We are doing this post a bit differently. We present a short interview with Vikas Joshi, the primary author of this blog, and Maheshkumar Kharade, a technology expert. In this post, we start by understanding the opportunities inherent in crowdsourced learning content.Q: How is the nature of learning content changing with time?[Vikas Joshi] Nowadays crowdsourcing is playing an increasing role in the creation of learning content. When people have a question, they simply post it on a social networking site, and elicit responses. Sites like Quora organize questions and answers into topics, and make them searchable. People are increasingly open to participating in online platforms such as Wikipedia, that deliver crowd-sourced content. Increasingly, organizations are seen using internal portals that support crowdsourcing among employees. Learning content, therefore, comes not only from some pre-defined curriculum, but it evolves as people ask questions and contribute answers.   Q: Can this lead to new ways of evaluating learning?[Vikas Joshi] Absolutely. Now we are not limited to evaluating learning outcomes—we can also evaluate the learning process. There is an opportunity to evaluate people based on how they are contributing to crowd-sourced content. There is also an opportunity to observe how people are learning, the kind of questions they are asking and how engaged they are in the community of learners. Such fine-grained evaluation can create opportunities for better remediation, leading to better outcomes. Q: Doesn’t that make the job of evaluation more complex?[Vikas Joshi] Undoubtedly. The key issue is the following. If you evaluate only behaviors, you will get right behaviors, but you won’t know if the student has really understood the subject matter. You will keep wondering if the student is simply parroting the right answer. If you observe the thought process instead, you get a better view into the student’s learning. This is hard work, but it may be worth the effort. Maybe peers can play a role in making this easier in an online community.  Next week we will explore the technology challenges in making this possible.

Last week, Vikas Joshi shared his thoughts on opportunities inherent in crowdsourced learning content. This week we talk to Maheshkumar Kharade, a technology expert, to follow up on the previous post.  Q. How are tracking systems keeping pace with the opportunities inherent in crowdsourced learning content?[Maheshkumar] Due to its multidimensional nature, crowdsourcing apparently brings in multiple challenges and opportunities for tracking systems, content creation and content delivery platforms. I think development of TinCan API specification is on the lines of supporting crowdsourcing requirements. Its activity based tracking model enables LRS (Learning Record Store) to record almost any user action. Recent advancements and usage spike in MOOC paradigm in education is another major step in creation of online platforms for crowdsourced learning content. Though these steps have helped gain some momentum, it’s not yet enough. Q. What needs to be done?[Maheshkumar] We are getting to the goal in pieces like enriched tracking specifications, delivery mechanism, etc. In my opinion, content creation should be at the center stage of crowdsourcing, other challenges would revolve around it. The key is to provide an ability to create semantically structured content through proper community collaboration. It will enable maximum reuse and re-purposing. Social networking has to be given equal consideration. Video content adds lots of value to learning experience, but we have to look for ways to enrich it further using crowd sourcing. Imagine what can be done if we have both TinCan API and MOOC together on a single platform.  This combination will enhance current MOOC based learning experience i.e. set of sequential video lectures to next level by means of collaborated learning. Currently, multiple dimensions of crowdsourcing are different stand alone systems; we need better interoperability.Q. How can the industry encourage platform vendors to support a common structure?[Maheshkumar] The focus right now is on an individual aspect of crowdsourcing which is tracking systems; it needs to be widened. Also, solving problems in proprietary ways will limit overall outcome, so equal importance should be given to developing a standards based approach while addressing any aspect of crowdsourcing. Interoperability amongst multiple systems holds the key to successful crowdsourced learning.We would love to hear from our readers in the e-learning industry if they are familiar with any work in this direction.

