Mentoring vs. Training — Why Social Networking Isn’t Enough

Let’s say you’ve been spending the last few years on the other side of Mars and just tuned into the blogosphere to find out where online learning is today.

What would you discover?

With all the focus on social networking and social media (SN/SM) you might conclude that online learning — especially asynchronous elearning — had gone the way of the manual typewriter, 8-track tape, and those TV dials that used to change the channel and adjust the volume.

Advocates of SN/SM probably don’t see a problem with that (who wants to get up, walk over to the TV, and change the channel anyway?!?).

But here’s the thing:

Mentoring and training are not the same thing. They serve different purposes, take different amounts of time, and require different skill sets.

Here’s an example:

Let’s say your fundraising for program development in your association is conducted by volunteer members from a committee. The committee of five rotates 2 or 3 members off and on each year.

Which is the most effective way to prepare your volunteers for their responsibilities? (Select one answer.)

A. Call each individual and explain to them what’s expected.  This is individual mentoring.

B. Convene a general call with the full committee and explain everything. This is group mentoring.

C. Create a brief tutorial that covers all the essential information, and make sure all committee members complete the tutorial. This is training.

D. None of the above.

Best answer? D. Why?

A& B are more personal, but you risk leaving something out that could have significant legal or financial implications. A requires a lot of patience and time. B requires you to decide whether to have the entire committee on the call (with some attendees who have heard the information already) or just the newcomers (who won’t gain from the experience of those who served on the committee the previous year).

If planned carefully, a tutorial will ensure you have covered the essential tasks, requirements, legalese, etc. But even the best online training can’t anticipate every question that could come up.

So the best way to prepare this committee is to provide an asynchronous tutorial that gets everyone on the same page followed by individual and/or group mentoring to answer questions that the volunteers might still have.

If you expect your volunteers and members to learn everything from you (as a staffer) and each other via SN/SM, you’re guaranteed to discover gaps and misunderstandings.

There is no mistaking it: online social networking sites (whether they are interal or public) provide for excellent mentoring.

But mentoring is not the same as training, and shouldn’t be substituted for it.

Social networking/social media are not the same thing as training, and shouldn’t be substituted for it, either.

So let’s not let the big discussion (necessary though it is) to cloud over the continuing importance of online training.

eLearning is not the 8-track tape. It’s the electric guitar you could hear on the 8-track and the cassette, and now hear via CD and digitally in other ways. The guitar will likely change over time, and the delivery of how you access it will certainly change, but the instrument itself is here to stay.

SN/SM is the tape deck, the turntable: it’s the platform. It’s another way of delivering content.

Don’t mistake the CD player for the music you hear when you turn it on.

eLearning Learning Adopts aLearning!

With many thanks to Tony Karrer, the aLearning Blog is being added to the eLearning Learning community. Not familiar with it? Check it out with a simple click in the lower right badge!

Powered by Browse My Stuff, this is a very cool aggregate of all the latest elearning information in one spot. And it aggregates a LOT! Just a few days away and there are dozens of new posts from an array of sites. The set-up makes it easy to view through Google Reader so you can quickly scroll past the items that aren’t of interest or clear all if you’re really feeling behind.

It’s hard to stay up to date on the latest when you there’s so much to keep track of. If you’re like me, I was reading about the foodservice industry  (our association’s industry), membership, training and HR devlopments, elearning, meeting and events planning, management (budgeting and all that), communications and marketing… Anything that makes getting through the morass of information faster was a welcome thing.

eLearning Learning’s feed of information will do that for you!

Flip the Financial Model

Dan Pontefract, in his Trainingwreck blog, has a great idea related to his Learnerprise 2.0 model: “Rather than investing 2/3 or more of a corporate learning budget to formal ILT and eLearning, why not flip the model and invest 2/3 on informal and social learning components and initiatives.”

If you buy into these beliefs (and you should):

•  most learning is informal, rather than attained via ILT (instructor-led training) and formal e-learning courseware
• social media (SM) and social networking (SN) are tools that help open the pathways for efficient informal learning
• informal learning has been at the heart of most associations since the day they were founded — “networking” isn’t just about connecting members for business reasons, but what they learn from each other, consciously or not

THEN

You should look hard at your overall educational budget, making sure that you have more invested in informal learning opportunities than formal ones — perhaps at the 2/3 level Pontefract suggests.

