Sketchnotes from the launch of GoodPractice's 'The Evolution of 70:20:10'

Rachel Burnham writes: Last week I participated in the launch event for GoodPractice’s new piece of research.  This has become a highly anticipated annual event, when their latest research into the L&D world is shared with fellow L&D practitioners.  This year the research focused on how L&D professionals understand and are using the 70:20:10 model.   The report is titled ‘The Evolution of 70:20:10 and can be downloaded from the GoodPractice website.  Participants at the launch tweeted using the #gp702010 and this generated quite a bit of discussion, which is worth checking out.  It is also worth having a read of Jonathan Marshall's blog on the subject.  

    

Here is the Sketchnote I created at the event based on Owen Ferguson’s presentation introducing the research:

We were also treated to a couple of presentations from GoodPractice clients about their approach to L&D and you can find my Sketchnotes of Peter Yarrow, from Standard Life Aberdeen and James O’Mahoney, from Edrington below:

Each piece of research in L&D adds to our understanding of what is actually happening in organisations and enables us to ask better questions and work with a more realistic view of the extent to which the models & practices so often discussed in conferences, books and articles are working.   Each piece of research gives us the possibility of working more effectively and having more of an impact. 

By commissioning and sharing their research each year GoodPractice contribute to the development of the whole profession.   It would be great to see more companies adopting this approach.

Rachel Burnham

26/11/18

Burnham L & D works with individuals and organisations to help them learn and work more effectively.  As part of this I help L&D professionals to be even more effective through updating their skills and know-how.  I have a particular interest in curation and the use of digital technologies in learning.  I frequently Sketchnote at events and offer workshops in Sketchnoting.  

Sketchnotes & Twitter Moment from World of Learning Conference 2018

Rachel Burnham writes:  Here are my Sketchnotes from Day 1 of the World of Learning Conference 2018 which was held in Birmingham at the NEC on 16 & 17^th October.    As a bonus I have also included the Twitter Moment, with tweets from Mike Shaw’s session on Day 2 ‘How to facilitate and curate learning in organisations’. 

Rachel Burnham

18/10/18

Burnham L & D works with individuals and organisations to help them learn and work more effectively.  As part of this I help L&D professionals to be even more effective through updating their skills and know-how.  I have a particular interest in curation and the use of digital technologies in learning.  I frequently Sketchnote at events and offer workshops in Sketchnoting.   

Reflections on using Curation for Designing Learning Programmes

Rachel Burnham writes:  This week the topic of using curation for design has been much on my mind.  Partly because I have been doing an update and refresh of a programme I work on that makes use of curated resources.  Partly because I have been thinking through how to further improve another programme I work on to make most effective use of the resources within it.   Partly because of conversations I have been having around this topic, through #LDInsight and particularly with Michelle Ockers (@MichelleOckers) and also with my regular collaborator, Mike Shaw (@MikeShawLD) as he puts the finishing touches to a presentation on this same topic for the World of Learning Conference in Birmingham.  

So the topic has been circling around my head and I have been reflecting on my own experience of curating resources when designing programmes.   Looking back I can see that I have been doing this for some time, though it is only in the last few years that I have consciously thought of it as curation.  It is now just a part of how I do things. 

What is curation for designing learning programmes?

What I mean by curating resources when designing programmes, is using existing resources, typically publicly available, as a substantial part of the triggering material for a learning programme.   It involves seeking out relevant materials, selecting carefully which to use, explaining the reasons for your choices so that they are put in context for the intended user, possibly sequencing and combining materials and then making them accessible to the intended user.  I make use of Harold Jarche’s Seek, Sense, Share model to support this.  This repurposing doesn’t stop there, as it also needs to include some tasks or activities that challenge the user to make sense of the material and identify what and how they can apply this to their own work.  It is this latter part that turns this from a collection of resources into a learning programme.

I know that the issue of whether simply using resources could lead to learning, was something that was bothering some of the participants in the recent #LDInsight chat that took place on 5/10/18.  For me, it is the addition of reflection, practical tasks and social and collaborative elements that transmutes these resources into rich and rewarding learning experiences.

