Better Conferences

The post / poll / discussion around having better conferences continues to grow. There are quite a few really good comments and the trackbacks from the post are really quite good. Discussion of Wifi issues at conferences, George Siemens lamenting about ED-MEDIA 2007, Jay Cross and Karl Kapp calling for an unconference in Monterey - and my suggestion to colocate with the eLearningGuild in Santa Clara/San Jose, a question of whether virtual conferences are better, and more. Great stuff.

Great Quote

In times of profound change, the learners inherit the earth, while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists.

Al Rogers

Diversity in Blogosphere?

I've run into the question of how diverse the voices are in the blogosphere before. In Blogs vs Discussion Groups someone said that blogs - “felt so … old white guys club." Janet Clarey's - Women’s Voices in the Edublogosphere points out that we have to think about who the women bloggers are - there are some really great women bloggers, but it would seem they are the minority.

I thought that was true in the Edublogger realm as well, but take a look at: Who’s Coming to Dinner - Survey Says! which suggests that there's actually better gender diversity than I thought - but not very good racial diversity.

Still when we get together for Beer Tasting at ASTD TechKnowledge, Boston, Beer - Bloggers - Learn.com - it is definitely still feeling like a lot of middle age white guys.

Oh, and it's definitely middle aged NOT OLD.

Needed Skills for New Media

George Siemens post pointed me to Henry Jenkins New media literacies and indirectly to a white paper that provided the following list of needed skills for new media literacy:

• Play — the capacity to experiment with one’s surroundings as a form of problem-solving
• Performance — the ability to adopt alternative identities for the purpose of improvisation and discovery
• Simulation — the ability to interpret and construct dynamic models of real-world processes
• Appropriation — the ability to meaningfully sample and remix media content
• Multitasking — the ability to scan one’s environment and shift focus as needed to salient details.
• Distributed Cognition — the ability to interact meaningfully with tools that expand mental capacities
• Collective Intelligence — the ability to pool knowledge and compare notes with others toward a common goal
• Judgment — the ability to evaluate the reliability and credibility of different information sources
• Transmedia Navigation — the ability to follow the flow of stories and information across multiple modalities
• Networking — the ability to search for, synthesize, and disseminate information
• Negotiation — the ability to travel across diverse communities, discerning and respecting multiple perspectives, and grasping and following alternative norms.

I saw Henry Jenkins speak at the eLearningGuild's Annual Gathering and I must confess that I was a bit critical. Henry was great at introducing the concepts of participatory culture - but he didn't really get into the implications of what this meant for all of us. So, I am very glad that George pointed me back here, because this gets into exactly what I was hoping for from him.

While Henry focuses primarily on students, the question is really important to all of us. In other words, in a world with Wikipedia, blogs, social networking, etc. - not to mention in a world of Google as the interface to knowledge - what new skills, techniques and tools do we need?

In looking at similar skills but with a slant towards the skills that knowledge workers need, I might rephrase them into the following list:

• Work Integration — the ability to leverage social media and personal learning as part of problem solving
  
• Meta-Learning — the ability to look at your own work and learning processes to continuously identify improvement opportunities
• Simulation — the ability to interpret and construct dynamic models of real-world processes
• Appropriation — the ability to meaningfully sample and remix content as part of work and learning
• Scanning — the ability to quickly scan from a wide variety of sources, to focus on salient details in order to maintain a broad picture and also to focus as needed to salient details.
• Distributed Cognition — the ability to interact meaningfully with tools that expand mental capacities
• Collective Intelligence — the ability to pool knowledge and compare notes with others toward a common goal
• Judgment — the ability to evaluate the reliability and credibility of different information sources
• Transmedia Navigation — the ability to follow the flow of information and conversation across multiple modalities
• Networking Building — the ability to build a network of people who can help with a wide variety of needs
• Network Access - the ability to quickly access your network for a variety of different kinds of needs in different ways using different tools
• Negotiation — the ability to travel across diverse communities, discerning and respecting multiple perspectives, and grasping and following alternative norms.
• Knowledge Work - the ability to search for, synthesize, and disseminate information as part of work processes that captures personal value, builds network, and collects appropriate feedback

Would it be fair to say that we have a responsibility to build these skills in ourselves? And help build these skills in others?

Isn't this what eLearning 2.0 is all about?

Leading a Horse to a Fire Hose ...

From a post - Professional Cat Herder -

In my line of work, corporate training, I have seen this first hand several times. Management scratching their heads because people aren’t taking advantage of the resources that are available. We have all heard the saying, “You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make them drink.” We just haven’t done a good job of telling the horse that it is hot and drinking now will prevent thirst in the immediate future. Its not the horse’s fault for not knowing this, its ours for not sharing this information.

I think this is something that we've all seen and lived. But this is becoming more and more challenging of an issue. As Harold Jarche just pointed to in his blog - Learning 2.0 Value Chain -

Reward attention, because it’s everything on the Web

Attention is a big issue. There is a fire hose full of information available to everyone today and we all think our part of the fire hose is important. So we can lead the horse to the fire hose, but should we expect them to drink it all? And can we really say that the information we are providing is particularly important? And is it important right now? Or should it be available in the minimum about just when they need it as a reference? And how would they find it at that point? Oh, and keep in mind that they won't find it through the LMS?

It's a funny change that's going on ... quite a change of mind set - of course, it's hard to break habits. I find myself grappling with this all the time. In the messages in this blog and in my speaking about the importance of building new learning and work skills - growing personal work and learning environments - etc - should I expect to get some attention? Should I expect to get some change of behavior? Or is this a futile effort that's a small part of the fire hose that is a nice to have in a world of have-to-have only?