Google Site Discoveries

I'm creating a web site for my final project and have discovered a few things others might find helpful ...

• There doesn't seem to be a way to rearrange the pages on the site map. If you accidentally forget to create a new page and mark that it should go below your home page, it becomes your first page and the only way to correct that is to delete the page and start over.
• Regarding collaborators and viewers: Viewers are just what it implies - they can look at the site, but that is it. Collaborators can edit pages, but they can't invite new people to the site or change the appearance -- they can simply update page content, add links/images, etc. Only the owner can determine who has access to the site and how it looks in terms of themes, colors, side bars items/gadgets, etc.
• Is a private site really private? Yes. Only people who are currently on your sharing list can access the site. Others get a message telling them they are restricted from viewing the site. I also tested removing a member to see if her access changed and it did. One minute she could get in, but once I removed her from the sharing list, she got the "access denied" message.

Exploring Second Life - Using it to Train

Prior to last week, I had always thought of Second Life as purely social. I've never been "in world" but from what I had heard, it seemed like more of a game than anything else. Then I started hearing that people are making a living by charging for things in businesses that were set up in Second Life. Hmmmm. Then I heard people were wanting to set up training centers in Second Life. For the life of me, I couldn't see how that would work.

Last week I visited one of these training centers and it was ... interesting.

They had built a building, complete with spiral staircases, as student lounge, a library and classrooms. Through your avatar, you went to the center and participated in synchronous training. Students could use both verbal and typed "chat" to communicate, ask questions, etc. Quite impressive. They even showed us a team building activity where avatars solved problems together with the restriction that they could not speak, much like an activity we do in a classroom team building session.

There certainly appear to be many possibilities.

But there are also some limitations.

First, participants have to be able to work their avatar. One student who was part of the demonstration had been in Second Life for 6 months and she still had trouble raising her hand and walking from one place to another. When it came to "teleporting", another student had to take her along because she wasn't good at that either. It made we wonder to what degree the technology could be distracting to students -- will they be splitting their attention between what they are trying to learn and how to operate their avatar. We run into this challenge with any new technology, but in this case, it seems perhaps a little more complicated.

Second, there is the whole Second Life environment. Let's face it, there is some pretty adult-oriented content out there that is just not considered appropriate for a business/professional environment. Making sure your participants don't accidentally get somewhere they don't want to be would be important. And making sure others who want to be inappropriate don't get into your space in equally important. They recommended making sure you locate your center in a G or PG area of Second Life would help, but the risk is always there. A more certain way of controlling who comes to your center is to pay for an invisible island, but you still have the risk of your students getting into places they don't want to be and possibly unsure how to get back.

The person hosting us admitted that many things he was doing in Second Life could be done more efficiently in other delivery methods, but to him, the great advantage was have one place to access all training - the training center in Second Life. He didn't have some training offered in a classroom, some online via Web-Ex-type technology, some via self-study on a website, some as reading, etc. Everything people needed or wanted to do was at his Second Life training center. All they needed was an avatar to access it.

And while I have not yet been in Second Life other than as a tag-along to this host's avatar, people who are in that space say they really do feel like they are there "in world" -- that they are much more engaged in what they are doing than when they are in a synchronous online training session. But they admit that what they are participating in (social things) is more engaging that a lot of training anyway. They can't say for sure that attending a facilitated session that basically mimics Web-Ex training would really be different in Second Life.

It was very cool. It certainly has potential. But as I said in my earlier post, I'm wondering where it will be in 10 years. Will it really replace all training? Or will we figure out that it is great at some things and not so great at others? And in that case, will it just be one more place to go for training instead of my host's dream of one place for all training?

Exploring Second Life - Have We Seen This Before?

I attended an online session today about how company's (and colleges) are using Second Life for training. Interesting. Overall, I was impressed. But in some cases, it seemed like they were force fitting training to the technology instead of fitting the technology to the training needs and objectives. In a few cases, the technology seemed to make the training much more difficult than it needed to be.

Ten-fifteen years ago, synchronous online learning came on the scene. Many companies jumped on board and it was going to replace all classrooom training. As we now know, it did not. Like any delivery method, it has its strengths and its weaknesses, and good trainers select it because it fits the needs of that particular training. And we don't attempt to use it for things that it will not support well.

