Reach Further

Tailor-made solutions to workplace learning better reflect the needs of the workforce in today’s companies. Recent research has shown that upskilling and learning in the workplace is vital if Britain is to compete with an increasingly talented workforce in emerging countries. Elearning can play a key role in this.

Key findings of the research from the Teaching and Learning Research Programme included:

Generic solutions rarely meet exactly the needs of a particular company. As Reach Further has found when talking to clients, companies are aware that there are a lot of learning materials available but a customised solution is needed for each workplace and each worker.  A better approach is to offer personalised advice on learning and situating the learning very practically in the actual workplace and work experience of the learner(s).

The pressure of external regulation is a catalyst for increased learning, and training employees in compliance is an opportunity to introduce a raft of opportunities for staff to improve their skills and knowledge and to work together to externalise “intrinsic knowledge” - to make available to everyone in the company the knowledge that is in a limited number of people’s heads.

A focus on qualifications such as NVQs and  diplomas is out of kilter with the needs of employers and industry who want workers with relevant skills and training which generic qualifications do not necessarily offer.

Finally, employers need help to create more effective learning environments - this means both a learning culture in the organisation and the technical and skills infrastructure to support learning. Reach Further’s learning environments are welcomed because they are simple to use (eg., the Moodle virtual learning environment, open source (therefore free and inexpensive), and eco-friendly and time-saving (no travelling or hiring of conference facilities). Our learning strategies are also very practical through providing collaborative, flexible and adaptable learning opportunities as part of communities of expertise. Learning technologies can be harnessed to make technology enhanced learning opportunities available right on the employee’s desk in the workplace.

ELESIG - the Special Interest Group for those interested in Evaluating the Learner Experience of E-Learning - invites academics to a seminar on Impact of learner experience research – digital literacies. It’s on Thursday, 20th November 2008 at the Evolution Suite, Longbridge Technology Park, 1 Devon Way Birmingham B31 2TS.

This is the first in a series of ‘Impact Symposia’ in collaboration with HE and FE colleagues currently undertaking research into selected areas of the student experience. At each of these events, as well as receiving input from key researchers in the field and engaging in developmental activities, there will be opportunities to share your own research and practice related to the topic under investigation. The first of these symposia concerns digital literacies.

The event is free to members of ELESIG and membership of ELESIG is open to anyone interested in the learner experience and the learner voice. ELESIG is a Reach Further community of practice.

More information at ELESIG

At Reach Further it’s one of our fundamental beliefs that bringing people together helps solve problems. Our vision is “bringing people together online, to share, to work and to learn”. Whether you call it social media, social networking, Web 2.0, online communities, the blogosphere, ebusiness or any of the other buzzwords, what it’s about is bringing people together to share what they know and to solve one another’s problems in a variety of domains from elearning and education to diversity in business.

There are many people working hard to apply social media principles to the non-profit sector in working for social good - American Beth Kanter is one and David Wilcox in London is another.

One of Reach Further’s projects is a community for elearning researchers and professionals around the world. We manage the ELKS (E-learning and Knowledge-Sharing) community for the Beyond Distance Research Alliance at the University of Leicester, on behalf of the UN’s Global Alliance for ICT in Development, with partners from Sri Lanka, Chile, Uruguay, South Africa, Sweden, Italy and the UK, and members all over the world. ELKS is a global group of practitioners and researchers sharing information about how learning technologies can be used to bring education and training to all the citizens of the world, rich and poor, and to provide a vehicle for us all to learn from one another. It isn’t all about low-cost and low-tech elearning options but those are obviously crucial.