Our world keeps changing and we need to continuously adapt to change. There is a process through which we adapt to change, and that process has a name, and that name is learning. Today, let’s boil this topic down to six simple questions about learning. 6. What is learning?Learning is not what they teach you, learning is what you get out of it, right? As we shift our focus from teaching to learning, suddenly it’s an ‘aha’ moment: learning doesn’t have to be confined to formal education, it can be everywhere. 5. When do we learn? Do we learn only during the childhood?  Hardly.  The fact is that learning is a lifelong process.  4. Where do we learn? Learning happens everywhere and it particularly happens when you least expect it. Life is always trying to teach us something and we are ignoring it for the most part, because we’re not mindful about it. Every experience, good or bad, should be an occasion to stop, think, and reflect. That is how we convert experience into learning.  3. How do we learn?People learn in many different individual ways: reading, listening, writing, teaching, talking to oneself, doing, observing, and so forth.  It is important for us to recognize our most natural learning style.2. Who Learns? Yes, you read that right.  Who is it that learns? On the face of it, it looks like a silly question. Obviously, individuals learn. But then, if you look deeper, in any organization, the whole system is learning. Teams of people develop tools, processes and work methods that help teams to get better and better at working together.1. Now the final question: why is learning so important?Learning helps you cope with uncertainty and it actually helps us adapt to change that’s occurring around us. It’s something essential for professional growth. We can grow to a certain level in any setup by following the rules. Beyond that level, we have to demonstrate adaptability, and that’s when all the learning DNA that we may have comes really handy.  To another point, there is something about the structure of our brain. If we don’t use its neurons and synapses, we begin to lose them. We can therefore say that learning keeps us young.So here is wishing you happy and fruitful learning!

I started my journey with Harbinger Systems sometime back. Though I am just a couple of months old here, the knowledge and exposure which I have received has been enormous. I have interacted and learned a lot from my colleagues who always push and encourage me to dabble in new things. A few days back, one of my colleagues mentioned about The Internet of Things (IOT) to me. This was something new for me and so I decided to do a little research to understand what it is all about.Though there are a lot of ways in which the IOT has been defined, I understood it as a network of physical objects accessed through the internet. These objects could be natural or man-made which would be provided with an IP address and the ability to transfer data over a network.A lot of companies over the world are investing their time and resources to come up with various creative things as part of the IOT. These could actually make a difference in our lives. A good example of this is a product which is being developed by Microsoft Inc. It is aptly named as ‘The Smart Alice’ as it helps the visually impaired to ‘see’ things around them. It is a tiny wearable device which they could use at various places. For instance, at a railway station, it could give them directions to reach their coach and an update in case of a delay. It could even describe the food item that they are about to eat. Shopping could be made a simpler and enjoyable experience as it could read out the size of the outfits, the cost and could even describe the colour and the texture of the fabric.Another exciting example of the IOT is the newly launched Nike+FuelBand. This cool and trendy looking wrist band not only ups your style quotient a notch higher but also tracks the amount of physical activity done; the energy burned and counts the number of steps taken. The information gathered is integrated into the Nike+ online community which helps us to monitor and track our fitness progress.Good quality education has become easily accessible to thousands of students studying worldwide, thanks to the IOT. There are software applications which help the students to create content or to interact with content. Teaching methods and classrooms have become more open through voice, video and text based collaborations.Sparked, a Dutch startup uses wireless sensors on cattle. If one of the cows gets sick or pregnant, a message is sent to the farmer.Smart kitchen and home appliances such as refrigerators, washers, dryers and coffee makers have made our lives much simpler. They let us know when the milk is out or when the clothes are dry.This vast network formed by a humongous number of connected things is expanding by the day. These things have started talking to each other and are developing their own intelligence. Constant learning has been beautifully weaved into our lives by the IOT. These are just a few examples which I have mentioned but there are many more. Besides simplifying things in our daily life, these applications help us to learn about a wide variety of things at all times. These products and are aimed at benefiting a wide section of people. As stated rather truly by Cisco, technological limitations are receding exponentially. When billions of things are connected, talking and learning, the only limitation left will be our own imaginations.

Since I started Clarity Consultants 20 years ago, the corporate workplace has undergone many seismic shifts. One of the most significant has been the composition of the workforce. Gone are the days when a person worked for the same employer, moving steadily up the career ladder until retirement. Today, more and more people work as free agents, moving from project to project, and from company to company. While the workforce is becoming more mobile, employers are struggling to find people with the right expertise to work on critical projects. Many of these companies are relying on contingent workers to fill the gaps. The current trend is for companies to build this need for project talent into their budgets on a regular, long-term basis. We refer to this trend as strategic insourcing. Clarity has also recently gone through a transformation. We’ve updated our brand identity with a new logo and website. We believe the new website design more clearly conveys our messaging and provides more relevant information for L&D and Technical Communications professionals. What hasn’t changed at Clarity is that we’re still providing L&D consultants with the right expertise, quickly and efficiently, to our clients. I look forward to talking with you more often through our new blog, The Voice of Clarity. Please send me your comments on the new website and what topics you’d like to see covered in our blog. - Herb Tieger, President and Chief Executive Officer  

