Ny trender inom utbildning, vågar du testa?

 

Tänkte reflektera lite över 4 megatrender som presenterats på EdTechX Europe och se hur långt vi kommit när det gäller framsteg inom dessa områden... Att digital teknik inom utbildning kommer in allt mer inom utbildning är inte direkt någon hemlighet och vi har väl inte minst i år 2020 märkt alla möjligheter digitalt stöd ger till kompetenshöjningsinsatserna. Men hur jobbar de allra största globala leverantörerna och hur resonerar universitet, myndigheter och internationella bolag kring teknik? Det var några av anledningarna till mina besök på EdTechX Europe i London – en konferens som får med sig över 1.000 personer från 65 olika länder och nästan 200 olika talare.

Digital Education is the oil of the learning industry
När 1/3 av arbetsgivarna inte kan hitta nya medarbetare med rätt kompetens samtidigt som 1/3 av de anställda känner sig överkvalificerade för de arbetsgifter de har så ser vi ett tydligt mönster att vi tillsammans behöver höja fokus på utbildningsinsatser. På konferensen tittar vi på megatrender inom utbildning, vilka insatser kommer påverka utbildningssektorn mest framåt?

Digitalisering möjliggörare för ett individanpassat lärande
Inte så konstigt att mycket fokus läggs på just att digitalt lärande är huvudnäring inom utbildningsvärlden framåt och vi har ju redan konstaterat att digital transformation händer i de flesta branscher. Mer intressant är när vi borrar ner på centrala delar som individualisering av lärande där framtidens generationer är vana att kunna skapa sina egna ”spellistor” (oavsett om det är Spotify, Netflix eller då inom kompetenshöjning). När Richard Culatta (fd huvudrådgivare inom utbildningsfrågor i Obamas administration) visar upp lågstadieskolor i Bronx som börjat med digitala, individualiserande scheman där eleverna på morgonen ser vilken lektion de skall fokusera på under dagen, ja då förstår man att det inte är långt borta att fler skolor börjar anamma dessa mer riktade och individualiserade utbildningsinsatser. Med hjälp av Big Data så kommer vi också se fler och fler av dessa processer automatiserade vilket gör att lärarna kan fokusera på själva lärandet mer än planering och administration.

Använd inte ny teknik för att kopiera gammal utbildning, skapa nytt
Varför är den akademiska världen så trögrörlig och konservativ när världen i övrigt inte ser hinder med att använda ny teknik för innovativa lösningar? Att kopiera en gammal modell till digitalt format är inte innovation. Gemensamt svar när vi lyssnat på flera sessioner och talare är att det helt enkelt finns för många beslutsfattare som varken förstår eller är intresserade av ny teknik. Lösningen är på pappret ganska enkel, se till att utbilda dessa personer i digitaliseringens möjligheter. När både möjligheterna och ekonomin blir mer tydlig kommer vi kunna se mer teknik och nya innovationer breda ut sig och sanktioneras inom skolans värld, likväl som inom vuxenutbildning. Byråkrati och kunskapsbrist inom digitalisering är det största hindret just nu för innovation inom utbildningsvärlden. Använd ny teknik och kunskap om neuro science för att skapa engagemang, effektiva utbildningsformer och personligt anpassad utbildning som erbjuder en för individen optimal studietakt, en accelererande inlärningsmetod och dessutom kopplar utbildningen till personliga intressen och erfarenheter för att skapa engagemang, motivation och hög igenkänning. Från att vara ett management-system och replikering av den traditionella utbildningsprocessen måste dagens utbildningsteknik vara mer som ”Webb 2.0”.

Continuous Learning – från engångsinsatser till livslångt lärande
Tidsbrist är det största hindret för utveckling av utbildning. Detta återkommer i sessioner inom både vuxenutbildning såväl som inom den akademiska världen. Olika tidsbesparande och effektiviserande tekniker som lärportaler, ”flipped classroom”, mobil- och social inlärning blir mer och mer integrerat och förbättrar lärandet. En gemensam bild på konferensen är att det gått mycket snabbare än beräknat att få ut dessa tekniker i verksamheterna. Överlag har delen med online-utbildning ökat, även på världskända universitet som Stanford och Oxford och snart ser vi sannolikt hela MBA-program och liknande som ren distansutbildning. När nu även lärarbristen är ett globalt fenomen behöver vi lägga än mer fokus på tekniskt stöd som möjliggör att fler kan ta till sig de nödvändiga utbildningsinsatserna.

