Who’s the Audience and Where are they?

~ joanvinallcox ~ 3 Comments

In response to Michele Martin’s post, Developing Work Literacies: Who’s the Target Audience?

I keep thinking about how information spreads. I’ve watched it spread online and know where to watch to keep up. I found the phrase that was going round the web a few months ago interesting: “News finds me!” and it’s true that web-savvy people set up networks that push the info they’re interested in at them. But what about offline? How does information spread there?

I thought about this yesterday as I picked up some cookies in an upscale market. There was a cooking show on the screen you could watch while waiting in the cashier lineup. Free ideas for meals! I thought about how people get inspired to learn while I was in an Apple Store attending a free workshop. The session had too much information to learn effectively but you could see the possibilities of Keynote, especially if you were familiar with PowerPoint (I am) and if you’d already played with Keynote (I have).

(An aside: if anyone knows how to change the font of a theme for the whole show rather than one slide at a time, I’d appreciate the information. Same thing with setting transitions for the whole show rather than one at a time. Other than those, I love Keynote.)

I thought about how people pick up ideas to try out while listening to friends and my husband discuss cooking shows. Then I thought about the strategy of a used car saleman (I think they know audience behavior;->) I used to teach with. When our office layout was changed, he always ended up next to the coffee. He said that it was the communication hub. They don’t have department coffee spots any more where I used to work; they have a Tim Hortons and a Second Cup. Maybe a Starbucks too by now; I haven’t been on that campus for a couple of years. The principle continues; people now meet in the coffee line-ups and chat. And there are notices, ads, and even screens with slideshows repeating themselves positioned around the lineups.

Word-of-mouth is powerful and can be stimulated by well-placed, well-designed media. If flyers and ads on the benefits of web and computer applications were as omnipresent as cooking shows and essay mills, if people were alerted in line-ups to one simple, short series of actions that could make their work easier or more interesting, wouldn’t that speed up the adoption of Work Litracy behaviors? If the posters or shows were rotated a couple of times a week, so there was both novelty and repetition, …

If there can be coffee franchises, why not Work Literacy franchises? Or have I gone too far into fantasy land again?

WebTools For Teachers 06/18/2008

~ joanvinallcox ~ Leave a comment

Email Survival and Work Literacy

~ joanvinallcox ~ 6 Comments

Does a Knowledge Work Skills Gap Exist?

Work Literacy asks the question; “Does a knowledge work skills gap exist?“ I answer: “You bet!”

Example Problem

For example, let’s talk about email. I find almost everybody knows about the existence of email, and most can use at least a simple version. However, for many people, anything beyond composing a simple message, opening a message, replying or forwarding, and possibly adding attachments, is an unmapped wilderness.

Many professionals feel swamped and victimized by their email load and haven’t developed effective strategies to deal with it. Many don’t know where to find out how to get more control over their inboxes, and where to get help. Their IT support, if it exists, doesn’t really know, or has a more technical approach than they can understand. And besides, everyone needs to find a strategy that works for them in their own particular situation.

http://www.43folders.com/2008/06/14/nyt-businesses-fight-email-monster-they-helped-created

NYT: Businesses Fight the Email Monster They Helped Create | 43 Folders via kwout

I haven’t seen much information about how to deal effectively with business email publicly available. (By “publicly” I mean something people who aren’t sophisticated in their online exploring can easily find.) The blogosphere has rumbled with information about GTD – Getting Things Done – and there’s even a way to add it to gmail, but it’s a system that’s really more aimed at geeks, according to the 43 folders blog

http://www.43folders.com/2004/09/08/getting-started-with-getting-things-done

Getting started with “Getting Things Done” | 43 Folders via kwout

And Getting Things Done may be good for many geeks, but I have developed my own approach.

Example Solution

The solution I’ve found to my email dilemma has been to forward all my email addresses to gmail, where I can add one or more labels, some nicely coloured, to the emails I want/need to keep and then archive them till needed, secure in the knowledge that –

  • I have lots and lots of storage space, and don’t need to worry about filling up my quota; and
  • When I have to switch computers, whether it’s short term (I’m at my friend’s and want to check my email) or long term (I just bought a lovely new machine!) I can still access all my email on my gmail account.

In my opinion, the easiest strategy to take control of email is to use gmail. However, I have to admit that it’s my geek tendencies that have allowed me to find help by using Google to search and find –

How many people who feel lost in the online world would think to search for a solution to their email problems there?

Using gmail is a possible solution but the real problem is, how to help knowledge workers find out what they could be doing to make their lives easier. Many say they just don’t have time to learn new stuff or even look for help.

Knowledge Skills Work Gap Problem

So we have circled back to the beginning. Strategies and solutions are available, but how do we get the information out to the people who don’t know what they don’t know?

WebTools for Learners, this blog, is my attempt to help share the knowledge, but sometimes I think I’m preaching to the choir. Those who already know, approve of what I say, but do any of the real learners actually find this blog and benefit from it? I keep trying and keep looking for ideas and suggestions about how to connect with those who need to know.

Any suggestions?

