L&T blog: About learning, training and technology at ITC-ILO

Liberating Structures

Tom Wambeke — Fri, 03 May 2013 16:22:26 +0000

From 12-13 March 2013, colleagues from all units of the International Training Centre of the ILO came together to strategize on how to best “deliver as one” in responding to the latest challenges and opportunities in the world of decent work and sustainable development. Using the knowledge sharing methodologies we regularly apply in designing training activities for partners and constituents, we engaged in substantive discussions about future directions of the Centre and proposed bold new topics for training activities to stay ahead of the curve. Working with consultants from “Liberating Structures,” we also enjoyed the opportunity to update and refresh our repertoire of knowledge sharing methodologies. Watch the video to learn more.

Haley Horan

Filed under: facilitation, innovation, knowledge sharing, learning and training Tagged: liberating structures

The world of webinars

Tom Wambeke — Sat, 26 Jan 2013 15:00:22 +0000

Webinars (or web-conferences) are in nowadays. It’s a good and cost-effective alternative when face-to-face meetings are just not possible. The amount of webinar software hence is also growing. Who of you had not the possibility to try one of the following technologies (Web-Ex, Adobe Connect, Wiziq, Go-to-Meeting, Elluminate, . They all share a common set of features that enrich the entire on-line presentation and knowledge sharing experience. The presenter shares the slideshow, streams video’s, engages with participants through live text chat, sets up polls, invites the participants to discuss through raising hands and asks them to take note on the shared whiteboard, uploads documents that support the lecture or discussion and finally records the entire meeting to be shared for those who could not make it. If the technology is out there, including a diverse set of interesting functionalities to interact with your audience, why are there still so many webinars out there that are not engaging enough?

First of all the same can be said of traditional face-to-face meetings. But more specifically to webinars we can see that adding pedagogical value to the webinar not only requires understanding the technology but also more specifically adapted webinar didactics.

ITC-ILO has been launching a series of webinars now with partners at the ILO and UNHCR and will collect for you a series of interesting articles that might give you additional ideas on how to set up engaging webinars: (Feel free to add yours)

Article 1: How to conduct engaging webinars
Article 2: Webinars. Learning Solutions magazine. Beginner guides. Part A and Part B.
Article 3: Conducting a webinar
Article 4: Facilitation techniques to lead effective online webinars.
Article 5 How to create and run winning webinar series

and last but not least these webinar templates.

ITC-ILO is currently delivering tailor-made “How to set up engaging webinar series” for interested groups and institutions. (Feel free to us at delta@itcilo.org ). For participants that are looking for an open, longer certified webinar programme we can refer to ASTD’s offer on Facilitating synchronous Learning programme.

Filed under: webinars Tagged: didactics, engaging webinars, pedagogy, webconferencing, webinars

Human centered learning design

Tom Wambeke — Sun, 28 Oct 2012 11:46:46 +0000

Organizations, institutions and businesses have applied human centered design to find innovative solutions to problems and challenges. Why not apply these principles and methods to the world of learning and training? The HCD toolkit, developed by IDEO might be a good starting point as it walks you through the entire human-centered design process that according to IDEO will support you in activities such as building listening skills, running workshops, and implementing ideas.

To view the toolkit throughout a learning lens is the challenge that we are currently undertaking. We just selected some of the questions that we would like to submit to the IDEO innovative design perspective:

Can we

- bring radical innovation into learning?
- better understand and capture the needs from our learners?
- find alternative methods for monitoring and evaluating learning?
- diversify the set of learning and knowledge sharing methodologies that we are currently using?
- explore whether training is the adequate solution for some of the needs that we identify?

Any other questions you would like to explore? We will keep you updated on the answers we encounter.

Filed under: innovation, tools for learning Tagged: design, ideo, innovation, toolkit

Visual narratives to learn from

Tom Wambeke — Tue, 21 Aug 2012 13:46:27 +0000

Visual recordings of presentations in a narrative way through highlighting key ideas visually is a very interesting way of packaging content. RSA animate is succeeding quite well in this. We selected a series of video’s related to learning and training. Some of them already featured in this blog, others are new. If you get inspired, start to record your own presentations visually with your Ipad.

