Table 1 Information Sessions Project Outline

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I have developed the Information Sessions according to well-established learner-centric instructional principles. Specifically, they use a Constructivist theoretical model and a fusion of the ARCS Model and a Systems Design approach to the instructional design of content. A modality of Gagné’s Assumption is used as the basis for the Information Session structure, and the actual presentation format adheres to Gagné’s Events of Instruction (1-5, 7). Content is developed according Rapid eLearning principles. Information Session presenters are guided by the production team through the content creation process.

Table 1 Information Sessions High-level Typology

An important aspect of Information Sessions is the simultaneous use of face-to-face presentation with synchronous Web delivery, as well as post-event asynchronous distribution of content via the Web and on DVD-ROM, ensuring the widest-possible distribution of content and ensuring just-in-time access to knowledge and domain expertise across an organisation.

Why? Well, by analysing the key terms in Morrison ’s definition, and scrutinising them in the context of the literature. I’ve looked at “andragogy” and “synchronous & asynchronous” so far; today, I’m dissecting “knowledge management. As a reminder, here’s Don’s definition:

The continuous assimilation of knowledge and skills by adults stimulated by synchronous and asynchronous learning events – and sometimes Knowledge management outputs – which are authored, delivered engaged with, supported and administered using internet technologies.

(2004, p.4)

The term Knowledge Management (KM) has been described as “the process of capturing, sharing, and leveraging a company’s collective expertise” (Botkin, 1999, p.40). I would assert that there is an anthropological aspect to the process of managing knowledge in an organisation; as we have seen earlier in this chapter, it can be argued that there is a social-cultural element to how individuals work and learn together in an organisation’s structures.

Claude Levi-Strauss, eminent structuralist and ethnographer of the Trobriand Islanders coined the phrase ‘the raw and the cooked’ in Mythologiques, Volume 1 to signify the dichotomy between elements falling along the ‘raw’ category as being of ‘natural’ origin, and those on the “cooked” side being of ‘cultural’ origin – i.e. products of human creation (Lévi-Strauss, 1966). Morrison echoes this comparison when he describes e-learning as processed (i.e. cooked) knowledge – it “takes subject matter expertise, puts it through an instructional design process and presents the result in an obvious framework. KM delivers raw, or at the very least, less processed knowledge” (p.7). Rosenberg (2006, p.106) places KM at the core of the Smart Enterprise (see Figure 1.1) Rather than seeing e-learning and KM as information in differing states of mediation existing on a knowledge and e-learning continuum, he views them as modular elements within a larger Learning and Performance Architecture. He sees the goal of any KM strategy as to enhance the organisations performance by making “undiscovered” (2006, p.106) or tacit knowledge “common” (p.106) or organisational, and making information “known and available” (p.106) to all those who need it. Like Morrison, he suggests that knowledge assets within organisations can manifest themselves in numerous shapes and sizes, from learning IM chat messages, email, content assets, learning objects, business process documents, white papers and so forth.

Figure 1.1 Learning and Performance Architecture ((after Marc J. Rosenberg))

Rosenberg also posits that KM can function as a framework for learning content – what he describes as the difference between “Course-centric and Knowledge-centric viewpoints” (p.112). Taking the example of a Java software development course (see Figure 1.2), he argues that this viewpoint is more “robust” (p.113) than the course-centric viewpoint, as the learner has the ability to navigate through a “wide array of resources: experts, information repositories, live events and virtual communities” (p.113) as well as the relevant courseware.

Figure 1.2 Knowledge-centric View of Knowledge (after Marc J. Rosenberg)

This arrangement provides a much more comprehensive and interrelated set of relationships between knowledge assets by systematically exposing more resources to where they can be found (pp.112-113).

References:

Botkin, J. W, (1999). Smart business: how knowledge communities can revolutionize your company. New York: The Free Press.

Lévi-Strauss, C (1966) The Raw and the Cooked: Mythologiques, Vol. 1. Penguin Books Ltd.

Rosenberg, M. J. (2001) e-Learning: Strategies for Delivering Knowledge in the Digital Age London: McGraw-Hill.

Morrison, D. (2004) E-Learning Strategies: how to get implementation and delivery right first time, Chichester: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Rosenberg, M. J. (2006) Beyond e-Learning. San Francisco, CA: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

The continuous assimilation of knowledge and skills by adults stimulated by synchronous and asynchronous learning events – and sometimes Knowledge management outputs – which are authored, delivered engaged with, supported and administered using internet technologies.

(2004, p.4)

I briefly touched upon “continuous assimilation of knowledge and skills by adults”; andragogy.

Today, I’m going to talk a bit more about synchronous and asynchronous learning events. A proportion of the content I develop for the workplace includes non-formal informational and knowledge content delivered to learners (which I call “Information Sessions”) via a number of synchronous and asynchronous channels. We will delve into the detail of this at another time, but for now it is useful to note the meanings of these categories. Colvin Clark and Mayer in e-learning and the Science of Instruction (2003) define synchronous delivery simply as that which occurs simultaneously, whereas asynchronous “occurs at different times” (p.201). I would suggest that implicit in the term ‘synchronous’ is the term ‘collaborative’ – that is, two or more learners, possibly in the presence of an instructor or domain expert, participating (remotely) in a learning event and exchanging information and knowledge.

In Designing World-class E-Learning Roger Schank (2002) calls this “e-learning by doing” (p.13) and cites the industry-wide use of computer-based air flight simulators in aviation as training tools to understand the potential of collaboration to develop learners in situated environments. Equivalently, implicit in the term ‘asynchronous’ is, I suggest, the notion of self-paced content. As Morrison points out though, “the flexibility of internet technology creates grey areas around the notion of synchronous and asynchronous” (p.7). He gives the example of a virtual class which “starts life” as a synchronous learning event, is recorded and can thenceforward be played back on-demand by learners. In a sense, Morrison argues, the presenter and participants taking part in the original event become co-authors of an asynchronous learning event. This, in fact, could serve as a rather broad working definition of the category of learning that the Information Sessions inhabit.

References:

Clark, R. C. & Mayer R. (2003) e-learning and the Science of Instruction: Proven Guidelines for Consumers and Designers of Multimedia Learning, San Francisco, CA: Pfeiffer

Morrison, D. (2004) E-Learning Strategies: how to get implementation and delivery right first time, Chichester: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Schank, R. (2002) Designing World-Class e-Learning. London, McGraw-Hill