Two-day online conference was a brain booster

I spent 7 hours a day for two days in an overly air-conditioned, windowless room and I emerged energized and refreshed! Trends in Library Training and Learning, the online conference resulting from the power partnership of WebJunction and the Learning Round Table, was stimulating and boundary-stretching, capturing and holding the attention of 500-700+ viewers per session.  The lineup of presenters was top-notch. The visuals were often stunning. The chat window was often so active, it was dizzying. Some participants have said it was the best online conference they had ever attended—so absorbing in fact that multi-tasking was set aside for the duration.

WebJunction staff (Jennifer, Sharon S, Betha) live-blogged all of the sessions.

T is for Training devoted today’s podcast (titled I forgot my underwear) to an enlightening (and funny) debrief from the perspective of presenters, attendees and organizers.

Thanks to the wonders of webinar technology, you can still savor the selection of presentations through the archived recordings.

Day ONE:

Day TWO:

Not only can you immerse yourself in the conference experience, you can organize a viewing party to watch the archives together. The viewing party guide and the session discussion questions will enrich the event.

Betha Gutsche

Betha Gutsche has been a virtual librarian ever since receiving her MLIS from the University of Washington Information School. Immersed in the online community of WebJunction, she has cultivated community connections through forums, live online events, and writing stories about the library community. She has delved into e-learning design, curriculum development, needs assessment, and all things connected to social learning in the online world. Betha is the editor-in-chief of the Competency Index for the Library Field. She is now the manager of Project Compass, a program working with public libraries to augment their service to communities impacted by tough times. Underneath it all, Betha is an artist and loves to raise awareness of visual literacy and introduce people to the power of image.

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Register now for Trends in Library Training and Learning

Conference SpeakersRegistration is now open for Trends in Library Training and Learning: Developing Staff Skills for the 21st Century. WebJunction will be hosting this free online conference in partnership with the Learning Roundtable on August 10-11, 2011.

This event is packed with incredible presenters, including keynote speakers Jay Turner from Georgia Public Library Service, and Char Booth from the Claremont Colleges. The full schedule with session descriptions and presenter bios is now available.

Register now for this great event! You may also be interested in coordinating a viewing party at your library to engage staff, generate discussion and help to make this event locally relevant.

Follow the conversation about the conference on Twitter with the hashtag #learntrends!

Mary Beth Faccioli

Mary Beth Faccioli, MLIS is the Instructional Design and Technology Senior Consultant at the Colorado State Library.

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Spring CLO Symposium: Virtual Edition

CLO Virtual Symposium 2011 LogoI’m always a fan of free stuff (and learning from the big guys in enterprise training) so I thought I’d share that Chief Learning Officer magazine is offering an online version of their Spring Symposium on April 26th & 27th, 2011. Titled Learning Evolution: Alignment, Agility and Adaptability, there are several levels of registration, the free version includes all of these events:

  • ALL Workshops in Salon One, with a few titles below:
    • The Great Divide: Adapting and Aligning L&D Initiatives to Meet Worker Skill Realities
    • Learning at the Speed of Need
    • Adaptive Learning Design Principles and Best Practices
    • Accelerate Learning and Drive Behavior Through Social Networks and Informal Learning
    • Virtual Learning Environments: Trends & Insights
    • Creating an Adaptive and Innovative Learning Environment
    • Using Measurement to Improve Outcomes
    • Great Webinars: Crossing the Chasm from Classroom Training to High-Performance Virtual Delivery
  • Welcome Address from president and editor in chief, Norm Kamikow
  • Opening Keynote from Bill Jensen and Josh Klein, authors of Hacking Work: Breaking Stupid Rules for Smart Results
  • Access to the Expo Hall
  • Networking Lounge
  • Resource Center

Let me know if you’re attending, we can hit the backchannels together too!

Marianne Lenox

As the Staff Training & Volunteer Coordinator for the Huntsville - Madison County Public Library in Alabama, Marianne is responsible for planning, directing, maintaining and implementing a comprehensive staff training and volunteer program for her library. She consistently strives to provide learning opportunities, professional information and technical training to ensure both better library service and the professional development of the Library’s staff and volunteers.

