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Please note: We have a new blog!

2011-12-13T09:37:00.000Z

For all our new blog posts and news, please visit the news area of our website www.charitylearning.org/news/

Virtual Classrooms Leading Innovation in Charity Learning

2011-10-14T10:50:00.003+01:00

Virtual classrooms and online learning environments are being embraced by charity learning departments, as they look for innovative, cost effective methods of developing their staff and volunteers. This was clear from a poll of delegates at the inspiring Charity Learning Conference & Awards 2011.

Delegates from charity learning departments across the UK considered the learning technologies that would have the most influence on their organisation’s learning success over the next 12 months, when they came together at the inaugural Charity Learning Consortium Conference and Awards.

The delegates had been discussing the preliminary findings of Towards Maturity’s latest learning technology benchmark with more than 600 organisations - 13% were from the not for profit sector. It was clear live online learning environments - including virtual meetings and virtual classrooms- had the greatest potential to influence learning technologies in the charity sector in the immediate future. This was closely followed by the use of customised content. Both methods allow charities to tailor learning directly to their own needs.

The main Towards Maturity learning technology benchmark - due for release on 10 November 2011 - also showed that live online learning has increased steadily across all sectors over the last 12 months, with virtual meetings now in use by 65% of organisations and virtual classrooms by 46%. Customised learning content was the most used by organisations in 2011, the study shows.

The main benchmark also saw a marked increase in the use of external social media for learning: 41% are now experimenting with sites such as Twitter and Facebook, compared to just 11% last year. Whilst the charity sector believes that social media will definitely add value to learning and development, it will not be as influential in this sector as the more proven learning technologies.

Interestingly, whilst many charities use learning management systems to improve administration of learning, not one table included it on their top three most influential technologies over the next 12 months.

Laura Overton, Managing Director of Towards Maturity comments “It was a delight to share the preliminary results of our Benchmark Study 2011 at the first CLC Conference and Awards. This year’s results are fascinating especially among the charity sector. I encourage the sector to download our free forty page in-depth benchmark report on November the 10th to help raise the impact learning technologies are having among charities.”

About Towards Maturity

Toward Maturity's not for profit benchmark practice provides independent expert advice and support in using learning innovation to accelerate business performance. Towards Maturity leverages the wealth of data provided by its Benchmark Study, an internationally recognised longitudinal study based on the inputs of 1,200 organisations and 3,000 learners over 8 years. Benchmark findings, case studies and resources are available to download for free on the website.www.towardsmaturity.org

Diary Dates

2011-10-14T10:41:00.004+01:00

The latest diary dates from The Charity Learning Consortium:

October 21   Creating your own Courseware: Captivate (Q & A) – 10am
October 21   Creating your own Courseware: Perform (Q & A) – 2pm

November 10   Moodle Training: User and Admin Functions (Web Training) – 1pm
November 11   Moodle Training: Custom Courseware Uploads (Web Training) – 11am
November 18   Creating your own Courseware: Captivate (Q & A) – 10am
November 18   Creating your own Courseware: Perform (Q & A) – 2pm

December 7   CLC Members Meeting, NCVO, London
December 8   Moodle Training: User and Admin Functions (Web Training) – 1pm
December 8   Moodle Training: Custom Courseware Uploads (Web Training) – 11am
December 16 Creating your own Courseware: Captivate (Q & A) – 10am
December 16 Creating your own Courseware: Perform (Q & A) – 2pm

World of Learning – What is your Greatest eLearning Challenge?

2011-10-14T10:40:00.013+01:00

A host of industry-leading speakers attracted many of the thousands of visitors to this year’s World of Learning Conference.

Key issues currently affecting the sector were covered including investing in the leaders of the future, delivering with reduced time and budgets and integrating formal, informal and social learning. Visitors came away from the two day conference armed with plenty of valuable advice and guidance to take back with them to the workplace.

One of the issues discussed was eLearning, in particular how to make engage learners and demonstrate ROI. We asked some of the speakers ‘What is your greatest eLearning challenge?’

Martin Baker, founder and managing director of the Charity Learning Consortium, says:
“The results of benchmarking research undertaken specifically for the third sector indicates that engaging learners is one of the chief challenges. Marketing and evaluation are also barriers to overcome. These are all common themes from standard benchmarking surveys covering the corporate sector."

“However, what we need to bear in mind is that compared to the corporate sector, charities have a relatively low budget. It is therefore all the more note worthy that they continue to achieve such results despite their financial constraints.”

Nancy Ouma, assessment and training manager, VSO, says:
“There are two challenges of particular note. First are the many different learning styles that suit different people. Some learners may not be receptive to the idea of eLearning, so require guidance and support around this in order to show how it can benefit them."

“The second challenge is demonstrating its effectiveness. Participation levels are an obvious measurement but this raises the question of how do you define participation? Does this relate to attendance, interaction or delivery? This definition needs to be determined before the evaluation process is put into place.”

Laura Overton, managing director at Towards Maturity, says:
“We have gathered data on the barriers to adoption of e-learning. In 2004, poor infrastructure was cited as one of the top barriers, in 2006 it was the cost of set up."

“For the last three years, the main barriers are all to do with the knowledge, skills and confidence of the L&D team, their perceptions that their learners are not ready and willing for technology, and the reluctance of management to adopt new ways of working.”

Winners of the First Charity Learning Awards Announced

2011-10-14T10:29:00.003+01:00

The winners of the first Charity Learning Awards have been celebrating their success after being presented with their trophies at the Charity Learning Conference in London.

Martin Baker, the CEO and founder of The Charity Learning Consortium, first brought a pilot group of charities together to share the cost of eLearning back in 2003. He has long dreamt of holding a Charity Learning Conference and Awards. Now with 100 charities in the Consortium, this was the year to launch it - and the dream became a reality at a packed Charity Learning Conference, attended by 100 charity representatives and guests, all with an interest in learning and development in the charity sector.

In front of this enthusiastic audience, Martin Baker was thrilled to announce the winners of the first Charity Learning Awards - pointing out that all the members of Consortium deserve recognition for the invaluable work that they do.

The winners of the first Charity Learning Awards are as follows:

Best means of engaging your audience: United Response
Getting started, or restarted, on your eLearning journey: WRVS
Best overall eLearning programme: Barnardo's

One of the respected Awards judge commented: "I've evaluated many different types of award entries over the years, but these were without doubt the most inspiring."

Several awards were also conferred on members, in recognition for their commitment to the Consortium:

The Charity Learning Consortium Ambassador award: The Guinness Partnership
Most engaged member of the Consortium: Macmillan Cancer Support
Embracing the technology: The Royal National Lifeboat Institution

Martin Baker commented: "It's been the most phenomenal journey to get to the point where we could launch the first Charity Learning Conference and Awards. I feel immensely proud of the great Consortium team that has made this possible, and of all of our charity members, who really are an inspiration.

"Collaboration is at the very heart of The Consortium, and judging from the level of conversation at the Conference, I hope that we have facilitated even more collaborative working amongst our members."

Pictured left to right above are:
Wendy Stanley, Head of Membership, The Charity Learning Consortium;
Niall Julian, eLearning Developer, Learn Zone, Macmillan Cancer Support;
Richard Bragg, Learning and Development Partner, WRVS;
Sharon Barwood, Head of Learning and Development, WRVS;
Mike Woods, IS Learning and Development Consultant, Barnardo's;
Lisa Johnson, Assistant Director Information Services, Learning and Communication, Barnardo's;
John LeRossignol, Learning Resources Manager, RNLI, The Lifeboat College;
Martin Baker, CEO and founder, The Charity Learning Consortium

Charity Learning Award Winners: Barnardo's

2011-10-14T10:26:00.003+01:00

Barnardo's, the UK's leading children's charity, won the trophy for the Best Overall eLearning Programme at the Charity Learning Awards. Judges were particularly impressed with the breadth of learning technologies Barnardo's has embraced, the innovative approach taken, and the organisation's dedication to supporting its eLearners.

Barnardo's small Learning and Development team has beaten the challenge of reaching a large organisation by devising creative initiatives to support the development of some 7,500 staff and volunteers, at 400 sites spread across the UK and Northern Ireland.

Pictured are (L to R) Lisa Johnson, Assistant Director Information Services, Learning and Communication, Barnardo's; Martin Baker, CEO and founder, The Charity Learning Consortium; Mike Woods, IS Learning and Development Consultant, Barnardo's

Award judges were particularly impressed that this small L&D team embraced so many different types of learning technologies. From using virtual classrooms, video, wikis, and an online learning community through to eLearning, they have covered all bases.

For example, all new recruits are provided with a 45 minute virtual classroom session introducing Barnardo's IT systems. Staff are shown how to access the charity's learning resources and support, and this virtual classroom is also available to existing staff.

All eLearning is delivered via a customised Charity Learning Consortium Moodle website.

By using learning technologies, the charity reached 54% more learners in 2010/2011 compared to those it trained in 2006/07.

Lisa Johnson, Barnardo's IT Learning and Development Manager, comments: "ELearning and the use of other learning technologies has had a major impact on the way we support IT users within our organisation. Sixty per cent of our delivery is now online."

Judges were also impressed with the L&D team's innovative approach. Analysis of calls to Barnardo's helpdesk led to the team producing online fact sheets based on FAQs. As a direct result 'How to' calls were reduced by 50%.

A large part of the charity's awards success is the team's ability to listen to the challenges learners face and to develop viable solutions to solve problems. This policy has had a noticeable impact on the organisation's learning culture.

As Lisa explains: "Initially our staff were reluctant to try eLearning and felt isolated. By introducing individual learning contracts, team-based learning and promoting learning in small bite-sized modules, we helped people overcome their concerns.

"The team introduced virtual classrooms and learners were at first anxious - but once they attended a session they were hooked and we are seeing more staff sign up."

"As an alternative to requesting 'training', staff are also now choosing self-directed learning. Instead of staff saying 'I need a course' the enquiry is now 'where can I find a learning resource that will help me do x?' This is a major shift forward."

Commenting on Barnardo's Award, Martin Baker, CEO of The Charity Learning Consortium said: "This is an inspirational example of how a small team can achieve a great deal. The team has really listened and responded to the needs of their learners, offering vital support which underpins their technology-led learning. It's a great story for others to follow - and not just charities."

Tops tips for eLearning success
From Lisa Johnson, Barnardo's IT Learning and Development Manager

•Success comes in small chunks - make your resources easy to find and quick to use.
•Keep reviewing your progress - the issues you need to deal with will change over time.
•Keep in contact with your learners - despite eLearning and virtual classrooms being popular, it's vital to still have some face to face learner interaction to keep abreast of their changing needs.

Follow The Charity Learning Consortium on Twitter @CharityLearning - you can catch up on our Conference & Awards news on Twitter by searching for the hashtag #CLA11

About Barnardo's

Barnardo's works with more than 100,000 children, young people and their families in 415 specialised projects in communities across the UK.

We believe in the potential of every child and young person, no matter who they are, what they have done or what they have been through. We will support them, stand up for them and bring out the best in each and every child.

Every year we help thousands of children turn their lives around. But we cannot do it without you. Visit Barnardo's to find out how you can get involved and show you believe in children.

What's Innovation got to do with Learning?

2011-10-14T10:24:00.006+01:00

By Nigel Paine

The current global economic situation is forcing all organisations, including charities, to think in entirely new ways in order to survive - and those that do will leave those that do not a long way behind.

Innovation and creativity are going to be at the heart of many learning and development conversations over the next year. I can almost guarantee it. The current financial crisis has prompted organisations in the public, private and non-governmental sectors to be thinking hard about how they can manage their way through crisis, and deal effectively with the, as yet, unknown. If you want proof, look at the new book by Thomas Freedman This Used to Be Us. In it he argues strongly that innovation is the only option if the US is going to flourish again, as most of the innovation is happening elsewhere in the world.

In the charities sector it is no less true. The current funding malaise will require organisations to think in entirely new ways in order to survive, and those that do will leave those that do not a long way behind.

If you want additional proof, I have been reading a timely book. Harvard Business Press has just published Innovation to the Core by Peter Skarzynski and Rowan Gibson. I think you should read it as well as Friedman’s.

This is a book that gives case study after case study of organisations thriving through better investment in people, and through building an effective environment where ideas flourish and diverse communities feel empowered and motivated. And the message is really simple: you can innovate your way out of almost any crisis. And you can innovate your way to game changing successes. And the places that innovate, are the organisations of the future, because they can cope with uncertainty, ambiguity and volatility better than the average operator. And increasingly we live in uncertain times.

The book takes apart the processes required to embed what it defines as three separate kinds of innovation. The first allows you to exploit an entirely new opportunity, the second, to revalue the unappreciated, and the third to leverage your strengths. You do this by questioning deeply held dogmas inside your organisation about what drives success, and spotting unnoticed patterns or trends that could point the way to new opportunities. It means thinking of your organisation as ‘a portfolio of skills and assets’, and if you learn to get inside the mind of those you serve you can articulate unmet and unvoiced need. Skarzinski and Gibson call this: ‘challenging orthodoxies, harnessing discontinuities, leveraging competencies and strategic assets and understanding unarticulated need’.

So what has this got to do with learning? The answer is everything! Innovation will not happen because the Chief Executive thinks it is a good idea.

Building innovative organisations requires long-term commitment and long-term investment of effort. Innovation requires an environment that values ideas, as well as skills, systems and processes to manage and exploit those ideas. Innovation requires a cadre of experts and implementers from across the whole organisation. All of this implies a whole swathe of training and development initiatives both to drive cultural change and deeply embed the requisite skills and attitude. It simply can’t happen without the engagement of the learning teams and the driving commitment from the top.

The authors list three pre-conditions for generating these breakthroughs. The first is space for reflection and experimentation. The second is building a diverse community to create divergent thinking, and the third, fostering what they call ‘connection and conversation’, which is the breeding ground for ideas.

Organisations that innovate ask themselves some pretty fundamental questions on a regular basis about whom they serve, what they provide and how they provide it. And how they differentiate their services. You need to do this in order to question the fundamentals, and gain new insights. None of that is worth anything, unless action and change occurs. And this is where you need to build what they call ‘an innovation architecture’ in your organisation.

To get at the truly great ideas, you need to generate, manage and evaluate lots and lots of ideas that may not go very far, in order to create the few that will endure.

This is all about learning: learning to learn and learning to adapt, in order to cope with the increasing pace of the world outside. This requires skill development, organisational development, a coaching and mentoring culture, reward for ideas; a celebration of team work and boundary spanning as well as clear evaluation of impact and contribution. If you are supporting learning in your organisation this is not a bad place to start.

Nigel Paine, pictured leading a workshop at the Charity Learning Conference, is the former Head of Learning and Development at the BBC, London where he was in charge of all the L&D needs for 26,000 staff worldwide. He has authored or co-authored a number of learning related books, including a recent book called Attracting and Retaining Talent, published by Ark in May 2011. He is also much in demand as a public speaker and an industry commentator, and has worked in more than 30 countries.

How to Harness the Potential of Social Learning

2011-08-25T10:52:00.002+01:00

Nancy Ouma, Assessment & Training Manager at VSO, a leading development charity and member of the Charity Learning Consortium, considers how and why social learning should be part of any organisation’s overall learning agenda.
What are the practical applications for social media in learning and development? How can the skills be developed to encourage collaboration and build communities? These are just some of the questions learning and development (L&D) professionals need to consider when implementing social learning within their organisations – whether they are charities or not.

Social learning is, essentially, developing knowledge and behavioural change through social interactions, connections and observation. It can be very effective as part of a wider learning strategy. However, L&D professionals need to understand how it can be applied across their organisations in order to critically evaluate the process and achieve desired outcomes.

Social learning shouldn’t be viewed as an ‘add-on’ but be incorporated into an existing learning programme to ensure integration and coherence with the overall learning strategy. It can form part of a blended learning approach - combining online with face-to-face training - thereby providing realistic, practical opportunities for learners and teachers to make learning useful and sustainable.

Everyone can input and have their say in the training process via the use of social media. The time lag (asynchronicity) allows people to spend time reflecting on what others have said before making a response, and can therefore lead to deeper reflection and learning. The flexibility of participation means a wider group of people can be reached, both in terms of ability and location. The online element also allows participants to undertake additional research before contributing to a discussion, for example by looking up recent news stories or research related to the topic in question.

Once training has taken place, the online discussion remains available for review at a later date, and can be referred to on subsequent occasions, enabling information to be accessed when it is required and when skills need refreshing.

L& D professionals can drive interaction and participation on social platforms with the use of ‘e-moderators’ who can steer the topic, facilitate discussion and debate, and summarise the key points. This valuable interaction helps to build up a sense of community and shared learning. However, ‘e-moderators’ need to be trained in ‘when and how’ to contribute to discussions; how to draw out pertinent points in an online discussion; how to engage your group in order to be an effective resource.

Take care to choose a topic that is suited to the medium of social learning. While it is important to have interesting and engaging activities to stimulate discussion, topics must be chosen in a considered way. A level of debate and challenging each other is required to make an effective discussion, but controversial or emotive topics should be kept for face-to-face training, when any issues can be addressed directly there and then.

Finally, as with any learning process, it is essential to measure the effectiveness of social learning in order to evaluate whether it has achieved the objectives and delivered a return on investment. This can be carried out via ‘end of course’ evaluation as well as ad hoc feedback from those involved in both training and e-moderation.

If social learning is implemented effectively, it can be used to maximise knowledge-sharing across an organisation and build a culture that makes training fun, productive and commonplace.

Nancy is the Assessment & Training Manager at VSO, the world’s leading independent international development organisation, which works through volunteers to fight poverty in developing countries.

Nancy is speaking at The World of Learning Conference & Exhibition, the well known event for business learning, which takes place at the NEC in Birmingham on Tuesday 27 and Wednesday 28 September 2011. Register at www.learnevents.com. The Charity Learning Consortium has negotiated a special 50% discount for charities - if you’re a member of the Charity Learning Consortium use the code CLCMEM when booking – or CLCNON for non-members.

For the latest WOLCE news follow www.twitter.com/Learn_EventsUK or join the World of Learning Conference & Exhibition group on LinkedIn.

Diary Dates

2011-08-25T10:50:00.001+01:00

31 August 3pm A unique webinar with Evaluation experts Jim and Wendy Kirkpatrick. The webinar, which is being supported by the Consortium in the UK, is free to all charities worldwide. More details & how to register

8 September 1pm Moodle training: user & admin functions (web conference)

9 September 11am Moodle training: custom courseware uploads (web conference)
15 September: The Charity Learning Consortium’s first Charity Learning Conference and Awards, London. An exclusive event for members of the Consortium, to celebrate the great L&D work that is being done in the Third Sector. Sudhir Giri, the global head of learning technologies at Google, will open the conference with a keynote speech.

16 September 10am Creating your own courseware: Captivate
2pm Creating your own courseware: Perform (web conferences)

27-28 September World of Learning Conference and Exhibition at the NEC Birmingham. All charities get a 50% discount to attend. If you’re a member of the Charity Learning Consortium use the code CLCMEM when booking – CLCNON for non-members

13 October 1pm Moodle training: user & admin functions (web conference)

14 October 11am Moodle training: custom courseware uploads (web conference)

19 October 9am Charity Learning Seminar, with a spotlight on eLearning at the housing & homelessness charity Shelter Register here

21 October 10am Creating your own courseware: Captivate
2pm Creating your own courseware: Perform (web conferences)

Like an Invite to our Fantastic First Charity Learning Conference?

2011-08-25T10:49:00.000+01:00

The Conference & Awards on 15 September, London is a complimentary event exclusively for the 100 charities which are members of the Consortium - but if you work within a charity or not-for-profit L&D team, are interested to find out more about the work of the Consortium and would like to be invited to the Conference, then do please get in touch by emailing gallan@charitylearning.org

The Magnificent Seven….

2011-08-25T10:41:00.000+01:00

Seven free resources for charities using digital technology

Ben Carpenter, Charity Partnerships Manager at Race Online – a guest at our last members meeting - suggests some great free resources for charities using technology.

•    iT4Communities have an army of more than 8,000 IT professionals, looking to volunteer for charities and help with their IT needs - http://www.it4communities.org.uk
•    CTX offer donated technology products from partners such as Microsoft and Cisco. Charities will make savings of between 92-96% on typical retail prices: http://www.ctxchange.org/
•    Lasa help charities use technology to deliver more effective and efficient services, and runs Circuit Riders - mobile and independent workers providing technology development and support work to several small third sector organisations - http://www.lasa.org.uk/
•    Lasa also publishes an easy to use online directory of more than 150 vetted suppliers of goods and services to the third sector - http://www.lasa.org.uk/ict/suppliers-directory/
•    Check out Survive & Thrive – a showcase of charities using technology to do their work better.
•    Use, steal and rebrand www.helppassiton.co.uk, a website for inspiring people to use the internet – it’s free too. Help Pas IT on… http://www.helppassiton.co.uk/work/get-the-code
•    Last, but certainly not least, make the most of free Go ON marketing materials – don’t reinvent the wheel. Piggyback on the profile of a brand that is now being used by Microsoft, DirectGov and Age UK, among others. http://raceonline2012.org/go-on

Doing More for Less: How L&D is Battling Budget Cuts

2011-08-25T10:38:00.000+01:00

How can learning and development professionals deliver with reduced time and budget? This is a particularly pertinent subject for many learning professionals and one that will be considered in depth in a panel discussion at the forthcoming World of Learning Conference & Exhibition. Martin Baker, CEO and the founder of the Charity Learning Consortium, will be joining the panel at the world-renowned conference.

