You say agile and I say agility

Rachel Burnham writes: Last week I had the pleasure of participating in a CIPD Manchester session, in which Andy Lancaster, Head of L&D Content for CIPD spoke on the topic of ‘Delivering Agile Learning: 10 Quick Wins to Support Business Needs at Pace’. Andy spoke about the pace of change plus the range of changes impacting on our organisations, as a prelude to getting us to think about ‘How agile our L&D functions are?’  He then went onto to set out 10 points to enable L&D to be more agile.   I created a Sketchnote to capture the key points from this session and also recorded a short video, using Snapchat, on the event (see under #agileld on Twitter).

Whilst the event was still going on, over on the backchannel on Twitter under the #agileld, a debate was going on fired by the question posed by Paul Duxbury who asked

‘Is "agile learning" another buzzphrase set to confuse? Do we actually mean applying agile design principles? Genuine Q.’

This question was then picked up and discussed by a number of other Twitterers who explored whether what was being discussed was agile design or something broader, possibly agility within L&D, but also whether this was a muddling use of language.

I confess to having missed this debate during the session, as it would have been good to put this question to Andy.  Whilst I do multi-task – participating in the session, Sketchnoting and recording a Snapchat – are more than enough for me and so I didn’t get to read this debate on the backchannel until after the event.  But afterwards it got me thinking.

What had the session focused on?  And what is in a name – agile design or agility in L&D?   Does it really matter or are we splitting hairs?  It’s almost a cue for a song – a Gershwin song for Fred & Ginger rewritten for the modern era.

My understanding is that agile development  is an approach that was developed in the field of software development as a more effective alternative to a traditional planning heavy led approach, which is often referred to as the waterfall approach. Agile development is an approach that is particularly suitable to complex projects where it can be difficult to specify all the elements at the outset. This approach is now being adopted in other design fields, including in the design of L&D programmes.   Here are a couple of useful introductions to this approach:

'What an agile design process looks like' - article

'Agile in a Nutshell' - infographic

'Agile Project Management - An Introduction' - collection of short videos by Nick Ribeiro

So agile development and design, refer to some specific approaches to design, such as focusing on business needs, involving clients throughout the process, creating minimal viable products and multiple iterations.  Looking again at what Andy Lancaster presented in the session, he touches on this in points 1, 2 and 3 of his tips, but then goes broader to suggest a range of other steps.  I think a wider approach than agile design is being explored – it is more about the agility of the L&D team or even our overall responsiveness. 

Owen Ferguson argues in his piece '(Fr)agile' that we are misusing the term ‘agile’ by broadening it out in such away and by doing so run the risk of losing the more specific insights from the agile development field.  

Already I’m hearing L&Ders talking not just of agile L&D, which I understand is the need for the function to work with agility, but I also hear people referring to agile learning, agile learners and agile leaders.  This is definitely a broadening out and a unhelpful fuzzying of language.

There is a risk that in using ‘agile’ in this broad way, some people will misunderstand and over-simplify what is meant by agile and the genuine insights for the design of L&D from agile will be lost.

I think the 10 quick wins set out within the session by Andy Lancaster are all worthy steps for an L&D team to consider – for me it is about responsiveness and about a modern approach to learning that makes effective use of digital technology and the understanding of how people are tackling the everyday challenges they face in their work.  And agile design principles can play a part in helping L&D professionals to achieve this. But let’s keep them distinct and separate.

Rachel Burnham

14/3/17

Burnham L & D Consultancy helps L&D professionals update and refresh their skills.  I am particularly interested in blended learning, the use of digital skills for learning, evaluation and anything that improves the impact of learning on performance. 

Sketchnotes from Acas NW HR & Management Masterclass

Rachel Burnham writes: Today, 1^st March 2017, I participated in a day-long conference organised by Acas North-West at Manchester Museum of Science and Industry.  The event was packed out and involved a mix of keynotes and workshop based sessions with group participation.  A range of topics were covered including employment law and performance management. I participated in sessions on Productivity, Mental Health and Resilience.  Here are my Sketchnotes from all the sessions I attended.

Rachel Burnham

1/3/17

Burnham L & D Consultancy helps L&D professionals update and refresh their skills.  I do this through: writing & design commissions; facilitating learning to update knowhow, 1:1 and bespoke ‘train the trainer’ programmes; and the use of Sketchnoting to facilitate learning.

