Informal Learning

How to build Informal Learning strategies and Web 2.0

resources in your company or organization?

Face to Face Workshop

Informal Learning

1st Practice: Introducing ourselves

• ¿Who are we?• Our experience in using Web 2.0• What do you think why is LLL important for you (or not)?

¿What is this workshop?

A workshop with the aim to understand how to convert the knowledge obtained from daily work practices, networking activity and spontaneous informal learning into corporate knowledge stored in a structured informal training system supported by Web 2.0 technologies, social and collaborative learning principles and techniques of shared knowledge management;

Workshop Introduction

Informal Learning and LLL strategies

Needs and reasons to use Informal Learning in the companies

“Executives don’t want learning; they want execution. They want the job done. They want performance. Informal learning is a profit strategy”.

Jay Cross

Informal Learning in Companies

Companies can use informal learning to:

Increase sales by making product knowledge instantly searchable

Improve knowledge worker productivity Transform an organization from near-

bankruptcy to record profits

Needs and reasons to use Informal Learning in the companies

Generate fresh ideas and increase innovationReduce stress, absenteeism, and health care costsInvest development resources where they will have the most impactIncrease professionalism and professional growthCut costs and improve responsiveness with self-service learning


B-Mercator, 2009

For many small companies it is difficult to build a detailed LLL strategy also due to lack of knowledge and resources. But the steps to do usually are the same:

1- Analysis of company situation and needs of qualification and knowledge

2- Conception of strategies

3- Planning defines LLL measures, time and resources.

4- Implementation

5- Evaluation and improvement

Building Life Long Learning Strategies


New Technologies

New Knowledges

New Work Organization

The new paradigm for Informal learning


Assessment of informal learning and the impact

“We should assess informal learning but I don't think I want to asses informal learning using the same set of parameters often used for formal learning. “



Some personal objectives could be to be asses :

Degree of achievement of learning objective – The informal learning should help the staff to solve the problem at hand and/or do their job better, and basically helped to meet own learning objective.

Degree of satisfaction – The degree of satisfaction depends on the quality of learning that happened or the quality of the solution by using an informal learning intervention.

Degree of impact on others – What was learned in an informal way should be utilized and applied to solve own problems and problems posed by others.



Some corporate objectives could be evaluated:

“Organizations can work towards creating environments that promote informal learn ing and remove organizational barriers and hierarchies by building informal network of employees across divisions and roles. Organizations can further analyze such net works and evaluate the type and frequency of usage. By enabling social collaboration and promoting the use of social media such as twitter and employee blogs, organi zations can increase the reach and impact of informal learning” (www.training-insights.com).


http://www.training-insights.com/

Measure impact (outcome) of informal learning

RARPA (Recognising and Recording Progress and Achievement) is a learner centered system for recognising and measuring the impact (outcomes) of informal learning.

The system has two elements:

•the ‘Staged Process’ for recognising and recording progress and achievement in non-accredited learning

•quality assurance processes for assessing the Staged Process and RARPA principles that are appropriate, fit for purpose and create no additional bureaucracy forming part of the normal self-assessment undertaken by providers


ICT for Knowledge Sharing and Social Informal learning

Information Technology for Shared Knowledge Management

“Investment in IT is unavoidable to enable scaling up of shared knowledge management projects but its limits must be recognised by an equal investment in organisational change towards shared knowledge values.”

ICT for Informal Learning and Knowledge Sharing

Supporting workgroups: Beyond databases and repositories.

Corporate memory: It is possible to build corporate memory in a totally unstructured way and dump it into a repository, the problem them becomes one of retrieval.

Information Filtering: Faced with ever increasing amounts of information, internal, external and from the www, knowledge workers need IT help to filter this to a useful digestible level.




The main issues are:

•Keeping up-to-speed, because employees do not work in cocoons.

•Facilitate faster access to information and answers.

•Create effective teamwork and collaborative workspaces.

•Improve on practice.


Building strategies to implement Web 2.0 for Informal Learning


“When we decide to incorporate Web 2.0 tools at corporate level in order to boost the informal learning, we have to take into account that these tools are instruments and not an end in themselves.”