In the wake of recent cut backs, job losses and budget tightening, the business climate has changed and many L&D professionals have seen their budgets reduced – a fact that is frustrating but must be faced. Karen Velasco, Chairman of The British Institute for Learning and Development, and one of the speakers at the World of Learning Conference, explains:

“In the business world there has long been a view that when times get tough, L&D budgets are the first to be reduced. This strikes me as a short-term, knee-jerk reaction, and one that creates more problems than it solves. Such cut-backs create organisations devoid of people with the attitude, skills, competencies and behaviours required to cope in times of radical change.”

To address this, L&D professionals need to adjust to the new situation and the challenges it brings in order to continue to operate successfully. There is now a focus on delivering "more for less", leading many to reassess their strategies, objectives and resources. Karen continues:

“L&D departments must adapt to the new world they find themselves in. They must continue to engage and influence at every level in the organisation; they must link all L&D interventions to the bottom line; and they must be creative in designing and delivering solutions with reduced budget and timescales.”

One of the ways to ease the pressure on time and budgets is via the use of e-learning, which is now being introduced across a wide range of organisations -including the London Fire Brigade. Philip Evans, Head of e-Learning at the London Fire Brigade and speaker at the World of Learning Conference, explains:

“I became involved in e-learning when I was tasked with improving the consistency, efficiency and delivery of training across the force. We saw a major opportunity to introduce a centrally co-ordinated programme to include support for group sessions, individual e-learning and shorter classroom training.”

There are a number of advantages to e-learning, which can support a company’s cost-cutting objectives, as well as being more engaging than traditional classroom training. It can be delivered to a range of people regardless of their location. This helps to bring training in-house rather than outsourcing, thereby reducing costs further.

Philip explains the benefits of e-learning experienced by his organisation:

“It has drastically cut the amount of on-call time lost through classroom training, allowing us to halve the number of days required. Introduced just two years ago, e-learning now saves the force £700,000 a year and has been widely adopted for a range of training needs, including management development, equality and diversity, IT support and operational improvement.”

These advantages are echoed by Martin Baker, founder and CEO of the Charity Learning Consortium (CLC), the largest group of UK based charities collaborating to make eLearning affordable, which currently has 100 members. Charities join not only to save money, but also to benefit from networking with others with similar goals, sharing resources, ideas and best practice. Martin believes the example of the CLC, which he founded, can be duplicated within other sectors. He explains:

"I believe that the simplicity of our strength in numbers is an example which can be duplicated by other organisations, in other countries, in other circumstances. The CLC itself started with just six charities, and look at us now!"

"Third sector organisations begin their journey with us because of the cost savings they achieve, accessing a suite of e-learning that otherwise they would never be able to afford. But once they have joined, they benefit in unexpected ways; by networking, sharing and learning with others - in this way they start, continue and progress on their e-learning journey.”

In today’s tough business climate, L&D professionals need to work smarter and faster in order to deliver against tight budgets and fulfil objectives. This means prioritising and identifying what activities will have real impact to ensure that learning and development continue to resonate throughout an organisation.

‘How can L&D deliver with reduced time and budget’ is the lunchtime panel discussion due to take place at The World of Learning Conference, a premier event for business learning, at the NEC in Birmingham on Tuesday 27 and Wednesday 28 September 2011.

Celebrating Charity Learning

2011-08-25T10:36:00.001+01:00

Google’s Global Head of Learning Technologies, Sudhir Giri , will open the first Charity Learning Conference & Awards on 15 September, London, with a keynote speech. This exciting new event has been designed to both celebrate Charity Learning and inspire members of the Consortium in the invaluable work that they do.

Understanding how learners and ‘teachers’ interact is critical to the successful use of learning technologies says Sudhir Giri, the global head of learning technologies at Google. He’ll be talking about how Google enables a learning ‘ecosystem’ in his keynote speech at the first Charity Learning Conference on 15 September, London.

Sudhir has been using Google technologies to support the learning needs of the more than 20,000 employees, or ‘Googlers’, around the world in the famously non-hierarchical company.

Martin Baker, founder and CEO of the Charity Learning Consortium, said he was looking forward to welcoming Sudhir to open the Conference: “Our members said they would like to hear some good corporate examples of innovative L&D which they could emulate, and so we are thrilled that Sudhir could share his knowledge with us in this way.

“Google is one of the most admired companies in the world, renowned for its creativity and innovation, growing rapidly to the worldwide phenomena that it is today, so it’s a great way to start our first conference!”
The 1st Charity Learning Conference & Awards has been designed to both celebrate L&D in the Third Sector and inspire members of the Consortium in the invaluable work that they do.

The exciting conference line-up includes a workshop with creativity and innovation specialist Nigel Paine and the event is being steered by renowned eLearning expert Clive Shepherd as the chairman. Laura Overton, the MD of Towards Maturity, will be leading an interactive discussion and revealing early highlights of her latest study into the effective use of learning technologies. While Iain Napier, BT’s Learning Technology Consultant, will be talking about BT's dare2share initiative, the successful 'How To' video forum used within the company – he’ll be suggesting ways to engage employees using both social learning and technology.

The Conference & Awards on 15 September, London is a complimentary event exclusively for the 100 charities which are members of the Consortium - but if you work within a charity or not-for-profit L&D team, are interested to find out more about the work of the Consortium and would like to be invited to the Conference, then do please get in touch by emailing gallan@charitylearning.org

Announcing the First Charity Learning Conference & Awards

2011-07-06T13:04:00.001+01:00

The Charity Learning Consortium is delighted to announce its first Charity Learning Conference & Awards, to be held on 15 September, London. The Conference is intended to be a showcase of excellence in learning and development in the charity and not-for-profit sector, with input from corporate organisations to inspire Consortium members. The Awards will be celebrating the stepping stones to success that member charities are taking on their eLearning journeys. More details of this exciting new event and its high level contributors will be revealed over the coming weeks and months.

The first Charity Learning Conference & Awards on 15 September, London, is set to be an inspiring event, celebrating the great work that is being done in learning and development in the Third Sector.

The Conference is exclusively for the more than 90 charities which are members of The Charity Learning Consortium.

Martin Baker, founder and MD of the CLC, said that holding the event this year was a dream come true: "I have wanted to hold a Conference and Awards like this for several years now, and as we approach 100 members of the Consortium, it seemed like the perfect time to make that dream a reality. I'm passionate about the Consortium and the great work that is being done by our members, and can't wait to welcome them on 15 September."

There are three awards that members can enter for: the best audience engagement; getting started, or restarted on their eLearning journey; and the best overall eLearning programme. Three further awards will also be conferred by the Consortium.

The Charity Learning Conference & Awards is the latest in a wealth of benefits of membership. Charities invariably join the Consortium to save money - with more than 90 members, it's the largest group of charities in the UK collaborating to share the cost of eLearning. Once they have joined, they benefit from networking with others, both at our events and online. They may also attend regular workshops, or web conferences designed to hone their skills. Members also value hearing from invited speakers who are leaders in their field, like Learning Styles 'guru' Peter Honey and learning technologies experts Donald Taylor and Clive Shepherd.

Collaboration is at the heart of the Consortium's ethos, members are keen to share stories of both challenges and successes and increasingly work together towards common goals. Members also drive the development of eLearning courseware - the Consortium really is 'by the members; for the members' and is keen to respond to requests.

More details of the exciting line-up for the Charity Learning Conference & Awards on 15 September, London will be released over the coming weeks and months.

Webinar 31 August - Think you know Kirkpatrick? A new look at Evaluation

2011-07-06T12:58:00.003+01:00

Learning Evaluation ‘guru’ Jim Kirkpatrick, and his wife Wendy are holding a free webinar for all charities worldwide, at 3pm on 31 August 2011. The Charity Learning Consortium is proud to be promoting this event to its members - and to all charities in the UK and abroad. Martin Baker, founder and MD of the Consortium, met Jim last year and the two have been discussing ways to make the Kirkpatricks’ modern theories of Evaluation accessible to the Third Sector.

Charities and not-for-profits around the globe are being invited to attend a unique free webinar with Jim and Wendy Kirkpatrick at 3pm on 31 August 2011, to learn about the latest adaptation of the Kirkpatrick Model, widely used for evaluating learning and development.

Follow this link for more details and to register: http://110831webinar.eventbrite.com/

In this webinar, being supported by The Charity Learning Consortium in the UK, the Kirkpatricks will:

•    Explain the most modern ways to use the Kirkpatrick Model to plan, execute and measure training that creates true business value
•    Give a rendering of the updated model that focuses on the importance of the transfer of learning to behaviour
•    Offer tips for how to align training with your most important organizational goals
•    And present an overview of required drivers and leading indicators, and their importance in creating organization value through training

Whether you are new to training or an industry veteran, this eye-opening session will show you how something 50 years old can be refreshingly new and relevant.

Martin Baker, founder and MD of The Charity Learning Consortium said: “When I attended Jim Kirkpatrick’s workshop at TrainingZone Live, London, I was bowled over by his new approach to evaluation, and was keen to find a way to bring his theories to our members - so I’m delighted to be supporting this webinar.”

Dr. Jim Kirkpatrick is a Senior Consultant with Kirkpatrick Partners. He conducts workshops and consults on topics - including building a business partnership model, evaluation, and balanced scorecards for top organisations - all over the world.

Jim has co-authored three books on evaluation with his father, Don and has co-authored two books on the Kirkpatrick Business Partnership Model with his wife, Wendy. He is known for his open, friendly facilitation style. His classes offer an opportunity for all participants to share their experiences and learn from each other in a comfortable environment.
Full Bio

Wendy Kayser Kirkpatrick, the Director of Kirkpatrick Partners, will be facilitating the webinar alongside Jim.

Wendy applies her skills as a certified instructional designer and expert facilitator to lead companies to measurable success. She is the co-author of Kirkpatrick Then and Now (2009 Kirkpatrick Publishing) and Training on Trial (2010 AMACOM Books).

Wendy draws on two decades of experience in retailing, marketing, and training to make her work relevant and impactful with measurable results.
Full Bio

What you need to know:

When: 31 August 3pm-5pm (British Summer Time) For other countries, you can calculate the time using this time zone converter
Cost: Free to all charities worldwide (Other organisations may be able to join, but would be charged).
How do I register? Click on this link and follow the registration details http://110831webinar.eventbrite.com/

Diary Dates

2011-07-06T12:53:00.008+01:00

July

14 July 1pm Moodle training: user and admin functions (web conference)

15 July 11am Moodle training: custom courseware uploads (web conference)

22 July 10am Creating your own courseware: Captivate
2pm Creating your own courseware: Perform (web conferences)

August

4-5 August Oxfam’s INGO eLearning Conference

11 August 1pm Moodle training: user & admin functions (web conference)

12 August 11am Moodle training: custom courseware uploads (web conference)

19 August 10am Creating your own courseware: Captivate
2pm Creating your own courseware: Perform (web conferences)

September

8 September 1pm Moodle training: user & admin functions (web conference)

9 September 11am Moodle training: custom courseware uploads (web conference)

15 September: The Charity Learning Consortium’s first Charity Learning Conference and Awards, London. Visit our website for more information. An exclusive event for members of the Consortium, to celebrate the great L&D work that is being done in the Third Sector.

16 September 10am Creating your own courseware: Captivate
2pm Creating your own courseware: Perform (web conferences)

27-28 September World of Learning Conference and Exhibition at the NEC Birmingham. All charities get a 50% discount to attend. If you’re a member of the Charity Learning Consortium use the code CLCMEM when booking – CLCNON for non-members

Bring on the talent...

2011-07-06T12:50:00.004+01:00

By Arfan Ali

At a time when you can’t open a newspaper without seeing a headline mentioning the recession, the credit crunch, redundancies and unemployment, keeping onto your talented workers may not be your first thought. But if you have staff who perhaps– unbeknown to you – have been wavering in the past, now it seems is the time when they are choosing to jump. If you know that you have unhappy staff and have been papering over the cracks with unkept promises, or throwing them a quick training course with no real thought, follow up or support, then don’t be surprised if now those cracks implode.

The Third Sector has a wealth of creative and innovative people which need nurturing - particularly in tough economic times. But only a few charitable organisations that I know of have any kind of talent initiative. And I really don’t understand why. Talent management strategies and programmes don’t have to be complex or expensive – but recruitment, particularly at high levels, invariably is.

At Rethink we know that many committed and passionate people are drawn to work for us. Equally, we know that sometimes they leave because there are not sufficient opportunities to broaden their experience and develop their skills. So we know it makes sense to give our staff some career development opportunities and to ‘grow our own’ middle and senior managers.

We run a career development programme, which gives some of our staff the chance to increase their knowledge of the work we do and sharpen their skills. And we have also put in place a year-long internally developed and delivered programme accredited by the Institute of Leadership and Management. I’m particularly excited about the master classes in coaching and change management, and a new mentoring scheme – with mentoring from the Senior Management Team.

One size certainly doesn’t fit all when it comes to nurturing talent – and you do need senior management buy-in - but these kind of initiatives can be very effective, and work well in Third Sector organisations (without the added bureaucracy and cost of talent competency frame works and outsourced university accredited programmes).

Still not convinced? Call to mind your most talented, successful, dynamic staff – now imagine your charity without them. It’s a sobering thought, isn’t it?

Arfan Ali is the Head of Corporate Learning and Organisational Development at Rethink – the charity which helps those affected by severe mental illness recover a better quality of life.

Benchmarking your eLearning journeys

2011-07-06T12:38:00.001+01:00

By Laura Overton

Last week saw the launch of the fifth annual, internationally-recognised, eLearning Towards Maturity Benchmark Study. Since 2003 more than 1,200 organisations and 3,000 learners have contributed to our popular research including many not-for-profit organisations.

Funded by Towards Maturity Ambassadors – 15 of the industry’s leading eLearning organisations, which includes the CLC - the free Benchmark Study is open to organisations from the private, public and not-for-profit sectors looking to improve the impact of eLearning technology on business performance through best practise.

John Le Rossignol, Learning Resources Manager at the RNLI Lifeboat College, a user of the Benchmark Study for the last few years, recently told me about some of the benefits he has had from getting involved: “The benchmark survey has provided a framework to help me continually refine and develop my learning strategy. The new 2011 online Benchmark Centre allows me to easily compare the progress I have made and helps me adjust my strategy and identify priorities for ongoing improvement,” he said.

Taking part in the survey is easy: it takes just 40 minutes of your time and it’s completely confidential. After finishing the survey users receive a personalised online report providing them with their Towards Maturity Index, feedback on key performance indicators and recommendations for further actions. They will also receive a new White Paper: Time for Action – 101 tips for success, containing practical advice gathered from previous benchmark participants.

Don’t be put off if you have only recently started implementing eLearning in your organisation, this benchmark will provide you with a snapshot of your current position. It’s about taking the first steps on your journey. Towards Maturity will continue to work with CLC members in the Consortium’s regular workshops, to help you with your implementation strategies, to increase take-up and engagement of learning technologies in your workplace.

Be one of the hundreds of organisations to benefit from this free service by registering and following the simply survey steps at www.towardsmaturity.org/mybenchmark.

Charity Learning Consortium members receive an additional benefit of a completely free, extra-detailed feedback report - worth £600 - on how to take their eLearning strategy forward. This added premium Towards Maturity service is free of charge to CLC members if they complete the survey by the 31 July.

All you have to do is email me at laura@towardsmaturity.org after you have completed the Benchmark survey to receive your free extra report – it’s that simple!

Not mission impossible: How to turn learning into behavioural change...

2011-07-06T12:36:00.003+01:00

Peter Coley, Head of Learning & Development at St Mungo’s - the charity which helps homeless people - explores the issues involved with driving behavioural change, ensuring staff get the most from training and learn how to apply it to the workplace.

It is estimated that only 10%-30% of training is ever used by staff in the workplace. This poses an interesting challenge. L&D professionals have a key role to play in ensuring that as much learning as possible is retained, and more importantly, applied in the workplace, to ensure ROI is delivered and the business case for learning continues to resonate.

So what is the most efficient and effective way to maximise the transfer of learning into usage in the workplace?

First we must consider the factors that influence the level of retention and application. I believe the key elements include the motivation of the learner, setting a positive approach to learning from the start, the contribution of line managers in supporting and reinforcing the application of the learning and putting effective evaluation measurement schemes in place.

Identifying what factors motivate the learners is imperative. Before engaging with a scheme, people want to know ‘What’s in it for me?' So the L&D specialist needs to perceive and proactively answer this need before any programme is launched, so that they buy-in to the activity. However, discovering how a person is motivated is not easy, largely because we are often unaware of what our own motivational factors are. It can be useful, therefore, for L&D professionals to research and to draw upon their own experiences.

How the involvement in the training is presented to the prospective learners can have a major impact in preparing for the transfer of learning.

To hear ‘You must attend this training, it’s mandatory!’ or ‘I think you need to attend this training’, is neither motivational nor empowering, in fact such phrases create a negative mindset, yet they are unfortunately too commonly used to ‘invite’ a learner. It would be best to opt for a multi-faceted but positive approach which conveys the benefits, the practicalities and the key learning elements in a way which is relevant to them. This all helps to set the tone and the learners’ attitudes to the learning in the best possible frame.

The line manager has an important part to play, both before and after the programme, in implementing the transferral of learning into the workplace. They know their staff and can communicate with them in a way that is relevant. L&D professionals should work with line managers as they have a key role to play in every step of the process by demonstrating their support and their commitment to the learning, and ensuring their staff are engaged throughout the learning process.

Line managers and L&D professionals together should ensure that learning is in context and is taking place at the most opportune times for the learner and their role. Managers can also help employees put their learning into practice by ensuring the facilities and opportunities are available. For example, if a member of staff has been on a training course about PowerPoint, they need to have the software available to them and the opportunity to use it as part of their work straight away or they risk losing the knowledge and the enthusiasm.

Finally, evaluation of the learning experience is essential to measure what behavioural change has occurred. However, it must not be left until the end of the process. It must be ongoing right from the start. After all, if you don’t measure the ‘before’, how will you be able to compare it to the ‘after’?

The process to drive behavioural change needs to be planned carefully and can involve key people from across the business in order for the communication and implementation to be relevant and effective. This all works to deliver a change that is sustained and delivers results for the organisation.

Peter heads up the Learning & Development Department in St Mungo’s, which encompasses not only ‘Training and Development’ but also Volunteers, an Apprenticeship Scheme, Quality/Continuous Improvement and Student Placements.

He’ll be presenting at the World of Learning Conference, a premier event for organisational learning, which takes place at the NEC in Birmingham on Tuesday 27 and Wednesday 28 September 2011.

Louise Charlton, a training consultant specialising in customer service, leadership and management development, will be presenting with Peter. Louise previously held the role of Learning & Development Manager within St Mungo’s and continues to work with the charity.

Martin Baker, founder and MD of the Charity Learning Consortium will be taking part in the lunchtime conference debate, along with Consortium member Gareth Gilleeney, Learning & Development Manager at Shelter. Fellow Consortium member Nancy Ouma, Assessment & Training Manager at VSO, will also be at the conference, talking about the hot topic of social learning

Registration for the World of Learning 2011 is now open at www.learnevents.com where full details about the conference and exhibition are available. Charities get a special 50% discount to WOLCE, if you’re a member of the Charity Learning Consortium use the code CLCMEM when booking – or CLCNON for non-members.

For the latest news and updates about the World of Learning 2011 follow the exhibition on Twitter @Learn_EventsUK, or join the World of Learning Conference & Exhibition group on LinkedIn.

Induction but not as you know it!

2011-05-23T11:48:00.002+01:00

Wouldn't it be great if there was a cost effective, off-the-peg eLearning induction programme that could easily be customised to become bespoke. Impossible? Can't be done! Well think again, as the Charity Learning Consortium unveils its economical induction template.

The Charity Learning Consortium (CLC) is delighted to announce that its low cost induction template is now available to its charity members.

Members of the CLC said that an induction programme was at the top of their eLearning wish list, so the CLC rose to this seemingly impossible challenge: a cost effective induction template that can be customised by charities either in-house, or at little extra cost.

Martin Baker, MD and founder of the CLC, explained that either he couldn't get eLearning suppliers interested in the concept, or the costs they quoted were just too great. So the CLC created the template itself, working closely with a renowned instructional designer and The Guinness Partnership on the pilot. The induction module was then unveiled to members, who offered invaluable feedback, which was fed into the final stages of completion.

"It's thrilling to be able to offer our members an extremely economical induction template that they can then build upon. For very little cost, we've raised the bar way over and above what we thought was possible," said Martin.

Tamzin Doggart, Organisational Development Advisor at The Guinness Partnership, commented: "We are really pleased with the finished product - much better than the course that it replaced. Staff and management feedback is overwhelmingly positive about the course.

"We have already used the template to produce a second course that focuses on Guinness South, one of the parts of The Guinness Partnership. In this, we used the feedback we got from Consortium members. For instance, we included much more of the 'personal stories' from customers and staff. We hope to use the template again for other parts of the Partnership."

Members of the Charity Learning Consortium had been keen to access a customisable induction programme. A working group of CLC members drives the development of courseware, and other popular requests are now being looked at.

"This sort of collaborative working is at the heart of everything that we do," said Martin. "I am a great advocate of collaboration - at the CLC it really is our strength."

