Guilty of Inactivity!

The day you get a break from work overload, the network decides to give you trouble! I’m not able to do any of the stuff I was supposed to do. I have a lot of catching up to do with CCK08. I have to respond to e-mails and reconnect with some friends. I want to update my blog. I want to tinker around with several of the new software I’ve been reading about. The list is endless.

Hmm…maybe what I actually need to do is to set up a scheduler for myself. In doing the things that seem to be on higher priority at work and home, I seem to be losing out on time to do things for myself. I just about manage to skim through my RSS reader everyday. On some days, I manage to clip the more interesting bits and post them. But, I feel I’m restricting as well as overwhelming myself at the same time. The most activity I do online is read. I spend all my “free” time reading and bookmarking stuff that primarily shows up on my RSS reader. So, I don’t get the time to actually put the knowledge or information I get into actual use. I don’t update my blogs as often as I’d like. I don’t comment on others’ blogs as often as I like. I don’t participate in communities as much as I’d like. (Most times, I find it’s too late to say what I want to say or that someone else has said it better.) I also don't use the strategies and tools as much as I'd like.

I know this gripe seems repetitive...I expressed similar sentiments some months ago as well. But, I have progressed a little from that state, its only that the progress could've been better and faster.

I’ve started suffering from homophily too. Instructional design and elearning are close to my heart and I absolutely love to devour write-ups about new developments in this field. But, most times I end up spending all my time online with things only related to these. In fact, even within elearning, I feel the only things we’re talking about is eLearning 2.0. Of course it is a great new development and there are many exciting things happening in it. But, I guess it’s about information overload.

In short, homophily and information overload are making me feel saturated and tired. Maybe I should take a break and consciously take out time to do stuff other than (just) reading about the same stuff again and again. We don’t use many elearning 2.0 tools at work or in the courses we develop. I’m, unfortunately, still working on projects that are modeled completely on elearning 1.0. And a change in strategy is not in my hands. But, yes I hope to be doing that soon. In fact, I’ve taken on myself the task of setting up wikis for my workplace colleagues to help in sharing knowledge and learnings from current and past projects. It’s been progressing in bits and pieces in between the regular workload, but I hope to be done with it soon. Let’s see how that goes.

Motivation Factors

A friend of mine has just joined a new office, a BPO, where she’s taking voice and accent training classes. And it seems that, most of the training is classroom training. The subject seems so apt for a good blended-learning model, I’m surprised that the organization (a pretty large one at that) has chosen to stick to the traditional model. But, what I found more interesting is that the trainer uses a version of the “reward” and “punishment” motivator. For every mistake a trainee make in class, like mispronouncing a word, using slang, etc., he/she is “charged” a fixed sum. Every error has a “fee” assigned to it depending on the gravity of the error. An account is maintained for these transactions and apparently, if the trainees complete the training successfully, the fund collected will be used to throw a party for the class.

Frankly, initially, I was skeptical about the effectiveness of this motivator. My reasons being:
The trainees are not kids or teenagers; they’re adults, most with some kind of experience in the same or similar industry. This kind of motivation is (to me) a little juvenile for the audience. In the beginning it might seem a fun thing, but I think after a point, they’d stop caring too much about it.
There are punishments for errors, but I didn’t hear about any rewards for good performance. Where’s the balancer then? We need a positive motivator too right?
If we consider the end-of-training party to be a positive motivator, well it gets more interesting. To really have a good party, the trainees should in fact make as many mistakes as possible, deliberately. Because remember, that’s how the party is being financed.

But, then when I thought about it some more, I realized that something like this would probably encourage them to follow the trainer’s guidelines at all times, irrespective of time and place. It could simply be a fun element the trainer wanted to add to the class, which also makes the trainees consciously aware of their mistakes. And that’s how most of the real-world practical learning takes place, through trial and error. If you think about what they’re trying to teach and learn- language, grammar, voice, and other spoken language issues, it seems more likely that the students would learn from their own and others’ mistakes.

What are your thoughts? Do you think this is an effective way to get the trainees involved? Or would you try something completely different?

P.S.: I wonder if the errors are pointed out only by the trainer or does the group also take note of the errors on their own. If the entire class is involved, it might work better.

eLearning Myths

Ignatia Webs: My top 5 list of agonising eLearn...
eLearning is putting text online and adding multiple choice questions!
Myths about online learning Janet Clarey
Myth: It takes less time to create an online course than a face-to-face course.

Loved these posts. They provide a great insight into some of the problems we face as e-learning professionals daily. Just about captures all of my pet peeves!

Caught My Eye Today

» Is Google Making Our E-Learning Stupid? The Rapid eLearning Blog
When people are online, they tend to look at the screen and quickly scan for information. They’re not changing that habit for your course. Structure the information so that it is easy to recognize the critical pieces.