Automatisering och maskinlärande kommer att göra stor del av dagens verksamma arbetskraft utan jobb under de närmsta 15 åren. Gapet i digitala färdigheter måste stängas och utbildning behöver baseras på färdigheter och inte på memorerande av fakta – kompetensbaserad utbildning helt enkelt. Skolsystemet, universitet och utbildningsföretag som tillhandahåller professionell yrkesutbildning måste erbjuda utbildning i kompetenser såsom programmering och innovation. Eftersom den tekniska utvecklingen går fort blir ständigt lärande en nödvändighet för att vara attraktiv på arbetsmarknaden, inte en examen. Continous Learning blir den nya normen.

För att citera Courseras ordförande/medgrundare Daphne Koller:
People have to Re-Skill throughout their lives.

Virtual Reality – en naturlig framtid inom utbildningsvärlden?
För flera år sedan var det Second Life som skulle vara omvälvande, en 3D-värld som vävde ihop gaming, fritid och arbete. Vi såg flera företag som satte upp sina egna hangouts i den virtuella världen och investerade för att attrahera besökare. Då var tekniken inte helt perfekt och projektet föll mer eller mindre i glömska. Nu har vi aktörer som Google, Microsoft m.fl. som med ny teknik tagit Virtual Reality flera steg närmre den personliga upplevelsen. När reserestriktioner och tidsnöd är en verklighet för många kan liknande teknik bli en möjliggörare. Vi har branscher som medicin och energi där kostnaden för den fysiska utbildningsmiljön är ett hinder och här finns det företag som arbetat fram virtuella utbildningsmiljöer som simulerar de moment som måste tränas. Google visar upp projekt som Expedition där eleverna får besöka platser runt om i världen virtuellt, som del av skolundervisningen. Är detta kanske det mest utmanande och spännande konceptet vi kommer se mer av framåt?

Participating at EdTechX 2017 in London

Tobias Strandh & Emil Robertsson at EdTechX in 2016

Last year when we visited EdTechX we found ourselves amazed at how far education has come when it comes to technology. For a company as ours that has been involved in the professional learning business for some three decades we know that we are forced to keep up speed to continue to be the preferred choice of Nordic companies. I wrote a reflection on four mega trends in the education business (in Swedish) and I’m extremely pleased that our company has implemented so much here already!

This year we are one man stronger when our EdTech Innovator Thomas Koponen joins us in London and this also ensure that we shouldn’t miss any of the extremely interesting looking sessions as for example The Key Trend Driving Transformation and Investment in Education and Training, Global 21st Century Readiness: Developing the Skills, Digital Collaboration and Talent in Education, Inspire Learning and Creativity With VR and AR (one of my favorites from last year), How Chinese Elite are Re-thinking Education, Effectively Implementing, Measuring the Success of Learning Sciences and so much more!

I also feel that I get approached by more and more new EdTech companies that are interested in working with me on a Nordic and global perspective. Of course, this week press conference that we are joining forces with EdTech star Claned has gotten a lot of attention and I myself truly believe that we are one step further in creating that perfect blend of digital and onsite training that is needed ahead!

We’ve worked close with learning transfer professionals as Promote International and gamification masters as PragmatIQ for quite some time now and I do see the bits of the puzzle fitting one by one! Maybe after next week conference we’ll have some more pieces to create that wonderful image that tells the world that we are still ahead of our time when it comes to delivering professional coaching to our clients in the optional way!

I am so looking forward to next week at https://events.bizzabo.com/202221/home

Remote Training, a case study

Last year I attended the IMD training ”Being Innovative” and one of the assignments was to use the Rogers Virus Model for Analyzing and Predicting Innovation Success. I chose to take a closer look at Remote education, our way to deliver training on a distance that has proven to be a great success for Informator in Sweden over the years. I'd like to share my analysis of its performance according to the 3 dimensions of the Virus Model.

1) First Infection - Referring to Rogers’ model: benefit-to-cost, simplicity, compatibility, trialability, observability, what is the likelihood of first infection?

I chose a successful innovation for Informator since six years, using live remote class training. Looking back, we might have had faster adoption if we’ve also had offered some sort of trial. It would have been fairly easy to offer some free remote seminars or something alike that would had given our customers a chance to actually get a firsthand look at the service.

We got the simplicity (just turn up in our premises as usual and our technicians has taken care of all IT-stuff), benefit to cost (same learning, less cost for travel), compatibility (no need for you to buy new hard/software) and pretty good at observability (we could have lift this part up better with testimonials and such from pleased clients). First infection without a doubt, was the benefit-to-cost!

2) Staying Power of the Idea: To what extent are “hot-button issues” addressed? Has the project/team been branded? What about durability, “stickiness”? What is the likelihood of infecting over and over again?