Latest Diary Dates

2011-05-23T10:09:00.009+01:00

27 May 10am Emailogic Webinar: Save more than 30 minutes a day, and clear that inbox, with this online training session for CLC members.

8 June Charity Learning Consortium Members Meeting, with a special focus on using social media for learning, NCVO, London. Social media experts from SiftGroups will be leading the afternoon workshop.

9 June 11am CheckPoint 3 System Training; 1pm Moodle Training - User and Admin Functions (web conferences)

10 June 11am Moodle Training - Custom Courseware Uploads (web conference)

13-14 June Third Sector Digital Communication & Social Media Convention, London. The CLC is delighted to be sponsoring this event! Our members get a 20% discount to attend.

15 June LMMatters annual leadership and management resources showcase, please let us know if you would like to attend. Click here for more details.

21-23 June Informatology CLC members get a special discounted rate to enter and attend.

27-28 June Charity Fair, London.

14 July 11am CheckPoint 3 System Training; 1pm Moodle Training: User and Admin Functions (web conferences)

15 July 11am Moodle Training: Custom Courseware Uploads (web conference)

4-5 August Oxfam’s INGO e-Learning Conference.

27-28 September World of Learning Conference and Exhibition at the NEC Birmingham. All charities get a 50% discount to attend.

Charity Learning at WOL: Something to shout about!

2011-05-23T09:28:00.002+01:00

Martin Baker, the founder and MD of the Charity Learning Consortium (CLC) is taking an active part in the World of Learning Conference on 27-28 September this year, along with several of our charity members. Together they’ll be helping to raise the profile of the great work that is being done in L&D in the Third Sector.

The Charity Learning Consortium is delighted that, along with founder and MD Martin Baker, several members are taking an active part in the World of Learning Conference at the NEC in Birmingham on 27 & 28 September.

Nancy Ouma, Assessment & Training Manager at VSO, will be talking about the hot topic of social learning. VSO is using social media really creatively, using a Moodle forum to help train its volunteers.

Peter Coley, Head of Learning & Development at St Mungo's, will be focusing on what happens after training, and – vitally - how you get behaviour to then change.

Gareth Gilleeney, Learning & Development Manager at Shelter, will be joining the lunchtime panel debate, alongside Martin Baker, the founder and Managing Director of the Consortium, and MD of online leadership and management development specialists LMMatters. The topic up for discussion, with members of the audience also taking part, is: ‘How can L&D deliver with reduced time and budgets?’

Martin Baker commented: “I’m really pleased to see Charity L&D get the recognition that it deserves! Doing ‘More for Less’ has always been a mantra in charity L&D, and it’s great to see our members talking about the innovative, cost effective work that they are doing.”

Charities get a special 50% discount to attend the World of Learning Conference and Exhibition. Members of the Consortium should use the code CLCMEM when booking, charities who are not members please use the code CLCNON

Look out for more details of the packed World of Learning Conference programme, which will be on its website soon.

How to Successfully Communicate Change

2011-05-23T09:24:00.000+01:00

By Bob Selden

What positively affects change management?

• Frankness and openness of communication?
• One-on-one and team meetings?
• Access to electronic technology (email and intranet)?
• Immediate manager and supervisor?
• Team interaction?
• Other communication approaches (including publications)?
• Electronic communication?

At first glance, most of us would probably give a resounding ‘Yes’ to each of the above. Well, a study of more than 1,000 employees across nine organisations (The Allen Consulting Group, Oct. 2003) found that the above factors did not have a major impact on successful change management. Whilst they all are perhaps good forms of communication, it's important to realise that communication and change are not the same thing.

What did impact successful change? Think for a moment about the current economic situation. What's the main underlying need most people have? Job security. Any change in an organisation such as reporting relationships, job status, restructuring or lay-offs, will have an effect on people's current overwhelming need for security. So change management strategies must address this need for security.

In short, the research showed the key drivers of successful change management included:

• Communication, specifically about the change (who it would affect and how)
• General organisational satisfaction (communication, culture, current morale, etc.)
• Communication across different areas, business units, teams (about the change and the part they would play in it)
• Chief executive/managing director setting an example
• The respect and dignity with which employees are treated
• Communication upwards; ability to raise issues, express opinions and concerns
• Sufficiency of information
• Consultation about and involvement with, the change
• Divisional management (executive director, general manager, department managers involvement).

Read again the first list of items that did not directly affect change. It's worth noting that the authors suggest that whilst the survey findings did rule these out as direct influencers, they may well have been supportive processes and mechanisms. This research shows that for anyone involved in leading and managing change, it's important not to confuse effective communication with influential change communication. The point about managing change is that communication needs to be specific, not general.

Change is about loss - whenever there is a change, we all lose something to which we have become accustomed. As trainers, we may be charged with implementing the change, perhaps as part of a project team or training and coaching people to manage the change, either within themselves or their team. We are therefore motivated. We can see the advantages. Those affected may not. The question we need to ask is: Who will lose and what will they lose? Status? Relationships? Power? Privileges? Influence? To do this, you can use a simple diagnostic tool:

• List those that are likely to be most affected by the change
• Place next to each name, three negative and three positive consequences
• Gather and categorise all the positives - use these as advantages to highlight in your change management training and communication
• Highlight those people who have the most serious negative consequences:
o Actively manage these people - address their concerns
o Get them involved with the change management process as coaches, trainers, internal advisors/consultants or change management champions

Having looked at managing the losses, we can then turn to some of the other important change mechanisms highlighted by the research. For example, it is important to have a number of cross-divisional/departmental project teams working on how best to implement the change. Then there is the important aspect of upward feedback and communication. This can take two forms - team and individual.

Upward team feedback tends to provide management with the things that are affecting people generally, particularly in relation to products, systems, processes, policies, customers, suppliers etc. A manager I know who has worked internationally for many organisations still talks about his experience with ‘Team Briefing’ as being the most effective change management process he has ever experienced. For those not familiar with Team Briefing, it is an organisational-wide form of upward feedback. You can find more information and get free templates etc at http://www.businessballs.com/teambriefing.htm

The opportunity for Individual upward feedback tends to deal with more specific individual needs, particularly in relation to how people are feeling about the change. By its nature, this needs to be one-on-one communication between manager and employee and its effectiveness will depend on the strength of each manager's expertise and perceived level of trust. Some managers will be better than others in this aspect so you may need to implement an organisational advice/counselling service provided by a neutral third party.

Successful change management is not only about getting the buy-in of all employees. It also has one other key outcome - tapping the innovation and creativity that lies within all of us.

Organisations – in all sectors - that remain successful in the current climate will move positively into the future, and they are the ones who get their people onside and performing at their best. People need to be involved and motivated, not scared to do anything in case they will be castigated. As the doyen of change management, John Kotter, reminds us; "The hearts and minds of all members of the workforce are needed to cope with the fast-shifting realities of the business climate. Without sufficient empowerment, critical information about quality sits unused in workers' minds and energy to implement changes lies dormant."
Bob Selden is the author of What To Do When You Become The Boss – a self help book for new managers. http://www.whenyoubecometheboss.com/

Visit http://www.nationallearning.com.au/ to see more of Bob’s articles

The Rules of Attention

2011-05-23T09:23:00.000+01:00

By Chris Atherton

People can really only retain about four bits of new, unrelated information — and sometimes not even that many. Don’t overstuff your presentation, and take care to signpost the key points — visually, verbally, however you want.

It’s hard to process spoken and written words at the same time. Integrating your spoken words with pictorial slides makes it easier for the brain to process these two streams of information efficiently. This also helps your audience remember more of what you said.

A story will keep people’s attention, because they will want to know what happens next. Tassos Stevens [co-director and runner of Coney, an agency making pla] recently talked about the compelling nature of indeterminacy, and asked the question ‘Once a ball has been thrown, is it possible to look away before you know whether someone catches it?’ If you don’t know what your story is, or don’t convey that story clearly to your audience, they won’t stay focused; as Hitchcock knew very well, it’s all about suspense.

People really like looking at screens. If you’ve ever been in a pub with the TV on and the sound off, you’ll know that screens are an attention-magnet. This is great when you’re giving your presentation and there’s something on the slide that you want people to look at, but not so great if they are still looking at the slide while you are talking about something else. There’s an easy fix — press B or W while in Slideshow mode: the screen will go black or white, respectively (this works in both Keynote and PowerPoint), and people’s attention will focus on you, because now you are the moving, shiny thing in the room. Toggle the same key when you’re ready to direct the audience’s attention to the screen again.

Sustaining audience attention requires frequent changes. Simon Bostock [on Twitter as @hypergogue] once tweeted something great about how flow is when you stop noticing the joins between one parcel of attention and the next; this is the state you want to induce in your audience. Paradoxically, in order to get them to concentrate on something for a long time, you need to keep changing the thing they’re paying attention to, or they will get bored. Change stuff mindfully: I don’t mean adding clip-art or unrelated animations to your slides, I mean introduce something seriously astonishing. (Unexpectedness is a brilliant tool for wrangling people’s attention.) Less dramatically, you could use changes in your tone of voice, speaking volume, or where you are standing to draw the audience’s attention to a particular point. Evaluate your slides and consider whether they could be less formulaic; consider introducing some audience participation to get everyone out of the you-talk-while-they-listen rut.

Your audience will tell you when their attention is wandering. Hopefully not out loud, and hopefully not by ‘harshtagging’[tweckling, or heckling on Twitter] your presentation. But you will know from looking at their faces where their attention is, and if it isn’t on you or your visual aids, you will know that you need to change something. Don’t be afraid to go a bit off-road in the service of keeping people interested; it’s a kindness and a courtesy to stay with your audience, and a presenter on auto-pilot is not a pretty sight.

To tweet or not to tweet? That is the question...

2011-05-23T09:20:00.000+01:00

By Lawrence Clarke

For a social enterprise, charity or a not-for-profit organisation the answer to ‘to tweet or Not to tweet?’ should be obvious – yet it remains a matter of constant discussion. One would expect these bodies to see a need for social media tools - such as blogs and discussion forums - to improve their communications and the sharing of knowledge and experience. They should see social media networks - such as Facebook or Twitter - as places where they can nurture and develop relationships with prospective and existing volunteers and donors. So why is there not an open and immediate adoption of the complete package by all organisations?

The Social Environment

The hard but rarely discussed truth is that the word ‘social’ does not sit comfortably with any organisation founded before the mass up-take of social media. The context for ‘social’ is me and my personal connections. ‘Social’ has nothing to do with business or organisations.

Add the word ‘media’ and we’re talking about a new type of communication channel – developed by individuals in college dorms with the express intention of making their social lives easier and more interesting. They don’t require me to pay directly for the service, and at inception there was no in-built business model. Unsurprisingly, all social media networks evolve towards targeted advertising intruding on my conversation. Meanwhile, they create the unique business opportunity of ‘social commerce’ - where I am encouraged to respond to recommendations from those I follow or befriend.

This naturally spawns ‘social spam’. Any organisation vying for my attention has to up its game if it is genuinely seeking me to engage with it. Invariably, that game is entertaining and compelling - but rarely enduring.

This is the environment that many senior managers are reluctant to unconditionally embrace. To them, ‘social’ equates with lack of control. It is much more comfortable to see social media as another place to seed promotional messages – rather than a place where the organisation has to engage on the individual’s terms, listen and interact.

Matching the Use of Social Media Tools and Networks to Your Values

As long as senior decision makers see no reason to use social media to engage internally, no business or organisation can expect to fruitfully engage on social media networks.

Understanding this can be liberating. Perhaps you are in an organisation whose reason for being (and continuing existence) does not require the immediate adoption of such technology? There is no evidence that such a stance means you are sealing your imminent demise (although in your niche this has to be continually reviewed).

Take a look at these values. They are perfectly robust and effective.

• We respond to criticism from internal and external stakeholders
• We address our external stakeholders
• We offer intelligence and advice to our external stakeholders
• We offer external stakeholders new products and services
• We are an authoritative/reliable destination

Although they represent confidence in your products and services, they don’t point to the need for deep engagement with your external stakeholders. In the charity or not-for-profit sector this could be describing a medical research charity or regulatory membership body.

On the other hand, how much does your organisation aspire to these values?

• We solicit comment and debate from internal and external stakeholders
• We stimulate conversation with and amongst external stakeholders
• We create opportunities for our external stakeholders to exchange intelligence and advice
• We work with external stakeholders to create new products and services
• We are a stimulating destination

These reflect an organisation that recognises that its products and services are constantly changing and that changes need to be influenced primarily by external stakeholders. These clearly point to the need for deep engagement using social media tools and networks. In the charity or not-for-profit sector this could be describing a support charity or a professional membership body.

Many charities are adept at making use of social media networks without having to engage too deeply. Fundraising activities have a natural home on Facebook - as long as the charity has a recognisable brand and facilitates the activity, the inbuilt dynamics of social networking does the rest. A charity focused on brand awareness and fundraising doesn’t necessarily need deep collaboration. However, a charity that supports individuals certainly does. The former is judged by its outputs, the latter by its level of service. Those in the latter camp should be resourcing their own on-site community before deciding how best to make sense of ‘social media’.

So, there may be good reasons why your organisation is having trouble making sense of social media as a tool for engagement. It may require uncomfortable levels of internal cultural change. Equally, you may find yourself driven by the rhetoric of engagement, which perhaps isn’t appropriate for your objectives. Overall, we need to be much more subtle in the way we think about these things!

Lawrence Clarke is the Head of Consultancy at SiftGroups, and together with Nick Torday – SiftGroups charity specialist - will be leading a workshop on social networking at our members meeting on 8 June.

eLearning Used in the Battle Against Human Trafficking

2011-03-22T15:30:00.002Z

How can you begin to educate your staff about vital issues like human trafficking at a time when training budgets are under pressure?

On International Women’s Day last week (Tuesday 8 March) STOP THE TRAFFIK and Charity Learning Consortium member the Metropolitan Housing Partnership launched a new eLearning tool to raise awareness about the battle against human trafficking.

Barbara Roche, Chair of Metropolitan Housing Partnership (MHP) says: “We will be providing this online training to our staff, and are looking at ways to make it available to our residents too. We at MHP are proud to be working with STOP THE TRAFFIK to raise awareness and improve the lives of the victims of human trafficking.”

Ruth Dearnley, CEO of STOP THE TRAFFIK, says: “Human trafficking starts in communities and can be stopped by communities. People need to know what trafficking is, how it affects them and what they can do about it. This eLearning tool does just that, and is essential for everyone who plays an active role in society.”

Women are especially vulnerable to trafficking, accounting for 74% of referrals to UK authorities. Police estimate that in the last year at least 2,600 migrant women have been trafficked into off-street prostitution in England and Wales, with a further 9,600 migrant sex-workers classified as vulnerable.

Human trafficking is an issue which affects every sector, including social housing. Domestic properties can be used as brothels and cannabis farms – key places of exploitation by the criminals who profit from the trade in human beings. It is also associated with benefit fraud, with children being trafficked into the country to obtain housing and other benefits.

Barbara Roche asks: “How does a busy housing officer spot the tell tale signs of human trafficking, when someone is being held against their will in one of our properties, especially where there may be a language barrier between them and the suspected victim? Trafficking ruins lives. We know, for example that there are many instances that involve the exploitation of children. If you know what trafficking is, what it looks like, and who to tell, you could play a key part in securing someone’s freedom.”

There’s more information about this story on the Metropolitan Housing Partnership website.

All you ever wanted to know about social media, but were afraid to ask!

2011-03-22T15:12:00.002Z

There was a lively discussion about social media at our most recent members meeting – we were keen to know what our members thought about using social media for learning, what they were doing currently, and – most importantly – what they really wanted to know more about. We asked these questions in advance of a special members meeting in June, when the focus of the day will be on harnessing social media for learning and development.

The questions that our members wanted to know about fell into five different categories, as follows:

Engagement

How do you sell the benefits rather than concerns?
How can we get directors on board when they have banned it?
How do you overcome the organisational belief that people can’t be trusted with social media?

Evidence & examples

Evidence: Why and how does social media benefits voluntary organisations and examples of this.
Specifically, examples of how organisations use social media to meet learning and development needs of employers and volunteers.
What are the business benefits?

How to questions - setting up Communities

How do you set up virtual discussions?
How do you set up communities?
How does Social Media & communities blend in with other learning approaches?

Tools

What’s going to be the next big thing in social media?
How to keep up to date with all the useful tools
How does Social Media link with Moodle? Any examples of this?

Misc

How do you separate personal Social Media from work Social Media, particularly to avoid any inappropriate content being generated.
Does Social Media affect people’s ability to concentrate on single tasks for long periods?
Accessibility issues around Social Media.

We’ll be addressing these questions, and more, at the members meeting in June. Any members who weren’t at the last meeting, but have specific questions around social media that they would like to raise, then please get in touch by the end of March. Email: sfinch@charitylearning.org

TrainingZone Live 50% Discount

2011-03-22T15:10:00.002Z

We’re delighted to announce that we have secured a 50% discount for our charity members to attend TrainingZone Live on May 16, at Dexter House in London. This is the only UK based learning event to feature Evaluation ‘guru’ Jim Kirkpatrick, who is continuing the great work of his father Donald Kirkpatrick. We attended the event last year and were really impressed with Jim’s presentation, and can recommend attending – we’re very grateful to TrainingZone for the discount.

Other workshop leaders include Peter Honey and Donald Taylor (whom many of you will have met at our members meetings). And for those interested in how NLP can be used in organisations, John Seymour’s workshop looks really promising. More details at http://www.trainingzonelive.co.uk/

If you’re interested in taking up this offer, then please get in touch with us, and we will give you the exclusive Charity Learning discount code. Please email mwenban@charitylearning.org

Diary Dates

2011-03-22T14:50:00.003Z

29 March NCVO HR conference. CLC member Peter Coley, Head of Learning and Development at St. Mungo’s, is leading an afternoon workshop called Cost effective learning and development. Martin Baker, MD and founder of the CLC will be attending. Let us know if you are going to be there.

6-7 April HRD 2011 conference & exhibition, London, Olympia.

14 April 11am CheckPoint 3 System Training; 1pm CLC Moodle System Training – CLC Web conferences.

11 May Charity Learning Consortium Seminar, NCVO, London – for charities who’d like to find out more about the Consortium. CLC member Sean Cooter of the RSPCA will be talking about eLearning at the popular animal welfare charity.

12 May 11am CheckPoint 3 System Training; 1pm CLC Moodle System Training – CLC Web conferences.

16 May TrainingZone Live, Dexter House, London – we have negotiated a 50% discount for CLC members, to make it affordable for charities. Please email us for the exclusive discount code. Martin Baker, MD of the CLC is attending.

19 May Learning at Work Day. The CLC is currently planning what we are doing to support this annual event. If CLC members are doing something to mark this, then please let us know.

19 May The Learning Forum, London. CLC member Lisa Johnson, the eLearning Manager at Barnardo’s, and her colleague Sue Rawson, IT Learning and Development Consultant, will be presenting at this event.

8 June Charity Learning Consortium Members Meeting, with a special focus on using social media for learning, NCVO, London.

9 June 11am CheckPoint 3 System Training; 1pm CLC Moodle System Training - Web conferences.

13-14 June Third Sector Digital Communication & Social Media Convention, London. The CLC is delighted to be sponsoring this event!

15 June LMMatters annual leadership and management resources showcase, please let us know if you would like to attend. Click here for more details.

27-28 June Charity Fair, London.

14 July 11am CheckPoint 3 System Training; 1pm CLC Moodle System Training - Web conferences.

4-5 August Oxfam’s INGO e-Learning Conference.

Raising the standard of collaboration

2011-03-22T14:35:00.002Z

Can charities benefit from a new British Standard, BS 11000, the world’s first ever standard for collaborative business relationships? Bob Little reports.

What is BS1100?

BS 11000 provides a framework for collaborative business partnerships, designed to help organisations of all types establish, manage and improve strategic partnerships. It was developed by the British Standards Institute (BSI) with Partnership Sourcing Ltd (PSL) - a self-financing, not-for-profit organisation.

What does it aim to do?

The framework aims to:

• Strengthen business processes

• Improve risk management

• Enhance dispute resolution

• Provide a basis for skills development

• And improve the potential for sustainable relationships that deliver value.

How will BS11000 benefit charities?

• It allows charities to adopt a recognised model for building collaborative relationships and benchmark themselves against good practice in the sector.

• The standard creates a framework for providing a neutral platform for establishing effective collaborative programmes for mutual benefit. Its core value is commonality of language - reducing confusion, providing confidence to participants and laying a foundation for innovation.

• It provides a platform for developing repeatable models to enhance communication and engagement and therefore builds confidence.

• The BS11000 framework provides a common language that can aid implementation and engagement and, for those starting out on the journey, the framework creates a road map for development.

• It reduces the likelihood of misunderstandings and a mismatch of objectives.

• It constrains hidden agendas and reduces the probability of conflict.

• It creates a platform for more effective governance.

• It establishes a baseline to support resource development, along with training to increase collaborative capability to enhance skills.

For those engaged in charity activities, these factors have a significant impact on performance, customer satisfaction and ‘value for money’.