My prediction is that Second Life will follow the same life cycle. Companies and trainers are jumping on board and talking like it is appropriate for everything right now. But it probably isn't. We'll realize that in the next three-five years and it will become yet another tool in our toolbox.

A good tool. But still one of many.

If you are interested in learning more about why and how IBM is using Second Life for training, read IBM's Other Reality: A Real-Life Tour in Human Resource Executive Magazine (Dec 2007).

The session hosts mentioned another article from ASTD's Training and Development Journal (August 2007), but you have to be a member to access those archives so I can't provide a link here.

Delicious Left a Bad Taste

I was so excited about Delicious after our last class. I imported all my favorites and meticulously tagged each one. The next day I opened the group tagged as "college" to get to a web site, but it didn't contain college shortcuts. One was a golf tag. One was a photo tag. One was an AHS tag None of them were college tags. I opened another folder only to find the same problem. All of my tags had somehow changed. Hmmmmm.

Assuming it was operator error, I re-did everything - carefully following the instructions from my class notes and double checking it all and making sure I saved the tags. I closed and re-opened my internet. Everything was fine. Good.

But the next day ... it was scrambled again.

After four tries, I've given up! My delicious tags won't stick and it's leaving a bad taste in my mouth.

Has anyone else had this problem? Or do you have any suggestions?

Just say ... yes!

I've read postings on a few blogs about the trials and tribulations of trying to expand the use of technology in a corporate environment. And I've experienced some of that myself. First, it's the IT department -- you can't let that stuff behind our firewall! Or my favorite: people won't use it for work; they will just waste time playing on it. Then there is upper management and their need for control -- we can't let people post information without having it reviewed and approved! Finally, there is the legal department -- uncontrolled information can cause all kinds of legal problems.

My experience in this class has taught me anything, it has taught me that using technology takes a lot of time. Time to locate information. Time to write it. Time to read what others wrote. Why do we think that so many people at work have so much extra time that they would "waste" it just playing with technology?!

Yet they all say no to technology. No. No. No.

Today I got a yes.

My boss and I were talking about broadening how we deliver training and she agreed that podcasts would be great for our claims associates who spend so much time driving. She sees it as something we should definitely pursue.

She said yes.

Wow!

The Class So Far ...

Tomorrow we have class again, so this seems like a good time to take stock of what I've done so far ...

• Wikinomics - Very interesting. After reading it all, I've discovered a number of technology-driven ways that individuals and businesses are collaborating. I'm really fascinated by peer production and ideagoras. I like the concept of bringing experts from all over together to solve problems or accomplish a goal. I'm still trying to figure out how all these people find each other -- even the books success stories often talk about "stumbling upon" the right web site -- but it's obviously working and I'd love to be part of something like that.
  
  Wikinomics and Learning/Performance: Clearly learning takes place in many of the collaboration methods mentioned in the book, but most of it is informal and self-directed. The learner is truly taking responsibility for whatever he/she learns. I don't see a lot of strong ties between the concepts in the book and the more formal training we provide our employees.
  
  
• My Blog - I've decided I'm not really into blogging. It truly is a journal - more one-way that I had thought before I started the class. Keeping it current takes a lot of work, and I never was good at journals! But I like the idea of processing the class in one place -- it makes things much easier to keep track of than having all kinds of separate papers. I've blogged about the book, other blogs, the things I'm exploring as homework, and other things related to technology and learning. I've chosen to stick mostly to class content or work-related topics because that's what this blog is all about. I can create another blog if I want to get into other topics.

• Other Blogs -- I linked to some blogs I found interesting on the right side of my blog and mentioned some of them in my postings. There certainly are a lot of blogs out there about learning and performance, and I think I will enjoy watching some of the ones I've discovered to see what they're talking about. But keeping up with blogs takes a lot of time! I doubt I ever become a true follower of any one site. I've noticed that a lot of "consulting" companies are using blogs as part of their web sites/PR efforts, but they seem more like the old-fashioned newsletters. Many are only updated once every 7-10 days and I'm guessing that some staff member is assigned to come up with and write about a topic for the blog.
  