Hot-button-issues are addressed regularly, time-restraints is the number one detail when our clients don’t attend training/classes. Working with modern ways of delivering training when, where and how our clients demand is the number one priority!

The project team consists of some thought leaders from various departments, but hasn’t been branded as a specific team. Maybe we should be clearer when communicating this. As the remote class training has been successful when delivered to and from our own class rooms, we have worked hard to take it one step further and now offer Remote Cloud Access where the clients can participate live from where ever. This is our way of taking the innovation one step further and even if the possibility has been there for many years, the tech for actually delivering seamless live education has been less satisfying. Now it works and we work hard with this offer.

As more and more clients use remote training in some way, we do see a bigger demand for this and our costumer managers also gain confident in also speaking more about these values rather than just focusing on our products.

3) Infect the Right People: To what extent have opinion-leaders, trendsetters, highly-networked actors been addressed? What is the likelihood of creating a pandemic?

Over the last years we have spent more time networking and marketing our ways of delivering training in a modern way than just focusing on products that might be similar in comparison with our closest competitors. Key players as me and our CEO has addressed the topics as speakers on conferences and discussions with both our staff, our partners as well as our direct clients. We use the tools we talk about to prove why instead of just talking about the possibilities.

We also work close with organizations as EdTech, Swedsoft (IT & Telecom companies in Sweden) to raise the discussions from a technical platform to a higher level of understanding the best ways of gaining learning and development. Remote Training is for sure a pandemic when it comes to our line of business!

Looking at the bullets benefit-to-cost, simplicity, compatibility, trialability, observability and so on it does make all the sense in the world that all of these are key factors in rapid success and that all is necessary for fast and successful adoption. Even so, sometimes one or two factors might be missing and the end result will still be success. What I’ve learned here is that if all factors are in there from the beginning the adoption most definitely will take less time.

Before this exercise I wasn’t aware of Roger’s model, but the various key moments still feel pretty obvious to me and when reading more I can see the bigger picture. This is definitely something I myself will work harder on in upcoming innovations!

Read more about Remote Training: https://informator.se/leveransformer/instructor-led-remote-training

Read more about Rogers Model: http://www.personal.psu.edu/wxh139/Rogers.htm

A new Mindset, new Results

Torsdag den 30 juni är det dags för en av årets intressantaste konferenser för oss som arbetar med kompetenshöjning och lärtransfer. A Mindset for Results riktar sig mot alla som arbetar med HR och/eller utbildningsfrågor på något sätt och liksom förra året förväntar jag mig såklart också att träffa en och annan linjechef och affärsansvarig på plats!

Arrangör är vår lärplattformspartner Promote och det är verkligen spännande att märka att fler och fler av våra större kunder också valt att ta in plattformen för alla sina utbildningssatsningar, både internt och externt. Att vi på Informator har mycket goda erfarenheter av plattformen sedan vi introducerade den på samtliga våra öppna kurser för snart ett år sedan speglas verkligen av den feedback som vi får från våra kunder!

I år är vi både med som utställande partner och skickar också en rejäl delegation för att utvecklas än mer tillsammans med framstående talare på området som Dr. Jim Kirkpatrick, Professor Rob Brinkerhoff och Joe Richer (Global Lead for Instructional Design på vår trogna kund Ericsson).

Jag passar också gärna på att tipsa igen om att du som är Informatorkund och inte redan bokat biljett har möjlighet att köpa den subventionerat direkt via oss! Läs mer och boka din plats på https://informator.se/seminarier/a-mindset-for-results-2016

Dags för EdTechXEurope 2016

Så är det snart dags att flyga till London och EdTechXEurope 2016, kanske den viktigaste konferensen under hela året för europeiska och internationella utbildningsföretag.

På Informator har vi nu länge arbetat hårt på olika nivåer för att hitta de bästa metoderna att leverera utbildning för just dig på dina villkor och när vi nu får chans att på första parkett ta del av hur den internationella utbildningsscenen tar sig an de möjligheter som finns så kan jag garantera att vi kommer kunna presentera en och annan nyhet framåt hösten.

Continuous Education är såklart ett hett ämne och där har vi redan börjat producera Training as a Service, ett koncept vi kommer jobba hårt med även under sommaren. Att använda video och andra tekniker för att förstärka utbildningsinsatser lär snart vara en naturlig del i allt fler utbildningar och håller vi stenkoll på fler trender i branschen. Digital Innovation som vi nyligen införde som helt eget utbildningsområde är en naturlig bakgrund till hela konferensen, kanske vi framåt plockar in virtual reality som naturlig del i våra hands-on kurser!? Vem vet, men intressant kommer det bli och självklart skall dessa nya idéer komma Informators kunder till nytta!