To find out more:

Contact PSL for more information on 0207 824 1807. Copies of the 46-page standard – known as BS 11000-1:2010 (ISBN number 978 0 580 69562 9) – are available, price £162, from http://www.standardsuk.com/products/BS-11000-1-2010.php

For more than 20 years, Bob Little has specialised in writing about, and commentating on, corporate learning - especially eLearning - and technology-related subjects. His work has been published in the UK, Europe, the USA and Australia. You can contact Bob via bob.little@boblittlepr.com

The Benefits of Benchmarking your eLearning Journey

2011-03-22T14:30:00.003Z

The Charity Learning Consortium (CLC) quarterly members’ meetings have been transformed as a result of benchmarking research carried out with Towards Maturity in 2009, and our afternoon workshops now focus on different aspects of eLearning implementation to improve results.

Now it is possible for all CLC members to get involved in benchmarking, to help them identify actions they could make to increase take-up and results of eLearning. Laura Overton gave a brief summary of how to do this, through the new Towards Maturity Benchmark Centre, at the members meeting on 2 March.

The Towards Maturity Benchmark Centre is a free online service that helps organisations get better results, faster, from their investment in learning technologies.

“Of course, it is good to learn from our own mistakes but it is smarter to learn from the mistakes of others and the Benchmark Centre can help you do this,” said Laura, Managing Director of Towards Maturity, and a popular workshop leader at the CLC members’ meetings.

Towards Maturity research has found that organisations that mature in their use of learning technologies consistently report more benefits. More than 1,200 benchmark participants have helped them identify the Towards Maturity Model—in particular, six evolving work streams of great implementation practices really help organisations improve results. The Towards Maturity Index (TMI) provides organisations with a benchmark against this model.

Organisations with a higher benchmark consistently report better performance. Compared to those in the bottom quartile, organisations in the top quartile engage twice the audience, save an additional 33% of cost and there’s even a 50% reduction in study time. Their staff also reach proven competency six times faster as a result of using learning technologies*.

The Benchmark Centre helps you to find out your TMI, and then helps you to go onto improve it by identifying which work streams will help you to achieve the greatest impact. Doing this will also help you make the most of the workshops at the CLC meetings.

“There are no right or wrongs, each organisation will have its own individual journey. However, taking part will give you the opportunity to understand where you are on that journey and give you ideas that you can work on,” said Laura Overton, a winner of the Colin Corder award for services to IT training. “Even better, accessing the Benchmark Centre, getting initial feedback and access to over 200 resources is absolutely free!”

To improve your results and make the most of what you’ve got, Laura recommends accessing the Benchmark Centre and taking three simple steps—review your current progress, compare your results with others, then and act on what you’ve found out. “It is that easy and it works,” she says.

You can take part for free but it will cost you an hour or so of your time to complete – but it is worth it, as 70% of those completing the review step alone found new ideas to support their journey.

Register for free at the Towards Maturity Benchmark Centre at www.towardsmaturity.org/mybenchmark

*data from 2010 Benchmark www.towardsmaturity.org/2010benchmark.

The New Social Learning

2011-03-22T14:29:00.001Z

By Clive Shepherd

The focus of our next members meeting, on 8 June, is on using social media for learning and development. Here, Clive Shepherd puts the rise of social media into context, with the warning that even if you don’t embrace these tools, your workforce will anyway. He looks at four ways that L&D can harness the power of social networks.
I must admit that I'm slightly uncomfortable with the use of the phrase 'social learning' to mean 'learning with social media', because it implies (1) that social learning is something unusual and (2) that social media is the only way of learning from and with one's peers. There is hardly a person alive who hasn't learned socially, just as there isn't a person who hasn't learned many things on their own or through the efforts of a teacher. L&D are the last people to need convincing of the benefits of social learning because, after all, aren't they the first to complain when anyone suggests that a 'social' classroom experience should be converted to a very non-social self-study piece of eLearning.

Having said all this, the new social media really do make a big difference. They amplify the opportunities for social learning to an extraordinary degree, extending reach way beyond those who you can connect with face-to-face and empowering all of us to be teachers as well as learners. Bit by bit, the astonishing take-up of social media tools in all parts of the world and amongst practically all sectors of society is not only changing how we all behave, it's changing what we are.

L&D have a tough job introducing social media tools into workplace learning; they are fighting not only the prejudices of senior managers but their own. Just as eLearning has been a game changer for L&D (albeit in most cases resisted fervently), so is social media. But whatever the obstacles, social media tools will become ubiquitous because our use of these tools outside the workplace is becoming so pervasive that it will be unimaginable that we will not try to realise the same benefits at work. All that's necessary is for the key decision-makers in organisations to become avid social media users themselves – and that is only a question of time – and the doors will fly open. When that happens, L&D will have increased opportunities not only to extend the use of social media within formal interventions but to help in architecting the social learning organisation. The stark truth is that, even if they don't, it will happen anyway.

Should senior managers and those in L&D want to try and direct the use of social media to ensure a positive impact on learning and business performance, then there are at least four areas in which they can look:

Formal learning: There is considerable scope in longer, blended programmes, such as professional and postgraduate qualifications, and management development programmes, to use social media as a vehicle for on-going group collaboration:

• the use of forums to discuss issues and share ideas

• the use of blogs as learning journals

• the use of wikis for group collaborative projects

• sharing research using podcasts and videos

The exciting aspect of these approaches is in the changing role of online content, less as a top-down input from tutors and more of an output from students to be shared with peers. I have been using these techniques for something like five years now and have never encountered any resistance. In some cases the results have been transformational.

Non-formal learning: Social learning also has a place outside the scope of formal courses but still in the cause of on-going personal development:

• the use of communities of practice to share new ideas and debate issues

• the use of micro-blogging to quickly update peers on new developments

On-demand learning: A great deal of learning takes place on-demand, at the point of need. Organisations can do their best to satisfy the needs of employees for on-demand information but they will rarely be able to cover it all on a top-down basis. The gaps can be filled using social media:

• the use of social networks to find sources of expertise or offer your own expertise to others

• content sharing (text, screencasts, podcasts, etc) in the familiar YouTube fashion

Experiential learning: Learning at work is as much about 'learning from' as it is 'learning to'. We learn through our own experiences and the experiences of those around us, but only if we make a conscious effort to reflect. Here is where blogging can play a valuable role. I know this discipline will not be for everybody, but for those that really engage, the opportunities for learning exceed all others.

We have got by without all these techniques in the past and many organisations will make a determined effort to get by without them in the future. They may do this with the best of intentions, but they will be missing opportunities - opportunities that their competitors may well be exploiting.

Clive Shepherd is a consultant specialising in the application of technology to learning and communications at work and is chair of the eLearning Network. With more than 25 years of experience in this field, Clive is acknowledged as a thought leader in the UK in all aspects of technology-assisted learning and blended learning. His new book The New Learning Architect has just been released. It is available in paperback and for e-readers. Find out more here.

Webwatch

2011-02-17T11:52:00.007Z

by Susie Finch

Media watch

I hope you will have seen a recent feature on TrainingZone about charities use of social media for learning, by founder and MD of the Charity Learning Consortium Martin Baker. It turned into a popular read on TrainingZone and was the ‘most read’ the week that it was published! This follows on from the feature on a similar theme that appeared in Third Sector magazine last year that we were involved with.

Martin Baker was also thrilled to be featured in the top 10 list of most influential people in eLearning in the UK, a great commendation for the work that he has done in building the Consortium.

We are also hoping to have mention in an upcoming feature in Chief Learning Officer – they got in touch after hearing about Martin’s presentation at ONLINE EDUCA BERLIN about the benefits of collaborative working. Look out also for the Third Sector training Extra in the magazine on 22 March, and a Training & Development guide in Caritas magazine later in the spring.

Learning at work day

For those of you who are interested, the Learning at Work Day website has free support materials to encourage you to take part in its campaign - National Learning at Work day is on 11 May this year. Of course, L&D professionals may argue that learning happens every day of the year, but a campaign like this may help you focus on a particular aspect of your L&D programmes.

Grants & contracts to mark Year of Volunteering

There are several contracts available to civil society organisations as part of the European Year of Volunteering 2011. Although the deadlines are very tight, your organisations may want to consider them if you can act fast. There are three contracts worth £68,000 each which are open to civil society organisations with experience with volunteers; one contract is for leading on Employer-Supported Volunteering; one is for leading on Volunteer Management; and the third is for leading on encouraging more socially excluded groups to volunteer. Deadline for application is 7th March. More details available here.

Compacts

The Compact has been relaunched (supposedly in a more accessible, simpler format). At its absolute simplest it is a kind of template for setting up a partnership and is especially relevant to charities in light of the Big Society – as there will be more partnerships within the Third Sector and between charities and third parties. Having a Compact means that there is some form of redress if things go wrong (like an ombudsman) but good working practices can also be celebrated. It is typical of Government initiatives, with more organisations involved than you can shake a Compact at – which personally I find confusing - although you can see that they are really trying (in the best possible sense). For more information, this is the main Compact website - which I like the design of - which includes a jargon buster in the media centre. And here's the announcement about the new Compact - the Compact itself contains four Forewords!

Free Resources

HRD 2011: There are a whole host of free events at HRD, 6-7 April, Olympia, London, including Topic Tasters and interactive learning sessions. A couple of items which caught my eye were Managing Conflict Within Teams, a 30 minute topic taster from Belbin (of team roles fame, and probably out of a charity’s L&D budget, so it may be worth a visit for some potential free tips) and The Big Learning Auction, which is essentially a skills swop.

Volunteer guide: In case you haven't come across The Media Trust, I noticed that they have a free guide called Inspiring Volunteers: A Guide to Recruitment and Communications which is free to download here. I thought that it looked like quite a good resource.

eLearning inspiration: There’s a list of more than 75 rapid eLearning resources from Tom Kuhlmann's great blog here - all sorts of freebies! And a previous list of his, of more than 200 free resources, is here.

Free writing tips: There's now quite a good collection of free 'good-writing' resources for charities on ngo.media . They're short, to the point, well presented and well thought out - all on one side of A4. As every one of us has to write - and quite often proofread - they may be personally useful, but could be used in all sorts of ways within charities too.

Word clouds: I’m sure that you will have come across Wordle, a free programme for making word clouds, but have you seen Tagxedo? Using this free programme you can turn the word clouds into pictures (such as the Mona Lisa). Great potential for quirky visual communications of all kinds! Thanks to Lesley Price of Becta for showing me this.

Social media: Last, but not least, CLC MD Martin Baker recently came across a website called Grovo, which has some free tutorials for using social networking, and is a good starting point if you are not familiar with what is available.

Found a great free resource that you’d like to share? Or seen a story that you think will interest other members? Send me an email sfinch@charitylearning.org and I’ll include it in the next round-up.

Diary Dates

2011-02-17T11:51:00.000Z

2 March Charity Learning Consortium Members Meeting, NCVO, London

10 March 11am CheckPoint 3 System Training; 1pm CLC Moodle System Training - Web conferences

6-7 April HRD 2011 conference & exhibition, London, Olympia

14 April 11am CheckPoint 3 System Training; 1pm CLC Moodle System Training - Web conferences

11 May   Charity Learning Consortium Sales Seminar, NCVO, London – for charities who’d like to find out more about the CLC

12 May  11am CheckPoint 3 System Training; 1pm CLC Moodle System Training - Web conferences

19 May   Learning at Work Day

8 June   Charity Learning Consortium Members Meeting, with a special focus on using social media for learning, NCVO, London

To book onto the web conferences, or for more information about our members meetings, please contact Melanie Wenban, Customer Care Co-ordinator, Charity Learning Consortium Telephone: 08451 707702 email: mwenban@charitylearning.org

And the Winner is...

2011-02-17T11:50:00.000Z

The winner of our fantastic competition, with an overnight stay at historic Pendley Manor, Hertfordshire as the prize, is David Gray, Development Officer with NAVCA.

We’re extremely grateful to Pendley Manor for donating this fabulous treat – David will receive a voucher for two people for a luxurious overnight stay in a four poster bed, with full English breakfast in the morning.

Pendley Manor is a great training and conference venue, just 40 minutes from London but in a wonderful countryside location in Tring. All the purpose-built meeting rooms within the Harcourt Conference Centre benefit from natural daylight, air conditioning and 3.3 metre high ceilings. They have been designed to offer maximum flexibility while providing an ergonomic meeting environment, for between six and 200 people.

With a heated indoor swimming pool and spa, and the award winning Oak restaurant, Pendley Manor is the perfect venue for both business and special celebrations. For more information go to http://www.pendley-manor.co.uk/

Award Deadlines 2011

2011-02-17T11:49:00.001Z

We’ll be unveiling plans for our own, unique awards amongst our members soon, but it’s always good to get recognition for the amazing work that you do, so in the meantime, perhaps you’d like to think about the following:

April

Details of The National Training Awards 2011 hadn’t been announced when we went to press, as they are reviewing the awards, but last year the deadline was in April.

May

The Training Journal Awards have a Not for Profit category – deadline for entry is 16 May, unlike many awards, entry is free (or £95 if you want feedback), and it’s great for not-for-profits to have their own category.

June

The Third Sector excellence awards have a Best Employer category, which has an all round HR focus, which may be worth considering - the deadline last year was the beginning of June. And for the The E-Learning Awards which, as the name suggests, are focused on eLearning, the deadline is 30 June for registration - submissions by 29 July.

September

The Institute of IT Training awards have only just been announced for 2010/11 – submissions deadline is normally in the autumn, last year it was September.

More information

If you’d like to find out more about making an award winning submission, you can read Laura Overton’s hints and tips here (register or sign in to the Towards Maturity website first).Or take a look at the Plan case study, for details of its award winning management development programme, which you can access via the CLC’s Ning network (in Updates). Please contact Melanie Wenban on 08451 707702 or email mwenban@charitylearning.org if you require a log-in.

This feature on TrainingZone has a list of other awards you could consider in the future. Personnel Today also have some tips for creating top class entries and most of the award websites have suggestions to help you. Good luck!

Please Welcome Melanie Wenban

2011-02-17T11:48:00.001Z

Please welcome Melanie Wenban, our new Customer Care Co-ordinator at the Charity Learning Consortium.

Melanie will be the first point of contact for our members – if you have not spoken to her already, we’re sure that you will soon. She’s been busy organising our web conference training sessions in CheckPoint 3 and Moodle, and signing off our annual calendar of events (now on our Ning network).

She is new to eLearning, but having just finished a history degree after taking a three year break, she has firsthand experience of the pressures and motivation behind learning! Like many of you, she will be finding out more about Moodle, starting on a Moodle-learning journey alongside you.

When she is not at work for the CLC, Melanie enjoys playing on her Xbox, or tearing around after her two year old cat Oliver. She is looking forward to meeting all of the members of the Consortium.

Mission Impossible? Engaging Adult Learners

2011-02-17T11:46:00.001Z

Engaging adult learners is a tough challenge for any trainer. How do you find the right balance between assuming delegates ’know nothing’, without being patronising? How do you cope with delegates who are time-poor, distracted by work and life commitments, and probably stressed? Just how do you create the right environment for adults to learn? Debbie Barker-Runiewicz of The National Autistic Society has some suggestions...

Engaging learners, and keeping them so, is a challenge faced by every trainer. At the National Autistic Society we have a large number of trainers who complete our own ‘training for trainers’ to ensure they have the right skills and understanding for the job, be it training our own staff and volunteers or training people from outside the organisation. A key theme throughout the three day course is the importance, and sometimes difficulty, in engaging learners.

Adults are unique!

Early on in the three day programme we explain that adult learners are different to children. Treat them the same and you’ll find it much harder to connect with them. Adults accumulate a wealth of knowledge and experience through work, family commitments and previous education. As a trainer you must acknowledge this, and do as much as possible to relate what is being learnt to existing knowledge and experience - disregard this and you risk damaging the rapport you have with your learners.

So trainers must....

When designing a training session it’s a good idea to allow time for not just questions but also for learners to share their own experiences. Along with ensuring there is enough time you should also try to create an environment that welcomes contributions and invites discussion, otherwise learners may be deterred from engaging in group discussions - and they and others miss out on vital learning opportunities. Make it very clear that time has been set aside and discussion, questions and contributions will not delay a break of the finish time. Equally, make it very clear that all participants can be confident that they will not be judged or criticised. Set some ground rules, ensure you as the trainer follow these too and take time to actively listen to others. Dismissing contributions could spoil relationships and de-motivate learners. And remember, the whole group will benefit from contributions made by others.

Adults face barriers to learning

Unlike children and teenagers, adults have many responsibilities that they must balance against the demands of learning. It is these responsibilities that can create barriers against participation in learning. For example, lack of interest or a feeling that a subject is not relevant could create a barrier, and even more so in a learner who is short of time. Other barriers may be financial, confidence, lack of information about opportunities, scheduling, child care and transport.

So trainers must….

When planning training, these barriers must be taken into consideration. A luxurious venue may impress learners and make them feel valued, but if local budgets will not stretch to the bed and breakfast rates, or if the venue is difficult to access other than by car, then these added pressures will compromise engagement and thus learning. You should also consider if a face to face session is needed at all – eLearning, web conference facilities and workbooks can often replace traditional face-to-face courses without compromising quality. And sometimes, when you may not be able to overcome all of these barriers, at least acknowledging them and doing your best to be accommodating can build rapport with learners and enhance engagement.

Adults are goal orientated

Adult learners also tend to be short of time and only want to participate in training that will be useful to them.

So trainers must….

As the trainer you are vital to ensuring adult learners are engaged. When learning relates to a particular problem or goal your audience can see real life benefits in actively learning and completing tasks. It is vital that you set clear aims and objectives and put all learning activities and topics into context. Clearly stating the relevance and value of what they are learning, with pragmatic examples, helps adults to learn. Ensure you give examples relevant to the learners’ personal or work settings. To do this you need to know your audience and why they are attending the training. You could do this by thoroughly reading through the application forms, making use of registration and breaks by talking to your learners, and by adding in some questions to the introductions at the start of the day.

Adults need relevant L&D

Adult learners only have time to invest in training that is relevant to them. Training which isn’t relevant to them will not be of interest.

So trainers must….

The reason the development is taking place, expressed in terms that are real and meaningful to the adult learner, is crucial to ensure they are engaged and eager to learn. For example, when I deliver health and safety training (a topic which generally seems to have a reputation for being boring and uninteresting) I often add to the introductions favourite pastimes, and create a list of these as each person introduces themselves. When I list reasons and benefits for completing certain tasks or complying with a particular law, I will then include the consequences of not doing so and relate these to what the participants’ themselves have said is important to them. Real life examples are needed to engage adult learners, not just theoretical concepts.

Adults are autonomous

They like to have some control over their development. If they allowed this freedom they will be more engaged.

So trainers must….

The workplace manager has a big influence here, but the trainer can help to facilitate this too. At the beginning of the training provide every participant with a blank action plan. Action plans help the learner to focus on the aspects of training most relevant to them. Make it clear that the action plan is personal to them and that they have the control over what goes on it. You can also help create a sense of being in control by agreeing timings for breaks and lunch at the start of the session. Do this alongside agreeing the aims and objectives. This will create some structure, allowing adults to retain some feeling of being in control.

How trainers can help engage adult learners:

• Acknowledge and be respectful of what they already know and have experienced
• Allow them to feel in control of their learning
• Make it relevant
• Particularly for in-house courses be mindful of time, travel and financial commitments
• Get to know your audience
• Ensure the training is valuable to your learners
• Set some ground rules in order to create a safe and respectful environment

Debbie Barker-Runiewicz is the Learning and Development Business Partner at The National Autistic Society (NAS) – a member of the CLC. She’ll be making a short presentation at the member’s meeting on 2 March 2011, updating us on the progress of eLearning at NAS.

Hints and Tips for Demonstrating Value

2011-02-17T11:45:00.001Z

by Laura Overton

What gets your work noticed by stakeholders and peers? What helps you increase engagement? What helps secure your budget in times of turmoil? The ability to demonstrate value!

Demonstrating value is one of the six strands from the Towards Maturity Model that I have been exploring in the CLC meetings. Towards Maturity research over the years has shown that it is one of the main activities that helps us increase the impact and take-up of our solutions back in the workplace. So how do we go about doing this more effectively?

Keep an eye on the end game

As we have covered in previous CLC workshops, the process of demonstrating value starts with the ability to identify the value for key stakeholders at the outset – this includes the learners, their managers and other influential people reliant on the outcomes. Different stakeholders will have different expectations of value from the experience and each will exert a different influence on your programme’s success. Clear, smart and mutually agreed objectives for each stakeholder group provide an agreed point of reference as you implement your solution (and is a good excuse to engage early).

When it comes to engaging managers, the initial conversation about expected results also provides an opportunity to start gathering the existing metrics that they expect to improve. Understanding what value looks like for learners will also help in the design process and the engagement process – otherwise we might not get the balance right. Relevance, convenience and recognition of success will be higher on the learner’s list than perhaps the sponsor’s.

It is also important to have an eye on the area of demonstrating value throughout the rollout process. What questions are you asking in the early pilot phases of the project? Adding a few questions that indicate the participant’s perception of usefulness here might help later on. For example:

• In what ways will you use this back at work?
• Would you recommend this to anyone else at work and why?
• Who else should know about this programme and why?

Gathering feedback

How are you getting feedback from your learners? Most organisations use a feedback sheet after each course, with some form of follow up action taken in almost a third of cases. In earlier studies, we have found that an alarming 7% of organisations do not gather learner feedback at all.

Our research showed that organisations achieving the best business impact are also offering better follow-up for their learners once they are back at work, in the form of focus groups, following up with learners once they return to work and discussion in team meetings.

