Week 2 of the family scuba certification and training progressed along nicely. My 11 yr-old continued to study independently and did very well in the pool and on his tests. He seems to have a really good grasp on doing everything ‘by the book’ and is very attentive and mature about things. He re-trained me on putting equipment together and buddy checking and I got a "good job Mom" out of it. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve said "good job" to him and I nearly teared up. My 14-yr old decided scuba is not for her. She just wasn’t having fun in the pool and, since it’s supposed to be a recreational sport, it didn’t make sense for her to continue when she wasn’t really comfortable. I’m glad she tried it. It’s good too because I had my own case of anxiety in the pool and we’ll likely be snorkeling buddies. I’m not, however, throwing in the towel yet and am going to venture into the pool next week again because I didn’t think I gave it my best shot. I will regret it if I don’t. Next week there may be an additional instructor for crybabies so perhaps that will make me less freakazoid about the whole thing. I feel the need to over train with an instructor vs. re-familiarize myself with the skills. < overshare > I think that’s because there seems to be this switch that goes on sometimes when you’re a parent and you can easily become hypervigilant. In my mind I’m not really worrying about myself, I’m worrying about something happening to my kids due to my (possible) inability to respond to some problem like entanglement. And I think there’s something else at play - the remembrance of having to be bagged and resuscitated during childbirth eleven years ago. (Short story: my epidural block moved, paralyzing my diaphragm and I could not breathe). So instead of focusing on skills, I’m focusing on mistakes before they are made with a dash of ‘am I getting enough air here?’ I know right?  Why don’t you bring all your baggage into the pool? < /overshare > My 16 year-old returned from camp and successfully performed all the basic skills without a problem and did perfect on the test. This did not surprise me. He approached driving the same way. The boys went to a three-hour, instructor-led class and I completed two units of the e-learning course instead. Each unit in the e-learning course looks like it will take about 45 minutes to complete. The course was built with Articulate. There are frequent quizzes (every several slides) which is good because there’s over 100 slides to look at in each unit. I think the material is from the text mixed with video which you can also buy separately from PADI. There are also links to resources. Each unit ends in a test. It’s a pretty standard tutorial. Now the nit picking… I don’t like the word "slide." It’s a page. It’s the stuff from the book. Text appears on the left which mirrors the audio. I know we do this for people who don’t want, don’t have, or can’t hear audio but I get distracted reading while being read to. I wanted a way to hide it. If you fail a quiz, it takes you back to the beginning of the section. You can go through the section again or simply turn the pages and correct what you missed without getting any new information. Some branching would be nice that gives more information and a different question. When you do fail a question your get "feedback." Feedback, to me, is the language of IDs. I’d prefer to see "not quite," "there’s a better answer," or something less clinical. I like conversational e-learning. All in all though, it is good for its purpose and good use of the tools at hand. It must have taken a long time to create. Kudos to the creators. As with a lot of self-paced e-learning, one thing that’s lacking is "high touch" points of the classroom. You don’t get the stories. Like this… Scuba Diver Girl Janine: Where do I start? I was doing my hypoxic trimix certification in the Caymans and got narc’d. I saw a sponge that I swore looked like Richard Nixon! So I gave my dive buddies the double - V "I am not a crook" gesture. They looked at me like WTF does that mean. Of course when we surfaced and I told them what I saw it was hilarious. I haven’t lived it down! I think stories from longtime divers (or access to them in a community) to illustrate key safety points (narc’d)would be helpful for all but the psycho hypervigilant mother with a possible lingering case of post-traumatic stress. Hand me a Xanax already and wish me luck.

