Five ways to find context in training

I heard it recently said that learning is not about the content, but the conversation. I understand the sentiment, but think it misses the point. Learning is about context. The content and the conversation are but parts of this. The best of content delivered to in a format that is unable to be interpreted by its receiver is useless. Likewise a fantastic conversation can be had with out a scarric of useful information changing hands.

To say that learning is about the conversation is to confuse the medium with end goal, learning. It comes back to the idea of right place, right person, right time, right information and right tools. There are many different things to get right for the learner to be engaged and for real learning to take place. Valuable learning occurs with the information being given has relevance and meaning to the one it is being given. The context of the overall learning scenario determines how a learner is connected to learning they are attempting to embark upon. Below I look at 5 ways to find the context of learning environment and how to connect to your learners when training.

Avoid Assumption

I’ve always loved the saying, “Never assume anything. It makes an ass out of u & me!” and it is true. Unfortunately, like most people, it is one I can very easily fall foul to.

The easiest way to have meaningless conversations and provide ineffective training is to be on a completely different wavelength to the people with which you are trying to communicate. Nothing makes this quite so easy as assuming that I know where the person is coming from. It makes it too easy to sprout information, and provide a whole heap of advice that completely misses the mark at best or totally confuses and agitates at worst. One sure fire way to alienate a person is to have them think you are not listening or understanding their needs. Assumption will mean you miss the context of the training everytime be it f2f, online or distance training.

One of the common misassumptions is that current school leaders are computer literate and completely at home on the Internet and by extension should be completely able to operate in the online world. It simply is not true. Most will know how to check their facebook and send an email. They will probably be able to send and receive MMS messages. They will likely be under the assumption that Google knows all. However, you will also find kids that can’t turn on a computer. That wouldn’t know how to use the Internet. Kids that still can’t read properly and have trouble with writing. That are happy working on an engine or helping care for a sick person, but would  happily condemn all computers to be thrown by trebuchets. Engaging these people online would probably be disastrous and the context of their situation will determine how we learn together. Stopping to check your assumptions saves a great deal of angst for all.

Make assumptions at your own peril.

Find the right time

Sometimes this very much defined for you, especially in a face to face institutional environment where classes are 2-4 on Thursdays. In the workplace or in a flexible environment – online or otherwise – there is more scope for movement. There will be certain times during the days and weeks you can engage the learners fully and others that just won’t work. Finding what works for you and them will be part of the negotiations. For road transport workers, you may find that after hours on a Wednesday works, but certain days are shot because everybody is in every direction. Mondays and Fridays in an office can be a bad time to engage someone as the pressure of starting a new week or ending it with all tasks completed will drive the concentration from the minds of those you wish to train.

In every case it will be slightly different and the only way to find what works is to open the lines of communication and be aware of your students actions and what they are telling you. When you pick the right time, the learner will be alert and ready to engage with where they are about to travel. Sometimes though, there is no right time. In these cases any time is right and making it work will be about separating the individual from the rest of their environment for the period of the learning sessions. In these cases you as a trainer may need to take the lead.

Finding the right time is about what works and when it works.  Be flexible and alert to your learners and you will find it.

Find the right medium

What works best with the student for them to learn. If a student learns better face to face, classes or group sessions may work best. If the learner is time poor and wishes to study from home a distance or blended model might be better for them. Even further if they are studying at home, the might want to operate online or feel more comfortable with paper. Finding the right tool for the job is about removing barriers to learning and empowering a person to learn in their way that suits them.

But what tool should I use? There may be dozens of tools that work for the situation and and example is online conferencing: four fantastic web conferencing tools are Elluminate, Wimba, DimDim and Adobe Connect. They all do approximately the same thing. They look a little different and have different pricing models and structures, but when push comes to shove they all work. The question becomes not what works, but which is going to work best for me and my student. It may even be a case of use whichever is your preference and if that doesn’t work move onto to another tool. There are no right answers here.