Sketchnotes from Learning Technologies 2017

Rachel Burnham writes: I had a great time at the Learning Technologies Conference & Exhibition earlier this week.  Amongst other things I drew a number of Sketchnotes from the sessions I participated in.  Here they are:

Rachel Burnham

3/2/17

Burnham L & D Consultancy helps L&D professionals update and refresh their skills.  I do this through: writing & design commissions; facilitating learning to update knowhow, 1:1 and bespoke ‘train the trainer’ sessions; and the use of Sketchnoting to facilitate learning.

5 Pointers for Getting Your Head Around the New E-Learning

Rachel Burnham writes: I have had an amazing time over the last year participating in the Curatr based MOOC ‘E-learning: Beyond the NextButton’.  This was a 12 month based free online course to explore new ideas and approaches to e-learning – each month new material was released and an international group of participants explored a whole range of e-learning related topics.  I have learnt so much.

I was already aware that e-learning is a much broader field, than the traditional e-learning course, which is often used to deliver compliance training and involves those endless ‘Next’ buttons to take you onto the next page (hence the title of the MOOC).   I have previously used the CIPD definition of e-learning

‘learning that is delivered, enabled or mediated using electronic technology for the explicit purpose of training, learning or development in organisations.’

(Egan, 2012)

And this recognises that e-learning can include: webinars/virtual classrooms/live online learning; podcasts; use of video; discussion forums; digital resources such as blogs/infographics/e-books; and the use of social media and enterprise social networks.

What this MOOC introduced me to was e-learning as also encompassing the use of AI (artificial intelligence), VR (virtual reality), AR (augumented reality), Wearables, Proximity Beacons and Bots, plus how these links to some of the research into effective learning, such as spaced learning.  So it has widened my understanding of how technology can be used to support and enable learning hugely.

This is a rapidly expanding and developing field.  It was great to hear about the possibilities of AI to enable much more personalised learning experiences and to experience the use of AI in language learning through programmes such as Duolingo. It is fascinating to hear how rapidly messaging is growing and along with this chat bots that are being used to answer customer queries. These can be used in learning both to provider learner support and also to aid with learning practice.

‘Wearables’ is another rapidly developing field – probably most of us have heard of tools such as Google Glass and fitness bracelets, which opens up the possibility of using wearables to host performance support tools. Proximity Beacons came as something entirely new to me, but are beginning to be used in museums and galleries to provide additional information directly to visitors’ phones where they have the relevant app installed and again I can see the huge potential in these for performance support, particularly in equipment rich environments.  

Augmented Reality or AR hit the public awareness over the last summer with the Pokemon Go craze, but as the technology develops there are lots of possibilities to use AR for performance support and as a new kind of resource for learning.   Virtual Reality or VR is already being explored by very many organisations to provide opportunity for people to have immersive experiences with lots of potential for impacting on behaviours and attitudes as well as to orientate people to new roles and locations.

With so many different kinds of e-learning and with the speed of developments in this field it is easy to feel overwhelmed by all of this.   In L&D we urgently need to steer a course between being an ostrich with our head in the sand and being a magpie picking up every new and shiny thing that comes along.

Instead, I have 5 pointers to help you get your head around these developments.

1)  I recommend deploying your Personal Learning Network (PLN) to help you keep up to date with developments in these fields.  By PLN I mean your network of colleagues, contacts and acquaintances that you interact with both in person and virtually.  Make sure that within your PLN you include people who are already working with these kinds of technologies  - follow them on social media, read their posts & blogs and engage with them.  They will act as translators & conductors for developments in these fields helping you to stay in touch.  Plus, this will give you some ‘go-to’ people as starting points if you want to find out more about any particular technology.

2)  Develop a broad awareness of each of these technologies in terms of their particular characteristics and how they can be best used to aid learning - what are their strengths and weaknesses.  This is just the same as understanding when and how best to use a game or video or other more traditional learning tool.  Not every tool is useful in every situation.

3)  Link this awareness to a deep understanding of what is needed in your own organisation to help people and teams perform to their very best ability.  Consider carefully which tools will help to make learning more effective. Some tools will have potential for use in your organisation and some won’t.  Avoid magpie tendencies to get excited about something that isn’t relevant to your own organisation.

4)  Don’t fall into the trap of just limiting these tools to creating more effective learning.  Keep focussed on performance.  Some of the tools may do away or reduce the need for learning at all, by substituting the need for learning with improved performance support.

5)  Experiment – once you have identified which tools have potential within your organisation, try them out.  Experiment with small trials and learn from this.

So these are my 5 pointers to help you navigate through this changing technology and steer a course clear of both ostriches and magpies!

