Thursday
Jun282007
455 - Flight Cancellations, Design Changes; Books - Volunteers Wanted; Leaving Class Responses
June 28, 2007
Learning TRENDS by Elliott Masie - June 28, 2007.
#455 - Updates on Learning, Business & Technology.
53,607 Readers - http://www.masie.com - The MASIE Center.
Host of Learning 2007 - Oct 21-24 - Orlando, Florida, USA
1. Flight Cancellations...Learning Design Changes?
2. Results of "Leaving Class When You Get It" Question.
3. Books - Volunteers Requested!
1. Flight Cancels...Learning Design Changes? I should be writing this from Minnesota but instead I am in New York City today. Yesterday, after two hours in a plane on the runway, with no water and little air conditioning, they canceled my flight to Minnesota (as well as every other flight that day).
So, with almost 50 members of our Learning CONSORTIUM coming to a Regional session, what to do? Here is a profile of how our Plan B worked:
* Quickly arranged to have Target, which was hosting the meeting, add a conference phone to the room.
* Did a video conference from the room system in my NYC apartment to our office in Saratoga, to create three 5 to 10 minute content chunks. I made these high energy and focused on the key issues that we were going to discuss.
* My staff turned the video into MPEG high resolution files and put them on the server, so that they could be viewed this next morning in the Target meeting room.
* One of the TARGET team volunteered to be the in-room facilitator and keep the conversation going.
* I came in live by phone, asked for key segments to be played and gave the group instructions to process the content in small 2 and 3 person groups. Yes, they listened to a voice over the phone asking them to stand up, walk to another table and spend 7 minutes talking to new colleagues about Learning Changes!
Result: It worked! While it wasn't the same as being there, we had a high energy and very interactive session. The key is to always have a Plan B in your head and to design "continuity" into your learning design. The Blended Learning approach of using live audio and asynchronous video in small chunks ... along with a local facilitator kept the energy and spirit up during the session.
Oh, and it helps to bring your own big bottle of water on to the airplane when you travel. You might be sitting there for a while in these busy travel months.
2. Results of "Leaving Class When You Get It" Question: A few weeks ago, I asked TRENDS readers to react to an interesting idea: Could you imagine a way in which learners left the classroom as soon as they hit "competency", allowing the instructor to concentrate on the remaining students? This was suggested by a colleague from the army in Israel. We got a slew of answers, with a range of concern and excitement about this type of design change. Read a summary of some of these comments at:
http://www.masieweb.com/early
3. Books - Volunteers Requested! In the age of PodCasts, e-Learning and Fingertip Knowledge, there is still a great roll for the reading of books.
At our Learning 2007 event (Oct 21 to 24 - Orlando) we are putting a great focus on BOOKS as learning tools. We will have key sessions led by authors including Dan Pink (A Whole New Mind), Don Tapscott (Wikinomics) and others.
But, we want to address another 20 great business and learning books. So, we are soliciting volunteers who will lead a Book Club session on a key book that you think would be of interest/value to learning professionals.
We'll post a selection of these books, even get some dialogue going on-line prior to the event, and then gather folks who have read this book for Learning Book Club conversations. If you would like to volunteer, please send me a note to emasie@masie.com
Upcoming MASIE Center Events:
* Learning 2007: Oct 21 to 24 - Orlando, Florida.
* Learning Leaders Academy: July 22 to 25 - Saratoga Springs.
* Performance Support LAB: Sept 10 to 12 - Saratoga Springs.
* Membership in our Learning CONSORTIUM.
Information at http://www.masie.com
Email for Elliott to emasie@masie.com
#455 - Updates on Learning, Business & Technology.
53,607 Readers - http://www.masie.com - The MASIE Center.
Host of Learning 2007 - Oct 21-24 - Orlando, Florida, USA
1. Flight Cancellations...Learning Design Changes?
2. Results of "Leaving Class When You Get It" Question.
3. Books - Volunteers Requested!
1. Flight Cancels...Learning Design Changes? I should be writing this from Minnesota but instead I am in New York City today. Yesterday, after two hours in a plane on the runway, with no water and little air conditioning, they canceled my flight to Minnesota (as well as every other flight that day).
So, with almost 50 members of our Learning CONSORTIUM coming to a Regional session, what to do? Here is a profile of how our Plan B worked:
* Quickly arranged to have Target, which was hosting the meeting, add a conference phone to the room.
* Did a video conference from the room system in my NYC apartment to our office in Saratoga, to create three 5 to 10 minute content chunks. I made these high energy and focused on the key issues that we were going to discuss.
* My staff turned the video into MPEG high resolution files and put them on the server, so that they could be viewed this next morning in the Target meeting room.
* One of the TARGET team volunteered to be the in-room facilitator and keep the conversation going.
* I came in live by phone, asked for key segments to be played and gave the group instructions to process the content in small 2 and 3 person groups. Yes, they listened to a voice over the phone asking them to stand up, walk to another table and spend 7 minutes talking to new colleagues about Learning Changes!
Result: It worked! While it wasn't the same as being there, we had a high energy and very interactive session. The key is to always have a Plan B in your head and to design "continuity" into your learning design. The Blended Learning approach of using live audio and asynchronous video in small chunks ... along with a local facilitator kept the energy and spirit up during the session.
Oh, and it helps to bring your own big bottle of water on to the airplane when you travel. You might be sitting there for a while in these busy travel months.
2. Results of "Leaving Class When You Get It" Question: A few weeks ago, I asked TRENDS readers to react to an interesting idea: Could you imagine a way in which learners left the classroom as soon as they hit "competency", allowing the instructor to concentrate on the remaining students? This was suggested by a colleague from the army in Israel. We got a slew of answers, with a range of concern and excitement about this type of design change. Read a summary of some of these comments at:
http://www.masieweb.com/early
3. Books - Volunteers Requested! In the age of PodCasts, e-Learning and Fingertip Knowledge, there is still a great roll for the reading of books.
At our Learning 2007 event (Oct 21 to 24 - Orlando) we are putting a great focus on BOOKS as learning tools. We will have key sessions led by authors including Dan Pink (A Whole New Mind), Don Tapscott (Wikinomics) and others.
But, we want to address another 20 great business and learning books. So, we are soliciting volunteers who will lead a Book Club session on a key book that you think would be of interest/value to learning professionals.
We'll post a selection of these books, even get some dialogue going on-line prior to the event, and then gather folks who have read this book for Learning Book Club conversations. If you would like to volunteer, please send me a note to emasie@masie.com
Upcoming MASIE Center Events:
* Learning 2007: Oct 21 to 24 - Orlando, Florida.
* Learning Leaders Academy: July 22 to 25 - Saratoga Springs.
* Performance Support LAB: Sept 10 to 12 - Saratoga Springs.
* Membership in our Learning CONSORTIUM.
Information at http://www.masie.com
Email for Elliott to emasie@masie.com
Reader Comments