The key issues are:

1. To identify the people or groups in the organisation who most frequently practice informal learning and to understand that they use it in a different way. Knowing how and what they use it for is one of the keys to boost and to manage it.

2. To identify the situations in which informal learning is produced with the most intensity.

According to experts:

3. Find out what informal learning is going on in your organisation



The key issues are:

4. To identify the experts who best know about an issue and to think.

5. To take into account that the formal and informal learning activities are not mutually exclusive. We can:

6. To take into account that the system of informal learning that we create won’t be for exclusive use of our employees.

7. To determine the corporate approach of the informal learning and what kind of learning collaborative strategy we will bring about.



To institutionalise the informal learning system 2.0 we have to proceed to:

•Define the commitment of the people expected to participate

•Guarantee the capacity of the system’s administratives

•Establish a monitoring method and carry out analysis and measuring

•Carry out test actions

•Guarantee the security of confidential information

•Obtain participation

• Involve experts

•Compensate for the participation

•Guarantee the quality and the interest of the contents



Main effects will be:

•The communication mechanisms in the organisation will be more efficient.

•You’ll have more capacity to create and to administer corporate initiatives with massive participation, not just with employees, but also with other people.

•The listening capacity of the participating groups in the learning corporate community will increase and so will the job satisfaction.

•The collaboration capacity between these groups will increase.

•The innovation capacity will speed up thanks to boost of the informal learning and the shared knowledge.



Main effects will be:

•The diffusion of the tacit knowledge will increase and thus of the informal learning, thanks to the exchange of information and ideas.

•The creation of explicit knowledge and the possibilities to use what, until then, has just been “hidden knowledge” will increase.

•It’s possible to notice an increase of productivity and in a short run.

•An opening and inclusion culture will start to spread out in the whole organisation.



Your mission:

Is not to choose and implement TICs, but just to help learners to be better informal learners.

Is to create better environment and resources for informal learning.

Is to help learners to work out to continue to build knowledge and skills informally in the workplace, just when someone is able to try the idea or new skill out for real.



Your mission:

Is to put the high quality knowledge resources where people easily find them.

Is to create areas where knowledge can be easily added by experts and everyday practitioners.

Is to help local (internal) ‘experts’ by providing easy to use resources and guidance on coaching skills to support the informal learners.



Communication is a fundamental element of cooperation.

Communication ensures the transfer of information.

Communication is a fundamental element of cooperation. Communication ensures the transfer of information.



You will need to know what are their main characteristics as well as the more suitable and right use.

The selection of the most appropriated tool according you needs is a key factor to ensure the success.




Successful mediabased communication in professional and private life is not a result of individual media competence alone but requires the development of an explicit communication and media utilisation culture in individual social groups, networks and organisations.




No doubt the best choice of media in a network is the one which does not create any communication barriers and which is actually used by the majority of actors.

But networks should encourage network actors to get acquainted with technologies which have the potential for the processes of cooperative netmeetings.

2nd exercise: team work

• Can you think of other traditional work activities or processes that have an equivalent web 2.0 tool (refer back to the Basic Course if it helps). If you already use web 2.0 tools in your work, which do you find most useful and why? If you have yet to adopt web 2.0 tools, which do you think will be most helpful in your job, which would be the easiest to adopt?

• Conclusions


Informal Learning through Sharing and Networking

Shared Knowledge Management


Why don’t people share?

3rd exercise: team work

• Spend a few minutes to think of recent examples from your own experience, at work or elsewhere, where sharing knowledge and collaboration have reduced or speeded your work. You can probably think of examples where the lack of sharing for whatever reason has had the opposite effect.

• Conclusions




Barrier 1: Knowledge is power

In today’s enterprises where much depends on teamwork and collective knowledge this old adage is no longer a reason for not sharing.



Barrier 2: Not invented here:

The problem here is not that sharing is not being offered but it’s not being accepted!

People have a pride in not needing to seek advice from others and in wanting to discover things for themselves.

There is also a reluctance to change the way things are done and adopt new ideas.



Barrier 3: Ignorance of usefulness:

Not realising how useful particular knowledge is to others.