Feedback can be gathered and recorded in a number of different ways and we can learn valuable lessons here from the private sector. Cable & Wireless took advantage of online survey tools to gather learner feedback and to work with learners (and their managers) to follow up after a programme. It’s a simple idea, easy to implement and effective in continually demonstrating value back to the business.

Powerful and pithy anecdotes and quotes can also work well - they can illustrate the benefits of the solution more eloquently than anything. I have seen great use of personalised stories - captured in print or even via audio and video diaries, when staff can highlight how they are applying their new skills back at work.

Anecdotal evidence should not be underestimated – it enriches a story or business case and makes it come alive. This is even more important when you are looking to demonstrate the value of solutions to learners, managers and sponsors back at work. We know that peer recommendation is more powerful than anything that L&D professionals can say. We should take every opportunity to gather it and use it.

Measuring what you can

Anecdotes are powerful but metrics that indicate organisational improvement speak loud and clear (particularly to budget holders and line managers) and yet this is an area that we often dismiss as being too difficult or too time consuming. We should gather the easy stuff just as a matter of course – how many have been through the programmes, how many have completed and the comparative value of doing using learning technologies vs other media.

Value in terms of cost savings is important (particularly in the current financial climate) but how would we answer the CFO’s question about ‘ why shouldn’t I just cut all learning at the moment?’ or the learners complaint that ‘ they are just throwing the cheap stuff at us now’.

We need to be able to talk about the additional value that our more cost-effective learning solutions will add to the business - and that means being willing to talk to directors about business metrics and staff moral/motivation in order to get their feedback on how they think the intervention has contributed to that metric. There are lots of models to help this process, a full measurement process will probably only be used on the most high profile solutions but the discussions around adding organisational value should be central in all of our conversations.

Communicating success

Now is not the time to be shy – once you have gathered evidence, use it! Continually! Using whatever means you can: Email, intranet, posters, viral campaigns, peer to peer recommendations, slides prepared for your manager’s or MD’s next presentation, league tables, regular management updates, learner award ceremonies, newsletters…..

The list is endless. Good relationships with internal communications teams can prove invaluable, they may already by working on the communications angle of your learning intervention anyway, particularly if it is part of an organisational change programme.

Feedback, measurement and communication are all critical strands for demonstrating value –if you want to win hearts and minds next month back in the workplace, then get started today! We will be exploring this topic further and covering tactical ideas around demonstrating value at next month’s CLC meeting.

In the meantime here are some links to additional research, resources and case studies from organisations in the private and public sector to provide you with more ideas on demonstrating value.

Please note: You will have to register or sign in to the Towards Maturity website in order to follow Laura’s links – registration is entirely free, and the Towards Maturity website is packed with useful, inspiring information.

Laura Overton is the Managing Director of Towards Maturity and has over 2 decades of experience helping organisations develop sustainable strategies to improve business impact of learning technologies in the workplace.

CLC Greetings

2010-12-16T16:50:00.000Z

We’d like to thank all the speakers and supporters who have made the CLC members meetings so entertaining and informative this year, in particular, Peter Honey, Donald Taylor, Laura Overton and Clive Shepherd. At the latest meeting, Clive Shepherd’s Pecha Kucha presentation was pure brilliance and Laura Overton’s workshop was, as ever, packed with really useful information to take away. Ian Ross, the CLC’s Learning Technology Manager, gave an update on the new Induction template, which we’re delighted to announce is ready in Captivate 5 for charities to create their own bespoke content. We’re thrilled to be unveiling this, especially as we were told that a cost effective Induction template couldn’t be done! Ian also gave an update on how various members are progressing with using Moodle as a platform, while Debbie Barker-Runiewicz gave a fantastic presentation on eLearning at the National Autistic Society. Full minutes will be emailed out shortly, and will also be available on the members’ area of the CLC website, along with PowerPoint slides.

We look forward to a bigger and better 2011 – the CLCs 10th birthday, and the year that we launch our conference and awards on 14th September. We look forward to seeing you all next year.

With best wishes from Martin, Wendy, Ian, Susie and all the team at the CLC.

A New Decade of Learning

2010-12-15T16:48:00.000Z

As well as the start of a new decade, 2011 is the Charity Learning Consortium’s 10th birthday! In recognition, we asked members and supporters of the Charity Learning Consortium to look back at the last decade in learning and development, tell us about the challenges they have faced, and also indulge in a little crystal ball gazing and share their thoughts on the industry’s future. Read on to find out what stands out for them from the last ten years, and what they think is in store for a new decade of learning.

“In the last decade I have really noticed the impact of Generation Y on how I think about technology. Young people just don’t have the same barriers to learning online. In the past, natural leaders were captains of school sports team – now young people lead virtual teams online through gaming. In the future, the challenge for L&D professionals is to harness this ability for young people to combine using technology so readily, whilst developing old fashioned skills like leadership and communication, and transfer this into the corporate world. “

Martin Baker, founder and Managing Director of the Charity Learning Consortium

“The last decade has seen big changes in style of delivery, with shorter, more interactive and blended solutions replacing the traditional two days of classroom style delivery and longer residential courses. There has also been a significant shift in the ‘ownership’ of learning. In the past, training was seen as a ‘tick in a box’ and perhaps something ‘done to’ people by an organisation. Now it is expected that individuals want to engage and become involved in choosing personal solutions.”

Martin Lewis, Head of Learning and Organisational Development, Royal British Legion

“L&D in the last decade has been playing ‘catch-up’. My prediction for the next decade is that the game of catch-up will continue; technological advances will continue to outpace our ability fully to grasp their implications for L&D. Exciting times!”

Peter Honey, occupational psychologist, management trainer and Learning Styles ‘guru’

“The idea of a ‘learning organisation’ is catching on within the Third Sector, with more challenging solutions needing to be found to avoid significant investment costs. I foresee developments in the way in which learning activity is supported, but the learning topics themselves are unlikely to change. All organisations have similar core themes of development, but the Third Sector will find more innovative ways to deliver the solution.”

Helen Underhill, Head of Human Resources, Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust (WWT)

“Looking back over the last 10 years, L&D is now using technology in learning more than ever, with the recession fuelling a renewed interest in delivering more for less. But despite massive advancements in tools and approaches, by and large our attitudes to learning innovation haven't shifted much beyond the stand alone course. Looking forward, we won't have the luxury of ignoring the innovations around us, L&D will have a choice to make. Either to continue to ignore it (and risk being ignored) or to embrace it and be part of the solutions that their business needs.”

Laura Overton, Managing Director, Towards Maturity

“The past decade of charity learning has itself been one of learning and development; this is exemplified by the innovative use of new and improving technologies, leading to exciting new learning platforms such as the TED format, which thoroughly engage ‘tomorrow’s’ audience.”

Ray Gorman, Training Programme Manager, Engineers Without Borders UK

“The past decade has seen a revolution in workplace learning, precipitated by technology and the continued shift to a knowledge economy. Thanks to increased connectivity, trainers are no longer the only source of information or expertise. The result: the learning and development department will be shifting its focus over the next decade to be more strategic and more focused on performance and less on training.”

Donald Taylor, Chairman, Learning Technologies conference and the Learning & Skills Group

Diary dates 2011

2010-12-15T16:46:00.000Z

13 January: 11am CheckPoint 3 System Training; 1pm CLC Moodle System Training - web conferences.

The next web conference training sessions after this are on 10 February and 10 March at the same times.

26-27 January: Learning Technologies, and Learning & Skills Exhibition, Olympia 2, London. Come and help us celebrate the CLC’s 10th birthday at stand number 177!

January 2011: Entries open to the eLearning Age Awards and the National Training Awards.

2 March: CLC members meeting, NCVO London

14 September: Provisional date for the CLC’s first conference and awards!

Enter our Fantastic Christmas Competition

2010-12-15T16:45:00.067Z

Your chance to win an overnight stay at historic Pendley Manor

We’re offering you the chance to win a luxurious overnight stay at historic Pendley Manor, staying in a four poster bed, with full English breakfast for both the winner and their guest.

Pendley Manor at Tring, Hertfordshire has had a chequered history. It dates back to the Doomsday Book, when it was confiscated in 1066 by William the Conqueror and passed to his brother-in-law, Earl Moreton. In the 19th Century it was abandoned by Sir William Harcourt, who objected to the building of the nearby railway. It was burnt down in 1835.

In the 1980s, the Manor was purchased by an independent hotelier and restored to its original grandeur and re-opened as a Country House Hotel. The addition of the Harcourt ballroom and meeting rooms now makes Pendley Manor both the perfect weekend retreat and country house conference and event venue. Just 40 minutes from London but in a wonderful countryside location, Pendley Manor is perfect for special occasions as well as events, meetings and training seminars.

All the purpose-built meeting rooms within the Harcourt Conference Centre benefit from natural daylight, air conditioning and 3.3 metre high ceilings. They have been designed to offer maximum flexibility while providing an ergonomic meeting environment, for between six and 200 people.

With a heated indoor swimming pool and spa, and the award winning Oak restaurant, Pendley Manor is the perfect venue for business or special celebrations. For more information go to http://www.pendley-manor.co.uk/

To be in with a chance of winning, submit your answer to the following question:

In which year did Pendley Manor burn down?

Deadline for entry: Midnight, January 28 2011

The winner will receive a voucher for an overnight stay for themselves and their guest at Pendley Manor, at Tring, Hertfordshire, staying in a room with a four poster bed, with full English breakfast included. Bookings subject to availability. Employees of both the Charity Learning Consortium and Pendley Manor are not eligible to enter. Read our full Terms and Conditions.

Ten Top Tips for Captivate

2010-12-15T16:43:00.000Z

Web technology trainer Toby Dusek gives his top tips for getting the best out of Captivate.

1. Plan before you record anything
2. Capture short nuggets of content
3. Use Templates for all your basic settings
4. Keep the file size small by using efficient recording techniques
5. Plan before you record anything!
6. Choose a screen recording size and stick to it
7. Use highlight boxes and zoom areas to accentuate learning points
8. Provide multiple learning pathways with branching
9. Gather all your learning metrics via quizzes and reports
10. And of course - plan before you record anything!!

Toby Dusek has been training web technologies for over a decade. With an engaging style and ever-practical approach, he trains people to solve problems and to understand the solutions. His online learning courses with Reed Learning - created using Captivate - have been extremely popular.

Charities Lead the Way in Harnessing Social Networking for L&D

2010-12-15T16:42:00.000Z

Charities are ahead of their private and public sector counterparts in harnessing the blueprint of social networking for learning, according to latest research. Martin Baker, founder and MD of the Charity Learning Consortium, says he is not surprised - using social media for learning is compellingly cost effective for charities, with private, exclusive networks in particular really proving their worth.

According to the latest research, charities are far more likely than their counterparts in the private or public sectors to use social networking sites like Facebook for learning and development use.

Martin Baker, founder and MD of the Charity Learning Consortium, said he was delighted to see that charities were getting the recognition they deserved for their innovative use of social networking for learning, which, he says, is “compellingly cost-effective”.

The research, by Towards Maturity, highlights the fact that the Third Sector has been last out of the starting blocks when it comes to getting to grips with using learning technologies – which is not surprising, given the commitment that charities make to spending grant money, legacies and donations on front line services, rather than on IT infrastructure.

“Charities may be using antiquated hardware, but they are leading the way when it comes to harnessing the blueprint of social media for learning and organisational use,” said Martin Baker, who has been mentoring eLearning in the Third Sector for almost 10 years.

“What those in L&D in the Third Sector have become expert at is thinking creatively, implementing learning and development programmes on a shoestring. In the current economic climate, there are definitely lessons which the private and public sector can learn from what charities are doing.

“Amongst the members of the Charity Learning Consortium, for example, VSO is using social networking really imaginatively, with a moderated discussion forum helping to prepare its UK volunteers. VSO’s vision is to eventually roll this out globally and I know that other charities are keeping a keen eye on how the forum is progressing.

“Charities like VSO are leading the way in using an exclusive network for a very specific learning purpose. It’s still early days for using social media for learning in the Third Sector. In the future I’m sure that more of our members will embrace these tools for L&D, and I look forward to seeing how.”

Social networking: The facts

The percentage of organisations surveyed by Towards Maturity which:

• Use social networking for learning: 34% of not-for-profits; 22% of public organisations; 19% of private companies.
• Allow unrestricted access to social media: 63% of not-for-profits; 34% of public organisations; 54% of private companies, rising to 75% in IT and telecoms.
• Encourage communication amongst learners: 43% of not-for-profits; 38% of public organisations; 43% of private companies.
• Have established good links with IT departments: 57% of not-for-profits; 54% of public organisations; 57% of private companies.

Statistics taken from Accelerating Performance, the Towards Maturity benchmarking report 2010-11. You can download the full report at www.towardsmaturity.org/2010benchmark

Did you see the feature in Third Sector magazine, about how charities are using social networking for L&D? It mentions the work of CLC members The King’s Fund and VSO - if you missed it, you can see it online here: http://www.thirdsector.co.uk/news/Article/1041938/social-media-used-learning/ Our thanks to The King’s Fund and VSO for helping us provide information to Third Sector magazine for a very informative feature.

Three Cheers for Tools and Techniques

2010-12-15T16:40:00.016Z

by Peter Honey

Over the past few months I have participated in two major events where tools and techniques were given short shrift. The first one, on creativity and the brain, was dominated by academics. They had esoteric knowledge high on a pedestal and could not bring themselves to acknowledge the usefulness of lesser things like techniques.

The other occasion, about unleashing wasted talent in organisations by putting the ‘soul back into work’, was one of those inspirational events where it was assumed that everything worthwhile and enduring sprang from the heart and that nothing less would do.

At both events I dared, despite widespread disapproval, to speak up in support of tools and techniques. I made little, if any, headway.

There is no argument about the eventual end point: we all want people to behave thoughtfully and authentically. The difference is over the most promising way to reach this desired end, via an attitudinal or a behavioural route. There are ‘internalists’ who assume that attitudes and beliefs must come first and that people have to believe something before they can radiate the right behaviours. Then there are ‘externalists’ who assume that behaviour is largely situational and that it is possible artificially to induce behaviour, leaving beliefs and attitudes to play catch-up.

I am sure in my own mind that in a perfect world people would be nice to each other, not because they had to, but because they believed it was the right thing to do. However, the world isn’t perfect and, fortunately, there are a whole host of tried and tested techniques ready and waiting to come to our aid. It seems such a pity to insist that passionate beliefs are a pre-requisite before they can be employed for the common good.

Have you, for example, come across a technique called the itemised response? It features as one of many techniques in Synectics to aid creative thinking - a useful extension to brainstorming (apologies to devotees for this inadequate description). The itemised response technique goes like this: in order to counteract the tendency to find fault with other people’s ideas and rubbish them, a rule is imposed whereby you have to say three things you like about an idea before you are allowed to state a concern. This guarantees a ratio of three pluses for every minus. There is also a ‘formula’ for expressing the concern - you have to start with the prefix ‘my concern is how to…..?’ The concerns are thus posed as open-ended questions in search of answers, rather than damning condemnations that too easily bring things to a halt.

This technique, therefore, ‘forces’ people to search hard for the good in someone else’s idea irrespective of what they really think about it. It is particularly powerful when the first reaction to someone’s idea is that it is daft (or, worse still, that they are daft!).

I think this is a particularly interesting example because it encapsulates everything that internalists tend to loathe about techniques. The positive behaviour is artificially induced - by no stretch of the imagination could it be claimed to be authentic. Indeed, the technique works best precisely when internal attitudes are hostile to the idea under consideration. If you want to over-ride negative attitudes and, at a stroke, get people to behave positively, the itemised response is the best short cut I know. Furthermore, my experience has been that when the technique has been imposed, ideas that would have been cast aside with inadequate consideration have survived, even flourished. Best of all, over time (not overnight) another important side effect becomes evident. Slowly, negative/hostile attitudes towards ideas from other people give way to more positive, enquiring ones where playing with ideas is seen as a good and useful thing to do. And all this because of the imposition of a mere technique. No doubt you can think of many other examples of techniques that work like this from, for example, the realms of stress management, time management, interactive skills and so on.

So, it seems to me there are always two routes to authentic behaviour - and you pays your money and takes your pick. Firstly, the attitudinal route where people’s hearts and minds have to be won before they are in a position to behave properly. Secondly, the behavioural route where people are made to behave properly and attitudes align themselves behind the behaviour. As a self-confessed pragmatist I, of course, plumb for the latter.

So please don’t knock techniques. They often offer the best hope to bring about the improvements we all crave for. As the saying goes (internalists please skip this bit – it is simply too offensive), ‘if at first you can’t make it, fake it’.

Dr Peter Honey is the well known creator of the Honey & Mumford Learning Styles Questionnaire. He has previously been a popular guest speaker at the CLC members’ meeting.

Blood, sweat, tears...and triumph

2010-11-03T10:28:00.002Z

Charity Learning Consortium member Kathy McCarthy – a training assistant at The Children’s Society – has just returned from running in the Chicago Marathon. She chatted to us about the highs and lows of her marathon fundraising effort, and how she had to call on her inner strength to reach the finishing line.

Congratulations on your run. So, how was it?

Thanks! It was very hard work: it was 87°F so I had to stop for water and energy drinks every three miles so I wouldn’t hit ‘the wall’ at 20 miles. I had to really stay strong to keep up my pace. Unfortunately, I didn’t spot my family - I really wanted to see them and by mile 21 I wanted to cry, but they were there with flowers at the end, which was really special. The crowds were amazing - I was so glad I had my name on my Children’s Society T-shirt, my name was called out by cheer leaders and spectators which was a real boost and made me smile every time. There was lots of music too which was great, especially in the Latin Quarter.

Forgive our ignorance, but how many miles (or KMs) did you run?

The marathon was 26.2 miles starting at 7.30 am. My official time was four hours and 29 minutes, so I am very happy indeed.

Have you run that sort of race before?

No, only half marathons

How long did you have to train for beforehand?

I trained for 16 weeks, starting in June. I took my training very seriously, knowing I would be jetlagged, away from the familiarity of home and also doing it for charity, which adds to the pressure of wanting it to go right on the day. I was very careful about not getting injured - which was my main concern with doing the extra miles – but luckily I had no injuries at all, apart from falling over once and ripping my knees up!

How long did it take you to recover?

I still am recovering! My legs are still pretty tired – I found out when I had to run for the train this morning.

What made you want to run in the Chicago marathon?

Several reasons really, I had done a few half marathons and always felt I should give it a go when the time was right – you have to really commit yourself to having the time to train. My son was deciding which university to go to and was thinking about Northwestern Chicago, and at the same time The Children’s Society sent a message around saying they had places for the Chicago marathon, so I said to my son that if he chose Chicago I would run there – and he did! Summer training also appealed rather than in the cold and dark. Finally, 10.10.10 was such a cool date I couldn’t resist it!

What was Chicago like?

A lovely city, really interesting architecture and things to do and see, very friendly and clean. It’s by Lake Michigan which gives it a relaxed city-by-the-seaside feel.

So is the start of some more marathon races? Or more fundraising?

I’m not decided yet, I never say never!

I enjoyed the fundraising too, it made a change from focusing on running, but it was nearly as hard as the running – you have to be creative and come up with different things to do.

What’s next on your list of things that you would like to achieve in your life?

I would like to keep up my fitness enough to do the Inca Trail in Machu Picchu.

The Children’s Society must be delighted with the money that you have raised, do you know how it will be spent?

It will go towards the work of improving the lives of all children and young people, we especially work with children who are often forgotten or whose needs are ignored, such as young carers, refugee children, traveller children or children whose parents are affected by alcohol or drug use.

What have you learnt from the experience?

I really enjoyed the experience – I would say to anyone thinking of taking on such a challenge to go for it. It is a big commitment and it is tough at times but when you do it for a good cause, it is very motivating, and when people are interested and encouraging it really helps you keep going. You learn in training - and on the day - that when the going gets tough you just have to dig deep and carry on – in the end it’s all down to you.

Kathy has raised almost £1,500 so far - her Just Giving page is here.

Diary Dates

2010-11-03T10:25:00.004Z

11 November - CP3 training online: 11am for large charities, 2pm for small charities*

23 November - 9.30-4.30pm, London: Captivate 4 training day. 12 places max. Cost approx £155*

9 December – 10-4pm: CLC members meeting at NCVO. NB this is a Thursday.

2011 the CLC’s 10th Birthday, let the celebrations begin!

26- 27 January - Come and see us at Learning Technologies & Learning & Skills, London Olympia. Stand no 177

2 March - CLC members meeting, NCVO, London

*For more information about the CP3 and Captivate training please contact Kelly Woolls on 08451 707 702 email kwoolls@charitylearning.org

Look who’s talking...about Moodle

2010-11-03T10:22:00.001Z

Moodle expert Ian Ross recently joined the Charity Learning Consortium – a unique organisation for those involved in learning in the Third Sector - in the newly created post of Learning Technology Manager. He’ll be helping members of the Consortium implement eLearning provided by the CLC into their workplaces. We asked Ian why he’s so passionate about Moodle in particular, and what he thinks the future holds for learning technologies.

What are you looking forward to most at the Charity Learning Consortium?

I will be helping members of the Consortium who wish to, to move over to Moodle as a platform for the eLearning that the Consortium offers. I really can't tell you how much Moodle will improve the learning experience for those who access it. The biggest benefit will be giving the charities what they want with the least expense, including the possibility of uploading and developing their own learning.
I wonder if anyone has noticed that Moodle would be a great intranet resource as well as a learning management system...? Not exactly what it says on the tin but it’s another great use for Moodle.

