Week 15 Post 2

Last Blog for this semester! I certainly have learned tons of information from this activity!!!

http://choo.fis.utoronto.ca/FIS/ResPub/DLC95.html

I reviewed this article while researching information for the final project.

Information Management for the Intelligent Organization: Roles and Implications for the Information Professions

This article was full of useful information and graphics.

I learned that there are three types of organizational knowledge:
1) tacit knowledge which helps with effectiveness. This knowlege resides in the workers and is often intuitive.
2) rule based knowledge which helps to define procedures and consistency among workers
3) background knowledge which is spread among storytelling and helps to instill a sense of common purpose among workers.

There are three types of knowledge experts in the intelligent organization
1)Domain - organization experts that decide what needs to be learned and how users will learn it. They dictate directions to the information and IT experts.
2)Information - traditionally the most supportive and least "in-charge" group. This group needs to embrace its importance and become a full partner.
3) I.T. - the tech guys who take content and deliver to users. Bonding with the content experts will enhance the delivery and understanding of the content to the end users.

It is important for these groups to blend the edges of their expertise and focus and work together to enhance the knowledge of the organization. A "bridge of knowledge" amongst all groups will serve to exponentially increase organizational effectiveness.

The abstract:

The intelligent organization is able to mobilize the different kinds of knowledge that exist in the organization in order to enhance performance. It pursues goals in a changing environment by adapting behavior according to knowledge about itself and the world it thrives in. The intelligent organization is therefore a learning organization that is skilled at creating, acquiring, organizing, and sharing knowledge, and at applying this knowledge to design its behavior. Organizational learning depends critically upon information management -- the capacity to harness the organization's information resources and information capabilities to energize organizational growth. Information management is a cycle of processes that support the organization's learning activities: identifying information needs, acquiring information, organizing and storing information, developing information products and services, distributing information, and using information. An analysis of each of these processes suggests new strategies for maximizing the value of information in organizations, and for a reinvention of the roles of information professionals, be they librarians, information providers, information technologists, or information scientists.

Week 15 Post 1

The Society for Organizational Learning (http://www.solonline.org/) is the professional organization dedicated to the promotion of learning organizations. The web site showcased an upcoming learning seminar which can help organizations learn sustainability. There is a variety of events to choose from around the country. This organization also has resources available and offers consulting services. There is an area for members with close geographical ties or common interests to network. The founding chairman is Peter Senge.

Another organization related to learning organizations is the Global Knowledge Innovation Infrastructure. (http://www.entovation.com/gkii/) This web site is promoting a worldwide collaborative effort for "learning, research, and practical action." There are five levels of membership benefits which relate to the level of participation. The more interaction and input a member contributes, the more they will learn about learning organizations.

Becoming a member of one of these societies makes sense from a collaborative standpoing. According to Senge's 5 component technologies, personal learning is an important part of successful learning organizations. Becoming a member solidifies the committment to personal learning while building a network of like minded individuals who can then build a common vision and and engage in team learning.

Week 14 Post 2

I started to read the assigned article but then did a Google search for "learning organziation" first. I was surprised to see most of the hits were for research done by Senge who is described in the assigned article. As usual Wikipedia had a good, broad overview of the topic. From this page, I learned that companies use this philosophy to weather stormy business times. The example given was Shell during the 1970s oil crisis. These companies coninutally adapt and change based on both the external environment and individual learning. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learning_organization


http://www.siue.edu/~mthomec/LearnOrg.pdf

A learning organization is "an ideal, ‘towards which organizations have to evolve in order
to be able to respond to the various pressures [they face]. It is characterized by a recognition that ‘individual and collective learning are key’"

This article is a much more indepth but still readable information than the wikipedia site. Much of the information related to organizational culture change and the idea that executives need to be responsible and responsive to the lower level, in-the-trenches workers. Great information!

The next assigned article was Senge's take on the topic. http://www.siue.edu/~mthomec/LearnOrg-Senge.pdf

This article was organized around the five basic components of learning organizations. This is the five along with my one phrase summary of each.
Systems thinking - interrelatedness of the parts of the system
Personal mastery - people within the organization must be interested in thier own learning and personal development
Mental models - gain awareness of the impact of pre-formed internal ideas on change outside the person
Building shared vision - all members of the organization must see a common goal in order for the whole organization to work toward that goal
Team learning - the individuals who have worked on the previous three steps come together and create a more powerful combined effort. Such team effort can be exponential.

A key part of his vision is that all members of the organization take an active role in creating the learning organization. The organizational leader takes on more of a cheerleader role for the teams than the director.

These ideas are very good in theory but so very difficult to put into practice. At my previous employer, these ideas were taught and modeled from above but the ground level workers could not get past the mental models of the past and held on to their ingrained culture.

Week 14 Post 1

http://www.siue.edu/~mthomec/LearnTechCaterpillar.PDF

Beginning the reading assignments, I picket the Caterpillar article first. Caterpillar Decatur has been a huge part of my life as family and friends have worked there in many capacities. I was on the front end of the Six Sigma revolution as well as the Pacific Institute culture initiative which soon spilled over into other community businesses.

When I reviewed the slides, I recalled a conversation I had with a HR exec who had just been on a world-wide training mission to China, Australia, and India among other places. The globalization and need for multiple language and customs is important to a global company such as this.

The idea of CatU is both interesting but logical at the same time. It is to be expected that all learning opportunities be held under the same umbrella however I understand that this is innovative thinking among many companies.

I also love the idea of "blackberries on steroids" as these really are much better for factory and hands-on applications than having to leave the work area to find a large computer to obtain the job aid needed in a different area.

I am glad to see the company streamlining learning and cutting back on costs as other issues are affecting sales in today's economy.

Week 13 Post 2

In preparation for the FINAL(!!!) assignment, I Googled the phase "re-using training materials." The first site I reviewed was a sales pitch for http://www.flextraining.com/. This company has e-learning software for sale that can customize your company's existing training materials for online leaning. The website says this can be done quickly but I don't think it works that way!

The next site http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/programmes/elearningcapital/reproduce.aspx, discussed projects that had been funded specifically to re-purpose materials. There were case studies and links to ongoing projects. This site was very interesting and will be a useful resource for my final project.

The final site reviewed this evening was a Blackboard quick start guide. http://www.adelaide.edu.au/myuni/training/documentation/bb7_docs/Quick_Reference_Guide_Reusing_and_Reorganizing_Courses.pdf

This article discussed the use of metadata and learning objects so that specific information within one course can be accessed by other course developers and used within a different course.

This seems like a project I have in my head for my own classes. I teach within a two year long program. The content that is covered in each class must also be reviewed and integrated into all the subsequent classes. I need to think ahead while developing courses and adequately tag the information for quick retrieval in other course development.

Week 13 Post 1

The semester is winding down! I turned in Case Study 4 and have learned so much about performance technology. It is very similar to regular quality assurance programs in the business world that I have used throughout my career. However, with the focus being changed to electronic learning media, performance improvement is a dynamic and changing field. I will need to begin a wrap-up summary of what I have learned and complete before the semester is complete. With the close of the semester, I will need to focus on my portfolio which is a performance technology experiment in itself!

Week 12 Post 2

http://www.siue.edu/~mthomec/LearningObjects.pdf

Another read in preparation for the Case Study assignment. This article was a very helpful layout of how to alter traditional ISD to a Learning Object specific project. There were five "levels" to use: Analyze,Design & Mine, Develop, Repurpose & Reuse, Deliver & Access, and Maintain & Retire. This sequence is a useful way to look at multi-purpose training materials in the meta data tagging world.