Every time I work on a project that involves simply documenting information in text pages that seem to go on and on (yes, we have a client that wants it like that!), I wonder if the learners will really have the patience to read through it all and even if they do, how much will they retain or more importantly how much will they finally use in their workplace?
Short capsules of information such as lists, diagrams, rollovers, etc. should be an integral part of instructional design. Listing key points, for example, is a great way to capture attention and enhance retention. Even text books and other references use lists, different formatting styles etc. to call attention to important points on a page or in a topic. This will not dilute the learning if these strategies are backed up with enough detailed information. At the very least, we should give the learner the option and ways of getting more information about the relevant topics.

The Bamboo Project Blog: e-Learning 2.0: Coming...
People are READING blogs and wikis pretty regularly, but they arent commenting on or editing them. We still have a way to go with the interactive aspects of social media, which to my mind are the primary reasons for using these tools for learning.

The biggest hurdle will be to first convince organizations that these tools are in fact beneficial and maybe even essential to learning. Then, there's the need to convince people to add a few more minutes to the time they spend reading and start adding their own view points. I know I don't do much of these myself although I would love to. I've been trying to change it but the process has been slow. Something or the other always comes up that seems to be more important. I'm also a bit wary of these tools because it's very easy to get carried away and end up spending hours instead of minutes in reading and contributing because there's so much good stuff out there!

Travel to Learn

I recently came across this article in the eLearn magazine about the advantages/effectiveness of learning while traveling and it brought a flood of memories from my student days.
For one, I remember doing a lot of my assignments while traveling. (Not sure if that qualifies as learning though!)
I remember writing science journals, class assignments, et al on train rides to college. But, trains are easier to work in. My most accomplished feats were when I managed to complete engineering assignments on horrendously bumpy bus rides to college. Precariously balancing the files on your knees while trying to maintain a modicum of handwriting consistency on a peak-hour crowded bus is definitely not easy!
More importantly, the most studying I've done for almost every college exam has also probably been on my way to the college or exam center! We called it "revision" but, well, I think I retained most information from the 30-minute train/bus ride than the long days and nights of studying I did before the exams. (I think approaching deadlines do that to me. I’m more motivated if I know that the end to the misery is close by!)
I’ve also done a lot of analysis and reviews for projects when traveling. Taking printouts to read and jotting down notes on them have worked quite well for me. I’ve hit upon some really neat ideas on the train. Sometimes, a break from the usual surroundings works wonders for mental/writers’/designer’s blocks.
However, I also believe that we should not use all our traveling time or always use our traveling time for work and study. Because, for me, the travel time was also some quality “me” time. It gave me the space and the time to reflect and plan my day, my week…my life. It gave me the time to sort out things, dream, and basically just relax inspite of the crowds and the mad jostling for seats. Come to think of it, maybe that is also learning - from life.

Blogging Tool Troubles

It looks like the blogging tools have decide to boycott me!

For some reason, Technorati won’t let me join and Cocomment won’t work in my IE browser!

Technorati: First, the home page doesn’t display correctly. Second, if it try to fill out the form for signing up, it won’t allow me to enter my complete e-mail address in the Confirm e-mail address box. So, if I try to submit the form, it returns an error because the first and the second addresses don’t match! Don’t know if switching to Firefox will help, but I’m going to try that.

Cocomment: I added the extension to my IE browser. It worked fine the first day or so. After that it slowed down my browser so much that I had to disable the extension when I was working. Now, if try to enable it when I’m commenting, my browser freezer and I have to open Task Manager to close the window. Maybe it’s an issue with the amount of memory I have or maybe its once again an IE versus Firefox issue.

If Firefox doesn’t work, I guess I’ll have to give up trying to use these tools! :(

Comment Challenge: What I’ve Learned

It’s Day 7 of the Comment Challenge. I’d joined in thinking that I’ll be able to take it up and follow it through religiously. And today on Day 7, when the rest of the group is writing about what they’ve learned so far, I’ll have to admit that I’ve hardly been able to do much.

Things have been a little crazy around the office. We’ll be shifting soon to a new location and there are a lot of activities happening around it. Plus, the new project has kicked off and I’m also responsible for training new people who have joined my team. There’s so much work, I haven’t even been able to read all the new stuff showing up on my Google Reader!

Having said all that, I should say even through minimal contribution in the challenge I have learned, to my relief, that I’m not alone. The responses to my blog through this challenge have shown me that there’s a huge supportive and encouraging community out there.

I think one of the big e-learning mantras has been proved for me - you learn better through interaction. I’ve learned that I’ll build my knowledge and expertise better by sharing it with others and interacting with the online community instead of just browsing through blogs and websites. Active learning versus passive learning!

I intend to follow through all the tasks and activities that I missed in the challenge. After all, the challenge doesn’t end with this Challenge event. The real challenge is to continue improving our blogging and commenting practices in our quest to become better blog citizens long after this event is over. :)

And if you are part of The Comment Challenge remember to add the " comment08 " tag to your post.