Any hints and tips for those working in eLearning in the Third Sector?

Get creative. Often it can seem expensive to create engaging learning when in-fact, the opposite is true. There are huge open source resources out there just waiting for you to get stuck into. And enjoy yourself: The more fun you have, the more fun your learners will have. Although don't get too carried away and stick loads of photos of Llamas around the learning... like me!

If you are involved in L&D in the Third Sector and want to chat about applications that can help you out for free, drop me a line iross@charitylearning.org - I am too geeky to not talk about it for hours.

We understand you’re passionate about Moodle – why Moodle?

Change is in its nature. Moodle is an open source platform with its roots in long distance schooling but it's not limited to providing classroom lessons. As an open source and web based product, Moodle can be changed to suit any client or learning need. It is true that other solutions come out of the box with specific reports or integration but, unless you are able to pay the software company you are now tied to a lot of money to make bespoke changes, what comes in the box stays in the box.

The fact of the matter is that you don't need to tie yourself in to a system that meets your needs in the short term with Moodle. Most web developers will be able to make effective changes that integrate with Moodle, which means you can tweak it as much as you want until it works for you.

This may seem like hassle in the short term but the medium and long term benefits more than outweigh these. Don't like your developer? Get a new one without scrapping your system.

To make development and integration even easier, we are looking after this for our clients to make sure that they get the learning management system they always wanted with the least hassle and least development costs.

What other technology do you find exciting?

I get too carried away with technology of the gadget variety so I won't ramble about that! I think that the time and effort going in to the reduction of energy use at the moment is amazing. Electric Minis, huge capacity batteries, motorway trains made of cars - it's all very clever and I am envious of those who are brilliant enough to be involved.

What do you think the future holds for learning technologies?

When was the last time you went on a course? I would bet it was not that long ago. With the increase in adult learning I think that learning technologies will become increasingly popular to meet the demands of adult learners who don’t want to or don't have time to attend a classroom.

Tell us a bit more about yourself...

My father is a teacher and my mother worked in my high school. So it's not really a surprise I ended up working with learning. What is a surprise is my obsession with Llamas. It is my goal to have one as a pet one day, much better than a guard dog!

I like to pretend that I do cultured things as well as chat to people in the line at supermarkets. I can't work out if that’s because I am a Scot or if I inherited it from my mother. Either way, it’s surprising the amount you can find out about people over a conveyor belt! I guess you could say I am interested in people.

Ten top websites for free learning resources

2010-11-03T10:21:00.001Z

Here’s a top ten list of websites offering free learning resources, from eLearning expert Bob Little.

For more than 20 years, Bob Little has specialised in writing about, and commentating on, corporate learning – especially eLearning – and technology-related subjects. His work has been published in the UK, Continental Europe, the USA and Australia. You can contact Bob via bob.little@boblittlepr.com

Gold award winning DVD helps prepare a Legion of workers

2010-11-03T10:20:00.004Z

A multi award winning DVD has changed the face of training for one of the UK’s best loved charities. The Royal British Legion decided to use real caseworkers in its DVD – called The Visit - to show volunteers how to use their ‘eyes and ears’ when assessing the needs of ex-servicemen and their families.

Charity Learning Consortium (CLC) member Martin Lewis, Head of Learning and Organisational Development at the Royal British Legion, explained the unique approach the Legion’s L&D department took with the production: “What makes this DVD not only award-winning but also unusual in its approach is the overlay of real caseworkers doing the commentary, with actors role modelling the scenarios – a docu-drama format,” he said.

“The style and content of the DVD ensures that the video dates less rapidly than the typical corporate ‘talking head’ style presentation.” The varying scenarios and the style of the content allow the DVD to be used as a stand alone training resource, or as part of a blended solution, he explained.

Martin Baker, Managing Director of the CLC, said he was delighted for the Royal British Legion: “This is a great example of the imaginative thinking that we see in learning and development in the charity sector. We were delighted to hear that not only has the DVD won some very high level awards – which is brilliant - but that it is proving to be a real success on the ground. I know that I am always banging the drum for the good work that is being done in charity learning, but it’s just fantastic for the Royal British Legion’s L&D department to get the credit that it deserves.”

The Visit has a dual use – both as an induction tool and as a training and coaching resource. The Royal British Legion has approximately 3,000 caseworkers, which are the ‘face’ of the organisation. They visit people applying for support and gather key information, which allows the legion to decide both whether they are eligible for assistance and what that assistance should be. Around 1,200 caseworkers receive training on an annual basis with approximately 500 new caseworkers going through induction each year.

“The DVD has been really well received by experienced caseworkers who say it is a much more current and accurate reflection of what they actually do, and - more importantly - has been well received by new starters, who like the content and the real world input,” said Martin Lewis.

“Everyone seems to appreciate the move from traditional style training videos which tend to be ‘do this in a certain way’ and often date quite quickly. They like the fact that live caseworkers contributed to the DVD and this shows the value we place upon volunteers undertaking this work. “

The DVD picked up two prestigious awards earlier this year from the International Visual Communications Association, winning a Gold Award in the Practical Training category and a Silver Award in the Induction category.
It then went onto win further awards at The New York Festivals International Television & Film Awards, with a Gold World Medal in the Public Relations category, which includes recruitment and induction, and a Finalist World Medal for Internal Use, which includes training.

“It is always great to get recognition for work you do but to have scooped several awards at such prestigious events is really fabulous. It is particularly great to get recognition from peers!” said Martin Lewis.

“The original plan of having a single DVD fulfilling several roles was always a challenge but we appear to have succeeded in delivering against the brief – as evidenced by the awards in several categories. I should thank our partners in producing the DVD - Straker films – who delivered a great end product that will be a great asset in training new volunteers to support our beneficiaries more effectively.”

The DVD has been issued to every Royal British Legion county office and is also included in the new Welfare Volunteer Induction pack that all new caseworkers receive.

Pictured are (L-R) Nicola Mann of film production company Straker Films; Nick Straker, Straker Films; Martin Lewis, Head of Learning & Organisational Development at the Royal British Legion, at the prestigious awards ceremony held by the International Visual Communications Association at the Grosvenor House Hotel, London.

Enjoyable e-learning–is it an oxymoron?

2010-11-03T10:15:00.001Z

By Clive Shepherd

We all know that eLearning is growing in popularity, primarily because it's efficient. It helps employers by cutting travel costs. It helps employees because it provides access to learning as and when they want. But none of this means that learners 'like' eLearning; for many it's just another mundane chore.

Defining terms

So is it possible for eLearning to be enjoyable? Or is enjoyable eLearning an oxymoron? Let's begin by agreeing our terms, starting with eLearning. As the diagram shows, eLearning has three main aspects, each with a wide variety of forms …

Unfortunately, that's not how many employers see it...

eLearning is all too often seen by organisations as no more than simple self-paced instruction; just like the computer-based training we've had for the past 30 years, only now delivered online through a learning management system rather than offline on a videodisc or a CD-ROM.

The second term we need to define is enjoyment - essentially something that gives us pleasure. Psychology professor Mihaly Csiksczentmihalyi defined the following eight components of enjoyment. Imagine if our eLearning was like this:

1. Confronting tasks that we have a chance of completing
2. Concentration
3. Clear goals
4. Immediate feedback
5. A deep, effortless involvement
6. A sense of control over one’s actions
7. A reduced concern for self
8. Hours pass by in minutes

Pleasure can come through physical exertion. Exercise releases endorphins in the brain, which in turn cause a sort of 'natural high'. You wouldn't normally associate exercise with computers, of course, but that's until the Wii came along.

There's pleasure to be had as well from meeting up with friends. We're social animals and we don't like to be isolated for too long, as anyone wading through their sixth hour of self-study eLearning will tell you.

Perhaps video games are more your thing? Yes, of course, we can experience enjoyment using computers; so much so that the problem is in getting yourself to stop. We love a challenge and computer games play on this fact. Increasingly they also allow you to socialise online at the same time.

And so to our third term, oxmoron, which comes from the Greek 'oxus' - pointedly - and 'morus' - which means foolish. Pointedly foolish. An oxymoron is, of course, an inherent contradiction in terms, like eLearning and enjoyment. It's pointedly foolish to think otherwise. Or is it? Let's see.

What gets in the way of enjoyable eLearning?

I've identified five factors that make it difficult for us to produce enjoyable eLearning. The first of these is the policy constraints which many organisations impose on eLearning designers. You know what I mean: no jokes, no anecdotes, no informalities, no choice, no shortcuts – basically, no fun.

Then there are the shortcomings in the designs themselves:

• too much content
• irrelevant content
• minimal interaction
• unchallenging interaction
• inflexible structuring
• inadequate examples
• irrelevant examples
• insufficient practice
• unrealistic practice

Problems also arise in the way in which self-study eLearning is blended with other approaches:

• no-one to answer questions
• no-one to share with
• no-one to compare against
• no-one to argue with
• no-one to provide feedback
• no-one to follow-up with

And, of course, online delivery isn't for everyone. We have to be aware of the digital divide. There's a hard core that's still lacking in basic computer skills. And not everyone has access to the network connectivity you need if you're going to get the full benefit from learning online.

Lastly, we shouldn't forget that some learning is inherently uncomfortable, particularly when it causes us to challenge deep-seated models that govern our behaviour; or when we need to learn complex new skills. The enjoyable bit comes later, through mastery.

Five ways to make eLearning more enjoyable

So are eLearning and enjoyment compatible? Well, as we've seen, there are plenty of obstacles getting in the way. Certainly we have to do an awful lot better before our eLearning happy sheets will match those of the classroom. I've come up with five ideas that I believe could help.

Challenge conventions: We're not going to make much progress until we challenge some of the corporate conventions about eLearning. That means acting like professionals – more like architects than builders. We're the experts on adult learning and if we're allowed to do our job properly we can really make things happen.

Tell interesting stories: We all love stories; they form the basis for most of our conversations. We remember stories much better than we do abstractions, particularly when we can relate them to our own experiences. Storytelling should permeate the examples we provide and the challenges we set.

Provide engaging challenges: And talking of challenges, there's a lot we can learn from video games in terms of the way we draw learners in and hold their attention. Try to limit the information you provide and substitute meaningful activities in their place – ones that are stretching but achievable with effort.

Don't overdo the self-study: Learners like self-study because they're in control, but they don't like it to the exclusion of the other necessary ingredients in successful learning. They want to be able to interact with tutors and subject experts, and share experiences with their peers. Is that too much to ask?

Express yourself: Lastly, you might need to let go of some of your own inhibitions. Don't be another corporate drone; design your e-learning as if you were chatting with a friend. Tell your jokes and your stories, be a little provocative. In short, don't design anything that you wouldn't want to use yourself.

In conclusion

So, is enjoyable eLearning an oxymoron? Of course not, but it is unusual, and will continue to be so unless we make the effort to buck the trend. eLearning doesn't have to be enjoyable to be effective, but the world would certainly be a happier place if it was.

Clive Shepherd is a consultant specialising in the application of technology to learning and communications at work. With more than twenty five years of experience in this field, Clive is acknowledged as a thought leader in the UK in all aspects of technology-assisted learning and blended learning.

Peter Honey: There’s no such word as can’t!

2010-09-27T11:26:00.003+01:00

Even the unwilling can be helped to learn, said Dr Peter Honey - world famous for his Learning Styles Questionnaire - at an entertaining and thought provoking presentation to members of the Charity Learning Consortium (CLC).

Dr Honey used the analogy of a horse to illustrate his point - turning the assumption that ‘you can lead a horse to water, but cannot make it drink’ on its head. You could, he suggested, make sure the horse was really thirsty, perhaps ensure there were plenty of other horses drinking already to entice the horse to join them, or make the water somehow more attractive to a horse!

“You can’t force horses to drink, but you can make it as easy as possible for them to do so,“ he said. Equally, you can maximise the probability of learning by engineering a successful learning environment.
Dr Honey challenged our assumptions in this way several times – perhaps surprisingly stating that “of course the learning style questionnaire isn’t sufficient on its own to promote effective learning” - as a learner’s motivation, external pressures and their environment are all not taken into account (back to the analogy of the horse).

Another strongly held belief – that learning should be fun – was also challenged: “I’ve never bought into the idea that every learning experience should be jolly,” he said. Don’t we in fact learn from mistakes (which can be painful), and could there not be richer learning through adversity, he suggested?

“There is no correlation between the popularity of something, and how much you learn! If it’s not so enjoyable you may have to put more effort in, and ultimately learn more as a result.” But he recommended using a ‘force and support’ principal – if you are going to ‘enforce’ learning - for whatever reason - make sure there is support.

Peter Honey’s memorable presentation was just one of the highlights of the CLC’s members’ meeting last week. At the initial roundtable introductions, one member piped up: “I come here to learn from everyone else, steal your ideas, go back to work and gain the glory for myself!”

Exchanging ideas is certainly one of the Consortium’s strengths, and it was therefore the perfect venue for the Guinness Trust Group to unveil a new induction course that they have been working on with the CLC, that ultimately will be a template that other members can use.

You could tell that the project had been its ‘baby’ for several months, but members were boldly asked for constructive comments – and the comments came thick and fast. The input from members was invaluable, and the feedback was evidence of the CLC at its finest, both supportive, but striving to be the best that we can all be in the field of L&D.

The day was finished with another great presentation from the brilliant Laura Overton – MD of Towards Maturity, and this year’s winner of the Colin Corder award for services to IT training. She made everyone step back and really think about how they were communicating with their learners, what messages they were using, and how they were marketing their eLearning suite. There were certainly plenty of practical ideas here to steal and take back to the workplace. We wait to hear reports of glory...

Dr Peter Honey, the well known creator of the Honey & Mumford Learning Styles Questionnaire, was the guest speaker at the CLC members’ meeting at the NCVO on 15 September.

Best Friends Forever: Top tips for harmony between L&D and IT

2010-09-27T11:20:00.002+01:00

A closer working relationship between L&D and IT departments benefits everyone. Jooli Atkins, Managing Director of Matrix FortyTwo suggests ways for training managers to make friends with their IT counterparts.

Make the effort to learn their language

We know that IT people are different. Why can’t they just talk the same language as the rest of us? Why don’t they communicate with us the way we can understand? Well, they don’t. So best to learn a little of their language and go to them rather than wait for them to come to you.

Just as you would if you went to live in a foreign country, if you learn a bit of the language and the locals can see that you have made an effort, you are much more likely to be accepted.

First learn a bit about it and ask them whether they use Agile or Waterfall development cycles – that’ll get them to notice you!

Offer to help

Once you have a bit of their language, you might offer to help them meet their deadlines and audit requirements (mention Sarbanes Oxley to IT Managers in large organisations, for example, and the blood will drain from their faces). L&D professionals have a wealth of business experience and stakeholder management skills that would be very useful to IT.

You can offer to help them with Business Analysis at the start of a project, with user acceptance testing during the development phase and by integrating your training evaluation with IT key performance indicators - you can help to provide them with valuable information about usage and system availability.

Gatecrash their meetings – then get invited

Making friends with the IT department is one way to start getting them to remember you. Why not invite them to your meeting and user forums? You may be surprised what value they can add.

Once you can get them to notice that you exist, you can find out when their meetings are and invite yourself. Listen carefully to learn more about their language, their challenges and their projects, without trying to get them to understand your language, challenges and projects at this stage.

Maximise the benefits

Once you do start talking to them you can highlight the benefits of working together. With the IT world moving from hierarchy to accountability, and embracing service management, they are becoming more accountable to their customers. You can help them to reach their customers in a ‘user-friendly’ way, ‘selling’ the system benefits to the users and enhancing the image of IT in the organisation. You are the face of IT for the users and working with you can help to enhance its image in the organisation. An IT system is only as good as its users and a confident, competent user is usually the result of good training.

Create a win/win situation

By talking to the Service Desk (or help desk in the old world) Manager you can get valuable information that will allow you to train users in areas that are creating service desk calls. Minimising the calls and maximising the system usage provides a benefit for both IT and the business.

Be proactive

Having made yourself part of the team, you need to be proactive in making sure that you get wind of projects early and get yourself invited along to project meetings, as well as involved in document review and approvals. Add IT to your document review and approval lists and they may begin to realise that they need to reciprocate.

Eventually, you will learn how you can best help each other, trust each other and begin working together - rather than against each other - and ultimately you will be an essential invitee for all of their planning meetings. Real progress.

Jooli Atkins is a learning and development professional working in IT. With almost 30 years of experience in L&D and IT she provides a bridge between the two professions through consultancy, training and project management. She runs

Matrix FortyTwo, an IITT Gold Standard Accredited Training provider, and can be contacted by emailing jooli.atkins@matrix42.co.uk.

Webinars, webinars, webinars...

2010-09-27T11:14:00.001+01:00

Donald Taylor – our guest speaker at the CLC members’ meeting in June – talked a lot about webinars, and how he had seen an explosion in their use. We put him on the spot, and asked him to nominate his top three webinars from the Learning & Skills Group archives. So without further ado, here they are:

Barry Sampson on social learning behind the firewall
Nick Shackleton-Jones on rapid elearning
Julie Wedgwood on emerging elearning tools

There’s invariably some housekeeping right at the beginning of these webinars, but do stick with them - and let us know what you think.

Whilst on the subject, Citrix has a webinar coming up on 23 September at 3pm, on ‘Engaging Webinars: How to Avoid the Big Mistakes as You Get Started’ which may be worth registering for if you are interested in using webinars at all in your organisation. More info can be found here.

News and info from the latest members meeting:

2010-09-27T10:54:00.029+01:00

Welcome

A very warm welcome was extended to our newest members from the following charities:

Deafblind UK
Sport England
Havens Hospices
Langley House Trust
CAB Hampshire (Small Charity Membership)

We look forward to working with these new members, providing great e-Learning, advice and support to help them on their L&D journey.

New faces

We’re delighted to announce that Ian Ross is soon to be a new face at the CLC. Our very own in-house Moodle expert, Ian starts with us on 27 September.

CLC conference & awards

Martin Baker, MD, seeded the idea of a conference and awards (with the emphasis on the awards being straightforward, with no complicated entry process) which went down well with members at the meeting. We’d love to hear your thoughts on what you’d like from a conference – talks or practical sessions/workshops, for example? Is there anyone working in the field of L&D that you’ve always been dying to hear speak/meet? Please get in touch if you have any ideas that you’d like to feed into the planning process.

Diary dates

28th -29th September World of Learning: All charities and voluntary organisations are eligible for a 50% discount. Come and see us at stand E125.
14 October: CheckPoint 3 training session. Call Kelly Woolls on 08451 707702 to book.
20 October: Seminar for charities interested in joining the CLC – please pass these details on to anyone you think may be interested in joining the Consortium, and ask them to get in touch.
Thurs 9 December: CLC Members’ Meeting. Please note this is a Thursday – NOT our usual Wednesday. We will also be on the ground floor in a bigger room!

Minutes and further information

We’re working on Laura Overton’s learner-engagement presentation slides, developing them into an information pack that members can use, so please look out for this resource on NING, the member’s area of the CLC website.

Full minutes from the meeting are also available as usual on NING.

For more details about any of the above please contact Wendy Stanley wstanley@charitylearning.org or Kelly Woolls mailto:kwoolls@charitylearning.org

Top tips for engaging eLearners

2010-09-27T10:30:00.004+01:00

Laura Overton, MD of Towards Maturity and winner of this year’s Colin Corder award, says engaging eLearners is probably the toughest hurdle that L&D professionals face. She’s been working on this challenge for most of her career! Here are her top tips for successful eLearning take-up.

Tip 1 - Relevance

At the risk of banging on the same gong - business relevance is the bedrock for all successful learning. In order to build commitment and generate enthusiasm, learning programmes must first be built in line with business drivers. Once the solutions have been created for identified target audiences, good communications will help each of those audiences to see the relevance of the learning programme to their own job role. If we are to engage learners, we first need to address the ‘What’s in it for me?’ at the design phase and not leave it to the launch of a programme. For more information have a look at this How to guide on identifying and designing great digital content.

Tip 2 - Target Managers

Managers have considerable influence when it comes down to learning success – they allocate time, encourage usage, and believe in the benefits (or not as the case maybe). Towards Maturity research (and others) has shown that learners at work are most influenced by their managers. Communicating with managers on an ongoing basis is critical – as is their engagement. There are lots of ways to do this - linking back to appraisals, providing toolkits, communicating successes in a meaningful way. For example, many organisations link back business unit performance to numbers of participants on specific programmes within that unit, using manager testimonials where available. Even if the information is anecdotal, this type of communication to the managers also helps to impress this influential group.

Tip 3 - Develop Learner curiosity

Despite the opportunity for access and flexibility that technology offers learning, communicating endless lists of courses do little to draw people in (in fact they can turn learners away if they can’t see what they need when they need it). Equally, whilst technology can enable the most amazing learning experiences, most people are not interested in the technology itself. Tip 3 is about avoiding both jargon and lists! Anything else that feeds and builds curiosity will help to drive learner engagement as long as it is relevant to their situation (personal or business) – posters or visual emails should use interesting imagery that is either familiar or intriguing. It is also worth thinking how some of the new social networking tools can help build curiosity!

