate and share their experiences and strategies - gaining knowledge and confidence from within the group.

Each participant (mentoree) will negotiate their learning outcomes - based on an individual working on a project that is relevant to their business context.

The program schedule covers a 12 week period, with weekly synchronous contact sessions and asynchronous exchanges in-between.

The technology platform we're using will enable ongoing collaboration between all group members (including the mentor, of course)  builds an architecture of participation, that will form the basis of the mentoree's final outcomes. A process of critical reflection will be embedded in the weekly activities, designed to encourage the mentoree to analyse their research and consider application within their specified context.

The focus of the program is to not only provide guidance to the mentoree in their identified field of research, but also to facilitate transfer of knowledge to their workplace context embedded in a social learning landscape.

If you'd like more information, or to join a program, contact me: annebb <at> headshift. com

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