Rachel Burnham

23/1/17

Burnham L & D Consultancy helps L&D professionals update and refresh their skills.  I am particularly interested in blended learning, the uses of social media for learning, evaluation and anything that improves the impact of learning on performance. 

10 Resources to Help You Modernise L&D

Rachel Burnham writes: I thought I would begin my blog for 2017 with a collection of resources to help L&D professionals review where your practice is. 

This is not in anyway a best of 2016 collection – if it was I would have missed out some wonderful pieces!  Nor does it focus on the new & shiny – some of these ideas in this collection have been around for quite awhile.  It is, if you like, a capsule collection of blog articles, sketchnotes, video clips and reports, which taken together can provide you with a concise introduction to what modern workplace learning is about. It also includes some great resources on ways to invest in your own learning and development and so be #always learning.

1.  ‘Learning: Experience plus Reflection’ by Tanmay Vora

A great place to start in any piece about L&D is what is learning and I have picked two pieces to explore this.  The first is a short blog and a wonderful Sketchnote by Tanmay Vora, who is one of my very favourite Sketchnoters.  He can be found on Twitter at @tnvora.  His drawing explores four ways we learn as set out by Charles Jennings – challenging experiences, opportunities to practice, challenging conversations and time for reflection.

2.  ‘Learning is Complicated’ by Sukh Pabial

The second piece on learning is a thought provoking blog article from Sukh Pabial, which explores some of the challenges we face when we are designing learning – it is good to produce short, focused resources to stimulate learning, but to really develop complex skills and mastery takes more than this, and also more than traditional content driven courses.   I think this is where Tanmay Vora’s picture of Charles Jennings’ four ways of learning is so helpful, in reminding us what is required for learning that has an impact.

3.  ‘The Performance Paradox’ by me

My third pick is a piece of my own, which argues that if we want learning to be effective in the workplace, we paradoxically need to focus a little less on the learning and a little more on the performance required.   This performance focus will subtly shift our emphasis on every aspect of the L&D role, whether it is identifying needs, design, delivery or evaluation.

4.  ‘L&D: From Delivery to Dialogue (and Business Results)' by David James

This blog by David James picks up on focusing on performance and explores how dialogue could help to identify real needs.  David suggests that creating and curating resources to address these needs will be more effective than traditional courses rolled out across an organisation. 

5.  ‘Experience Design: Dump the Content’ by Nick Shackleton-Jones

Nick Shackleton-Jones has written on many occasions on a similar theme to David James, about the need to develop resources rather than courses.  But in this particular post, he tackles the other side of the design challenge, which is to design experiences and so this piece connects back to the earlier points made by Sukh Pabial and covered in Tanmay Vora’s Sketchnote.   Nick Shackleton-Jones argues passionately against ‘content-dumping’ and sets out ideas about how to create experiences that really help people to learn.  I think a key point here is about designing with ‘what we want people to be able to do’ in mind, rather than what they need to remember – and this links again to focusing on performance.

6.  ‘Curation as a process for learning’ by Martin Couzins

In this video clip Martin Couzins is being interviewed for Learning Now TV about the process of curation by Nigel Paine.  Curation is the process of searching out, selecting and collecting together resources produced by others – and it is therefore an important part of the process of moving from courses to resources.  Martin is an expert on all things curation, so it is great to hear him discussing this.

7.  ‘Unlocking Potential’ the Towards Maturity 2016-17 Benchmarking Report

If you haven’t come across the organisation ‘Towards Maturity’ or their CEO Laura Overton before, then this latest report in their annual series is a good place to start.  Towards Maturity is a benchmarking organisation that enables organisations to compare their approach to tackling L&D to that of world class organisations and by doing this make improvements.  This report presents a picture of what these world class organisations are doing and how other organisations compare.  It is full of insights and action points for both organisations and also for the development of individual L&D professionals. 

The report identifies how L&D professionals are developing their skills and notes the part that networking and reflective practice play, alongside participating in courses.   So that provides a good lead into to my final group of pieces.  

8.  ‘Networking: How my perceptions and practices have changed’ by me

Back in October I wrote about how my own views about networking had changed from seeing networking as a rather unpleasant necessity for business development (I have my own business after all!) to seeing networking as a key tool for my own learning and personal development.   And I drew this Sketchnote to illustrate this change.   Is networking part of your development toolkit?