The big trick to finding the right tools for the job are to use the ones you have at hand. If they don’t work, don’t clasp them tight. Find another tool that works. If text chat isn’t working, use Skype or VOIP and if that doesn’t work pick up the phone. The tools to use are the ones that work.

Bring the right information and know when to bring others into the conversation

Your learner knows what they want to learn and in most case you will know what they will need to learn. The best thing you can do is prepare adequately and be ready to give of what you have. The old adage of preparation being the most important thing you can do still holds true in the modern training environment. The most flexible trainers are those prepared for most eventualities. Prepare early and move as you need to when your train. Your learners will be better for it.

It goes without saying that one person can’t know everything. You will have gaps in your knowledge, and if you don’t you are not human. When you hit something that you can’t answer, bring in the help you need to address the issue. Most successful people aim to surround themselves with smarter people then they are, why should trainers be any different? Hubris is the fortitude of the week and humbleness the refuge of the strong. Admitting to a knowledge gap doesn’t diminish a person, nothing robs credibility faster than trying to bluff through a topic you know little about. Finding the right person or information for a student when they need it, even if that person isn’t you, increases your connection to the learner and meets them where they need to be met.

Listen

It’s been said that we have two ears and one mouth and we should use them in that ratio. Funnily enough in training one of the hardest things to learn is when to shut the one tool we are used to using. One of the things I’ve observed is that the most effective trainers help learners train, tutor and teach each other. The knack they have is hearing exactly what they are being asked then drawing it out of those around them. Context is gained from the  subtext of the conversation. Reading between the lines and finding the story behind the questions.

One of the most effective tools here is the art of reflective listening. For the uninitiated reflective listening is where you reflect your learners statements back to them slightly paraphrased to determine that you understand what they are saying eg “So you mean…” or “He made you feel…” You can then employ a series of questions to get the learner thinking in the right direction or to find the heart of the matter and address the real questions being asked. Finding the real context of the conversation helps you as a trainer connect with your learners and help them make real behaviour change.

Admittedly the context might be “I’m confused and what you are saying doesn’t make much sense to me”, listening and obtaining feed back from your learners will help you find when you’ve got it right, got it wrong and when it is time to move the conversation along.

Finally…

We’ve moved from the teacher centric model of past, where an esteemed wise man stood on an elevated platform and espoused the wisdom he held. The main problem with throwing information at people is most of it bounces. For a learner to engage with information and behaviour to start to change, a facilitator and trainer must meet the student where they stand now. The trainer has to find the context of where the student is coming from and fit the learning to them. In the end, a learner centric system means context is everything…

Let us know what you think, by posting your comments below.

Little moments = Big life

I and others in the tech community shared a small smile as we marked 1234567890 Day this Valentines day. For the non-geek 1234567890 was a Unix timestamp. Simply put the number of seconds elapsed since midnight Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) of January 1, 1970, not counting leap seconds, passed 1234567890 seconds last Saturday. To some this moment was a very good reason to hold a party, to others something unknown or not worth worrying about and to others still, myself included, just a reason to smile for a moment during the day. It was one of those milestones that are here for, in this case, literally a second and gone again. A point to mark time. It was a little moment.

The thing we can get wrong is that even if something is a little moment, it doesn’t necessarily mean a non-significant moment. The big moments that we define our lives by are hard to miss. A graduation, a birth of a child, a wedding, the death of a loved one, a car accident or  the loss of a significant relationship are all great contenders for the title. They are moments that can significantly alter the course that we are running. The big moments are often associated with times of great emotion, good or bad, or stress and anxiety and we can call them to mind without hesitation.  Because they are so vivid and strong in our memories we attribute all sorts of decissions and actions to them. We forget about all the little steps that can bring us to that point.

I’d say a better indicator of how we define ourselves is the sum the little moments you have. The moments of quiet reflection or the small times that are shared with others; The hug of a child that melts your heart; The shared commiseration at the loss of your home sporting team; Or the quiet satisfaction of a job well done when you complete a difficult task. We may have only a few watershed events in our lives, but the small course alterations happen all the time. And whilst the big stuff tends not to be forgotten and the keepsakes most times easy to find, the small stuff gets lost along the way.