Webinars and free courses bring together academics and teachers from all over the world. Topics might range from how to use wikis so that Universities with minimal bandwidth (and minimal electricity) in Africa can collaborate internationally online, to how to use e-tivities in discussion forums as simple portable elearning objects. Our next webinar will be about mobile learning, which has revolutionised learning in places where there is no traditional IT infrastructure:

Mobile technologies for education in development contexts - challenging the obvious, with John Traxler, Reader in Mobile Technology for e-Learning, Director, Learning Lab, Conference Chair, mLearn2008 Ironbridge, Associate Editor, International Journal of Mobile & Blended Learning (School of Computing and IT, University of Wolverhampton). Date and time to be confirmed [UPDATE: Tuesday 21st October 11am - 12 noon]. Please join ELKS to find out more.

If you are a practitioner or researcher in elearning in HE anywhere in the world, or with an interest in elearning anywhere in the world, you can become a member of the ELKS community by contacting us. All we ask is that you contribute as much as you gain.

This is a post for Blog Action Day - Poverty (October 15th 2008)

The presentation we gave last month at the ALT-C conference in Leeds is now online: Model for sustainable online community networks

Last Thursday ELESIG - the Special Interest Group for Research into the Learner Experience - held a webinar focusing on research methodology for evaluating the learner’s experience of elearning. As community lead for the project (one of my roles for Reach Further) it is great to be able to report it a success.

I’ve just finished posting the summaries of two fascinating discussions. The first, with Doug Gowan of the Open Learning Partnership, looked at the methods used in the LEX (Learner experiences of e-learning) JISC study.

Issues of ethical approval for student studies were discussed and sources of ethical approval documents were shared.

The issue of avoiding bias in analysis of data was considered, and the advisability of having other people review one another’s analyses of the data. The use of a critical friend was recommended (hopefully ELESIG will be helping broker this).

Some key features of successful interviewing were discussed. We’re hoping that all of these issues can continue to be investigated in ELESIG cluster groups.

In the afternoon we looked very practically at surveys and survey tools. Rhona Sharpe of Oxford Brookes described their recent major Pathfinder Survey, Carol Higgison of Bradford the JISC funded enhancing learner progression project (ELP), and Malcolm Ryan of Greenwich the SEEL project. Features of survey tools such as Survey Monkey and Bristol Online Surveys were discussed and very practical information shared.

The full summaries are posted under Resources in the ELESIG Ning space.

The webinar was held in ELESIG’s Ning social network space. Anyone interested in learner experience research in any sector is welcome to join us at ELESIG.Ning.

The Trendspotting blog reported on a recent survey of social media usage.

Universal McCann recently published its comparative study following Social Media trends in three waves: September 2006 (Wave 1), June 2007 (Wave 2) March 2008 (Wave 3).Trendspotting’s post highlights major results in the study including:

1. Social media is a global phenomenon and Asian areas (not including Japan) are creating more content than any other region.
2. All social media platforms have grown significantly with Video Clips as the quickest growing medium.
3. 57% of users have joined a Social Network.
4. There are 184m bloggers world-wide – 73% in the survey have read a blog, 45% have started a blog.
5. More evidence shows that consumers are affected by blogs - 34% blog about products and brands and 36% think more positively about companies that have blogs.

More at the Trendspotting blog

Usability guru Jakob Nielsen’s latest Alertbox points out the flaws in four website designs, including some surprisingly major companies (the New York Times, for example). The mistakes include bad content, bad links, bad navigation, and bad category pages. He then points out that bad content takes the prize for costing the company the most money. Nielsen explains how much these bad design ideas probably cost the site owners and gives tips on how to increase page views, offer what visitors to the website want, and ultimately sell more.

Although elearning is increasing in use, most businesses are failing to support employees in using it properly, reports Asavin Wattanajantra on the IT Pro website.

Latest learning and development research by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development’s (CIPD) has indicated that the potential of elearning is still not recognized by many managers and employees.

Over half (57%) of managers offered elearning for training. However, although organisations typically offer elearning to 60% of employees, only half of them decide to take it up, and just 30% of those actually complete the course.