9.  ‘How I use social tools with my team’ by Michelle Ockers

In this short video, Michelle shares how she and her team make use of a range of social tools such as Sharepoint, One Note and Storify to communicate and learn together.  This video has a very practical focus and demonstrates how internal social networking can be enabled through the effective use of digital tools.  Michelle is a great exponent of Working Out Loud (WOL), which involves sharing what you are working on to enable learning from one another – the concept is discussed in my post on networking - but this video from Michelle demonstrates it in practice.

10.      ‘It Starts with You’ by Julie Drybrough

This blog is all about reflective practice, what it involves and how to approach it. I particularly found it helpful because it digs a bit deeper into how to approach personal reflective practice.

So, that is my 10 pieces.   My selection box, to help you to update your skills and stretch your L&D practice.  I hope you find it interesting, but more than that I hope you find it useful! 

I would be interested in your responses to this piece.

Rachel Burnham

10/1/17

Burnham L & D Consultancy helps L&D professionals update and refresh their skills.  I am particularly interested in blended learning, the uses of social media for learning, evaluation and anything that improves the impact of learning on performance. 

Apprenticeships and the Levy – Opportunity & Challenge

Rachel Burnham writes: As you are probably aware, from April 2017, the government will be introducing the apprenticeship levy on all employers with a pay bill of more than £3 million per year.  The levy, set at 0.5% of the pay bill, will be paid through PAYE.  Employers, including those too small to pay the levy, will then be able to access funding to pay for apprenticeships through the new digital apprenticeship service.

Back in June 2016, CIPD reported on employer views of the proposals for the apprenticeship levy – my take on the research is broadly that the more employers knew about the proposals for the levy, the less they liked them!   However, the government is pressing ahead, so employers need to work out how to get the most benefit out of this new system for their organisation and for apprentices.

It was in that spirit that CIPD Manchester’s Public Policy Panel last week hosted three employers all with existing apprenticeship schemes to come and share this experience, plus their thoughts on the levy, with other HR professionals.   Our speakers were from Eurocell, AO and the General Medical Council and included two schemes with 25-30 apprentices and one scheme with 5 apprentices from the private and charitable sectors.   The range of apprenticeships offered was very varied from including engineering, HR, IT and digital marketing.  Here is a link to the Storify from that evening.

Effective apprenticeship programmes

Our speakers identified a number of elements that contributed to an effective apprenticeship programme.  These included:

·       A genuine business need for apprentices

·       Senior management sponsorship of the programme and local line management sponsorship of individual apprentices.  Line managers will benefit from preparation, clarifying their expectations of the apprentice role and how they will need to work with them, plus acknowledgement that they will need to invest time in supporting the apprentice.

·       A responsibly agreed salary.  

·       Good quality, relevant training and long term development opportunities.   This training could be provided internally with suitable accreditation or delivered by an external provider depending upon what best meets the needs of the organisation and fits within the Apprenticeship Levy requirements. One of the speakers identified that they needed to constantly work with their external training providers to ensure that the training meets their needs. It is essential that the training provided meets both the needs of the organisation and also the individual’s needs – this can mean tailoring the length of a programme to ensure that the pace fits these needs.  One of the employers was exploring the possibility of introducing degree level apprenticeships to meet organisational requirements, but also to stretch and reward individuals appropriately.

·       We heard about a range of exciting component parts of the programmes such as: including achieving a Duke of Edinburgh award; opportunities for volunteering/charity work; parents evenings to share with parents what the programme involves and the benefits to participants; and  possibilities for international links where organisations have international operations eg with Germany.   All of which help to build the confidence of apprenticeships, provide opportunities for team working and increasing responsibility plus times to celebrate these gains.

Benefits from apprenticeships

All the employers described the growth in confidence and skills shown by the apprentices – one said you can see them striding out across the workplace ‘with a sense of purpose’. 

But they also identified the benefits to the organisation particularly in relation to providing access to high quality candidates for junior roles. For example, one of the organisations described how the apprentices, when applying for roles within the organisation on completion of their apprenticeship, scored much higher than candidates from other sources and described how they had moved into much higher level roles than expected.  Another of the employers identified one of the challenges as being to remember that they are apprentices because they start adding value so quickly within their teams and they need to have their time protected to enable them to have the time to complete all their studies as well as their work.

Thoughts on the Levy

From the discussions at the session there are many different ways that organisations are approaching the levy:

·       For some it is business as usual – the organisation has already decided to invest in apprenticeships and nothing will fundamentally change.