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Paul Signorelli’s “Getting To Know Me” Post

1.   Your One Sentence Bio
I was born; have been deeply immersed in writing, training-teaching-learning, and working with libraries and nonprofit organizations for many years; am honored to sometimes be mistaken for ALA Learning colleague Peter Bromberg when the two of us are lucky enough to be on Maurice Coleman’s T is for Training podcasts at the same; and plan to die someday—which, I believe, covers all bases.

2.   Do you blog? If yes, how did you come up with your blog name?
You’ll find me blogging here at ALA Learning and at Building Creative Bridges. I came up with the name because “Librarian In Black,” “Library Trainer,” and “(almost) Bald Trainer” were already taken by writers better than I’ll ever be, and Building Creative Bridges seemed like a good way to describe what I hoped to accomplish through the blog and everything else I’m doing.

3.   What is your professional background?
As far as I can tell, I’ve worked for newspapers, magazines, a couple of schools in Japan, the Monterey Peninsula Museum of Art, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, and the San Francisco Public Library system, and with a variety of other groups and organizations, but if you’ve heard differently, please don’t hesitate to contact me.

4.   What training do you do? staff? patrons? types of classes?
My position as Director, Volunteer Services & Staff Training for the San Francisco Public Library system had me providing orientations, software introductions and updates, and other learning opportunities for staff and volunteers; current training-teaching-learning efforts include writing e-learning courses for Infopeople and LE@D (Lifelong Education @ Desktop)–http://www.leadonline.info/–and conducting workshops at professional conferences.
 
5. What training do you think is most important to libraries right now?
We need to be combining sessions on practical matters (software upgrades, customer service, leadership and collaboration skills, conflict resolution, health and safety issues) with inspirational/visionary/long-term matters (how to continue serving library members and guests on site and online, maintaining libraries as on-site and online community centers, becoming collaborators with members of the communities we serve rather than one-way providers of information and services).
 
6.   Where do you get your training?
For training-learning, I try everything I can think of, including conversations with colleagues; on-site and online workshops and courses; blogs/RSS feeds; books; journals, magazines, and newspapers; webinars; conferences; speakers at ASTD (American Society for Training & Development) and ALA (American Library Association) meetings and conferences—and I’m sure that’s only about half the list.

7.   How do you keep up?
Keep up?

8.  What do you think are the biggest challenges libraries are facing
right now?
One of the many large challenges is to recognize and respond to their increasingly huge role in being learning centers for their local and online communities while not abandoning any of the important and life-changing roles their members and guests still expect them to fulfill. 

9.   What are biggest challenges for trainers?
All too often, we have training-teaching-learning as part of our job rather than as the entire focus of our job, which leads to lots of half-finished projects, lots of stress for everyone, and less than optimum learning opportunities; focusing on our own continuing education and our primary roles as workplace learning and performance providers might be the best lesson-by-example that we can provide to colleagues whose workplace focus is equally divided to their own detriment and the detriment of those they serve. 

10.   What exciting things are you doing training wise?
Trying to be creative face-to-face and online in the way I respond to learners’ needs: delivering a synchronous online learning opportunity through live Google Chat, for example, was a fun distance-learning experiment with a University of Nevada, Las Vegas colleague and his class in October 2009.

11.   What do you wish you were doing?
Writing; oh, wait, I am writing.

12.   What would you do with a badger?
Teach it to use Google Chat so it could more effectively participate in synchronous online learning opportunities.

13.   What’s your favorite food?
Pizza.  Purchased somewhere in NY, NJ or the Philly area.  If you’re not buying pizza in one of these geographic areas it’s not really pizza.  Sorry, it’s not.  (OK, an exception for Chicago deep-dish.  As long as you qualify it.)

14.   If you were stranded on an island, what one thing would you want
to have with you?

A confirmed flight back to the mainland.

15.   Do you know what happens when a grasshopper kicks all the seeds
out of a pickle?

I live in San Francisco; can someone tell me what a grasshopper is?