Tip 4 - Think about suitable recognition and reward

Our research has shown that learners at work like to be recognised - that might be through gaining a qualification or credit of some sort. Equally they might just want a certificate of completion that proves that their work has been noticed. It could be argued that one way of developing engagement and curiosity is to offer incentives to learners - through competitions and prizes - and they certainly have their place. It is not necessary to have a carrot and stick approach for all learning programmes, particularly when attention has been given to the issues of relevance, but in some circumstances rewards can also help to promote a programme. In some organisations, financial incentives are used to encourage self development and bonus payments are allocated for those who progress through the different stages of training. Generally though, financial rewards are not the norm. Reward can also be fun and inexpensive– as in the example of the training department who went floor walking following a launch and handed out chocolate bars to anyone they found eLearning – word soon got around!

Tip 5 - Communicate continuously

All organisations I have spoken to believe in the necessity to continuously communicate through multiple routes. Towards Maturity research highlights the different communication resources used to both launch a programme and maintain interest. Email, posters, existing communication routes such as newsletters, intranet, notice board, inserts in pay packets etc can all provide an opportunity to engage learners and pique their interest.

Tip 6 - Listen & respond

A critical communication skill for marketing learning is to listen. Focus groups - to understand learner requirements and to enable them to adapt the learning solutions to respond to changing demand - can be used in the design, implementation and evaluation stages of marketing learning. The secret however is to respond to the feedback. Keep flexible – be willing to change and don’t forget to communicate the new actions that you have taken.

Tip 7 - Use branding to break down barriers

Using a centralised brand name and building awareness around that brand can be a very effective method for breaking down barriers – many established eLearning implementations, using a range of differing technologies will often refer to the service under a brand that is significantly easier for the learner to relate to and therefore get involved with.

Tip 8 - Peer recommendation

The second highest influence (after their manager) for learners is recommendation by a peer (training department recommendation was very low on their list of influencers!). To enhance this within your own organisation, find out, celebrate and publish success stories in places that will be read and noticed – via email, on the intranet, in-house TV.

Tip 9 - Peer support

Staff who have only experienced self paced eLearning often complain about lack of support - really in this day and age there is NO excuse, even if as tutors you are unable to provide a support network directly, there are lots of ways that you can encourage peer to peer support. You might want to consider how you can use social networks to connect learners with each other. Plus, are you aware of groups within your organisation who might share a common agenda in supporting learning for specific projects? Union Learning reps are great examples of potential champions hidden in your business.

Tip 10 - Build an external reputation for excellence

Many organisations I have spoken to believe that it is really important to build a reputation for success outside of the business which has a knock on effect internally. With the focus on great eLearning awards now, there is no excuse not to get involved. You can find out more about relevant awards on the CLC’s blog as well as on the Towards Maturity website.

Tip 11 - Don't be shy

Finally, don’t underestimate the power of face to face communications when advertising your learning (particularly eLearning). Whilst email and the Web are ubiquitous media that allow you to get messages out faster, experience has shown consistently that hearts and minds are won face to face.

For more information:

Watch out for updates of this article on the Towards Maturity website. You can also find more practical tips for engaging both learners and managers on the Towards Maturity website - and check out the tags on managing change, marketing, learner engagement and motivation for related articles and case studies. Download the Towards Maturity: insights for employers and training providers - chapter 5 deals specifically with influencing take-up.

If your challenge is more basic, and involves getting novice web users online – one fifth of the population have NEVER been on-line – then there are tips and hints in this Back to Basic article to help you.

Laura Overton is an e-learning consultant with focus on applying business experience in all aspects of communications, marketing and customer service to the strategic planning and implementation of successful e-learning programmes. Towards Maturity are a friend of the Consortium, and our chosen partner for benchmarking surveys and our workshop programme.

Fundraising training in the spotlight

2010-08-01T11:41:00.011+01:00

By Alex Dawson

I recently attended a training event with a group of consultants - real experts in their field (be it mobile technology, defence or engineering) and collectively a great example of private sector talent. Towards the end of the day, our trainer was extolling the virtues of ‘Made to Stick’ by Chip and Dan Heath, a text which was unfamiliar to most, but which I’d been introduced to two years ago by Rob Woods, who specialises in training fundraisers. I told the group about some of the techniques I’d seen fundraisers use and how adept they can be at engaging potential donors with powerful story-telling. The consultants were unequivocal that they could learn a lot from great fundraisers and apply it to their own work with clients.

These consultants were very experienced at pitching to clients and could rustle you up a beautifully structured, researched and well reasoned proposal in a jiffy. But they recognised that too often they were attempting to appeal to the rational side of the buyer, using an approach based on logic, structure and evidence. They struggled to inject emotion into their business development work, something which great fundraisers do better than anyone.

Charities have had a lot of practice at looking at the private sector for ideas, talent and advice on best practice, and it was nice to be reminded that this should be a two-way relationship. Fundraisers are a talented bunch: they are master storytellers and communicators and combine the rigour of business development with great passion for the causes they are raising money for; they are using sophisticated and innovative techniques and are increasingly expert at observing and interpreting the external environment in which they are working. They’re often typecast – we might think of them as generally being brash and loud, a bit too ‘salesey’ - and some charities don’t really understand them and like to keep them at arm’s length. But we need them now more than ever.

You don’t need reminding that the Third Sector is still facing a very tough economic environment. Legacy income is falling, VAT is increasing and cuts to statutory funding are anticipated. At the same time the Government is expecting charities to play a greater role in the provision of vital services. In this challenging environment, fundraisers will need to meet tough targets and must find new ways of engaging with potential donors and making the case for them to part with their hard-earned money. If they’re going to succeed, they’re going to need more support and more opportunities to develop the kind of skills that those management consultants were so impressed by.

I would argue that this drive to get better probably won’t happen by itself. Charities need to provide the motivation to improve and if Daniel Pink is right, they do this by focusing on autonomy, mastery and purpose.

In all three of these areas, the learning and development function has an important role to play. In terms of autonomy, we need to ensure that whenever we’re working with fundraising line managers, we’re encouraging them to give those reporting to them more space, opportunity and - most importantly – responsibility: freedom to explore new ideas and run with them, even if it means making mistakes. Command and control won’t create these conditions, so these line managers are going to need first-class coaching skills, which we can give them access to.

Mastery is something we know we can help with. We can make fundraising training a priority in terms of our budgets and either bring great trainers in-house or provide funding for qualifications provided by the Institute of Fundraising. But I don’t think this is enough. First of all we need to make sure that fundraisers are still given the opportunity to learn. Their managers will want them on the phones or out there meeting donors. Targets need to be met after all. We need to convince those managers that time spent in a classroom, with a coach or in an action learning set, is well spent and will ultimately lead to more money coming in. Secondly, we need to make sure that we’re getting creative as well. If fundraisers are going to access the kind of skills that Rob Woods thinks are so important, then a one-size fits all approach just won’t cut it. Training needs must be assessed on an individual basis and blended programmes put in place. It’ll take time, effort and money. Are we prepared to make that investment?

Finally, we need to ensure that fundraisers continue to feel that sense of purpose, something that can easily be taken for granted when you’re working for a charity. Fundraisers need plenty of opportunities to connect with their organisation’s beneficiaries and see for themselves the amazing benefits of all their hard work in finding new donors and bringing in revenue. This isn’t just about motivation either, it’s also about giving fundraisers the kind of experiences that will enable them to weave compelling stories and powerful messages that attract the attention of even the frostiest potential donors.

Alex Dawson interviewed fundraising trainer Rob Woods for this short, informative AudiBoo. He asked what Rob thought were the secrets of fundraising success – Rob’s answers may surprise you!

Alex also interviewed Sue Lopez, a senior manager in the Major Giving team at Cancer Research UK (CRUK), to find out how CRUK is supporting and developing fundraisers. You can read the Q&A here. If you’ve got your own examples of how charities are giving fundraisers the support and development that they need, we’d love to hear them. You can leave a comment below, or email editor Alex Dawson at alexjdawson@gmail.com or Susie Finch at the CLC at sfinch@charitylearning.org.

About the author:

Alex Dawson has worked as an L&D specialist for more than 10 years, working for very different organisations, including Breast Cancer Care, which share one common denominator: they’ve been passionate about people and prepared to invest time and money in their development. He now works part-time for PA Consulting, and is also a freelance coach, facilitator and writer, working with third sector organisations. You can find out more about him here.

How does Cancer Research UK develop its fundraisers?

2010-08-01T10:18:00.002+01:00

By Alex Dawson

Cancer Research UK have been garnering plenty of plaudits in the press this year for the way they’re pushing boundaries, be that in allowing donors to see where their money gets spent or the increasingly eye-catching work of their Innovation Unit. You might argue that any charity that can bring in £433 million in a year has more opportunity than most to develop new ideas and approaches, but there is undeniably some great work being done by an organisation which despite its size, continues to make its fundraisers feel engaged, passionate and part of something special.

I caught up with Sue Lopez, a senior manager in the Major Giving team, to find out more about how CRUK supports and develops fundraisers.

How do you give fundraisers the space, resources and support they need to innovate?

Innovation is a key leadership behaviour. We are encouraged to consistently strive for new ideas to keep our fundraising fresh and exciting and, as a manager, ensure we encourage people to voice their ideas and allow their voices to be heard. The charity encourages an open management style – people are given room to devise new ideas, and whilst they aren’t key performance indicators (KPIs), all ideas are welcomed. A specific example of this is when people are new, and bring new ways of working with them.

How far do you let fundraisers run with their ideas?

Part of asking people to be open about new ideas is giving them the freedom to make mistakes and to learn from those mistakes. We’re really open to people giving things a go (within reason!) and reporting back on what went well and what didn’t. Each month we report to senior management as a team, and a key part of what we report is on learnings - including things that went badly as well as those that went well. In addition, we have an Innovation team, whose job it is to scan the horizon for the next big fundraising idea – they are very open to hearing new ideas from colleagues.

What kind of goals and targets do you give them? Does it matter how they reach them?

KPIs are set as part of the PDR (performance and development review) process, which takes place at the start of each financial year. This looks at the individual’s progress against the previous year’s objectives, and sets key objectives for the coming year. As a fundraiser, the first objective will be around a financial target, but there will be ones around cross departmental working and addressing issues around team and personal development for example. In answer to the question ‘does it matter how they reach them?’ in financial terms, in theory a fundraiser could spend a year working on one key account and secure a big gift from that donor. We plan month by month and are realistic.

How do you recognise the skills and knowledge that fundraisers bring to CRUK and exercise in their jobs? And how do you give them the opportunity to play to their strengths?

We use lots of tools to bring the best out of people, especially in fundraising teams – Myers Briggs, action learning and coaching especially. To an extent, people self select in terms of specialism – so trust fundraisers tend to be quite detail focussed and arts graduates, for example, and need to be, given the amount of budget deciphering and writing that we have to do. The organisation invests in supporting people to do what they do best – whether that’s by taking away anything preventing you from doing your job (we are lucky enough to have colleagues to deal with finance, research etc) or by investing in you as an individual by providing opportunities to develop writing skills, budget reading or coaching for example. There is also great scope to move across the organisation either through secondments or through the Talent programme which seeks to identify the next generation of leaders. If you are part of that programme, you could, in theory, be asked to join any department to take on a project which plays to your skills.

What opportunities do you give them to become masters in their discipline?

Lots of opportunities are given around shadowing, learning from others, and on the job training, but I believe that personal development is, to a large extent, the responsibility of the individual. We will support external training if nothing suitable is available in house, and I wouldn’t turn down a request for training or mentoring if there’s a business benefit. The main point is that people are given the opportunity to specialise and do their job, with the support of others who are really good at their job - be that research, admin, event management or anything else.

How do you make their learning fun and rewarding?

If it’s purposeful and has direct application to the role in which you are seeking to develop, it should be fun. There are a number of ways of learning – for example we use actors to test out certain behaviours and conversations and we have Open Space events where the participants set the agenda to ensure it’s relevant and timely. There is very little of someone standing at the front and people making notes!

Cancer Research UK is a large organisation. How do you ensure your fundraisers feel connected to the charity's work and are given opportunities to engage with clients and stakeholders?

Learning about our work is central to our ability to raise funds. We need to be able to communicate confidently about that work, whether that’s in writing or face to face. Much of that happens by osmosis. There’s a lot of info to take in, but it does tend to seep in over time, and there is little substitute for that. To help make things easier, the charity invests in science training so that lay people can speak well about science. Fundraisers have access to evidence based statements on our work which are crucial as there is so much myth and hyperbole spoken about cancer that we need to base what we say on hard evidence. We are encouraged to get out to the centres and institutes to meet the people whose work we fund, and to speak with them about the donors and fundraising. Meeting scientists and researchers who are enthusiastic about their work and keen to communicate it is hugely invigorating, as is hearing that there is so much more they could do with more resource. Crucially, the work we do is linked in very strongly to the cause by meeting people living with cancer – be that at events or as speakers at staff conferences - and colleagues.

What is effective learning?

2010-08-01T10:01:00.000+01:00

Contribution: Peter Honey

I am surprised how often I am allowed to get away with running sessions on learning without actually being put on the spot by being asked: ‘What is effective learning?’ Sometimes people come close by asking ‘What is learning?’ but hardly ever ‘What is effective learning?’

On the few occasions that I have been asked, I’m the first to admit that my answer has been less than satisfactory. This could, of course, be because I’m hopeless at answering really good, searching questions - or it could be because the question is tricky and the answer far from straightforward. Naturally, I’d prefer to think the latter is the case!
It seems to me that the answer depends on whether the question is about the effectiveness of learning processes or learning outcomes (or, even more confusingly, both!). Learning is not a unitary concept: we use the same word for the process of learning (the ‘hows’) and for the outcomes of learning (the ‘whats’). When I seek clarification about whether people are asking about the effectiveness of the whats or the hows, I notice that the whats win every time.

Perhaps, given the emphasis on ROI and the ‘bottom line’, it isn’t surprising that people are more interested in the effectiveness of learning outcomes than in the processes that lead to those outcomes. It is a temptingly simplistic black box approach - inputs and outputs and never mind what goes on in between. To be honest, it is also something of a relief to me since I find it much easier to produce a plausible description of effective outcomes than of effective processes. My standard ‘outcomes’ answer is to say that learning is effective if it:

Sticks for as long as it needs to
Gets used appropriately
Makes a difference for the better.

Whilst the emphasis on outcomes is entirely understandable, we know from all the quality gurus that effective processes underpin effective results. Good results without good processes are just flukes. So, if we want to maximise the probability of getting effective outcomes, it doesn’t make sense to ignore the processes. And yet that is exactly what most people do - they assume that learning is ‘natural’ and that effective learning ‘just happens’ without any conscious investment of effort. I call this subliminal learning ie where you are learning but the whats and hows aren’t clear.

Subliminal learning certainly has its attractions: it doesn’t take any extra time, it doesn’t call for any extra effort and it doesn’t require a budget. All you have to do is keep busy and learning is the inevitable spin-off. But how effective is the learning? I fear the answer is ‘not very’.

Subliminal learning tends to be vague, fuzzy, difficult to share and hard to get at. You can’t ‘hold it up to the light’, ask questions about it or compare and contrast what one person has learned with what someone else has learned from a similar experience. Furthermore, subliminal learning is purely retrospective – it only happens with the benefit of hindsight.

But the biggest problem is that subliminal learners haven’t got a clue how they go about it and are therefore stymied when it comes to any sort of continuous improvement. The learning process remains a mystery and they are condemned to carry on doing what they have always done. It is not possible for them to improve their processes.

So, what does effective learning involve? I believe there are five aspects – all of which have to be done knowingly:

Making, and taking, opportunities to learn;
Using behaviours which, directly or indirectly, help to increase the amount that is learned;
Crystallising what has been learned so that it is explicit and can be shared with others;
Transferring, or adapting, the learning so that it is appropriate and useful in a variety of situations;
Treating learning as a skill and improving the way you learn so that you steadily get better at doing it.

What we need to do is to encourage people to supplement their subliminal learning with something more deliberate. They would then be in a better position to identify learning needs, set learning objectives and draw up personal development plans. They would also be adept at pinpointing what they had learned and sharing it with others (should they choose to). They could also offer their learning up for scrutiny and, above all, improve the process, the ‘hows’, so that they developed their learning skills and gradually became more effective learners.

Quite demanding isn’t it? Perhaps now you can see why people tend to focus on learning outcomes and take the processes that precede the outcomes for granted!

Dr Peter Honey, the well known creator of the Honey & Mumford Learning Styles Questionnaire, is the guest speaker at the CLC members’ meeting at the NCVO on 15 September.

Eight top learning technologies blogs

2010-07-28T10:31:00.003+01:00

Credit: Bob Little

The number of blogs written by learning technology specialists seems to proliferate daily. Indeed, it’s surprising there’s still time left for anyone to produce any e-learning content and systems. Here’s a ‘top eight’ list of blogs that have caught my eye – I hope they help you find some useful insights and comments on this world:

1 Donald H Taylor: http://donaldhtaylor.wordpress.com/
2 Jane Knight: http://janeknight.typepad.com/
3 Clive Shepherd: http://clive-shepherd.blogspot.com/
4 Lisa Neal Gualtieri: http://blog.acm.org/elearn/
5 Donald Clark: http://donaldclarkplanb.blogspot.com/
6 Charles Jennings: http://charles-jennings.blogspot.com/
7 David Wilson: http://elearnity.blogspot.com/
8 (of course) Bob Little: http://www.hotdigits.co.uk/cgi-bin/diary8/journal?user=bob

Happy reading!

For more than 20 years, Bob Little has specialised in writing about, and commentating on, corporate learning - especially e-learning - and technology-related subjects. His work has been published in the UK, Continental Europe, the USA and Australia. You can contact Bob via bob.little@boblittlepr.com

Award winning learning

2010-06-23T13:08:00.003+01:00

By Susie Finch

Fancy some recognition for all your hard work? Laura Overton – an awards judge herself -was extolling the benefits of awards at the latest CLC members meeting, and Gary Ford, e-learning adviser at Plan International, added his support – Plan won a National Training Award in 2008.

If you’d like to find out more about making an award winning submission, you can read Laura’s hints and tips here. Or take a look at the Plan case study, for details of its award winning management development programme, which you can access via the CLC’s NING network (in Updates). Please contact Wendy Stanley on 08451 707702 email wstanley@charitylearning.org if you require a log-in.

Further inspiration:

The elearning Age awards deadline is 30 June for registration - submissions by 30 July.

The IITT awards deadline is the end of September.

This feature on TrainingZone has a list of awards you could consider in the future.

Personnel Today also has some tips for creating top class entries.

Details of The National Training Awards (closed for this year) can now be found here.

The Training Journal Awards have a Not for Profit category – the short list for this year is here – worth keeping an eye on to see who wins!

And of course, do please contact us at the CLC if you need any further information or advice on entering for awards.

Get involved in the latest learning technology research

2010-06-22T12:20:00.009+01:00

By Laura Overton

Are you responsible for implementing learning technologies in your workplace? Are you under pressure to accelerate their impact? Then why not get involved in the 4th Towards Maturity Learning Technology Benchmark...

Organisations are under greater pressure than ever to deliver more learning with less resources - and therefore need their learning technologies to work even harder.

By taking part in our latest research you will be able to benchmark your own progress and receive free, personalised feedback and practical advice to help you accelerate the benefits of learning technologies in your organisation. So if you want to continue to:

Increase e-learning and learning technology adoption and effectiveness
Accelerate change
Improve business engagement
Deliver better results and improve efficiency
Receive independent, personalised feedback & practical advice

then please take part today. If you have not already received an invitation, you can access the benchmark directly here.

What will it cost? Approx 40 minutes of your time to reflect on your current practice via this online review - apart from that, it is completely free!
What will you get? All those who complete the benchmark will receive a copy of the final research findings (due November 2010) and your own personalised benchmark report (value £200) that:

Highlights your strengths and weaknesses
Compares your activity against benchmarks established over the past six years that are proven to improve impact and take up
Directs you to examples of great practice and free resources to help you on your learning technology journey>

So please schedule some time in your diary to complete the benchmark – the investment will pay off in the long run. Thank you for your ongoing support, we really appreciate it!

The CLC are great supporters of Towards Maturity’s independent learning technology research and we are therefore pleased to recommend that you take part in its 2010 benchmark.

More information about the benchmark:
The Towards Maturity benchmark survey is considered the most comprehensive, independent and authoritative review on the use of Learning Technologies in the workplace in the UK. The 2010 benchmark represents a unique industry collaboration, supported by the IITT, BILD, eLearning Network, L&S group, e-learning age, TrainingZone, Training Journal and many more, to ensure that it represents employer needs from all sectors. To date, more than 800 organisations from the private, public and not for profit sectors have participated in this independent benchmark research which provides compelling evidence into how we can improve the impact of learning technologies in the workplace. Find out more about the benchmark at www.towardsmaturity.org/2010benchmark.

Who are Towards Maturity?
We are an independent, not-for-profit organisation who are building research and resources to help anyone interested in improving the impact of learning technologies in both public and privately funded learning in the workplace. The website www.towardsmaturity.org provides access to an extensive range of resources and case studies to help organisations improve performance and deliver value. The resources are contributed by a range of experts, membership organisations and employers from a wide variety of sectors and respected learning providers.

Effective social media platforms for learning

2010-05-18T17:08:00.000+01:00

by Alex Dawson

Hello again.

When thinking about how I might best show how some of the tools mentioned in the newsletter article might be used, my preference was to keep things as simple as possible and concentrate on trying to highlight how effective some of these platforms are in capturing and propogating what we learn.