It’s been a few weeks since the ASTD conference in Denver, and I’ve had a chance to reflect on the flood of new information and ideas that ensued. For me, the overriding refrain from the conference was "creative tension." Ann Herrmann-Nehdi best described it in her session when she said we’re now in the era of "and," which she described as "moving in both directions at the same time." It requires a significant shift from either/or thinking to both/and thinking. Imagine a rubber band being pulled in two directions at once. If you pull too much, the band will snap, and if you don’t pull enough, it will collapse. This "and" concept refers to these current times as one of predictability and instability, reflection and action, freedom and structure. In order to respond to this VUCA world (that was a new term to me—it means "volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous"), L+D professionals need to be agile thinkers and in turn, help others to become more agile. ASAP. ASTD president and CEO Tony Bingham emphasized the shortage of skilled workers as a threat to corporate growth and the urgent need to accelerate the employee development process. "To do that, we’re going to need to adapt," said Bingham. He emphasized the importance of delivering learning to the new generation joining the workforce—the Millennials—in a way that they are most receptive. This generation wants to learn on-the-spot, when they need it. This means on their ever-present mobile devices. As one Millennial described it, "I want to learn just in time, not just in case." John Kao’s keynote on Tuesday continued the theme of both/and thinking. Kao illustrated his points about innovation by tickling the ivories, demonstrating how Jazz is a creative tension between structure and freedom. Innovation, he said, is also the intersection between creativity (freedom) and rules (structure). Jazz musicians also jam with one another, and their diversity of styles is their strength. Kao also illustrated this point with the four main cast members of Star Trek and the MBTI, stressing that the diversity of thinking styles kept the Enterprise going. So what does all of this mean for L+D professionals? It means we all need to get comfortable with being uncomfortable. Laugh in the face of ambiguity. And, as Ann Herrmann-Nehdi said, "Focus on where you want to be and let go of how you get there." Herrmann-Nehdi had some tips on how to adjust to this new world of agile thinking: * Focus on where you want to be and let go of how you get there. * Use humor as a way to cope with ambiguity and tension. * Learn how to manage your own mental processes. * Create a "stop doing" list. (Also suggested by Monday keynote speaker Jim Collins.) * And lastly, allow yourself to get uncomfortable. So, here’s to getting uncomfortable in this brave, new VUCA world.  

I’m back from a week-long vacation in Kauai, and my mind feels refreshed and all of my muscles finally feel relaxed. My husband and I would joke about the slower pace of life on the islands as "Hawaii time" but it also pointed out the breakneck speed that we become accustomed to back at home. Before this sensation slips away, I’m pondering how I can incorporate this "Aloha" feeling into my everyday life? Research backs up my hunch that working like a hamster spinning in a wheel is not productive in the long run. Professor John Trougakos of the University of Scarborough found that our mental capacity is similar to our physical capacity and we need to give our brains a break from fatigue just as we need to rest our muscles. And a recent article in TIME suggested that slowing down instead of speeding up during our workday actually makes us more productive. UC Davis professors Kimberly Elsbach and Andrew Hargadon found that a blend of mentally challenging with more mundane tasks is the best recipe for productivity. Here are some ideas I came up with to foster a feeling of rejuvenation at work: Take a walk around the block—preferably where there are trees and nature. Work outside for an hour or two when the weather is nice. Eat a healthy lunch and take it away from my desk. Schedule the more mentally challenging tasks during the time of day when I’m most alert instead of forcing the issue. Practice yoga regularly. What are your suggestions for working slower? Please share with us in comments.  