16.   Post it notes or the back of your hand?
No, thanks.

17.    Windows or Mac?
OK, but definitely not on the first date.

18.   Talk about one training moment you’d like to forget?
Can’t remember; must be an occupational hazzard since at least one other ALA Learning colleague has responded similarly.

19.   What’s your take on handshakes?
A handshake is certainly a pleasant way to avoid open warfare in a learning environment.

20.   Global warming: yes or no?
Best response I’ve seen is Jill Sobule’s “happy song about global warming”; who am I to argue?

21.   How did you get into this line of work?
My supervisor at the time told me I had to take over the organization’s staff training program if I was going to keep my job; I found that to be tremendously motivating.

22.   What is the best part of your job?
Being part of what ASTD refers to as the effort to “create a world that works better.”

23.   Why should someone else follow in your shoes?
This question reminds me of a story from Martin Buber’s Tales of the Hasidism, which I will now paraphrase to the best of my recollection. The gist of it: Samuel, a very devout man who is struggling to be good in the eyes of the Lord, approaches the Rabbi and asks, “Rabbi, should I try to be more like Moses or more like Abraham?”  The Rabbi replies, “Rather than trying to be more like Moses, or more like Abraham, the Lord would be pleased if you tried to be more like Samuel.” And that’s all I have to say about that.

24.   Sushi or hamburger?
Depends on who is asking.

N.B.: Special thanks to Peter Bromberg for allowing me to insert, verbatim, his answers to questions #13 and #23 here. I figured if I couldn’t match his responses for cleverness, I might as well just outright steal them and see if I could further confuse colleagues about which of us is speaking (please see response to question #1, above).

Paul Signorelli

Paul Signorelli is a writer, trainer, presenter, and consultant based in the San Francisco Bay Area. He works with clients to successfully facilitate the introduction of new technology into organizations; prepares and presents webinars and other online and onsite learning opportunities for a variety of clients; is actively involved in ALA and ASTD; continues to prepare articles for "American Libraries," the eLearning Guild's "Learning Solutions Magazine," and other publications; and co-wrote "Workplace Learning & Leadership" with Lori Reed for ALA editions. Paul can be reached at paul@paulsignorelli.com.

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Taking the temperature of training

Elliott Masie has just released his Learning Resources Barometer, the results of a survey to determine how learning budgets and resources are enduring the tough economic times.

The survey measures the increase or decrease in:

  • learning budgets
  • learning departments
  • volume of elearning modules
  • volume of f2f classes
  • amount of employee travel for learning
  • use of social learning
  • and more…

Check it out to see if there are any surprises. While you’re there, take a look at the Social Learning survey results. Where do you think your staff training sits on the scale of things?

Betha Gutsche

Betha Gutsche has been a virtual librarian ever since receiving her MLIS from the University of Washington Information School. Immersed in the online community of WebJunction, she has cultivated community connections through forums, live online events, and writing stories about the library community. She has delved into e-learning design, curriculum development, needs assessment, and all things connected to social learning in the online world. Betha is the editor-in-chief of the Competency Index for the Library Field. She is now the manager of Project Compass, a program working with public libraries to augment their service to communities impacted by tough times. Underneath it all, Betha is an artist and loves to raise awareness of visual literacy and introduce people to the power of image.

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Creating “Literary Salons” for Trainer-Teacher-Learners

An interesting thing is happening in the San Francisco East Bay area: a local chapter of the American Society for Training & Development is becoming the trainer-teacher-learner’s version of a literary salon, and its community of members has increased by nearly 33 percent (from 62 to 82 members) in less than six months.

 

Here’s how it’s evolving: Three of us who work on programming for the ASTD Mt. Diablo Chapter’s monthly two-hour dinner meetings at the Crow Canyon Country Club in Danville decided to build off of the Chapter’s tradition of bringing in the best available speakers on the interrelated topics of training, leadership, and human resources; we encouraged presenters to use engaging, cutting-edge presentation styles while playing off of the camaraderie which existed within the small group of 10 or 15 repeat attendees.