The question is: “How to we capture these little moments?” The answers of a generation ago was keep a diary, scrapbook, write a letter to a friend or keep a stack of a couple of thousand photos somewhere in a drawer. Some of the most usefull insights to a bygone era are from these simple tools, kept by normal everyday people. And yet in the rush of our lives, which seem to have become so full, we struggle to find the time and the discipline to maintain our own journals of this life. Diaries are lost or unused, and photos become lost on computer hard drives and CDs floating around home. Even an errant computer virus can destroy our keepsakes forever.

The recent explosion of social networking phenomona has suddenly provided us with a whole new suite of ways to record the little moments. Arguably one of the reasons these sites are so popular is they enable us to share the little moments and thoughts of our lives with each other. Funny as it seems, I don’t mind knowing that a friend is “thinking it is too hot to sit in a classroom”, because I can identify moments I’ve thought the same. At the same time I can share photos of my children playing with a friend who I’ve not seen in person for years. My little moment is captured, shared and my world is enriched for the connection. Better still, my little moment awaits me every time I want to visit it again.

The choices of how I capture these moments are seemingly endless. I can post updates of what’s happening to me right now in microblogs or tweets through FaceBook, MySpace or Twitter. I can diarise or blog my deeper thoughts through Blogger, BlogNow or iBlog. I can store and share my photos on Flickr or Picasa. I can host my videos on YouTube or Blip.tv. I can even aggregate them all and store copies of all my certificates and important documents through an ePortfolio solution like ShowMeNow.  I can make every bit of my life an event that is recorded and available to the world. Though that’s not to say I should.

Ultimately, each of us needs to decide how we share, how much we share and what is appropriate. For instance I’d say recording a fight I had with my partner on an open forum or blog is not something I want the world to see. On an online diary that is mine and mine alone, I might. We need to be aware of what we are giving away and of the privacy settings available through the tools we use and how to use them.  Having said that, capturing my little moments and sharing them with others increases my world and enriches my journey through it.

And whilst I’ve looked at the bigger picture, I can’t but help be aware that my lifelong learning journey is also made up of the smaller moments. The things I learn, can revolutionise my worldview or enhance my skills and thoughts just a little bit. Capturing the little things, can be so important when I’m trying to demonstrate my ability to preform a certain task or do a particular job. The things I capture along the way can becomes my peronal learning journey and how I capture them my personal learning environment.  It is unique to me. It will grow with me and change and develop as I do.  The tools I use, will be the ones that work for me.

Likewise, your learning journey and how you capture it is for you to decide. What tools will you use to comprise your own personal learning environment? What will you record along the way? What should you record on the way through? How do you intend to grab it? Let us know what your learning world looks like.

Finding calm in the digital storm

It’s become cliche how much we are flooded with information. The rate at which the human race acquires knowledge is set to continue to speed up. More than one futurist has predicted that in the not too distant future the total of all knowledge will double every 30 days. Whilst futurists are not too great at some predictions, recent history seems to be bearing this one out.

Technology seems to also follow this pattern. Moore’s law is the one that get’s touted out at these points in time about computing power doubling whilst expense falls at an exponential rate. One such example is the humble mobile phone.

I still have one of the first mobile phones usable in Australia from the late eighties. It was never mine, but given to me as a trade for a new mobile phone when I managed a mobile phone shop. It is an amazing device. The battery pack is about as heavy as two standard twelve volt batteries and in its heyday lasted about 12 hours. You couldn’t of course take it out of the truck it rested in, but was nothing short technological marvel at the time it was released.

Compare this to the iPhone. Now, I don’t have an iPhone and, for the time being, I’m unlikely to acquire one. It doesn’t quite meet my needs. However it provides a stark contrast to my mobile dinosaur. You can certainly make and receive telephone calls. You can also browse the web, send/receive emails, take photos, play games and, yes, you can even breath on the screen so a fog like that of a window on a cold winter’s day forms and then write messages in the fog. You can download an app that let’s you update FaceBook, Twitter and other sites wherever you are. In fact the computing power in the phone is greater than most computers around in the seventies and eighties.

