Learning Conversations

Etienne Wenger, in his thought-provoking book on Communities of Practice, states:

Learning is inherent in human nature.

Learning cannot be designed.

Learning happens, design or no design.

There are few more urgent tasks than to design social infrastructures that foster learning.

Those who can understand the informal yet structured, experiential yet social character of learning ... will be the architects of our tomorrow.

Cash America have set up a system for their employees to record videos about the products they deal with. Anyone in the company can create videos with cameras supplied to each of their shops, and then upload them onto an internal Youtube-type website. (Via Bryan Polivka).

In the session that Patrick Dunn and I are leading at next year's Learning Technologies conference on The Learning Ecosystem of the Future, we will be considering how "decentralizing and democratizing the creation of learning resources is radically changing the way we produce learning content."

Everything's coming together.

The missing link has been the software to support such learning ecosystems. I've been looking for such a tool for a long time - one that combines the ease of use of Google, with the sophistication of Amazon and the community aspects of Facebook and Youtube.

Involve by Infinity Learning comes close. I saw this working earlier this year, and got quite excited by it. Its main downfall, for me, was that it treats SCORM-based content completely separately from other types of content (eg. documents, mp3's etc). It gives far greater prominence to the SCORM packages in the navigation system, where really there should be no difference between how they are presented to the learner.

During a search on "Learning ecosystems" last week, in preparation for the Learning Technologies session, I came across Wisetail's Learning Ecosystem. Subsequently, I spent an extremely useful hour with Justin Bigart, the company's founder, taking me through the background to the system and how it works in practice.

The companies that Wisetail tend to work with are young; full of people who are used to telling their stories online - through Facebook, blogs, Youtube etc. They expect to be in control of their learning, and expect to gain recognition through what they do.

Wisetail works by providing a software tool (the Learning Ecosystem) that combines the engagement qualities of Facebook with the top-down management and reporting abilities of an LMS. Alongside this, they have a media team that uses storytelling techniques to produce videos which sit inside the Learning Ecosystem. The aim is to help the clients develop their own media skills so they can tell their own stories.

As well as videos, the Ecosystem can handle any file format. Currently it only really works with single files or embedding content hosted externally. So, there's no simple way to upload  the output of Articulate, ExeLearning or any of the host of rapid development tools that create HTML and Flash-based content. However, given its modular architecture, Justin reassured me that this could be added if a client needed it.

The exciting bit happens when you see how learners access the content (known as modules).

Every module has a points value attached to it. Learners collect points when they access a module. Some clients are using these like loyalty points to exchange for incentives.

How people are using the modules is completely transparent. Every learner can see who else has used the module, can see how many points they've collected, how many times they've logged in and which modules they've commented on. As well as using a bit of peer pressure psychology to incentivise usage, this also is seen to celebrate the community and storytelling.

The criticial thing seems to be that this tool currently works best in organisations that already have a devolved culture of expertise, trust and expectation of sharing. It would take a lot of change management work to implement this inside a typical, tightly controlled corporation or civil service agency.

For Wisetail to crack these markets, they would need to provide some level of SCORM capability. Not because SCORM has any value in this context (See: SCORM Warning), but because those responsible for procurement have been convinced that they must ask for SCORM (often without knowing why). On the other hand, it might be better for Wisetail to ignore SCORM completely, as then they would have to then produce functionality to deliver meaningless activity reports to managers. The type of learning culture that is supported by the Learning Ecosystem is diametrically opposed to the one that goes alongside your typical Learning Management System.

Would I recommend Wisetail's Learning Ecosystem?

Given what I've seen of the company, their software development methods, and the product, I'd say, "Yes, but..."

Be aware that the software you choose must reflect the culture of the organisation. Take a look at my Top Tips for Choosing and Using Social Software. If the culture's not already there, but it's where you want to be, then also be aware that some change management will be required.