Whilst conversations about using curation for designing learning programmes, often focus on the use of existing external resources, these are not the only elements that can be made use of.  Ben Betts in a chapter of ‘Ready, Set, Curate’ describes on pg 58  ‘thinking in thirds’:

• ·       Making use of existing material within the organisation – this could be learning material, performance support material or other useful stuff.  This allows you to make best use of what you already have and also to include material that is highly specific and particular to your organisation and its way of doing things. 
• ·       Secondly, is the external, already existing material.  This is great for subject areas that are in common across many organisations or where you want to bring in particular expertise from outside of your organisation.
• ·       The final element is newly created resources.   There may be somethings that you simply can’t find ready-made or where you want to tailor some content to be particularly specific to the needs of your intended users. 

Why use a curated approach?

For me, there are three main reasons for using a curated approach when designing learning programmes:

• ·       Abundance - there are already a lot of existing resources, either in-house or externally, around the topic and it therefore makes sense to build with these existing building blocks.   So this is about using resources wisely – time, effort, energy and of course finances.
• ·       Agility – this links to the first, but places more emphasis on the ability to meet learning needs in a timely fashion, creating a minimum, viable product or solution and possibly building on this in subsequent iterations.
• ·       Access to different voices, perspectives and expertise – I think this one is often the most compelling reason. Using curation allows you to give access to material from different sources that can lead to a wider and richer learning experience.   Michael Bhaskar in his book ‘Curation: The power of selection in a world of excess’  makes the point that we can search to find things that we know exist, but what curation adds value by giving us access to things we don’t know about.  So curation can enable us to introduce users to a topic and directly to experts in that field, enabling them to more quickly build foundation knowledge and understanding.  It also enables us to help users to stretch by encountering different perspectives and emergent expertise, because curation can allow you to easily update and refresh a programme.   Actually, if the programme stimulates and supports social and collaborative learning, it may well be the participants in the programme, who identify and share that emergent thinking either through their own work or by sharing other resources that they uncover.  

Three reflections from my experience

A.  Using a curation approach when designing a learning programme alters how you design.   When designing traditionally, broadly speaking, you identify needs, specify aim & objectives and gradually get more and more specific about what is required in the design.  And you can be as specific as you like. 

When designing using curation, again you identify needs, specify aims & objectives, but you then need to search and see what is available already both in-house and externally.   And you need to be rather more open-minded about what you are looking for, because if you are over-specific you may not find it or spend so long looking that this is a poor use of time.   Once you have identified what is available, then you can fill in gaps with material that you create.

So, the traditional design approach is a bit like commissioning a tailor-made outfit in a particular colour combination to your specific measurements.  Whereas a curated approach is more like looking through your wardrobe, reviewing what you have, then going shopping to see what is available that combines with what you have, and recognising that you may not be able to find exactly what you picture in your mind’s eye in the shade you want.

It is a change in mindset.

B.  The importance of building in regular maintenance and refreshing.

As with any learning programme, it is important to keep a curated programme up-to-date and current.  What can be different is that links to particularly external resources can stop working and resources can be withdrawn or move behind a firewall and so no longer be available.  This means that there is a need to build in regular maintenance of the programme and it may be necessary to replace links to materials with alternatives.  As ‘like for like’ replacements may not be available (see point A), this requires a flexible approach.

It is tempting to think that the answer to this issue, is to ensure that you include full copies of the material you have curated within your programme, but that of course will bring problems of copyright.   Stick to links, but be alert to the need to update.   You may find this helpful guidance from Ben Betts at HT2 Labs of assistance in relation to these issues around copyright. 

My conversation with Michelle Ockers reminded me that this maintenance review, is also an opportunity to refresh a programme and that ideas for this may well come from recent participants and what they have shared within the social and collaborative elements of the programme. 

C. My third reflection comes from working as an external contributor to curated programmes and realising that pricing work for curated programmes is an interesting challenge.   Often we have experience to base the pricing of creating content and this is well understood by clients.  Pricing the curation of content can be a bit more tricky - the product of a link to a resource seems like the work of a moment, but like many other roles involving professional expertise, it is the underlying expertise, skills and judgement that have led to you finding and selecting that particular link, that is being paid for.  

I would be very interested in hearing your experience of curating resources for learning programmes and in your response to the points I have shared.

