Jay Cross helps people work and live smarter. Jay is the Johnny Appleseed of informal learning. He wrote the book on it. He was the first person to use the term eLearning on the web. He has challenged conventional wisdom about how adults learn since designing the first business degree program offered by the University of Phoenix.
Participants at Educa are enthusiastic:
You can watch a longer version of the party video here. When did you last see this enthusiastic a group of learning professionals?
Six of the Business Educa track sessions in Berlin were streamed and recorded:
Social Media & Mobile Learning
Games: Should you be doing this at work?
Working Smarter with Learning Networks
Preparing for Business Educa 2011
Overall Business Educa Video Archive
Tony O’Driscoll was up at 5:00 am to present his thoughts on learning in 3D from North Carolina. The Tech Staff do not recognize that Macs exist and did not have the right cable to bring in the Skype session. Here is my implementation hack. We could hear Tony clearly; seeing his face on the screen was a bit tough.
Show’s over.
One of the joys of publishing an unbook instead of going the traditional route is putting together your own marketing campaign. We released The Working Smarter Fieldbook at the Irish Learning Showcase in Dublin.
This being Ireland, Guinness played a major role.
Several people who had read the 2009 and earlier 2010 editions of Work Smarter asked if they should read the new version. I told them yes. The Fieldbook is more than half new material. It’s 50% longer. It has many more ideas from Jane, Charles, Harold, Clark, and Jon. Readers tell me it’s a more practical book.
Co-author Jane Hart and I introduced the book at the formal Irish Learning Showcase. Interactive Services purchased books for everyone in attendance.
Co-author Charles Jennings joined me the next day for celebrations at the Guinness Storehouse.
Sharon Kaliouby hosted the third part of the release at Dublin’s oldest pub, The Brazen Head. (Click link for cool Celtic music.)
The young woman to my left added to the festivities.
Ireland is wonderful. The Internet Time Alliance will be back.
People tell me this is worth watching. You tell me. It’s 104 minutes long. Please skip around.
Let’s talk about how we see the world on these issues. Leave a comment below.
Sources of knowhow
My class at Harvard Business School has the distinction of being the last not allowed to bring portable calculators to exams. (A Bomar 4-function calculator cost $99, a sum that kept many of us from acquiring one.) I got through by doing discounted cash now with a slide rule.
Everyone has several calculators today. They are giveaways. There’s probably one in your phone. All of which makes it irrelevant to learn long division, how to take cube roots, or logarithms. Why bother? That’s yesterday’s knowledge.
Robert Kelley at Carnegie Mellon discovered that whereas in 1986 we carried 75% of what we need to know to do our jobs in our heads, by 2006 our brains contained only about 8-10% of what we needed to know.
The rest is stored in our “outboard brains” — our laptops or, increasingly, our smart phones.
Once I had to learn most of the things required to do my job; now I need to know where to retrieve them. I search or ask people when I need to know. If I have a good network of savvy colleagues, I can ask them for advice (“social search”). “I store knowledge in my friends.” (6)
Instructional designers once only designed instruction. Now they must assess the tradeoff of putting knowledge in the worker’s head (learning) or putting it in an outboard brain (performance support). Among the options available to them:
The subtle information that cannot be pinned down in simple sentences, for example, the emotions and nuances that make or break a sale, is tougher to transfer because “’wisdom can’t be told.” (7) People acquire this implicit knowledge through observing others, collaboration, and lengthy trial and error. Like blindfolded zen archery, mastery sometimes takes years. (8)
Or course, many times we have already learned a skill through experience. Today experiential learning can be accelerated through simulation, virtual worlds, and role play.
In the increasingly complex world we inhabit, we often confront novel situations. This requires innovation, a new way of doing things. Innovation is often the result of a mash-up of ideas, for example a rule of thumb from one discipline being applied in a new context
So far, we’ve addressed motivation and content. Longer term, there’s more to it than that. In addition to learning about things, we need to become professionals.
More on the way
7 Harvard professor Charles I. Gregg. 1970. http://www.aacu.orgipeerreviewlpr-wiOSlprwi05realitycheck.cfm
8 Herrigel, E and Suzuki, D. 1953. Zen and the Art of Archery
2 comments