·       Some organisations have considered the levy, but have decided not to bother with it and just pay the levy, seeing it as another tax, even though as a large organisation this will leave them with a large bill.  In an example shared during the meeting, the levy had been studied, but the organisation decided that it was not worthwhile them putting things in place to enable them to make use of the funding from the Levy. Interestingly, prior to the meeting, I had assumed that this was more likely to be the approach of small organisations, but this seems to be the case also for some large organisations.

·       Some organisations fear that the apprenticeship levy will absorb all the resources for training and that therefore all funding for learning & development will need to come through programmes supported by the Levy.  This view wasn’t expressed in the meeting, but I have heard it elsewhere.

·       A number of organisations in the meeting were identifying that they will only be able to spend a proportion (eg two thirds) of the funding for apprentices that their organisation will be eligible for, because not all costs are recoverable such as apprentice salaries.

·       Some organisations were still working out how they will approach the Levy and how this will affect their work with apprentices.

·       One of the opportunities touched on is the potential for organisations to work together  to deliver apprenticeships eg organisations from a similar sector either in partnership or perhaps a larger organisation opening up their scheme in some way to smaller organisations in the same field or within their supply chain particularly where this is in a specialist field.

Challenges with the Levy

One of the key challenges with the Levy for organisations is that there is still a lot of uncertainty about how various elements will work in practice.  A particular aspect of this is whether the relevant qualification frameworks for your organisation will be available in time – a large number of new frameworks are being developed quite quickly and there are some questions about whether the process for developing these has been sufficiently robust to ensure that each framework meets the needs of a sector and not just an individual organisation.   One of the employers shared how the Level 4 qualification that some of their apprentices need to move on to during the year is unlikely to be ready in time and what the implications of this are for those individuals.

A different issue was the opportunity to have apprenticeships not just for young people, but also for people of all ages, including apprenticeships to support career changes later in life.  Two specific challenges were mentioned in this connection, paying the right level of salary for this to be feasible and the issue of English and Maths qualifications in the final assessment process - older apprentices qualifications may be regarded as earned too long ago to be counted, meaning they may need to requalify in order to complete the apprenticeship.  This will need to be handled sensitively in order for this not to become a barrier.


The overall public perception of apprenticeships was discussed and whether the branding of apprenticeships needs to be changed or just our perceptions – the parents evenings mentioned previously and similar events could play a part in this.   Interestingly one of the employers describes their apprenticeship work under the banner of ‘emerging talent’, whilst other people suggested a broader skills development or grassroots programme as better labels.

Finally, we touched on a specific challenge in the public sector following on from the requirement placed by the government to have 2.3% of staff as apprentices, year on year.  This may contradict the advice that apprenticeships are most effective when they meet a real need within the organisation. 

There are clearly a great many benefits to be gained from a positive engagement with apprenticeships both for organisations and for individual apprenticeships.  However, there are many challenges to making the Apprenticeship Levy work both for individual organisations and in terms of its overall impact on the UK workforce and economy.   We are only at the start of identifying the what these challenges are, never mind finding the answers.

What issues has your organisation identified with the Levy?  How prepared is your organisation for April 2017?  Why not share your thoughts on this topic?

Rachel Burnham

12/12/16

Rachel is CIPD Manchester’s Public Policy Adviser in a voluntary capacity and is the Director of Burnham L&D Consultancy.

Burnham L & D Consultancy helps L&D professionals update and refresh their skills.  I am particularly interested in blended learning, the uses of social media for learning, evaluation and anything that improves the impact of learning on performance. 

Five (ish) books about performance, learning and working out loud

Rachel Burnham writes: Here are some reviews of recent books I have been reading for work over the last few months – some of them I read because of particular projects I was working on and some because they might be of interest to the students I work with on the CIPD Foundation Certificate in L&D. 

‘Conversations at Work: Promoting a Culture of Conversation in the Changing Workplace’ Tim Baker & Aubrey Warren (2015) Palgrave Macmillan

‘5 Conversations: How to transform trust, engagement and performance at work’ Nick Cowley & Nigel Purse with Lynn Allison (2014) Panoma Press

Both of these books are written against the backdrop of an increasing dissatisfaction with the effectiveness of traditional approaches to performance management and in particular the annual performance review and at the same time an increasing interest in introducing a more informal, frequent and conversational approach to managing performance at work.  There is a lot of overlap between these two books – they are the reason for the 5ish element in the title of this blog. Both books argue for the centrality and value of conversations in the workplace and set out the benefits of this approach to individuals, managers and organisations.   Each book has much to offer in terms of frameworks for different kinds of conversations in the context of a managerial relationship and skills development.  