  I have a co-worker who has a blog and typically uses it to journal about what he learns at conferences or in a magazine and how it relates to our work. I like the fact that he only blogs when he really has something to say and if you go to his site, you know it's going to be work-related. And it gives him one place for all his notes. I take notes at conferences, but a year later (when I need them) I'm not sure what I did with them!
  
  I have a cousin who participated in the Olympics and used a blog to journal about her experiences. I didn't realize it was a blog at the time, but now that I'm more "educated", I realize that's what she used. It allowed us to keep up with her exciting trip and how she was feeling without forcing her to answer a bunch of emails every day, all of which would have asked the same things! I never commented on her blog because I didn't know I could, but I'm guessing other people did and that kept it all in one easy place for my cousin.
  
  
• My Classmates' Blogs -- I've followed and commented on a few of my classmates' blogs since our last class session. I feel like I do know each of them a little better based on what they have chosen to blog about or by the comments classmates have made on my blog postings. We have some interesting people in our class! I've learned a couple of things. 1) Don't leave questions in your comments -- blogs are really one way and no one ever answers them! 2) It's hard to comment on things you really don't know about. That's probably why many sites are about a specific topic/area of interest -- followers probably share that interest and are more likely to know about and comment on your postings.
  
  Blogs and Learning/Performance: I'm disappointed because I came to this class thinking that blogs would be a great way to keep training alive after a class session - that people could share their ideas through blogs. But that's not really the case - everyone can't make a blog post and it's hard to follow and keep track of comments. A blog really isn't a discussion forum and that's what I was looking for. But that frustration led me to explore bulletin boards, and I found those to be more of what I was looking for.
  
  
• Podcasts - I found it hard to choose a podcast - there are a lot out there! Downloading them was easy, but getting them to my iPod and finding them later was confusing -- even though they aren't music, they are under the music menu. That doesn't make sense to me! But it probably says a lot about what the designers of the iPod thought it would be used for and how far beyond that we have gone. I found that I enjoyed listening to political commentary and news on my daily walks with the dogs more than listening to just music, so I'm sure I'll continue my subscriptions. The only downfall is that I have to remember to download them first -- that takes a little planning. I blogged about how podcasts let me multi-task just like those NetGeners!
  
  Podcasts and Learning/Performance: I am excited to learn more about creating a podcast because I see a lot of opportunities for this in our company. We have thousands of employees who spend half their time in their cars. If they have to complete training, they end up doing it at night at home. Their driving time is not productive time, but they can't avoid it. We could put training content out there as podcasts and they could listen to it through their radios, making their car time more productive and giving them more work/life balance.
  
  
• Three Things to Explore - I explored the Net Generation, Wikipedia and Bulletin Boards.
  
  >> Net Generation - These people are going to be challenging and interesting to work with. They will both amaze people and frustrate them. The thing that I need to remember most as an instructional designer is their amazing ability to multi-task and the counterpoint that they will become easily bored with traditional approaches that "take it slow." During my exploration, I blogged about being a digital immigrant, the NOW generation, how education makes a difference in how they use technology, and how group characteristics don't apply to all individuals in that generational group.
  
  >> Wikipedia - Wow! I cannot believe this concept works and I'm impressed by the result. I would still love to figure out how they got started -- how they got people to contribute and edit it. I will definitely be using it as a resource in the future. I blogged about how I was pleasantly surprised by Wikipedia and how I still have questions with no answers about it.
  
  >> Bulletin Boards - I really like this concept and think it has some real potential as a way of creating learning communities after training events. It allows multiple people to post ideas and questions and everyone can comment on everything. In fact, I think it would be a better collaboration tool for this class than our blogs! You could organize it by class topics and people could add postings to the areas that interested them. And when people have questions, everyone could see them and hopefully someone would give that person an answer. Click here to read my posting about bulletin boards.
  
  
• Participating - This can be scary! I don't always know what I'm getting into and I'm not always sure what "creating an account" means. I've found it easiest and "safest" to participate in blogs even though I don't really like them that much. I used a wiki with a group of friends trying to find a date to go out together - that worked well! I've looked at Skype, Delicious and StumbleUpon, but I'm not sure I understand any of them yet. I like my podcast subscriptions - those aren't scary at all.
  

And there is more to learn! See you in class tomorrow!