Autodidacts and Web 2.0: Are Universities Still Needed, Part 2

~ joanvinallcox ~ 3 Comments

As I thought again about being an autodidact and what universities could do for learners, I realized that universities have been part of my Personal Learning Environment. (If you are an autodidact, you have to have your own PLE. For years mine only included books and other people. Now it includes bloggers, social bookmarking, the way I’ve organized my computer, other people in person, and books, probably in something like that order;->)

That wasn’t true for my undergraduate degree, or only partially so. I took the courses I had to and the ones I believed I could pass. But while I can recall nothing from my Astronomy for Humanities Students except the professor’s disdain for Astrology, I did learn which is which. Of some importance I guess;->

What I learned in the courses I thought I could pass was that some courses (in my stronger areas} that I took because they gave me a nice schedule, could open up into new insights, understandings and interests. I came to appreciate that courses could have hidden treasures for me, that some academics had an approach and a breadth of knowledge that I could learn from, that they weren’t just showing off their knowledge so they could win some obscure “I know more than you – ha, ha” game. I learned that, sometimes, struggling through ideas and information allowed me to construct a complex web of understanding that was deeply meaningful to me in my life. It was a thrilling discovery. That and a mate who habitually reads, questions and wants to know more, have made me a learning addict (and an autodidact).

I have spent my life trying to figure things out. Both my graduate degrees unlocked new understandings for me, and both were part of my PLE. I signed up for each because I had a question that the books and the people around me couldn’t answer. Both times, some of my courses were blind alleys to endure, and many were quests that left me with new treasures. And both times, I chose what I wanted to learn about and continued my learning outside my studies as well as inside.

So my attitude towards universities and learning is that of a frustrated idealist. I know I learned deeply and richly because universities have been part of my life, but why are the pockets of innovative and exciting learning/teaching about communications so few and/or so hard to find in this era of explosive change in communication tools and concepts?

WebTools For Teachers 06/14/2008

~ joanvinallcox ~ Leave a comment

Autodidacts and Web 2.0 – Are Universities Still Needed?

~ joanvinallcox ~ Leave a comment

“Autodidact” was, at one point, a mocking term. Someone who had taught themselves was someone who didn’t really know because they hadn’t learned in the authority-approved, academy-approved, institutional manner. They were “undisciplined” because they were outside of the academic disciplines. Yet the connotations around this word are shifting. As the web, with the immediacy of its access to information, becomes more and more a part of our lives, more people are learning outside of the traditional institutions. Being an autodidact now has more caché, and more real value.

Most people who are web 2.0 savvy are autodidacts because they have taught, and are continuously teaching, themselves about what is available and what can be done with it. All kinds of people are learning outside our educational institutions. Some are now skillful learners despite having struggled to learn inside the institutions. And inside our educational institutions, the most exciting and dramatic changes in human communication EVER are often being ignored and avoided by many who should be leaders in learning. In my opinion, universities and colleges are just not keeping up.

Don’t get me wrong; there are amazing people out there doing amazing things in their classes. I loved Virginia Yonkers’ description of a course she developed; it blew me away. It’s a course that everyone should take, IMHO. We all need to know about “communication (mobile communication technologies such as cell phones, pda’s, video conferencing), information sharing (pod and vodcasting, visual information software, blogs, pageflakes), collaboration (wikis, groupware), and networking (facebook, LinkedIn, Ning)”. I admire the hands-on action research approach she uses with her students, but what I admire most deeply is the framework she has created so her students are learning the complexities of the impact of the new communication tools – (read her post!)

Yonkers demonstrates something very important with her design of this course, something that educational institutions should be paying close attention to because it is the value-added aspect of the expensive education they are meant to provide. It is easy, now, to find information on the web, and tutorials, both free and with a price. All kinds of people offer books and videos for sale on all kinds of topics on the web. But what Yonkers offers, and what universities should/ could be offering, is a rich learning context lead by a fellow learner who is skilled in shaping learning for herself and her students. Her students are learning applications, and the communications implications of these new tools, in a rich social learning environment. (A comment of hers on her post reveals that the technical environment wasn’t that rich.)

I have taught myself at least basic use of most of the applications she has her students use. I am an autodidact where web 2.0 is involved. I chose what blogs to follow, I harvest links from Twitter and my Bloglines account, and I use del.icio.us (and diigo) to be able to re-find links I value. But when I read this –

http://connecting2theworld.blogspot.com/2008/06/lessons-learned-from-new-communication.html

Connecting 2 the World: Lessons learned from New Communication Technologies in Organziational Life via kwout

I know that I need deeper, richer, more contextual learning than I can get from being alone f2f with my computer screen. I need a learning community to bounce ideas off and learn new possibilities from. I envy Yonkers and her students. I’ll leave you with Yonkers list of what current and future workers need to know, and a question: How widespread, do you think, is the teaching and learning of these work literacies?

http://connecting2theworld.blogspot.com/2008/06/lessons-learned-from-new-communication.html

Connecting 2 the World: Lessons learned from New Communication Technologies in Organziational Life via kwout