The surprising truth about what motivates us

The power of networks

Changing education paradigms

The divided brain

Filed under: instructional video, learning and training, Uncategorized Tagged: infographics, recording, storytelling, visual, visualization

Free audiovisual learning opportunities

Tom Wambeke — Sun, 13 May 2012 19:13:11 +0000

The open and free audiovisual opportunities to learn are growing exponentially on the internet. After already two posts about this topic we would like to share some more interesting tips and links with you:

- After several years of TED lectures there is a fantastic inventory of 1204 lectures which is made available here.

- The global classroom of the Khan Academy is reaching currently more than 3200 video’s with lessons and exercises.

- The Udacity university with professors from Stanford is also expanding in open courses integrating didactic sets of learning resources.

- Academic Earth is steadily growing in its offer and is combing lectures from different top universities

- The University of the People is the last one in line we want to mention with the objective to democratize education.

Any other interesting examples?

Filed under: instructional video, learning and training Tagged: audiovisual, learning, open, video

learning about scenario planning and thinking

Tom Wambeke — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 09:11:06 +0000

To learn about the future and to see what kind of patterns and trends will affect your strategy it is always useful to rely on scenario planning. A scenario is basically a story that describes a potential future. For learning professionals it can be a powerful method to learn about the possible driving forces that will affect our world so that we can incorporate them in our future learning strategies. The development of a scenario entails a collaborate process, the creation of a common language and specific tools that can bring people from different backgrounds together. Jisc Infonet puts it as following:

Scenarios provide alternative views of the future. They identify some significant events, main actors and their motivations, and they convey how the world functions. Building and using scenarios can help us explore what the future might look like and the likely changes of living in it.

At Online Educa last year DELTA participated in a learning scenario planning exercise with Hans De Zwart and Willem Manders. During this meeting we mapped out the (corporate) learning environment, the important actors and the driving forces which gave us a solid base to map out different scenarios. Click here for an overview of the used scenario methodology.

The organisers of the workshop have already produced a video where you will see a glimpse of the results of the scenario planning exercise.

For DELTA this exercise was an enrichment in terms of using the scenario methodology as a facilitation method in our strategy workshops. We are currently collecting more background information about the methodology in order to transform it into a easy step by step instructional sheet on how to apply scenario s in your workshops and learning events. Feel free to provide us with additional background links. This is what we have so far:

What is scenario planning?
http://www.jiscinfonet.ac.uk/tools/scenario-planning

Scenario planning resources
http://www.well.com/~mb/scenario_planning/

How to build scenario’s (wired)
http://www.wired.com/wired/scenarios/build.html

Scenariothinking.org
http://scenariothinking.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

Scenario’s : An explorer guide
http://www.shell.com/home/content/aboutshell/our_strategy/shell_global_scenarios/scenarios_explorers_guide/

Learning Scenario’s
http://learningscenarios.org/

Filed under: innovation Tagged: future, scenario, scenario method, scenario planning

Linking with Learning Professionals. Article one: Linkedin

Tom Wambeke — Sun, 04 Mar 2012 09:52:43 +0000

Social networks are growing and the labyrinth of social media tools and networks is not always easy to oversee, let be the added value what you can get out of these networks. Therefore we will on a regular base zoom in on some of the specific tools and reflect together with you what the added value could be for learning and training professionals. The first one to kick of the series is Linkedin. For those who want a simple explanation about the tool we refer to the In Plain English series

What would be the real added value of Linkedin for learning professionals and institutions? To kickstart this brainstorming session we would like to invite you to read two articles and extract there all possible tips for learning professionals.
10 ways to use Linkedin
Smart ways to use Linkedin
With the background of these two articles in mind we found 10 interesting hings that any ITC-ILO learning professional could engage in:

- the entire staff and resource persons have an updated profile on Linkedin that could serve as yellow pages and reflect quite well what kind of internal expertise is available in the organisation
- all learning events are activated as Linkedin events since they automatically circulate to your professional network and the networks of your networks
- subject matter specialists can engage in technical questions and answer sessions in order to become a recognized expert in a particular field
- be active in thematic and network specific linkedin groups because some professional interest groups really make the difference
- ask advice because the chance that the collective intelligence in your entire network provide you with some good answers is very real
- benchmark with similar institutions and track their Linkedin activity, it might give you inspiration for yours
- ask the resource persons that act in your course/activity to provide you with their Linkedin profile, do the same with your participants (it might be a useful icebreaker)
- post job opportunities, internship possibilities and other available assignments out there
- having consistent links with your insititutional webpage will lead automatically to increased pageranks
- Make sure your company profile is up to date. It will also give you interesting information about the people who follow you

What other arguments could you think of?

Filed under: networks Tagged: learning professionals, linkedin, network, social networks

the art of knowledge exchange

Tom Wambeke — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 14:50:30 +0000

In a training institution more and more activities move beyond the traditional cycle of delivering courses. Learning and training gets closely connected with knowledge sharing and the larger domain of knowledge management. We will take this aspect into account and feed this blog also from this knowledge angle. Two elements that might be of interest for you:

- ITC-ILO is launching its first knowledge lab:”From Knowledge Management to knowledge sharing“. A workshop that will walk you through the entire knowledge management cycle address all the necessary tools and techniques to share organisational knowledge in an efficient and effective manner. More information and registration available on this link.

- The World Bank Institute published recently : “The art of knowledge exchange“. A step-by-step guide for practitioners with methodological insights on how to set up and manage knowledge exchange activities such as study visists, peer reviews, communities of practice, dialogues and conferences. Download the publication here.

Any other knowledge sharing link, publication or event more than welcome !

Filed under: capacity development, knowledge sharing Tagged: KM, knowledge management, knowledge sharing

Blogging in 2012

Tom Wambeke — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 12:53:08 +0000

At the start of the new year we want to share with you the annual visitor’s report of this blog about learning and technology. It is available here : http://itcilo.wordpress.com/2011/annual-report/ . After 3 years, almost 60.000 visits and about 100 published articles it’s time to review, upgrade and innovate this knowledge sharing blog. Below you will a word cloud of key concepts that were addressed in the last three years of writing.

What could we change ?

Some ideas and suggestions:

- more interviews with external experts in learning, training and knowledge sharing.

- continue with live blogging at important learning events to make the information and knowledge accessible.

- asking more questions to you, the reader, in order to capture more user-generated knowledge that will feed this blog.

- backing up our technological articles with more how-to guides and instructions.

- continue to review interesting articles and books in this specific knowledge domain.

- more reflections, lists, polls, …

What else would you suggest? Ideas welcome !

Filed under: knowledge sharing, learning and training, news Tagged: blog, cloud, reflections, statistics, visual

Introduction to E-learning Methodologies

Tom Wambeke — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 17:42:02 +0000

FAO recently published it’s “E-Learning Methodologies” publication which serves as a guide for designing and developing e-learning courses. More and more it becomes important to focus beyond the mere technological side and understand the importance of instructional design and related processes that are crucial when you want to start with e-learning. The current e-learning debate is still heavily dominated by the choice of tools and technologies.This guide is a good counter recipe that shows you from the methodological side how to go about designing an e-learning course, how to create interactive content and how to manage and evaluate your e-learning activities. Recommended for everybody who is about to start with e-learning in his or her institution. Not only a good overview of the entire instructional cycle but also practical models for content creation, delivery and evaluation. One remaining question: “When is FAO launching an interactive e-learning module about the content which is available in this guide”?

If you know of more similar guides that focus on “starting with E-Learning” feel free to add them in the comment section.

E-Learning by Design
http://www.learningsolutionsmag.com/articles/794/book-review-e-learning-by-design-2nd-edition-by-william-horton

Getting Started with E-Learning. Be-ODl
http://www.be-odl.org/images/beodl/pdf/elearning_getting_started_EN.pdf

Filed under: distance education, e-learning, facilitation Tagged: distance learning, e-learning, FAO, technology enhanced learning