Rachel Burnham

14/10/18

Burnham L & D works with individuals and organisations to help them learn and work more effectively.  As part of this I help L&D professionals to be even more effective through updating their skills and know-how.  I have a particular interest in curation and the use of digital technologies in learning.  I frequently Sketchnote at events and offer workshops in Sketchnoting.  

As a line manager how can you help your team members to learn?

Rachel Burnham writes: Last Friday I was preparing a session for a group of managers I am supporting through a CMI programme and I was thinking about practical things that they could do to support their team members to learn.   Of course, I started to think how could I present this in a Sketchnote.   And then I realised how much better this would be if I asked for contributions from my Personal Learning Network (PLN), so I shared this idea via Twitter. 

I received lots of contributions through the day and then put my Sketchnote together at the end of the working day.   However, the original tweet got retweeted several times and ideas kept coming in throughout the weekend.  I hate to waste a good idea, so I curated these into a Twitter Moment.  

As an aside, Twitter Moments are a great tool for gathering together a few Tweets - they are very easy to use and you can keep adding to them before you publish, so they are very useful for situations when you want to keep a whole Twitter conversation, but perhaps a Wakelet isn't required.  It made me realise I could make more use of Twitter Moments.    

The Sketchnote and Moment have been shared a lot over the course of the last week, so I thought it would be sensible to include them within my blog.  And here they both are – with many, many thanks to all who shared their ideas:

Here is the Twitter Moment.

I will put a larger version of the Sketchnote at the very end of this post. 

Rachel Burnham

11/10/18

Burnham L & D works with individuals and organisations to help them learn and work more effectively.  As part of this I help L&D professionals to be even more effective through updating their skills and know-how.  I have a particular interest in curation and the use of digital technologies in learning.  I frequently Sketchnote at events and offer workshops in Sketchnoting.  

Sketchnoting: 5 Benefits for Learning

Rachel Burnham writes: This week I have been reflecting on what the benefits are of Sketchnoting for learning.   Sketchnoting combines simple pictures, graphics, text and layout.  I also make use of colour, but some Sketchnoters just use black ink very effectively.  There are no rules in Sketchnoting.  You create a style and approach that works for you. 

Here are 5 areas where I think Sketchnoting can be a useful tool.

1. Note taking

This is the main way I use Sketchnoting, both for taking notes live from presentations and also to summarise podcasts, books and articles.  Some people may find that Sketchnoting works better for them as a way of making notes, than traditional note taking.  I always struggled a bit with note taking because I write very slowly and find spelling a bit of a challenge.  My notes always looked very chaotic.  Sketchnoting encourages you to focus on listening for meaning and key points, rather than attempting to capture everything.   With Sketchnoting, you create notes that work for you.  There is anecdotal evidence of this making a difference for some learners.

Example of Sketchhnote recorded live

Creating notes using Sketchnoting can aid recall.  It makes use of dual coding – the use of both visuals and words to capture ideas and because both are used there are two potential memory triggers. This is different to the idea of learning styles and the notion that someone has a visual learning style, which has little evidence to support it.   There is a very good exploration of dual coding and how this differs from learning styles in Episodes 12 and 13 of ‘The Learning Scientists Podcast’. 

    2. Planning

You can also use Sketchnoting for planning.  This can be helpful when planning to write an assessment, report or article or when planning a project or presentation.   I used to use Mind Maps for this, but I find Sketchnotes are more flexible.  

When I use Sketchnotes for planning, they often look much more ragged and unfinished than my other Sketchnotes, as I keep adding notes to them and often create them much more quickly than my other Sketchnotes.  I often don’t keep these Sketchnotes as they are just part of the process.  

Here is an example of a Sketchnote I used to help me prepare for a presentation I was delivering at the AGM for CIPD Manchester.  

    3.  Retrieval Practice

Sketchnotes can be a useful tool in retrieval practice – that process of actively revisiting and rehearsing material previously learnt, as part of the process of committing it to memory.   For example, you could create a Sketchnote from memory of material previously studied.   This active process of recalling material is much more powerful as a study technique than simple rereading your notes or learning materials over and over. For further information on the effectiveness of retrieval practice, let me again recommend you to the excellent ‘The Learning Scientists Podcast’ this time to Episode 2.

