Everybody’s taking a swipe at me!

There’s a fricking huge expo as part of the ASTD conference, and just like every other expo they all want me to be on their mailing list.  This one is a bit more with it tech-wise, though.  We all got a swipe card with our registration package, and each booth has a reader.  If I want them to be able to reach me, I let them swipe me, and voila, it’s done.

In addition to a squeezie soccer ball, a squeezie eyeball and a squeezie brain, I’ve been given a stuffed penguin and a stuffed carrot.  Just wait until you see the flashing seagull — and I’m not kidding about that, either.  Of c ourse, this is in addition to the free pens.

What’s interesting though, is stealing getting ideas by talking to people from the several hundreds of vendors.  I’d say that nearly half are doing some form of leadership training.  Of course we’re not buying any, but everyone’s spin has something to recommend it, and I’ve learned new ideas that I’m jotting on business cards and adding to my notes every evening.

I’ve gotten so many new ideas, and connections between old ideas and new ones, that there’s no possible way I could have remembered any of them without jotting them down on the spot, then expanding them via either writing them out or typing them.  Retention of content is definitely improved by repetition of material in different forms over and over within the first 4 hours.

Aha, a session on learning through social networks is beginning.  Gotta go.

Working without a net

There’s supposed to be about 8000 people at this conference, and there’s exactly one Starbucks in the building.  That’s just not a comfortable ratio.  I’m actually setting my alarm for an earlier time tomorrow morning just to ensure that I get both a latte and a good seat for the keynote speaker.  Am I dedicated or what?

So far the line-up at Starbucks has proven to be nearly as good a networking opportunity as the ice-breaking activities some of the presenters are doing in the smaller sessions.  There always seems to be at least two friendly people within earshot while I’m either in line or waiting, and we’ve struck up conversations that are related to training interests and common work problems/strategies two mornings in a row now.

It’s great.  I’ve collected an impressive set of business cards already, and each has notes on the back with subjects I want to e-mail the owner about to collaborate on to strategize about solutions, shared ideas or tactics, sharing a resource/webpage/book title, or some other tidbit.  There’s a topic coming up tomorrow called “informal learning” and that’s exactly what this is.  Someone who showed up here and didn’t even go to a session could learn a tonne.

Speaking of learning, the homework is daunting.  I spent nearly two hours turning my notes from today’s sessions into a format that would make sense to me in two weeks, and now I need to research some of the concepts and links from today because it’s clear that they’re going to keep coming back tomorrow.  It’s a good reminder that we’re sheltered in our little corner of the world and that there’s a lot of learning theory that is going on that we’re not looking at.  Sure, sometimes it’s the flavour of the month, but sometimes it’s common enough that 90% of the room is familiar with a concept and I’m going duh.  Not good, donkey.  Back to the research.

Oh, the technology

I just came out of a session with Donald Kirkpatrick.  If you do training and development and you don’t know the name, then google him.  He’s the guy who created the four levels of evaluation.  They’re really the key to evaluating any training in a robust way to ensure: 1) effective training/education, 2) effective learning transfer and 3) that the organization is getting everything it needs from the training folks.

‘Nuff said.  My next session is starting, but here’s my point.

The guy was very good, and an engaging speaker as well as theorist, but. . .

he used OHPs.  For you young folks, that’s overhead projector slides.  You may have to google to even figure out what I’m talking about.  He even put the first one on upside-down just for a laugh.  It was really cute.  Oh, it was effective.  But cute.

Thiagi

Wow, what a first day.  The conference proper doesn’t start until tomorrow, but I came a day early to attend a pre-conference workshop with Thiagi.  Who’s Thiagi, you ask?  Well, instead of my telling you, let’s play a game. . .

The workshop was on how training using activities will always increase learning transfer, add value, improve retention etc.  Thiagi has a pile of books out and is well renowned in the facilitation and training world for using activities and games to get people thinking and working together better.

Thudonkey goes to Washington

Thudonkey in front of the Capitol

Well, I made it. I’m in Washington D.C.  You would not believe all the huge buildings made of big pieces of white stone.  They all seemed designed to dwarf anyone standing in their shadow or approaching them.  See, they say.  You are small and the system is big.  The individual is nothing and the country is great.

Of course, depending on your belief in the principles on which the USA was built (and on the multitude of ways in which they have since been interpreted) this might be interpreted as either a scathing indictment or a ringing endorsement of the power of democracy.  I’ll leave you all to decide that for yourselves.

Packing for ASTD

I’m completely stoked about going to the ASTD conference on Saturday. I’ve got a tentative plan for what to attend, I’ve been studying up on presenters and ideas, and I’ve got my running-shoes packed for my tourist day on Friday.

The general schedule for the conference is here. I’m going to a Saturday workshop on how to conduct training games and activities, but not a pre-conference certificate program — apparently the DND isn’t made of money

Fruit flies like a banana

Time flies like a rocket (or whatever simile you like) when you’re ignoring your blog. In the interim I completed my first instructional design course, so I’m full of the abridged versions of a number of learning theories. Now I’m into the second course, so I’m putting the theories into my first practical context. It’s daunting.

My angle

My philosophical training has prepared me to approach a new course or theory or idea from a certain perspective, by gathering and parsing a variety of different details, reading in certain ways, and assessing based on allegedly objective criteria as I go through an analytic process.

5 is right out

To prepare for the first day of CCK08 I went looking for a paper to help me understand what connective knowledge might be.  Not terribly surprisingly, I ended up finding this one on Stephen Downes’ blog.  It suited me extremely well, because it was unmistakably a paper written in the tradition of analytic philosophy.  It used language I know, it cited and referred to philosophers and theories (and in-jokes) that I studied in classes on epistemology lo those many years ago.  In short, not only did it give me information on what connective knowledge is, it did so in a way that connected it to my previous understanding of the world.

Distributed Cognition

This phrase from George’s intro to the CCK08 course very much caught my ear.  Cognition being in some ways the thing that sets us apart as sentient beings (cogito ergo sum) and the core of one’s interior ruminating — after all, Descartes’ cogito takes place mostly in his comfortable chair while he is alone in front of the fire — part of me wanted to insist that cognition remain seated in the individual.