 

Chapter member Steven Cerri, presenting on the topic “Why Most Training Isn’t Sticky and What to Do About It” at the Chapter’s April meeting, didn’t just cover the topic effectively; he frequently called attention to the techniques he was using and, as a result, kept the event lively, personal, and sticky for the audience he was addressing. And that’s when the magic began: the regulars had never been shy about engaging speakers and each other throughout the monthly formal presentations, but they upped the ante—and made the experience memorable—by being part of the discussion rather than sitting back, listening passively, and politely asking questions while Steven stood before them. And when the hour-long formal program was over, people didn’t quickly empty the room. The discussion continued informally for at least another half hour.

 

Daren Blonski, VP of Leadership Development for Sonoma Learning Systems, inspired an equally engaging exchange the following month on the theme of what trainers need to know to function effectively in multigenerational workplaces. We worked together, as he prepared his PowerPoint slides, to incorporate a Cliff Atkinson Beyond Bullet Points style to his presentation—creating a visual narrative flow from slide to slide without using much text. The level of engagement between Daren and the other participants—it would be inaccurate and unfair to refer to them as an “audience” in this context—was electric. Daren didn’t even use all the slides he had prepared; he took advantage of the lively interactions to cover the material, and the discussion continued informally for almost 45 minutes after the monthly meeting was formally adjourned.

 

Provokare Presentations Founder Roberto Giannicola, at the Chapter’s June meeting, took the process over the top. With visually stimulating slides, a puckishly engaging sense of humor, and a presentation virtually free of bullet points (except when he was using them to show how ineffective they can be), he set an enormously high bar for all presenters who will follow him at Mt. Diablo Chapter dinner meetings. He facilitated a very lively discussion on how the combination of  imagery and storytelling creates effective learning experiences, and it was again with reticence that everyone parted ways nearly an hour after the meeting ended.

 

It hasn’t taken long for the word to spread. That small community of regulars in March has quickly expanded so that the Chapter’s meeting last night, featuring ASTD Senior Chapter Coach Scott Wilson (based in Washington, D.C., but traveling under the auspices of ASTD to serve as keynote speaker for the event), drew 32 participants—nearly half of them first-time attendees, and two of them returning after at least a few years away from the Chapter. One after another, they confirmed that they were drawn to Scott’s presentation on “Current Reports and Best Training Practices from ASTD’s National Office” because colleagues have been telling them about the “incredible energy” that is coming out of the Mt. Diablo Chapter presentations and discussions. And, of course, it was no surprise to find two people standing outside in that warm summer evening weather 90 minutes after Scott’s formal presentation ended last night. Which suggests that we may not be far from seeing after-meeting discussions which exceed the two-hour time frame for the formal dinners and presentations themselves.

 

For more information about the Chapter’s activities, please visit its website.

Paul Signorelli

Paul Signorelli is a writer, trainer, presenter, and consultant based in the San Francisco Bay Area. He works with clients to successfully facilitate the introduction of new technology into organizations; prepares and presents webinars and other online and onsite learning opportunities for a variety of clients; is actively involved in ALA and ASTD; continues to prepare articles for "American Libraries," the eLearning Guild's "Learning Solutions Magazine," and other publications; and co-wrote "Workplace Learning & Leadership" with Lori Reed for ALA editions. Paul can be reached at paul@paulsignorelli.com.

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Everything You Know (And Teach) Is Wrong

 

 

If we are to believe David Maister, the sky is once again falling, everything you know is wrong, and we’ve all been wasting our time by doing what we do as trainers.

 

Having modified an earlier series of blog postings into Why (Most) Training Is Useless in the May 2008 issue of T+D, ASTD’s monthly review of what is new, exciting, and challenging in the world  of training, Maister offers a thought-provoking confession and a suggested remedy.

 

Among his assertions are the proposition that “the majority of business training—by me and by everyone else—is a waste of time because only a microscopic fraction of training is ever put into practice with the hope for benefits obtained” (p. 53).  He also, in a section subtitled “The Right Approach,” suggests that a “full-change program” should be created; people should be trained with their coworkers so the lessons are carried back to and implemented in their workplace; and that staff rather than outsiders should be used to provide effective training experiences: “Outsiders should be used only to help train-the-trainers programs” (p. 58).