“Elearning is here to stay - over the last decade it has become a permanent feature of the training and learning landscape,” said Martyn Sloman, learning and development advisor at CIPD. “However, we still have a long way to fully embed it effectively in the organisation. It’s clear from our survey that it is not fully appreciated by learners or by training managers.”

Part of the issue appears to be that, as Sloman says, many organisations “are simply making elearning available to the individual on their PC and hoping that something will happen as a result.”

I’d concur that offering elearning as part of a blend of training, coaching and other methods for performance enhancement and personal development, with proper e-tutor support and facilitation is key. Learning design which uses technology as a tool with others available is most likely to be the future for learning in organisations and businesses.

I’ve just welcomed the 71st member to the new Ning community for ELESIG. It’s great to see so many elearning researchers and practitioners who have an interest in the learner experience. The take up for the community and for the inaugural workshop - was it only last week? - has been excellent and just shows what a need there is for a network of practice in this area.

I’m really pleased that Reach Further was appointed to lead this community. It already has many of the elements that make a community vibrant and effective, including:

• stakeholders who are fully engaged and take part regularly
• a clear focus and a purpose for its existence
• appropriate technology (Ning and wikis at the moment)
• a mix of online and offline activities, each as valuable as the other
• an interested constituency who are already familiar with social networking and the uses of communities of practice

If you are a researcher or practitioner in the area of elearning with an interest in the learner experience, join us at ELESIG.Ning

Helping your potential customers to connect with other people can pay dividends in many ways. You can help them to make the decision to buy your products by providing an environment conducive to persuasion.

Research shows that people are most likely to make a decision if they are allowed to make it freely (in the context of a supportive community, not high-pressure sales techniques), write down the actions they are going to take (e.g., in a forum posting) and, most importantly, make those actions public to others. People who share their interests with others they like, and who are offered encouraging comments and validation, are more likely to go through with something, whether it’s a purchase or a change in lifestyle.

Reciprocity also has a part to play. Research shows that people often feel compelled to give back to others the types of behaviour that are displayed to them. Businesses that understand this principle may offer free samples of new products or special introductory incentives: if you have a community that is already interested in your products or services, then people are much more likely to reciprocate by buying your new product or joining that gym.

Apparently, many people are more motivated by knowing what they will lose than by what they will gain. You can leverage this instinct by providing the right information and encouraging community members to share it. Telling people what they stand to lose is often more persuasive than the same message framed as a gain. Information of this kind is perfect for articles on your website or blog postings.

In a University of California research study, the number of home owners who signed up to energy efficiency activities was increased by 350% by the researchers telling customers how much money they stood to lose if they didn’t sign up, rather than how much they could gain if they did. People’s natural inclination is to avoid loss; which is why “limited time offers” or sales that “must end Saturday” are successful strategies.

When people are faced with a variety of choices, one of the ways to decide is to be guided by the advice of an expert. People know from experience that it makes more sense to pay attention to recognized knowledgeable sources of information (dentists endorse toothpaste; membership of professional organisations and professional qualifications increase your authority). Use your community to introduce experts and gurus giving genuinely useful advice around your product range.

The principle of consensus, or social proof is using other people’s behaviour as a guide to our own. If someone finds a conversation about how great a recipe was or a diet that seems to work, they are much more likely to try it themselves. A forum linked to your product range is the perfect place for this to happen. In one study, researchers were able to increase recycling rates by over 30% simply by telling people that their neighbours were recycling too. Despite the fact that most of us refuse to believe that what other people do has any influence on us, it is nevertheless true that that others’ behaviours have a powerful influence over our own.

These are universal principles of persuasion which are as powerful drivers in the online space as in “real life”: human beings still make connections with one another online, with the right kind of encouragement. It still makes sense to believe an expert, to follow the crowd, to repay favours and to value things in short supply. Understanding how these principles apply online can help create the kind of relationships between people that make your website much more than a marketing or sales space.

(With acknowledgements to Steve Martin, co-author of Yes! 50 Secrets from the Science of Persuasion, Profile Books.)