In Learning & Development, I want to emphasise that this technique is only valuable if employees really need this knowledge to perform better.  Often we have thrown knowledge at employees, when actually the issue isn’t a lack of knowledge, but perhaps more an issue of skill or even some other factor in the workplace.   So first we need to make sure that we have properly diagnosed what will make a real difference to workplace performance.  

Even if it there is a knowledge-component, we also need to carefully distinguish whether learners really need to learn this knowledge, so that it is internalised or is it more effective for them to be able to find it when they need it.   It is difficult and takes time & effort to really get knowledge embedded within us, plus much information that is needed for performance in the workplace changes rapidly, so it makes sense to only do this where this is absolutely essential.    And there are times when it is essential that a learner has that material always to hand – but this is far less than we have traditionally assumed. 

So with those caveats, Sketchnoting can be a tool to for use in retrieval practice.   For example, on as part of a longer programme, whether face to face or online, you could encourage learners to create a Sketchnote of key points explored at an earlier point in a programme and thus also bring in an element of spaced practice.

    4. Reflection

You can also create a Sketchnote as part of the process of reflecting on learning, whether that learning is part of a formal programme or has come from experience.   Reflection goes deeper than the recounting of information and facts that might be found within a Sketchnote created for retrieval practice, to include feelings, impact, application, implications for the future and so on.   You could encourage reflection using one of the many reflective practice models, but capture it in the form of a Sketchnote.  

In my experience, some learners like writing reflections, but some find the writing a challenge and prefer to video or capture reflections in a visual format.

    5.  Conceptualising

Sketchnotes can be a useful tool to think something through.  Many people find it useful to explore, through using pictures and diagrams, the relationships between information or ideas and Sketchnotes can be a vehicle for doing this. 

As with planning, the end result may be less finished, more back of the envelope.

Here is an example of a Sketchnote that I created to pull together some of the findings from some informal research that my colleague Niall Gavin and I did into the uses of Virtual Reality (VR) for Learning and Development.  We read articles, talked to experts, tried out different examples of VR and reflected together on what we had learnt.  As a result of this I put together a Sketchnote showing examples of the uses of VR for learning in the workplace using the degree of immersion as a rating scale.  This Sketchnote is the final polished version, as I reworked it for use in an article – if I was just sense-making for myself, I wouldn’t include such finished pictures!

I hope that this review of these five uses of Sketchnoting gives you some ideas of how you can use Sketchnotes to support learning.  I would be really interested in your ideas and examples of how you can use Sketchnoting to support effective learning – do get in touch to share your thoughts.

Rachel Burnham

16/9/18

Burnham L & D works with individuals and organisations to help them learn and work more effectively.  As part of this I help L&D professionals to be even more effective through updating their skills and know-how.  I have a particular interest in curation and the use of digital technologies in learning.  I frequently Sketchnote at events and offer workshops in Sketchnoting.  

Read and Relish

Rachel Burnham writes: From time to time I see articles that remind us how assorted well known successful people all read a humongous number of books each month. I have occasionally had exchanges with individuals who report ‘reading’ or rather listening to a book a week.  I notice comments from people who have set themselves a target to read a certain number of books a year, but are confessing that they are not succeeding in doing this.  I hear people saying they aspire to read more.  I hear people apologising for not reading much.  And there are services now that claim they can abbreviate books so that you can ‘read’ the key points from 5 books in a day!

I find myself at odds with this. 

Not because I don’t thinking reading books is a good thing.  I love to read, it is my lifeblood.  I have always been a bookworm. I am never happier than when I have my nose in a book – well possibly, if listening to live jazz, played in a garden, whilst reading!  My home is filled with books of all sorts – fiction, histories, picture books, business books, books about gardening, books about physics, books about patchwork, Greek plays (my son’s influence), thrillers, poetry, books about books.  Books are a kind of extra insulation layer to the house.

I usually have several books on the go at a time – usually some fiction, often a work related book of some kind and probably some a non-fiction book. I make time in my week to read.  I turn the television off or retreat to my bedroom to read.  I have been known to take a week off work to read.   But at most I read about 40 books a year – I know, I keep a list.  I have lists going back many years now.  I will never reach the output of books read that some of these articles report or that some people set themselves as targets – I like time to think about what I read.