Earlier this year I did a presentation on e-learning where I showed a bunch of course examples. When I asked how many people were creating e-learning solutions I saw about twenty percent of the people in the audience (of three hundred) raise their hands. That may be generous. It may have been as few as ten percent. And this was a group of L&D folks. I don’t think that’s an anomaly. Amber Naslund writes about the restless novice. She talks about traveling to events and hearing, "We need to talk about what’s next…Can we move beyond the basics?" Of course my basic is different than your basic. But I’m still shocked when only one person in a group of twenty has heard of something like RSS - something that’s been around maybe what…ten years? Of course that insults anyone reading this who doesn’t know what RSS is and I apologize if it does. Perhaps you have no need in your job or personal life. Perhaps you only check email and don’t access the web much. Sometimes I seem to forget this… "I think there’s beauty in the basics. In fact, you can point to many reasons why they’re absolutely essential. There’s a simple eloquence that resides in fundamentals and one of which I’ve discovered I’m quite enamored. I enjoy the basics. Teaching them, exploring them, understanding them better, explaining them more clearly. Reframing them in ways that make sense to more people. They’re always useful, always necessary if we’re ever to build upon a strong foundation." That quote from Amber Naslund. She suggests people are uncomfortable being called beginners. I don’t know if that’s the case in our industry where we’re used to training people "starting at the beginning." She asks if you’re uncomfortable with being a beginner, or with teaching them to others? (you might want to weigh in) I think I’ve forgotten the beauty in the basics. I guess I’m kind of an asshole for thinking," jeesh…you should know this" when I’m with a group of people who are fine with saying openly, "I’m in L&D and don’t know about e-learning." Who am I to judge? I’m sure that’s a boatload of stuff about the publishing industry that I SHOULD be aware of. That’s my other job. I don’t work toward becoming an expert in publishing world like I should. Anyway…do we need to write more about the basics in the industry? I always feel as if I’m stating the obvious. But look at the popularity of Tom Kuhlmann’s Rapid E-Learning blog. 61,000 readers. Tom has a gift for building a foundation without putting off people with more experience. I think that answers my question. Now is anyone up for contributing to a site about basics? Or do you know of one I’ve blown off?

For the better part of two years my office was 10 feet from my bed. It’s a large room and a portion was partitioned off as an office. (Yes, I’m aware that sounds like a cubicle.) I could easily spend 15 hours a day in that one room. Hermit-like. I imagined myself as eventually becoming a reclusive, gray-haired hermit with a Twitter account. While my office today is still in the house, it’s a separate room with some (household) traffic throughout the day. My move from the bedroom to the main living area of the house  just meant an equal distribution of daytime parenting responsibilities (my husband works from his home office too). Before my move, kids would come in, stop to ask my husband something (because he’s the first person they’d see) and if they wanted me they had to walk ALL THE WAY through the house and upstairs. That, or they’d text me. It was as if I wasn’t there. Even with the new set up there’s no work-related socializing. There’s no sitting back and saying, "what do you think of this?"or "can I bounce this idea off you?" And there’s no one asking me what I think. No creative side trips. What is coworking? "A global community of people dedicated to the values of Collaboration, Openness, Community, Accessibility, and Sustainability in their workplaces." - coworking.com A hermit-free zone. Here’s one explanation: Over the past couple of years I’ve talked to a couple of people in my area who work virtually from their home office and have found some interest and a shared understanding of coworking. Most people I talk to can’t quite get their arms around the community part of coworking and instead want to provide shared office space using something like a fitness center business model. The spirit behind coworking isn’t about profit or renting office space. While you need a space (eventually), first you need a community. I’ve even presented the idea to groups and now have a blog with one post so I can start pointing people to something. One way to get a coworking community going is to do something called Jelly. "Jelly is a casual working event. It’s taken place in over a hundred cities where people have come together (in a person’s home, a coffee shop, or an office) to work for the day. We provide chairs and sofas, wireless internet, and interesting people to talk to, collaborate with, and bounce ideas off of." It would be difficult for me to open up my home during summer vacation with my kids around. Fall would be better. So that’s a goal for this fall. Jelly. Why do I like the idea of coworking?  This older Wired article resonated with me. Coworking: Mixes up work Re-humanizes work Makes collaboration easier Fosters socialization It seems an especially nice fit for cloud workers and creatives. I can see value too in a ‘many jobs loosely joined‘ set up where it would be easier to meet the needs of a large client no one person could easily handle. BTW….Here’s a link to all the coworking resources I’ve been using. It’s a generous community. Would love to hear of any such work areas in your community. Photo: Coworking Photo/Hillary Hartley Getting established in the new world of work Part 1: The edges