A number of us will state, “It’s a phone; I just want to make and receive calls. That’s all…” That’s fine, but another group of iPhone and Web 2.0 advocates will be saying, “Yes, but what about the richness and depth of experience you are missing out on? What about everything else you can do on the phone?” The truth of the matter is, there is no right answer and many words won’t sway you one way or the other.  This is just one example of a shift in paradigm for using technology.

 Ultimately it comes down to maintaining relevance in the shifting landscape of today. If sending and receiving calls, and maybe texting the odd person, or emailing the world is keeping you up with your peers and wider world, great! If however you are feeling like you are being left behind in the race to the future, think about moving forward. Take heart though that you are no worse off than the person who adopts every new technology with the giddy glee of a school child. The second is buffeted by the winds of the initial front of the hurricane; the first is tortured by the winds as they come back round. Both struggle to maintain equilibrium. 

The place most of us should be aiming for is that calm in the middle of the storm. And this doesn’t meaning finding relevance and sitting still. Storms move forward, as does technology. To maintain control of our lives we need to be moving forward as well.

So what can we do to find our piece of calm?

Watch the innovators. You will probably know a few of these intrepid souls. They are the people that are always watching for the next big thing. Sometimes the things they try don’t work. However, the technologies they try and then continue to use are worth watching. Generally they keep an eye on new developments and begin to find uses for things as they become established. The difference between the innovators and the technophreaks is the innovator is looking for solutions that work, not marvels that amaze.

Look at your peers and wider world. If everybody you know has a FaceBook account and you don’t, consider moving forward. A good indicator of your progress is how far ahead or behind you are compared with those around you. Look at your industry, what are the prevailing standards and how have they changed? Have you kept up with that change? What can you do now to stay in touch to those around you?

Be prepared to try new things. This more or less says it all. Life is moving forward, you should too. Take up the old challenge, ‘do something once a day that scares you’. If you haven’t tried something new for a while do so and see what works for you.

Be prepared to let things go. I once had a trainer that was permanently bonded to his overhead slides and shunned all more advanced display technology. There came a day when the projectors from his unit had all been removed or broken and no one was willing to fix them. Yet he still tried to keeps his overheads. I’d heard later that in his younger years, he’d been a really progressive teacher and was one of the keen adopters of new teaching methods and styles. Unfortunately, he’d gotten into his groove and refused to be shifted. It was a shame; he was a fantastic trainer, but so much less effective because he wouldn’t move on. The stunning moves of today will become old and dated; don’t be confined to irrelevance by not letting go of them.

Remember technology does not have to be new to be innovative and relevant. This is an interesting one. There is the quote, “There is nothing new under the sun.” and this can be true.

One piece of technology Mtraining is using to great effect are the Point Of View camera glasses. They have been around for quite some time, but they are just emerging as a fantastic tool in developing training resources. Other ideas being explored are assessments and evidence gathering using the glasses.

Another idea gaining traction is SMS’s in the classroom. Amongst a certain demographic, the phones and SMS’s are being used anyway, why not harness it? 

Take up the challenge to look around you and see new uses for existing technology. You can move yourself from the “falling behind” to the innovative very quickly.

Look at the long term. Not every bit of technology lasts. Fads come and go. Technology rises and fades. You don’t need to use everything. Pick what is going to work for you today and will likely work for you in the short to medium future. Take a longer look at things. Find what works for you.

It’s about finding the mix of relevance with a digital world and not being buffeted and blown by every new technology that arises.

In the end, our peace of calm in the digital storm is different for all of us. Ask yourself a few questions: Am I relevant to my world? What technology and ideas am I hanging onto that I need to let go of? What are the innovators in my industry doing? What are the people around me doing? What technologies am I not using that I could and should use? Where are we going next? What technologies do I see lasting? What do I need to do now to move forward today?

What do you think?