Josh Bersin, discussing the results of the Bersin & Associates report, High-Impact Learning Practices: An Operating Guide for the Modern Corporate Learning Function, says, “The shift from traditional training to informal learning requires organizations to retool and develop new skills, add new technologies, and reorganize resources. Our research shows that learning organizations with expertise and skills in areas such as knowledge management, information architecture, community management, and performance consulting outperform those still focused on traditional training solutions.”

So here’s the good news: associations have traditionally been way ahead of corporations because networking, sharing of knowledge, and connecting have been so central to our missions.

Even so, it’s a good idea to ask:

• What role does informal learning play in your association’s education strategy? How are you handling informal learning at face-to-face events? Online offerings? Social media/networking?
• What should you be doing differently? What does this mean for the structure of your annual conference?
• How will doing things differently affect your budget? How your volunteers contribute? Your sponsorship opportunities?

Should you be flipping your budget to divert more funding to informal learning than traditional events?

Are you already doing that?

What do you think?

Education Is Not the Sum of Your Events

It’s really very simple, all of this stuff about social networking, social media, collaborative learning, Web 2.0, 3.0, etc. etc:

They are evidence that your members/learners need more than stand-alone events. Focusing solely on “programs” — the way we’ve traditionally provided education to our association members — is just not enough.

But don’t take it from me. Jay Cross, learning expert and author, writes: “The old focus on events such as workshops won’t cut it in the ever-changing swirl produced by networks.”

Jay was the first to address the need to focus on the power and importance of infomal learning — 80-90% of the way someone learns what they need to know professionally is learned informally.

“Learning is formal when someone other than the learner sets curriculum,” he writes. “Typically, it’s an event, on a schedule and completion is generally recognized with a symbol, such as a grade, gold star, certificate or check mark in a learning management system. Formal learning is pushed on learners.”

Sound familiar?

He goes on: “By contrast, informal learners usually set their own learning objectives. They learn when they feel a need to know. The proof of their learning is their ability to do something they could not do before. Informal learning often is a pastiche of small chunks of observing how others do things, asking questions, trial and error, sharing stories with others and casual conversation. Learners are pulled to informal learning.”

And of course, if we attract or pull our members into the learning environment we have created for them, then we have most of the battle won — our marketing is that much more effective, our registrations hit the required levels to meet our budgets, our members stay engaged and are that much more likely to renew….

It’s all good!

Programs have their place, but they are a means — not and end — to your curriculum.

Not familiar with Jay? Check out his Internet Time Blog for more on this topic of “learnscapes.”

 

The Hidden Danger of Collaborative Learning

It’s simple, really: what if the information you’re getting isn’t reliable?

Don’t we teach others this very thing about accessing information, gaining knowledge, from the Internet? That you have to be careful about the source, that you need to be able to evaluate the validity of what you’ve found out there in cyberspace?

What will we do to be sure our collaborative learning spaces aren’t populated by those who think they know more than they do?

I don’t know who Richard Whatley, is but he said it well: ”He who is not aware of his ignorance will only be misled by his knowledge. “

And herein we have an example of the very issue: if I don’t know who Richard Whatley is, should I risk sharing the quote? Am I — ignorantly — passing on something that’s of no value or maybe even harmful?

Isn’t this the danger of collaborative learning? That those who don’t know — who are in fact, in the space because they need to learn something — won’t recognize misinformation?

Haven’t we all seen it at some time or another on forums and in blogs: a great post with some good comments that add to the original thought, then someone’s additional comments that go way off somewhere, maybe including false or misleading information?

I do know who Hippocrates is, and he said: “There are in fact two things, science and opinion; the former begets knowledge, the latter ignorance. “

But don’t we also say that the best blogs are the “opinion blogs”? Are we advancing ignorance by sharing our opinions? Do we risk misleading people by sharing more opinions than science or fact?

How do you propose we manage the collaborative learning environment to provide a place for opinion-sharing? To temper the loud but uninformed voices that could mislead or misinform?

Haven’t you been in one of those team projects where the weakest member pulled everyone down, risking the project? Or how about back in school — those group projects with your schoolmates where you were all going to get the same grade? They either left most of the work to you, or maybe you took it on because you were afraid for your grade?

Why are we so sure that others won’t have similar collaborative learning experiences — some good, some not so good?

What are we doing to ensure our collaborative learning spaces will be good ones?