I’ve been settling into a new way of work - busy collaborating with awesome folks like David Mallon at Bersin & Associates, doing some technology stuff in my community (our pool has a blog!), joining alliances with other consultants and  consulting groups, and doing occasional workshops. Other than the work for my community pool, all this work has been through a series of small serendipities. It’s been interesting to look at this series of opportunities as if I’m trying on clothes for fit. When opportunities arise I’m thinking…is this an "I *guess* I can do that if I have to" (not a good fit) opportunity? Is it an "I like to do that" (pretty good fit) opportunity? Is it an "I love that" (perfect fit) opportunity? I don’t think there are many people (aside from the independently wealthy) that don’t have some sort of mix. Hopefully there’s more "perfect fit" work than anything else. I don’t think we have much control of the mix when you work for someone else the man. Maybe you do. I never did. I NEED control of the mix. Life’s too short. After thinking about an opportunity that recently surfaced, I’ve decided my mix will now include freelancing as the new Technology Editor at Elearning! Magazine, part of the B2B Media Company. In The Power of Pull, a book I’ve been reading, it says in the chapter titled The Individual’s Path to Pull… "We can also be on the lookout for "editors" who have a talent for searching out new edges and providing early perspectives on why these edges might be gaining importance….When it comes to the written word, this new generation of editors won’t just edit content developed by their own publications, they’ll focus on curating  a much broader range of third-part content available throughout the Internet. Some of these editors will likely focus on tracking the emergence of promising new edges, searching out the most promising content from the edges to help their audience sort out the signal from the noise. In this case, our serendipitous encounters will be with content that provides early visibility into the innovation opportunities arising on emerging edges. One role of this new generation of editors will be to help us to see relationships between new stories from the edge and our own passions and interests." That, for me, is "perfect fit" work. That’s the type of "editing" I’m hoping to do. It’ll be nice to focus on an area I’m passionate about. Another important factor in making decisions about which opportunities to work on is collaborating with people you actually like and trust. Sounds simple but unfortunately, not always the case. You don’t realize you were being interviewed by Beelzebub until it’s too late. A perfect coworker I like and trust is someone like my former colleague Gary Woodill. We all need "Gary’s" in our daily work. Working with people you like and who are compassionate and actually give a damn about you should be a given. If you’ve got a Gary, thank him. I really like the folks at Elearning! Magazine. I’ve done a summit event with them (along with Gary Woodill), co-wrote an article for them with Venkatesh Rao, and met with them during a past trip to California. Connecting with them most recently was yet another serendipitous encounter. The type of thing that can only come up when you’re connecting, sharing, and networking. So fresh back from vacation in a couple of weeks, I’ll be Janet! Clarey, Technology Editor at Elearning! Magazine. Yes, my name now includes an exclamation point. Photo credit: Stephen Coles (Try it On)

Think in terms of m-learning in 2010. Potential vs. what is actually happening. What is happening RIGHT NOW as in, "I’m doing it" and not just "planning on doing it" or "hoping I’ll be able to do it." If you selected 100 employees randomly and asked them to find the answers to two or three job-related questions on their mobile device, how many could find relevant information in a reasonable (before someone says ‘never mind’) amount of time? This comic reminded me of a talk E-Learning is what? (jump to slide 5) by Allison Rossett I heard early in the year in Australia. She talked about what IS actually happening in e-learning vs. what MIGHT happen with e-learning in the future. (Her study has limitations - which she outlines - but still..) Allison Rossett: eLearning Is Not What You Think It Is - Presented by Training Magazine Network Do we have ten employees who have already looked up the answers and are using The Idiot Test app on their iPhone while the other 90 are looking for their glasses/browser/mobile device/favorite geek/exit? Take "just a sec" and let me know how big the skill gap is from your vantage point.

Can you help this small training group find a solution? I had someone contact for advice on finding (really) low-cost LMSs with e-commerce capability. Initially I mentioned Moodle for this small training group of three people but they had already determined it wasn’t going to fit their needs. Here are their needs: Hosted solution Merchant interface Easy administration Ability to launch e-learning courses only (video) Basic reports on sales data Ability to create quizzes Crazy cheap Here’s what they DO NOT need: Integration with another system Support for standards (SCORM) Classroom functionality Here are some systems I thought they might want to take a look at. If you think of others, please put the info in comments so I can pass it along to them. And, if you’ve got feedback on any of those I’ve listed (or if I missed the mark) I’m sure they’d appreciate it. JoomlaLMS Intellum Ziiva Training Partner Syberworks Enlightus Rainmaker SimplyDigi (P.S. This isn’t a client, just someone looking for advice.)

Is this the adoption curve for next generation of e-learning? I’m beginning to think it is. And I’m thinking it may stay that way unless there is an awareness of personal beliefs as it relates to usage of e-learning. An older paper by Dr. Irina Elgot I recently ran across doing some research really resonated with me. Called "E-learning adoption: Bridging the Chasm", the paper considers possible reasons for e-learning not reaching its full potential. Elgot mentions the socio-cultural, intra-and interpersonal factors, with a special focus on the personal decisions made by [instructors]. Elgot… "…suggests approaching the e-learning innovation as a multidimensional process located in two planes: the plane of technology and the plane of pedagogy (or teaching and learning). Conflating these two separate aspects when evaluating the progress of e-learning adoption is counter-productive. At any given point in time both individual and institutional adoption of e-learning can be undergoing different adoption cycles; and it appears that currently the adoption of e-learning technologies, especially LMS, is located at a more advanced adoption stages compared to the teaching and learning innovation." "This is why research in e-learning adoption…indicates that the roots of the problems with e-learning are primarily associated with teaching and learning processes, rather than with the use of technology per se. This can be referred to as the e-learning chasm. The chasm, in this case, is not located within a linear adoption process but between the two interrelated but distinct components of e-learning: adoption of the e-learning technology innovation and adoption of the e-learning pedagogy innovation." So if an instructor thinks voicing over his or her PowerPoint and uploading it into the LMS is the right approach, he or she will continue to instruct that way regardless of delivery channel. Elgot says, to overcome the e-learning chasm, instructors need to make their theories explicit. I just don’t see that in corporate L&D, especially when SMEs create the content. If your e-learning is not reaching its full potential. maybe its because people don’t know they always approach instructing the same way and can’t envision another way because they’ve never been exposed to it. When you’re a hammer everything looks like a nail, right? Curve via Scott McLeod (who’s wondering if we’re too harsh on our teacher’s kids and suggesting that over time, "we [edubloggers] begin to normalize these actions and internalize them as ‘best’ or ‘desired’ practice." (I’d say yes to the latter.)