On Friday 30th April I was due to be in London for a coaching supervision meeting that would be finishing at around lunchtime. My afternoon was free, which meant I had a perfect opportunity to set myself a mission of sorts: see something new or interesting in London, learn about it and then use some social media tools to capture that learning. I wasn't sure what it was I wanted to go see/do however, so on the Thursday night I asked my network on Twitter for their ideas and just two minutes later I had this reply. Perfect. I'd never visited Lords before and it was in walking distance of my meeting venue.

I set off the next morning with three bits of kit nestling in my treasured brown man-bag: a digital camera, a Flip video camera and my Iphone. I used the camera and the Flip to capture the sights and sounds of my excursion, and the Audioboo app on my Iphone to capture my thoughts along the way. Here are the results...

Listen!

Listen!

Listen!

Listen!

A trip to the home of cricket from Alex Dawson on Vimeo.

So then, I obviously enjoyed a nice jolly to Lords on a Friday afternoon, but did I also achieve my objective of showing how effective some of these new social media tools are? I think I did. Here are some observations:

Speed
The tools that I used are simple and efficient. I am by no means very technically adept, but both the hardware (Flip, Iphone and digital camera) and the platforms (Twitter, Flickr, AudioBoo) I used feel straightforward and accessible to someone who doesn't prefer to have their head buried in a manual. By the end of that Friday I'd quickly pulled together the photo set and edited (in the very loosest sense of the word) the video using the free software that comes with the Flip. Yes it's rough and ready but it has a great sense of immediacy - you see/do/learn something new and within hours you can share it with your communities.

Story-telling & reflection
Taking photos and shooting video works really well when you want to paint a vivid picture of what is that you've seen or done, but if you want to learn what's going in someone's head, you really need to get them talking. You can do this with video of course - here's an example where I've shot a quick video of a trainer talking about a course ran at Breast Cancer Care - but not everyone is so comfortable infront of a camer (Kurt is a trainer actor). That's why a tool like AudioBoo is so valuable - a recording device you can use with your phone that encourages you to pause and reflect on what you've learnt . You can just as easily use it to interview someone else, using your phone as a microphone - less obtrusive than a video but just as effective, and great for capturing stories, case-studies or first-hand accounts from experts and practioners - exactly the kind of insights that our learners are looking for.

Your community has the answer
Social media networks like Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook are great for getting new ideas or fresh perspectives on a huge range of issues, but the trick is ensuring that you have developed an online network with breadth (50 to 150 different contacts perhaps) and depth (lots of people who are actually doing the do) and who you've engaged with enough to ensure that they are willing to spend time answering your question.

I'd be very interested to hear your own views on this topic. Why not leave a comment and join in the conversation?

Social networking: Should I be Bovvered?

2010-05-18T16:27:00.002+01:00

by Alex Dawson

When people mention Twitter, Yammer, Facebook, do your eyes glaze over – or do you secretly wonder what all the fuss is about? Alex Dawson explains that social networking can provide powerful, free and inexpensive tools to enable people within charities, and within the Third Sector as a whole, to share and learn together.

People working in third sector organisations now have access to a wider array of communication tools than ever before. Tools that allow them to let their colleagues know what they’re working on, how they’re doing it and the new ideas and approaches that they’re putting into action. Tools like Twitter, Vimeo, AudioBoo and SlideShare. They are very new, there are lots of them and to a lot of people who are unsure how to harness them, they feel faddy, complex and - let’s admit it - a little geeky.

Colleagues working in marketing and external communications have already picked up these tools and are using them to engage in conversations with clients and stakeholders. But these aren’t just tools for communication, they are also powerful tools for learning. Organisations like BT and Xerox are now using social media tools to help their employees capture knowledge and ideas from the workplace and then quickly share that learning across the whole company. The Third Sector could easily follow their approach - especially as this is an inexpensive way of boosting the learning ability of our organisations. So how do we find out how these tools work, what they can add to the learning power of the organisations we work in and then champion them amongst our people?

Well, we start by borrowing the best ideas from colleagues, then we play and experiment with them before handing control back to our people, encouraging them to tell stories about what it is they are learning. Sounds simple enough doesn’t it? But let’s break it down a little.

The first step is to avoid re-inventing the wheel. Social media tools are being launched at a rapid rate and even with more established platforms like Facebook we’re still learning about what kind of long-term impact they might have on the audiences third sector organisations are trying to reach. We’re also now seeing a rash of providers who are replicating these social media platforms and offering them as bespoke solutions for organisations (like Yammer). We’re faced with endless choice, but if we talk to our marketing and communication friends, we can find out what it is about the tools they’re using that suits our organisational cultures and perhaps get a little bit of free tuition as well.

Then it’s time to start having a play ourselves. Selecting one or two tools that we think could really help us share learning and then experimenting with them. This means being brave enough to dive in, have a go and set an example by being willing to share the learning from the projects you’re currently working on. Twitter is an excellent place to start, as it’s so easy to get up and running, and there’s a huge base of users to converse with. Currently, the learning and development community on Twitter is dominated by freelancers, training suppliers and endless social media ‘experts’, so it would be great to see more third sector learning professionals join the online conversation. This is an excellent way for us to network with each other from the (relative) comfort of our own desks or even when we’re on the move, giving us a platform to start sharing our ideas, issues and challenges - and as you know from being part of the Charity Learning Consortium, things are better when we share.

Once you’ve got a feel for the tools, you’ll quickly be able to see where they might be used to help the sharing of learning within your organisation. Then it’s all about relinquishing control and encouraging people to follow your approach and start capturing and propagating their learning on these platforms. A few key points here – firstly, there should be a real emphasis on good story-telling, with the learners telling their colleagues not just what they’ve learnt (be it from attending a short course, completing an e-learning module or receiving funding for a qualification), but how they are putting that learning into practice and - most importantly - how it will ultimately benefit your organisation’s service users.

Secondly, keep things rough and ready. If you’re using video or audio, don’t worry about aiming for a flashy edit – this costs time and money when instead you’re looking for the quick and the immediate by using hardware that many of us already have at our disposal, such as our smart-phones and our digital cameras. Format and finish is less important than the quality of the story-telling, which is what really pulls an audience in and engages them. Finally, provide some kind of structure for this sharing of learning, be it a hashtag on Twitter, a space on your intranet or a common set of tags so that your people know where to look when running a search.

Using social media is not going to revolutionise the way you provide learning opportunities within your organisations, not yet anyway. But it can absolutely help you capture learning and share it amongst individuals and teams, breaking silos down along the way. The platforms are easy to use and are spreading like wildfire, so climb aboard and join the conversation.

Want to know more?
There’s an excellent free, video and slideshare presentation online by twitter ‘expert’ Dan Martin, editor of BusinessZone.co.uk, in which he talks about the power of social networking as a whole. If you want to get started on Twitter, then read the tips in this newsletter. Or why not head to Alex Dawson’s additional blog post for some examples of some of the platforms he mentions.

About the author:

How Learning at Work is Changing

2010-05-18T15:55:00.000+01:00

by Donald Taylor

For a long time – possibly for too long – training was something that took place in the background of daily operations. It was something organisations felt obliged to do. That is, they felt obliged until things got bad and then, like other costs (such as marketing and buildings maintenance) training spending was slashed until times got better.

But in the recently finished recession, things changed. Yes, some training teams have been badly hit, but overall, we missed the slash-and burn response of previous recessions. The reason is that people now know that skills matter. In many cases, organisations have taken across-the-board pay cuts or gone on short working weeks until times get better. The explicit reason: when the recession ends, the company must have the skills to expand production. What a contrast to the downturns of the 1970s and ‘80s.

In a couple of decades, developed economies have moved from a position where labour was a commodity to one where ability is a vital part of organisational success in the private, public and not-for-profit sectors. This should be a great moment for the training profession, but this recognition of the importance of what we do brings with it both opportunity and threat.

The opportunity is clear: at last training should be able to take the initiative and prove its value to the organisation. It should be able to embed learning in the fabric of daily life.

The threat is simple: if we don’t this, others will. Others less able, with less understanding of learning, people who believe that anyone can facilitate learning, because after all, we all went to school, didn’t we? That’s like saying that anyone can be Shakespeare because we can all write.

It may be only barely perceptible, but we’re in the middle of a learning revolution right now. Training is changing - fundamentally. It’s now about supporting learners in the business, and for the business, not about delivering training. This may sound like something we’ve talked about for years, but now three things are coming together to make it a reality.

First, we have the social learning revolution, which threatens to by-pass much of what the training, or learning and development (L&D), department has been about until now. If nothing else demands a re-think of the way L&D approaches skills development, it is the fact that a great deal of learning takes place without the department’s involvement.

Secondly, there is a greater emphasis from executives on skills, as they realise that learning is essential to the organisation. With that, though, comes an increased emphasis on the business accountability, measurability and impact of learning. Along with skills, the L&D department is now more in the spotlight than ever, and it’s time to show we can play our part.

Finally, these two changes lead to the final, most dramatic change: L&D has to aim higher than ever before. Of course we will always act professionally, but now we have to demonstrate it. We have to show that we have the right frameworks for creating a learning organisation, for demonstrating value, for adding to the business.

Quite simply, we have to drive ourselves on to be the best in our field. That way, we will be the agent of personal development that we really can be. Without this drive to professionalism, we run the risk of irrelevance. It’s up to us.

About the author:

Donald H Taylor is non-executive chairman of the Institute of IT Training, and chairs both the Learning Technologies Conference and the Learning and Skills Group, a free international community of learning and development professionals. He blogs at www.donaldhtaylor.co.uk and can be reached at donaldt@learningandskillsgroup.com.

Donald will be speaking at the next CLC members meeting in June 2010.

Martin Baker discusses the Charity Learning Consortium

2010-05-18T11:24:00.001+01:00

Martin Baker, Managing Director of the Charity Learning Consortium (CLC), discusses CLC at the Learning Pool Public Sector Learning Conference. Listen to what he had to say!

Webwatch: A round-up of what has caught our eye on the net

2010-05-18T10:03:00.000+01:00

Time for training
One of the Labour party’s flagship L&D policies came into effect on 6 April - the new ‘time to train’ regulations. There has been some coverage of this, with Personnel Today summing the mood up well: Time off for training a mystery to one in five employers . I have yet to hear of queues forming outside anyone’s training department, or staff demanding time off, and in reality suspect that it will be business as usual – a sensible approach to L&D, driven by identified need (of the individual and the organisation) and tempered by cost. If you need to find out more then the DirectGov website has all you need to know. In the first year the regulations affect organisations, including charities, which employ more than 250 staff – but will be extended from April 2011 to include ALL organisations, regardless of size.

Goodbye LSC
Another government ‘drum roll’ that went largely unnoticed was the one introducing the new Skills Funding Agency (SFA) and Young People’s Learning Agency (YPLA), which replaced the Learning & Skills Council on 1 April (perhaps not the most auspicious day). Is this just two acronyms in the L&D profession too many? People Management led with this story: MPs have grave concerns over new FE skills bodies, which didn’t bode well for the future, with fears that the new set-up could make the existing system “more complex, cumbersome and unwieldy”.

How to Moodle
On a more positive note, there was a great feature on TrainingZone on training volunteers at the Samaritans, and how Moodle has played its part: L&D plus TLC: Elearning at the Samaritans. For anyone interested in Moodle, Kineo has a free demonstration on its website here. There’s also a webinar with Steve Rayson of Kineo on the Learning & Skills Group members website, in its webinar archive – it takes several minutes for the webinar to get going, so bear with it.

Free resources
Other useful free tools and resources that I’ve noticed include the CIPD’s updated Induction factsheet - if you need more information on Induction then BusinessBalls also has a very thorough checklist. I also spotted an extensive training plan template on Mike Morrison’s RapidBi website. While Investors in People - which has launched a health and wellbeing in the workplace award - has some useful resources on workplace wellness, including a free self assessment questionnaire.

Other news
The CLC itself was in the news, with the results of the survey carried out by Towards Maturity appearing on TrainingZone, CharityComms and elearning Age, to name but a few. As usual, the nice people at Brandon Hall had some interesting finds in their Workplace Learning Today newsletter – one of the best (and quirkiest) I’ve come across for anyone interested in elearning and L&D in general. My favourite recent quote being from Professor Michael Strangelove, who says he’d have to be “naked and juggling flaming kittens” to grab web-addicted students’ attention in the classroom. Not to be recommended as a training technique....

Garry Platt’s L&D blog ‘Platt’s Puzzlings’ continues to inform and entertain, with a link to a fascinating feature in Scientific American on how people learn complex new skills. A review of a presentation at HRD by Richard Cuthbert of Mouchel caught my eye – he is is obviously an inspirational chief executive: “The easy thing is to cut L&D, but I’m quite keen on spending more,” he said, while stressing the importance of aligning development to the overall strategy of an organisation. This more business-like approach is reflected in the findings of the CIPD’s annual L&D survey, which held little real surprises – increased e-learning & in-house development; reduced spend on external events - but it is heartening to see predictions for a greater focus on how L&D fits into organisational development.

But one of my favourite recent reads was A Little Positive Psychology Goes a Long Way from Chief Learning Officer magazine – which has this message: “if you can train your brain to be positive in the midst of a challenge, you significantly raise your ability to be able to deal with it.” This seems particularly significant in the wake of the Icelandic volcano, which has certainly challenged many. “A positive brain will always outperform a negative or stressed brain,” says Shawn Achor in the feature, author of the forthcoming book The Happiness Advantage. Which seems logical - and a good point to wish you all well for Learning at Work Day – celebrated on 20 May, but on-going every working day of the year!

About the Author:

Susie Finch is an experienced journalist and a former editor of www.trainingzone.co.uk. She now works as an editorial and PR consultant specialising in new media, and is passionate about training and L&D. Clients include the Charity Learning Consortium; LMMatters; Sift Media (owners of TrainingZone and a large and growing portfolio of community websites) and The Final Word, a translation and web marketing agency.

Ten social networking tools in a nutshell

2010-05-18T09:50:00.000+01:00

Twitter: A way of telling others ‘What’s happening’ in mini bulletins. Useful for networking and keeping up to date with L&D news; can also be used as a learning tool. Follow the Charity Learning Consortium to stay up-to-date with developments at the Consortium.

Yammer: Twitter for a closed, nominated group eg just within your charity. Here at the Charity Learning Consortium, we are using Yammer with great success!

Vimeo: Similar to YouTube. For example, take a look at some of the Open University videos – there’s one on social networking for beginners and another on learning design.

SlideShare: Does what it says on the tin: enables you to share slides. See Dan Martin’s on-line presentation for an example of what you can do with Slideshare.

LinkedIn: Probably the largest ‘business’ network for adults in the world, a great way to connect with other L&D managers, or those with similar interests.

Facebook: Another popular social network, initially used by family and friends, increasingly used by organisations.

Ning: Provides a means to communicate with others within a network – for example, the Charity Learning Consortium members’ forum currently uses Ning.

AudioBoo: Provides a means to upload and share audio, not extensively used; overshadowed by video.

Flickr: A popular way to upload and share photographs on the net. EG Type Learning Technologies into the search engine to see photos from the conference and exhibition.

Delicious: A way to bookmark something that you’ve found of interest on the web – and share it with others. Eg Type learning styles questionnaire into the search engine and see what shows up!

10 Simple Steps to Getting Started on Twitter

2010-05-18T09:46:00.000+01:00

Before reading our 10 simple steps to getting started on Twitter, watch Evan Williams, co-founder of Twitter, discuss how many of the ideas driving the growth of Twitter come from unexpected uses invented by Twitter users themselves. It makes interesting viewing!

1 Choose a User Name
The first thing you have to do when you sign up for Twitter is to choose a name by which you will be known to your followers. Twitter is about conversation so it is important to choose a name that your followers will associate and recognise you by. Some people choose their real name and others blend their name with their business eg JackieCoach. If you do choose your business name think about the impact that has on who the followers are having a conversation with – do they know the face behind the brand? Would it be more helpful if they did?

2 Create your profile
For potential followers who don’t know you yet this is important. They might be interested enough in what you are saying to want to contact you outside the world of Twitter for more information, so make it easy for them. You have 160 characters (a whole 20 more than for a Tweet) to do this so use it wisely. Think about it as your 10 second elevator pitch. If you are not sure what to include take a look at some of your friends’ - or even competitors’ – profiles for ideas. It can be edited or updated at any time so don’t panic if it doesn’t work right away.

3 Add a picture
It is good to see what the person you are speaking to looks like. Using Twitter as part of your social media portfolio should mean you are able to have conversations with all sorts of people that you have not met in real life. And it is about conversation so think about what that means if you choose your brand logo (as many users of Twitter do). Using your own picture means that if and when you do meet you will recognise each other!

4 Post your first tweet
Twitter has a language all of its own. A 140 character update message is called a “tweet”. All Twitter users ( twits, twitologists, tweeters...)remember their first tweet – and given their time again they might do something different but basically you just need to say “hello” and maybe comment about why you are there.

5 Start following people
People will follow you for a number of reasons – that you are tweeting interesting updates, that their friends/followers follow you, that you live in the same area, that you are in the same line of work – and crucially, if you follow them! When you sign up Twitter offers to search your e-mail address book to find out who amongst your friends are already there. If you are interested to find other charities, type #charitytuesday into the search engine, or apps like Twibes and Twellow can help you find others with similar interests. Start slowly. Following five people can build to 10 and then 20 and then...well you get the picture.

6 Join in the conversation
It’s OK to take your time to work out what is going on. The Twitter page looks odd when you first set out but should start to make sense the more you interact with others. If you look at the “stream” of tweets from those you follow you will see the @ sign appear from time to time. This means that the person is replying to a tweet:
For example I tweeted: “Must spend the day at my desk. Too many deadlines looming.”
My follower andrewghayes responded “@jackiecameron1 Know how you feel. be sure to stretch your legs and get some sun!”
Stick with it – it really makes more sense when you actually do it!

7 Take personal conversations offline
As well as the reply function Twitter also allows Direct Messages ( DM). There are times when it is better to continue the conversation away from the rest of your followers - especially if you are talking about personal issues or things that really only apply to you and that one follower. You can only DM someone who is following you though so although spam does exist on Twitter it should not be a big problem in your direct messages.

8 Use an app to sort your tweets
As you develop your Twitter presence it becomes harder to follow all of the conversations that are going on at any one time. Twitter offers a list function where you group those you follow under headings that mean something to you eg friends, locals, good conversations, interesting chat . Or you could use a tool like www.tweetdeck.com or www.hootsuite.com both of which allow you to sort tweets into columns for easier viewing . Hootsuite also allows multiple users to use one Twitter account, which can be useful.

9 Some dos and don’ts

Do share web links to things you find interesting
Do retweet good tweets to others
Think about quality not quantity
Don’t tell the world what you had for breakfast
Don’t focus on the sell before you have built the relationship (this applies in real life too)
Don’t mention that you are going on holiday or give other personal details out

10 And finally – have fun!

About the author:

Jackie Cameron established a coaching and training consultancy in 2004. She was introduced to using social media for her business first by blogging then adding Twitter, Linkedin and most recently Facebook. She now trains others how to use these tools. www.consultcameron.com

With additional information from Susie Finch.

Want to find out more?
There’s an overwhelming amount of information on the internet on how to use Twitter, and as many Twitter ‘experts’ - but remember, there are no rules! The Twitter creators themselves acknowledge that its development has been led by members, who have found uses for Twitter they would have never have imagined. With that in mind, here’s a selection of sources for more information:

Jane Hart, of the Centre for Performance and Learning Technology’s Social Learning Academy is highly regarded and has her finger on the pulse of social media in the UK. What is good about Jane is that she talks about using Twitter for both training & learning, so there is a relevant context. There is lots of useful information if you browse around both the C4PLT site, as well as the Academy.
The TrainingZone guide to Twitter has some more tips for getting started – and cautions against getting addicted!
A post called Twitter tips for teachers and educators on the ‘Don’t Waste Your Time’ blog succinctly points out “Work out what you want to get out of Twitter. If you don’t do this, then Twitter will be a waste of time.” Heather Townsend, of the Efficiency Coach, agrees, and gives some tips on measuring the ROI of social media in this blog post.
Consultant Mike Morrison has written on the topic of using Twitter for training and learning (and he points out the difference between the two) on his RapidBi website and on TrainingZone.

The CLC recommend looking out for...

2010-05-18T09:40:00.000+01:00

Tweeters to follow:
Charitylearning The Charity Learning Consortium
Laura Overton Carried out the benchmarking survey into E-learning in the Third Sector
Donald Taylor Mr Learning Technologies
Alex Dawson Former training manager Breast Cancer Care and editor of the CLC newsletter
Susie Finch Former editor of TrainingZone, now working with the CLC
BHallResearch Useful research & info on general topics of interest to training, L&D
NFPtweetup Tweetups are where tweeters who have met on twitter gather together!
Charity Times leading business and management magazine for UK non-profit professionals

Social media tips:
jackiecameron1 Jackie Cameron: Communications coach and trainer
Jane Hart/c4lt Social learning specialist
Mash able social media tips
Mark Shaw Twitter tips

Training & Third Sector news:
People Management
Third Sector
Charitysector
TrainingZone
TrainingJournal
Personnel Today
ELearning Age
Society Guardian
Charity news bot

L&D/charity organisations:
Charity Commission
CIPD
CMi Chartered Management Institute
Defra Third Sector
Department for Business, Innovation and Skills