PS: Självklart har jag sett till att hinna hem till fredagens Sverigematch mot Italien och där skall vi väl lyckas få till det där lagspelet ordentligt :)

The reason you fail E-learning

Some months ago I translated my article on training methods for my collegues in Finland and I just realized that I should share it here on my blog as well as the topic is more relevant than ever... 

Education is always needed, but should preferably not cost anything and carried out by happy employees outside normal working hours. E-learning seems to be an optimal solution, but the vast majority lose the battle of finishing an entire e-course.

At this moment, you might be ready to explode, eager to write an angry comment about how you indeed performed X number of e-courses and how well it went. Congratulations, then you belong to the approximately 5 percent who have enough self-discipline (and perhaps the lack of social life), being able to focus enough to both implement and manage e-learning based tutorials. This article is aimed primarily at rest about 95 percent, and perhaps even more important, your managers. We will look at a number of online course options and above all how to optimize learning and provide maximum return on investment skills by mixing them with educational optimal classroom training. I base my statements on this experience from my many years in the education industry, combined with the best practices from my wife (who has worked as a teacher for more than a decade) and other sources that are quoted in the article.

Method 1: E-learning - no more, no less…

The term e-learning was coined in 1998, and the phenomenon has of course been greatly improved since the first tentative attempts. In the IT world, it is often quite natural to seek fast answers to problems you encounter. Search engines such as Google or Bing and movie sites like YouTube have for a long time been the preferred tool where enterprising engineers and developers quickly (on their own) find their way to a large amount of forums and movies where someone else has already found a solution to the particular problem that you encountered. Complementary, we also have forums such as Swedish www.itproffs.se which for a long time has focused on IT-pros sharing their experience with their peer. When you have a clearly defined problem these options are very good choices where you usually find a quick solution.

Some companies are investing in developing customized e-learning. Specialized companies adds a hefty budget to produce video lectures, games, and interactive solutions in an often simple and educational guide to learn new skills. The digital courses are often seen in the introductory levels and roles of the movie or the game can be reused again and again, thus providing an affordable cost per participant. The last two-three years, has shown a dramatic rise in e-learning options for IT professionals as for example Plural Sight (license based), and Microsoft Virtual Academy (free) which user base has grown increasingly. Here you'll find courses in most areas of technology, and cost wise it's a fraction of what an instructor-led training costs.

The cost per person is often the main criteria which many managements hung up on, and when training preferably should be entirely free, e-learning is often as close to the match as you can get (at least if the company does not need to count your leisure on the cost account). If we look at the North American market, it’s said that almost 75 percent of all businesses use digital education, and even here in Sweden this percentage grow each year.

Method 2: Classroom Training

At the other end of the scale (compared with pure e-learning) we find companies who for several years has focused on classroom training for IT professionals and developers. In the current situation, many Enterprise companies has rather generous frame work agreements with for example us at Informator.

Pedagogically speaking, it is difficult to compete with the knowledge your get by spending several days with a leading expert in the field, who not only goes through the general news in a particular technology speaking, but also can provide direct feedback on the special details that you might experience in your own IT environment. This, combined with the ability to sit down and discuss with others in the same situation, is something that in most cases is completely lacking when it comes to e-learning. Cost-wise, classroom training might be a larger investment both course wise but often counting the actual cost of the course participant being absent from work for several, either if you work as a consultant away from assignments or have a permanent position in which the employer may need to call a substitute.

In many cases it is still the superior educational model that makes the difference when someone chose a classroom course - they simply know from experience that it means less actual time to absorb the new knowledge combined with the fact that it usually stays longer. Speaking for my own company, we also have strong educational and technical requirements on our trainers and a detailed follow up to ensure customer satisfaction and opportunities to make improvements in our classes. Maybe this is something that our general schools could emulate in terms of recent PISA assessments.

Method 3: Blended Learning

You may belong to the small group of people who actually have self-discipline enough to really dedicate time to manage a number of e-learning courses, but why settle for that? There is a reason that the elementary school does not consist solely of courses run through the computer, and it is simply that you cannot fully compete with the ability to have an expert on site.

At the same time, we notice that in the primary, secondary and higher education, more and more schools are starting to take advantage of all the knowledge that is already available on the Internet. It’s only natural that training for IT professionals go this route, and there is much discussion about the possibilities of combining classroom education with self-study online, and discussion forums where students exchange experiences and support each other. At the moment we’re working hard on finding the very best technical solution and within soon we are ready to start stage two in professional IT-training!