This is why it’s important to get out of your home office occasionally.

I have read and analyzed hundreds, perhaps thousands, of academic research studies as part of my normal process for writing "commercial" research. In contrast, my experience with the academic culture of being published in peer-reviewed scholarly journals is non-existent. There’s just not time for both. While my research over the past several years has been published by commercial research firms, it doesn’t play into my academic requirements at all. If I was writing under the guidance of one of my professors, it would. It is what it is. As a student with a professional studies focus in a university program that caters primarily to those students with an academic research focus, I have struggled. Professional studies my ass. When asked for recent publications for a monthly departmental newspaper, my publications are not listed among the others because they were commercial and not done in collaboration with faculty and subsequently published in an elite journal. Similarly my speaking events are at corporate events and, in my experience, mean nothing in the eyes of academics. (I was, however, highlighted one month; a sidebar of a student’s professional life.) There is some progress but it doesn’t help me because I am not and will not ever be a professor. I have no desire. So here’s the rub….or rug burn (keep in mind part of the reason I chose the school was the liberal policy on registration and degree completion): Dear Student: The University has long had a requirement of continuous registration during each academic semester once a student matriculates. That is, every fall and spring semester, students must be registered for courses that are part of their programs. Students who are in between courses, or who have completed all courses and dissertation credits, but who are still working on requirements such as projects, exams, or portfolios, meet this requirement by registering for "Degree in Progress," for "0" credit hours. Online registration is accepted during regular registration periods. Beginning Fall 2010, students who have registered for "Degree in Process" for any 4 semesters, will be charged a $500 fee when they register for the 5th semester of "Degree in Progress", and beyond. This fee charged upon enrollment indicates continuing engagement in a graduate program; it recognizes the continuing use of faculty, staff, and institutional resources, even during periods when courses are not be taken. It is designed to encourage students to enroll in courses on a continuous basis so that they complete their degree programs expeditiously. If circumstances are such that students have to register for "Degree in Process" for an extended period of time, students must take a leave of absence. A Leave of Absence permits extension of the time to complete your degree a maximum of one year. P.S. Thanks for the $18,000. Screwed without so much as a kiss.

"Nothing is so fatiguing as the eternal hanging on of an uncompleted task." ~William James It’s pretty damn easy to procrastinate when you work from home (or even if you don’t). I’ve worked from my home office for over four years now. I’d call myself a successful virtual worker and I like working alone. However, no one is here to give me the stink eye when I’m starting to go into an unproductive state. Some get procrastination confused with being unproductive. But actually, being unproductive is a bit different than procrastination. When you’re unproductive, you’re not working at producing something (I call this fake work). Procrastination, on the other hand, is putting things off to do at a later time.  For me, procrastinating (in moderation) is usually a way to find some energy and creativity. Or, it’s a way to avoid being unproductive. (Avoiding fake work…) Better to be off thinking about a better way to do something than aimlessly looking for photos or sharpening pencils or something. Did you know being unproductive can be triggered by a real or perceived loss of freedom? In fact, if your employees consider you a controlling person, even an unconscious thought of you can have a negative effect on their performance. If, for example, they were to happen to subliminally see, out of the corner of their eyes, your name flash for 60 milliseconds, you could expect them to start working less hard. Even if they didn’t intend to slack off. Anyway, I’ve been using a new tool, Toggl, for over a month now and it’s really helping me with productivity. I’m able to focus on production without feeling the loss of freedom from other methods of measuring work. I’d recommend trying it if you want to see how you’re actually spending your time. It’s free, although I recently updated to the $5 plan so I could run reports on specific project and clients. It’ll help me quote work more accurately. If you’re procrastinating now, reading this, get the heck back to work.