Don’t sell ice to an Eskimo

Traditional sales heroes were those who could ‘sell ice to an Eskimo’. I think the rest of us refer to them as ‘rip-off merchants’.

In the learning & development context, there are a variety of methods of delivering learning such as e-learning courses, coaching, workshops, conferences, 1:1’s and so on.

What is important is recognising that no one method of delivery is inherently better than the other. What is true is that certain learning delivery methods will be more appropriate depending on the organisation, the individuals within the organisation and the type of learning that is required.

I was out on a couple of client visits with Neil on Friday and it was clear that trying to sell e-learning to one of our clients would be as appropriate as selling ice to an Eskimo.  We might have the best e-learning courses in the world, but the culture of the organisation and the kind of people who require the learning prevent e-learning from being a suitable solution to this particular client.

Knowing our client (those to whom we deliver the learning & development, not just those who sit in on the meetings), helps us to make sure we provide the most appropriate learning solution to them. In this case we will be running small workshops which teach basic theory but provide plenty of opportunity for skill drills. That’s what they need and what will provide the best ROI for them. We won’t even attempt to sell ice to Eskimo’s.

Dimensional Learning

Picking up from The Gorv’s comment on yesterdays post I think there is more to “learning 387.0” than meets the eye.

Generally everyone loves a term, something catchy, a container that describes what’s inside in a quick, snappy phrase.

Does “learning 387.0” cut the mustard?

I quite like it.  It has a certain lovely, meaningful yet sarcastic ring to it.  Ok, so probably not quite the buzzwords we are looking for.  

Let’s have a look at learning’s journey (a bit like the title of this blog may suggest), and give it a scientific twist.

Imagine a classroom filled with pupils and a teacher at the front with a blackboard. The teacher has a set lesson plan and teaches the class by telling and showing. There is no listening from the teacher, no questioning allowed and no feedback on whether the training works or not. As an alternative the teacher could wheel in a TV and video to the front of the class, stick a tape in, press play and walk out again.  

This is one way learning.  It’s one dimensional with information only traveling outwards from the assumed subject expert.

Adding another dimension means information suddenly goes both ways in the form of questions from the students and answers from the teacher.  It may also feature tests which are an obvious and effective way of measuring learning. This is effectively 2D but as with anything 2D it’s a rather flat experience.

3D learning occurs when we have information going both ways on the 2D plane and there is a third source which is referred to from within the classroom and delivered from the outside.  Think of this as every student having a computer connected to the internet and using it as a library to support and increase the knowledge given within the class.  This form of learning has a much greater depth.

In science terms the forth dimension is all about space and time.  This is similar for learning too. 4D learning is all about the ability to bend and distort the learning experience and sometimes fold it all the way back into itself.  It’s about coming at learning from all angles.  Now in our classroom we still have our teacher and our students but the teacher isn’t the only expert in the room and they are also open to furthering their knowledge on a particular subject.  Learning here is all about sharing.  What happens in the class doesn’t stay in the class and on the outside the whole world can share, participate and add to the learning experience.  

Let’s take an example of a wiki on dog training.  The teacher kicks the wiki off by adding some core content.  The students then begin to add to the wiki maybe with what they already know, maybe with what they discover en route.  This wiki can be seen by the whole world and suddenly you have other dog handlers and trainers adding to it.  Sometimes information given can be incorrect, maybe not now but maybe in the future.  Say for example a chihuahua will always perform a trick for a juicy bone, somebody makes a note of this on the wiki and the information is shared.  Maybe in 100 years time the whole chihuahua breed has become vegetarian and that information is void but the wiki still exists.  No problem, time is bent, the wiki is adjusted and then the information is up to date again.  The beauty is that everyone who is subscribe to this wiki via RSS will be updated when a change happens so the learner is never left behind.

So you see 4D Learning is all about being user driven.  It’s about a multi-way experience which is constantly changing, evolving and responding to learners input and support.

Can you get any better than 4D Learning?  Will there be a fifth dimension?  Absolutely not.  By it’s very nature 4D Learning in itself is also constantly changing, evolving and improving.  As a result it is a term that adapts and grow as and when necessary.

This is obviously just my opinion, not news.  Is it just fluff or do we actually need a term to create hooks?  If I’m going into a client meeting with either the term “learning” or “4D learning” I know I’d have much more success with generating excitement from the latter.

Marton House’s patent for the term “4D Learning” is pending… in my mind at least.