There are several advantages of combining or “blending” various opportunities to absorb new knowledge. You get live access to a pedagogically trained expert who have the experience to help students in the very best way to absorb new knowledge. You get practical tips on where you can find more to read when it suits you best. At the same time, you have someone who push and helps you to really set aside time to study, a positive pressure that can often be the very thing that makes sure you take the time to study instead of anything else that demands your attention at leisure. 

If you for example set up a training program in cooperation with us at Informator, maybe we can even look at a platform where the class together can dig further in certain subjects. This mixed method leads to a positive pressure which encourage repetition and helps the student to grow within the selected topic! It's a quick way into the new subject, and the new knowledge does last longer.
Why you can’t handle pure E-learning without support

It is said that there are statistics that can underline virtually all claims, and of course, there have been countless inquiries about what kind of training that is the optimal approach. Probably most of you agree with the reasoning that it simply is so much else to add at leisure than just studying (unless you happen to be currently studying full-time and do not have time for anything else). And no matter how committed you are to your job, we all need a break sometime to not end up in the emergency department with suspected myocardial infarction. 

So as a bit of extra support for your next performance review, here are some preventative statistics proving it frankly is a wasted investment to bet on only e-learning:

1. Schools Inspectorate large secondary survey on self-study, 2013:
We begin lightly with a general survey of self-study - it is not only in e-learning, but here we focus on just the human psyche in general. The biggest problems (in Schools Inspectorate) are unawareness of the goal of training, generic training programs that are not adapted to the individual and lack of financial aid. I can quite easily draw direct parallels here for an e-course, can you?

2. University of Gothenburg - "Experiences with mixed forms of training at vocational skills development":

This is a bachelor's degree in human science that even more clearly describes the difficulties surrounding this mode of learning. The interviewee audience in the essay can be found at the Volvo Cars Corporation. One of the findings is as follows:

"Aspects that were considered to hinder the learning was that the different design was ridiculed, that priority tasks, lack of reality and lack of practical exercises to the extent desired by the participants."

This probably seem familiar to many who have tried to implement generic e-learning courses. And it obviously affected the ability and willingness to complete similar self-study in the absence of support from both pedagogical direction and management.

3. Durham University - "Effects of traditional, blended and e-learning on student achievement in higher education": 

We round off with an article where Steve Higgins from Durham University in the UK lists several points, with references to studies showing that e-learning clearly requires jacking to reach the optimal learning rate:

“In e-learning, students can suffer from isolation and lack of direct social interaction, therefore, is a great responsibility on the student to have strong motivation and competence in planning to mitigate this effect” (Hameed, Badii & Cullen, 2008).

“E-learning can have a negative impact on the development of communication skills. In other words, even though a student may have acquired excellent academic knowledge he/she is sometimes lacking the skills to communicate this to others” (Akoyunlu & Soylu 2006; Klein & Ware 2003).

“E-learning can be less effective than classroom learning in aspects of the learning process such as clarification and extended learning as they can be easier to absorb in one training with classmates. In addition, e-learning lack the support that non-verbal guidance provide by observing the interaction between the second” (Al-Musa & Al-Mobark, 2005).

Conclusion

Of course there are also a lot of positive qualities in e-learning, and as stated earlier, you should of course take advantage of this medium. The main thing to take with you when it comes to skills upgrading is that it is always worth spending a little extra, whether it is financial investment or time and personal commitment. In the IT field, we all know how much it costs to invest in new technology, licenses etc., and it should also be a given that those who actually will be using the technology can do this in the best possible way. Technology will never be better than the person using it, and if that person just got a manual plus a link to a free site somewhere on the Internet, it is likely to take an unnecessarily long time before the company can take full advantage of its investment. If you are among the few that can really put everything else aside and totally focus on your e-learning course, you have a good reason to choose the form of education. But I would still recommend to combine e-learning with classroom studies or lectures and of course interactivity in forums or groupstudies. Without interactivity, you lose a part of the learning process, no matter how focused you are.

This article is authored by Tobias Strandh and was first introduced in the Swedish newspaper TechWorld # 5 - in September 2014

Extended reading:

• Schools Inspectorate large secondary survey about self-study 
• Göteborg University: "Experiences with mixed forms of training at vocational skills development" by Emelie Johansson and Frida Lundin (pdf)
• Durham University: "Effects of traditional, blended and e-learning on students' achievement in higher education" (pdf)

Footnote

Time Efficient alternatives becomes interesting because staff time away from the workplace both costs money and leads to lagging tasks. We listen to our customers and the industry's need for time-efficient training programs. Therefore, we have developed forms of delivery and solutions that tackles the challenge of time and at the same time support your professional development .

This is what we at Informator call Time-to-Skills™