The Palgrave book has more on barriers to communication and more specific sections on different elements that make up the skills of conversation such as listening, perceptual positions and the art of inquiry.  The Panoma Press book links conversation more broadly into the development of engagement and trust in organisations and so goes beyond performance management and the line manager relationship.

I found myself both in agreement with the basic argument of these two books, but then rather dissatisfied by the way that each book set out a series of specific conversations each with a distinctive focus.  This seemed to over-complicate and introduce almost a ‘management by checklist approach’, rather detracting from their simple central point about the need for more effective conversations in the workplace. 

‘Neuroscience for Learning and Development: How to apply neuroscience & psychology for improved learning & training’ Stella Collins (2016) Kogan Page

Stella Collins very quickly explains that this book is not just looking at what we can learn from neuroscience to improve learning, but much more broadly at lessons from behavioural, cognitive & social psychology.  It is written specifically for an L&D audience and aims to both inform and also to suggest practical actions that can improve the way we design and deliver L&D programmes.

The book is broken down into accessible sections and makes good use of diagrams, mind maps and practical insights from practitioners.  It includes a helpful section to challenge our thinking on how we react when something is labelled neuroscience so that we are able to respond more critically. 

I think this is a very practical addition to the material available on neuroscience and psychology for L&D practitioners and would recommend it enthusiastically.

‘The Mentoring Manual: Your Step by Step Guide to Being a Better Mentor’ Julie Starr (2014) Pearson

I bought this as I had been mentoring a fellow L&D practitioner for a number of months and thought it would help me to reflect on how this mentoring was going and what I could do to be more effective.  And it did.

It is a detailed guide to the whole process of being a mentor or even to setting up and managing a mentoring programme. It is both accessible if you are brand new to mentoring, but also provides enough to get you thinking more deeply if you have already some understanding of mentoring. 

The book is well structured, so that you can either read cover to cover or dip into particular sections that meet a particular need.  There is a very practical section on the various stages of a mentoring relationship including very detailed material on how to structure initial meetings.  My favourite parts of the book though were the sections on principles and on what good mentors do well.

Though at times I felt slightly over ‘checklisted’, I found this a helpful book that got me to do some useful self-questionning.

‘More than Blended Learning: Designing World-Class Learning Interventions’ Clive Shepherd (2015) The More Than Blended Learning Company

This is essentially a guide to designing learning programmes effectively and these days this is always going to include some consideration of how the learning might be blended to be as effective as it possibly can be.  It is both an introduction to designing for those new to the whole process of putting together a programme from start to finish and also provides a challenge to think more broadly about what effective learning programmes involve for those already with some experience of designing.

It has some great case studies with practical examples of how organisations have put programmes together and also considers a broad range of design elements including both learning methods and choice of media.  I also liked the way it looks at the type of learning – skills, knowledge or what Shepherd refers to as ‘big ideas’ such as new approaches.

If you are relatively new to designing L&D programmes or want to design more effectively beyond workshops then this is a good place to start.

‘Working Out Loud – For a better career and life’ John Stepper 2015 Ikigai Press

This is an introduction to the idea and practice of ‘Working Out Loud’ (WOL) – it is almost a course in a book, with practical activities and ideas to get you started.

If you haven’t come across the ‘Working Out Loud’ approach before, it is the practice of sharing either with colleagues or more widely, what you are working on in a spirit of generosity.  This is often done whilst your work is still at the ‘half-baked’ stage, so that you can incorporate ideas and contributions from other people.  And it is also about you contributing to other people’s work.

John Stepper’s approach to Working Out Loud very much links this concept with building a network.  I was a little surprised by how much of the book was about the process of networking through Working Out Loud and the use of social media.  Initially this rather threw me – I hadn’t expected this emphasis on networking.  However, the approach has gradually grown on me and I can see its value.   It very much links to the idea of networking as a tool for learning and so has contributed to my understanding of Personal Learning Networks.   

Whilst some people may find the approach taken by the book to be too instructional, others may find it provides a helpful step by step approach.  If you are new to ‘Working Out Loud’ or want to develop your networking skills this may be just the book to guide you.

So, these are my views on these books – I would love to hear your views. Why not share these by adding a comment?

Rachel Burnham

6/12/16

Burnham L & D Consultancy helps L&D professionals update and refresh their skills.  I am particularly interested in blended learning, the uses of social media for learning, evaluation and anything that improves the impact of learning on performance.