Image from wikipedia

e-learning 2.0

The diagram you see above is taken from a post over at Learning Circuits.  In it Tony Karrer discusses the transition from e-learning 1.0 to 2.0 and demonstrates the changes.

When you look at the table you’ll notice in the middle column the heading E-Learning 1.3. Is this a half-baked bridge between 2 landmarks in e-learning history?  Actually no, moreover it’s probably the place where e-learning actually found it’s feet.  I’d also argue that LMSs didn’t really occur until this stage either, leaving e-learning 1.0 being stuck with delivery methods such as CD, which would have made it truly one way and top-down.

To be honest most e-learning is still being created at the “1.3” level, and I can assure you development time is not rapid in most cases.

The right column is the intriguing one as the ownership has flipped.  Now learning is bottom-up and learner-driven with some of the best learning coming from colleagues and peers.  In the most recent release of The Platform we deal with learning and training, with a view to getting our audience to understand the benefits of traditional and non-traditional learning.

Looking at the right column again we can see wikis, social networking, blogs, and mashups. Utilizing all these forms of learning requires a high level of interest from the learner and a deep-rooted curiosity.  We termed this form of learning as “beachcombing” and you can see a video we made all about that below.

Now after watching that video surely our minds are opening up to the possibility that all those learning tools listed under e-learning 2.0 expand much further outside of the electronic world?

Has e-learning evolved so far that we should ditch the “e” like The Gorv mentioned in his comment yesterday?

Tomorrow we’ll look at this “learning” revolution.

 

Is e-learning yesterday’s news?

Are we out of date by even mentioning the term e-learning here? Is it even necessary these days? Let’s look at the facts.

According to learning entrepreneur Jay Cross he coined the term “elearning” in 1998.

Then Blackboard Inc. were awarded a patent for the term “e-learning” in January 2006.

A web backlash against Blackboard Inc. came about shortly after and a wiki was formed which attributes e-learning to Vannevar Bush all the way back in 1945 when he wrote an article about a proposed hypertext-like machine called the Memex.

Does this mean that if we offer “e-learning” as one of our services we run the risk of infringing on a patent set by a competitor?

Elearning, e-learning, electronic learning, enhanced learning  whatever it’s called it would appear to have been around for a while now.  Does this mean elearning is an old term though?  Does the term e-learning have any place in this technologically advanced world?

Our company, Marton House is of course synonymous with the term e-learning as it is a massive part of our company offering.  Though we quite often recommend instead a blended approach to learning, with facilitators and trainers supporting the material or vice versa with the materials supporting them.

So does that mean e-learning as a stand alone product has had it’s day?  On the whole probably not as the benefits of e-learning still outstrips many more traditional approaches.  It’s cost effective, it can be simultaneously rolled out in multiple locations world wide, it can feature data and accurate result tracking which is very difficult and slow to achieve in more traditional forms of delivery, and it can replicate and simulate complex systems during the learning process which means training mistakes do not occur on live customer facing systems.

Is it evolving though?

I’m currently doing some e-learning myself in the form of learning Spanish via my Nintendo DS.  Suddenly I find myself as the student rather than the deliverer and as much as I have every belief in this game and what it can offer me on my path to speaking Spanish there is sadly one thing that is sorely lacking – the human touch.  I met up with a buen amigo of mine at the weekend who speaks Spanish and for the first time I could put the individual words I had learnt into sentences.

Having someone to quiz and bounce off is sometimes the most vital need for the learning process.

The trick to effective training and learning is all about support.

So we mix e-learning with more traditional methods of delivery and we get “blended learning”, a term that does the job but doesn’t exactly get everyone in the room jumping up and down with excitement.  It’s not a new term either.

Then we have feedback and peer learning as an extension to that approach.

So should we be pioneering a new term?  Maybe it’s just me but electronic learning does make me think of the children’s learning aid machines from the 1980’s such as Speak ‘n’ Spell and blended learning makes me think of learning how to make cocktails.

We are dangerously close to the term “e-learning 2.0” cropping up and that makes me shudder.  It’s too easy these days to strap on the term “2.0” to anything which is new but, as the evidence shows it is happening across all areas (see web 2.0, business 2.0, Jake 2.0 etc.)

Tomorrow we take a look at the journey from “e-learning 1.0” to “e-learning 2.0“.  How did we get here and how on earth did we end up versioning everything?