One of the joys of reading for me, is pausing and pondering – letting my imagination wander, seeing the world created in a work of fiction come to life in my mind or exploring the ideas and connecting them and applying them in life.   I find I can’t do that if I race through a book. 

I think reading is about the journey, not the destination.  For me it is not the ticking off of a checklist or a point towards a target.  I think there’s a risk of missing out on the delights along the way, of not digesting what has been written, so I prefer to take my reading slowly.

Read for pleasure.  Read for learning.  Read to share with others.  Read for information.  Read to be amused.  Read to have your mind boggled.  Read out loud, for the sounds and rhythms.  Read for the pictures and diagrams, for the bindings and design.  Read for the smell of a new book. Read to be provoked.  Read to critique.  Read to have your bias confirmed or challenged.  Read to inform your own writing. Read to apply.  Read to inspire.  Read to fire up your experimentation.  Read to hear other voices.  Read to visit other places or times. Read to escape.  Read to relax.  But above all read and relish.

Rachel Burnham

9/9/18

Burnham L & D works with individuals and organisations to help them learn and work more effectively.  As part of this I help L&D professionals to be even more effective through updating their skills and know-how.  I have a particular interest in curation and the use of digital technologies in learning.  I frequently Sketchnote at events and offer workshops in Sketchnoting.  

Sketchnotes from Learning Live 2018

Rachel Burnham writes: Over the last two days I have had the opportunity to participate in this year’s Learning Live conference organised by the Learning and Performance Institute (LPI) in London.  The event was aimed at Heads of Learning & Development and involved a day and half of conference sessions, a small exhibition and lots of coffee breaks to enable conversations between participants. 

During the event participants were tweeting, posting and sharing video reflections on Twitter and other social media platforms using the #LearningLive.  

Here are all my Sketchnotes from the sessions I participated in:

Day 1 L&D Question Time Panel 

Mobile Learning: A Secret Performance Weapon in Everyone's Pocket 

The Power of the Game Engine

Day 2 Keynote: The Rise of the Humans - Dave Coplin 

Digital Learning Transformation 

Data for Learning's Impact 

Bot Wars!

Rachel Burnham 

7/9/18

Burnham L & D works with individuals and organisations to help them learn and work more effectively.  As part of this I help L&D professionals to be even more effective through updating their skills and know-how.  I have a particular interest in curation and the use of digital technologies in learning.  I frequently Sketchnote at events and offer workshops in Sketchnoting.  

Pretty in Pink

Rachel Burnham writes:  Whilst talking earlier in the week with Andrew Jacobs about personal curation, lego and learning and many other things, I was triggered to approach an old issue from a different angle. 

I love clothes.  I find fashion fascinating.  I love spotting a trend and I enjoy putting a new outfit together.  But I have learnt that not everything suits everybody and certainly not everything suits me.   Some colours make me glow, and some turn me pale.  Some shapes flatter and some make me feel dumpy.  Some outfits give me confidence to move and work at ease and some stifle and limit.   Not everyone is pretty in pink.  Not every shape of clothes suits every person’s shape.   Not every outfit is suitable for every occasion or this hot weather.

So even if the fashion is for fluorescent neons or crisp white shirts or platform heels I won’t be choosing these.  I love blue denim jeans – they are a classic, ‘timeless’, seemingly loved by everyone – they even come in different shapes and shades.  But I have found they don’t work for my colouring or my shape.  So, I will admire them on others, but find something that works better for me.

And that is a bit like L&D in organisations.   The conferences, blogs and podcasts may be full of some new technology, some new approach to learning or even something that has come full circle and become ‘hot’ again.   But not everything will work everywhere and certainly not everything will be just right for a particular organisation’s needs and current challenges.  So resist the neon leopard platforms and calls to be pretty in pink and find what works for your organisation and do that instead (unless of course neon leopard platforms are just what your organisation needs!).

Rachel Burnham

27/7/18

Burnham L & D works with individuals and organisations to help them learn and work more effectively.  As part of this I help L&D professionals to be even more effective through updating their skills and know-how.  I have a particular interest in curation and the use of digital technologies in learning.  I frequently Sketchnote at events and offer workshops in Sketchnoting.