As community manager for Clarity Consultants, there are a number of tools that I use to help manage the flood of information I encounter every day. Many of these tools that I use for community management can also easily be used for content curation for L&D practitioners. Here are my favorites: Google Reader- Use for: Subscribing to blogs and other RSS feeds. I like Google Reader because I can conveniently read updates from all of my favorite blogs each morning—it’s like having my own custom newspaper. Evernote- Use for: Bookmarking urls and categorizing by topic. I would be lost without Evernote. It’s the curation tool I use daily to save all of the online articles that I either want to read or refer to later. And with its tagging feature, I can separate out what’s pertinent to my job from articles of personal interest that I might want to read over the weekend. Delicious- Use for: Storing and categorizing urls. There are certain websites that I like to visit daily, and Delicious allows me to keep those urls in one convenient place. I’ve been saving my most-visited websites into "stacks," which I understand will soon go away and will be replaced by tags, so I’ll still have my urls categorized but in a different format. Paper.li- Use for: Publishing stories on a specific topic. Delicious and Evernote are effective tools for gathering your urls and Paper.li is the tool to publish your information into a cohesive format. Using Paper.li is like publishing your own online magazine (without the advertisements). Pinterest- Use for: Searching for and saving graphic-heavy information. I use Pinterest to find and "pin" infographics and other interesting bits of information that attract me visually that I might not otherwise find. Pinterest could also be used for reading lists or to showcase your work in an online portfolio. Plus, Pinterest is fun! Using Pinterest is more like playing than working, even if you are being productive. Storify- Use for: Compiling social media posts. With Storify I can collect posts from social media channels, including: Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Flickr, Instagram and Google+, and assemble them into a cohesive story. It’s an effective way to cover an event, such as a chat on Twitter, etc. These are some of my favorite tools to use for curation….what are yours? Please share in comments.    

Infographics—they’re everywhere. From uncovering sugar consumption in the U.S. to revealing the psychology of colors; infographics run the gamut of subject matter. So what about the field of L&D? We rounded up what we think are the top 10 infographics: What is Social Learning? Skillsoft created a concise overview of social learning—helpful to hand to colleagues who are unfamiliar with the concept. Myers-Briggs Type and Social Media. Assessment company CPP looks at Myers-Briggs types and how they correlate with social media platforms. For example, you’re more likely to find extroverts on Facebook and LinkedIn. How to Become a Mobile App Developer. Schools.com spells out the steps to becoming a mobile app developer, and which schools offer degrees in the field. What Does It Take to Create Effective eLearning? How many hours does it take to create an eLearning course? LeanForward has the answers broken down by skill set. Mixing Business with Gamification. TemboSocial shows how taking elements from computer gaming and integrating them into your business can promote engagement, productivity, and retention. Motivating Employees in the Workplace. Engaging infographic that explains how employees are motivated. (Hint: it’s not carrots). The True Cost of One Hour of Learning. eLearning developer LeanForward has calculated the true cost of one hour of learning in this colorful graphic. Keep handy to share with line managers who want it done yesterday. The Rise of Mobile Learning. A comprehensive infographic from Voxy that shows the evolution of educational technology. How Long Does It Take to Become an Expert? A fun look at how long it takes to achieve expert status in a variety of fields, ranging from astrophysics to yoga. How On-the-Job Training Boosts Employee Morale. Need help justifying the effectiveness of L&D? Mindflash has created a graphic that succinctly displays how training is linked to employee morale.  These are our top ten infographics for L&D…..what ones did we miss? Tell us in comments!

You may not be currently looking for a job, but it never hurts to have an up-to-date online portfolio of your work. And if your work samples are gathering dust in a folder somewhere, all the more reason to get your expertise displayed electronically. There are a myriad of websites out there where you can display your work for free. Some platforms are better suited for writing samples while others are more applicable for showcasing graphics or eLearning samples. Technical writers might want to consider a blog site such as Blogger, WordPress.com or LiveJournal to set up a free account. All three have user-friendly interfaces, and if you’re stuck, Lynda.com offers a course, "Create an Online Portfolio with WordPress." There’s also a publishing-friendly site, Contently, where writers can collect their published clips into one location for no charge. If you’re looking for a platform that’s more graphics-friendly, there are a number of free options. Most are targeted for graphic designers, but all can serve the same purpose for instructional design samples because they can support Flash files. These options include Behance, CarbonMade, Flavors, FolioSpaces, Mahara,Shownd and Wix. Once you’ve found a platform, you’ll want to select which work samples you’d like to feature. Choose the most salient samples of your work, instead of everything excluding the kitchen sink! If you’re just getting started in your career, it’s okay to show samples of your school work. Be sure to include samples from different types of projects and with different industries. Instructional designers might want to consider showing samples from each stage of the ADDIE model. Don’t go too far back when displaying past accomplishments. A good rule of thumb is to only display work you created within the past ten years. And if you signed non-disclosure agreement, can’t include those samples on your portfolio unless you’ve gained permission from the client. Simple themes work best for presenting your portfolio. With each sample, give a brief overview of the project objectives, how these objectives were achieved and your role in the project. Also, be sure to list the types of software used. Don’t forget to add an About Me section to your portfolio listing a summary of your skills and your contact information. What tips have you uncovered when creating an online portfolio? Tell us in comments.