 

There’s much to admire in Maister’s article, and he is not alone in questioning whether current training procedures are effective. More pre- and post-workshop activities undoubtedly lead to better learning opportunities. Training employees in their “regular operating groups” does help create the possibility that the learners will have their lessons reinforced.  There is, however, also much to question.

 

Those of us who have managed training programs featuring a combination of in-house trainers and those hired from outside our organizations hear from our colleagues that they appreciate the training opportunities they would not have received if we had to rely solely on in-house resources. We also hear and see that what we offer is far from useless when our colleagues consistently tell us how helpful it is for them to have the variety of options we provide: one-hour, half-day, and full-day offerings on a variety of topics; occasional series which extend over two- or three-day periods; series which may continue once a month for several months; and other combinations such as asynchronous online learning opportunities or lesson plans which can be printed out and used on a schedule established by employees rather than supervisors or trainers.

 

Useless? I think not. Common? Not as common as it should be, but we all have to start somewhere.

 

The current “learning revolution,” which concentrates on learners as much as on instructors and which encourages abundant pre- and post-workshop activities to assure greater results from training sessions, is something to be admired and supported. It does not, however, mean that one-time workshops need to be eliminated.

 

A one-time harassment prevention session led by attorneys and involving an actor and an actress who did short, improvised vignettes on the topic led to unplanned workplace and lunch-time conversations among employees for several weeks after the sessions ended. Those informal discussions drew in employees who were not even present for the original presentations and helped create more awareness of the topic throughout the organization.

 

Workshops including discussions and tips about how to more effectively work with transgender colleagues and library users led to similar viral learning and the unsolicited assertion from at least one participant that the effectiveness of the instructor’s presentation had caused a major shift in the way that the participant worked after attending the session.

 

In the same way, we don’t need expensive surveys to know that employees who choose to attend one-hour, half-day, or full-day workshops on how to use the latest versions of Word, Excel, or PowerPoint are returning to their workplace and using what they learned to their benefit and to the advantage of those who use the services of the organizations for which they work.

 

I have no argument with Maister and others who suggest that more training time and more cohesive planning of long-term training goals can produce fantastic results. I’m also a strong supporter of having comprehensive in-house peer-based training programs along the lines of what the Contra Costa County Library offers. Where I do part ways with them is when they act as if they’ve suddenly seen the light, discovered that everything they’ve done was useless, and try to lead us to the one, true way to reach our goals—until they discover that this new way is also far from perfect and needs to be replaced by yet another “right” way to do things. As if everything we know were wrong.

 

Paul Signorelli

Paul Signorelli is a writer, trainer, presenter, and consultant based in the San Francisco Bay Area. He works with clients to successfully facilitate the introduction of new technology into organizations; prepares and presents webinars and other online and onsite learning opportunities for a variety of clients; is actively involved in ALA and ASTD; continues to prepare articles for "American Libraries," the eLearning Guild's "Learning Solutions Magazine," and other publications; and co-wrote "Workplace Learning & Leadership" with Lori Reed for ALA editions. Paul can be reached at paul@paulsignorelli.com.

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2008: Predictions and Challenges

January signals the time of year to look forward across the expanse of what’s to come. I’m no futurist but I’m fascinated by those who are willing and eager to make predictions for the near and far future.

Of the ten predictions for 2008 from the eLearning Technology blog, these stood out for me:

  • #2. Second Life Lite —“A medium size Virtual Classroom / Meeting Tool will announce features in 2008 that are not 3D immersive, but that are more like Mii characters in a 2.5D world.” (Me and my mii are curious to see what this environment looks like.)
  • #5. Mobile Learning —“large adoption of mobile as THE learning platform still won’t be there.” (This sparked the most comments.)
  • #8. Serious Games —“Likely YOU will get to attend a session on them. But YOU won’t get to build one, or buy one, or participate in one.” (Not even Guitar Hero?)
  • #10. Knowledge Worker Skills —“The discussion of knowledge work skills is going to be BIG … We won’t hear much this year, but in 2009, this will be something you’ll hear in a big way.” (Library and information science for the masses?)