You may not realise that at another time or place a similar situation may arise for others and your experience may be of use.



Barrier 4: Lack of trust:

If I share my knowledge you may use it out of context, mis-apply it (and blame me) or pass it off as your own without acknowledging me as the source.



Barrier 6: Lack of time:

I don’t have time to write it down or tell others about it.

This is probably the major reason why things don’t get shared in organisations.

It’s also true that the more knowledge an individual has the more they are to be in demand for the next task so they have less opportunity to share with colleagues or add to the company knowledge database.

How can we overcome the barriers?




Overcome barriers by Culture:

In this context let’s define culture as “The way we do things around here”.

Actions can change if you can influence the changing attitudes.

Intervention can be across the whole organisation, with small groups or even individual



Overcome barriers by Co-operation:

Cooperation with a challenge, we are socially cooperative beings but we all like to excel at something, to compete.

Encouraging Networking and a Shared Knowledge Culture


Action Chart Encouraging Shared Knowledge Culture

Factor Action

Technology & Tools 1. Select your tools based on your intended use

2. If you have an existing office environment use that but if not consider Web2.0 tools

3. If you have IT people let them handle the technology and maintain the tools




Factor Action

1. Support Natural Authors 1. Not everyone is going to be a good author, recognise peoples limits and encourage their best

2. Provide templates, check lists, examples

3. Long-term coaching to develop skills to extract important knowledge for trivia




Factor Action

Flexibility & Mobility 1. The environment must be flexible, mobile and immediate

2. Anytime, anywhere, on any device

3. Don’t try and schedule4. Make sure the technology is

able to do this




Factor Action

Purpose, Clear Goals 1. Make sure everyone knows what is to be accomplished

2. Focus networks or CoPs on compelling tasks, problems or business goals




Factor Action

Belonging 1. Create an environment where people want to participate

2. Give space and time to contribute

3. Avoid too much oversight or monitoring

4. Try and supress negative connotations




Factor Action

1. Facilitation 1. Draw on the existing skills of trainers to develop them as facilitators

2. Utilise and encourage existing mentors




Factor Action

Link to Formal Learning 1. Don’t set up in opposition to formal learning mechanisms, link to them

2. Use formal sessions to teach and explore informal techniques

3. Use informal mechanisms to link between formal ones




Factor Action

Motivation and Reward 1. Promote the “sharing is power” idea

2. Advertise the personal recognition and satisfaction aspects

3. Avoid offering monetary rewards they don’t work




Factor Action

Management Buy-in 1. Management buy-in is essential2. Encourage them to join in, use,

and be seen to use, the system themselves

4th exercise: team work

• Do you already have additional mechanisms that work for your organisation? What are they?

• Conclusions


Knowledge Sharing and Transfer through Diversity Coach and Mentoring

Mentoring and coaching are human resources development processes often used to induct, introduce and guide staff into places of employment.

Mentoring is considered as an old form of knowledge sharing and transfer



Usually mentoring, coaching and counselling are human resources development processes often used to induct and introduce staff into their new place of employment.




Mentoring Process



The efficient Mentoring Process



Role of the mentors •Building a positive outcome primed relationship between all involved•Setting objectives/action plans•Facilitating change•Recognizing success•Empowering/encouraging/motivating of groups of people who need support to fulfilling their tasks•Formulating expectations for all involved•Record keeping, monitoring the mentoring process



Advantages of the mentoring for the Company •quick introduction of the mentee into formal and informal company structures and demands•dissemination of technical or internal knowledge•training of social competences of the mentee and the mentor



Advantages of the mentoring for the mentees •to meet with a trusted person to enter into a work place quickly and to cope with initial problems.•to discuss and resolve emerging job problems of genuine nature and in relation to the individual needs.•to learn setting realistic goals and achieving them.•to enhance their skills and thus their future career opportunities and prospects in the future.

• to build relationships or interactions allowing them to secure, maintain and advance in the job choosing in a way that corresponds to the work routines and social actions of other employees.

• to receive (and contribute to) natural support that means to be linked to existing social supports in the work environment.

Thanks You!

Informal Learning

Documents

Transcript of Informal Learning