During the recent past I've been able to investigate and take advantage of a raft of new delivery methods: e-learning for self-service learners, interactive web training, webinars... and now social networking: quick informative tweets, LinkedIn knowledge sharing, Facebook, MSN, Skype... all have a part to play.
It used to be that you sat down with a learner and planned a set of classroom sessions backed up by a personal development plan which was then reviewed to drive the next stage. This was in part learner centred but very much driven by the content the trainer put together.
Nowadays the learner is firmly in control, asking questions and filling random knowledge gaps in 10 second bites.
How do you keep track of all of this? How do you know what people are learning when knowledge sources are so widely spread and, well, so uncontrolled?
The answer strictly speaking is that really you can't. If you tried you would burn out before even starting. This causes a lot of headaches and, quite frankly, a lot of fear on the part of the training professional - it's hard to give up control. A new attitude is required if you are to be of any use to learners at all. What is this new attitude?
- Read up on Zen. Go with the flow and keep calm.
- Dump the ego. The learner is in charge and you are there to satisfy their needs. If you are egocentric and arrogant about your 'superior' knowledge nobody will come to you.
- Market yourself through words and deeds as a dependable source of help and advice - learn to coach and guide on demand whether it's face-to-face, via electronic means or by example.
- Learn the new tools of the trade and use them yourself: go to every webinar you can, join the mail lists and get involved in the online community AS A LEARNER.
How does this pan out? More later.
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