The Mobile Technology in TAFE blog chose to identify five challenges for the coming year:

  • #2. Firewalls —“Inability to access web sites will continue to frustrate educators.” (and learners.)
  • #3. Bandwidth —“…lack of bandwidth will drive [educators] insane.” (and learners.)
  • #5. Mobile Devices —“… most educators will continue to be prevented from accessing their educational potential due to school or Government policies.” (A different take on the topic; this blog is from Australia.)

This is just a sampling from a heap of predictions. What do you see in the new year?

Betha Gutsche

Betha Gutsche has been a virtual librarian ever since receiving her MLIS from the University of Washington Information School. Immersed in the online community of WebJunction, she has cultivated community connections through forums, live online events, and writing stories about the library community. She has delved into e-learning design, curriculum development, needs assessment, and all things connected to social learning in the online world. Betha is the editor-in-chief of the Competency Index for the Library Field. She is now the manager of Project Compass, a program working with public libraries to augment their service to communities impacted by tough times. Underneath it all, Betha is an artist and loves to raise awareness of visual literacy and introduce people to the power of image.

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One Web Day September 22

Check it out! Meet up on Sept. 22 to talk about how the web could change lives around the world in the future. From One Web Day:

The essence of OneWebDay is to create a global constituency that thinks of itself as responsible for the future of the internet, so that when negative things happen (censorship, restricted access, heavy-handed law enforcement control) people will act.

How can you participate? Sponsor a teaching event (how to create/edit a wiki, putting photos online, creating a podcast, etc.), host a conference or panel to discuss the future of the web, host a live chat…what other ideas can we come up with? Take a video of your event, post it to YouTube and tag it with onewebday2007. I can’t wait to see what we all come up with! Here are some examples from Flickr

What Can Wii Learn from Nintendo?

Unless you’ve lived under a rock for the past year (or inside of a cave, like my office here at work), you have undoubtedly heard of Nintendo’s new videogame system, the Wii.  Nintendo eschewed cutting-edge, next generation graphics to focus on creating an integrated gaming experience. Instead of gamers using a remote control with upwards of 16 buttons and two joysticks, the Big N introduced a proprietary, motion-based controller with fewer buttons so that users can interact more fully with the game.  The end result?  This little system that could has everyone from toddlers to grannies experiencing videogames like never before.  Entire families that never played games together are crowding around the TV to teach each other how to use this new toy.

 

I plan to follow Nintendo’s lead when my library system launches our new podcasting initiative later this year.  See, we’ve been examining how to improve the tried-and-true reader’s advisory staple for quite some time.  Sure we could toss another training course and some handouts at it, much like Sony and Microsoft tosses high-definition graphics at stale games, but what fun would that be?   

 

As a former frontline staff member turned trainer, I’ve repeatedly heard how trainees wish that their learning opportunities were entertaining experiences.  New technologies give us a chance to do this, especially with collaborative learning initiatives.  Setting up a portable podcast studio and letting staff members loose to talk about the good, the bad, and the ugly of a given genre for the month gets people involved and provides a forum for sharing knowledge.  Along with having a blast, staff members are promoting system-wide awareness of the collection and building a background in fiction and non-fiction.  The learning goals haven’t changed.  Only the medium has. 

 

I get the feeling that Wii in the continuing education field will learn a lot from Nintendo in the year to come.

Jay Turner

Jay Turner, Training Manager at Gwinnett County Public Library in Georgia, is responsible for all aspects of learning and development for a staff of 300+ employees. He considers himself a lifelong student, and delights in sharing his passion for learning with anyone willing to listen (much to their chagrin!) He is a library lifer, who began working in libraries as a teen and has worn almost every conceivable public services hat since. Jay’s diversity of experience helps him develop and deliver solutions that are creative, practical, and effective. He is a self-proclaimed information and tech junkie, who gets his fix by playing in his “digital sandbox” with new tools and neat ideas to make learning more accessible, more flexible, and more fun across any medium. He can be reached at jayturner[at]comcast.net.