From DSC:
For those of you who teach and/or give presentations, you might be interested in a new video that I put together regarding cognitive load. It addresses at least two main questions:

  1. What is cognitive load?
    and
  2. Why should I care about it?

 

What is cognitive load? And why should I care about it?

What is cognitive load? And why should I care about it?

Transcript here.

 

How do I put it into practice?

  • Simplify the explanations of what you’re presenting as much as possible and break down complex tasks into smaller parts
  • Don’t place a large amount of text on a slide and then talk about it at the same time — doing so requires much more processing than most people can deal with.
  • Consider creating two versions of your PowerPoint files:
    • A text-light version that can be used for presenting that content to students
    • A text-heavy version — which can be posted to your LMS for the learners to go through at their own pace — and without trying to process so much information (voice and text, for example) at one time.
  • Design-wise:
    • Don’t use decorative graphics — everything on a slide should be there for a reason
    • Don’t use too many fonts or colors — this can be distracting
    • Don’t use background music when you are trying to explain something
 

An analysis of the value of the ways of learning at work — from modernworkplacelearning.com by Jane Hart

An analysis of the value of the ways of learning at work

However, I think the most interesting profile of them all is for those who are in non-salaried/freelance positions in the workplace (8%). These people still highly value learning from the daily work, but for them learning from professional networking and access to external resources and blogs and feeds is much more important to them than through internal resources and courses. Interestingly, though conferences are valued less than the average profile – which is probably due to cost and the more significant fact that they can learn more efficiently in other ways.

I believe this is the profile that is going to become more and more relevant and important as the work environment changes, where there are no jobs for life and everyone needs to take responsibility for their own learning and development.

 

Strategy Matters | Elliott Masie on where we’re headed — from performancematters.podbean.com by Bob Mosher and Elliott Masie
Listen as Bob Mosher and Elliott Masie discuss how learning is changing and what suggestions Elliott gave to two different airlines.

#corporatelearning #training #L&D
#strategy #learning #everydaylearning

 

Notes from Stewart Hase’s keynote (Feb 2020) — with thanks to Dr. Lisa Marie Blaschke in Germany for her Tweet on this

  • The commodification of education – turns out sausages
    or
  • Are we creating more Greta Thunbergs?

Creating learning experiences where people are not sausages. Policymakers don’t get it. Practitioners do.

~11:00 mark –> Learner agency; have control over what they can learn about (inserted graphic from DSC below)

Heutagogy (self-determined learning)

  • …the learner is a partner (agent) in designing and realizing their own learning (Hase & Kenyon, 2000)

PAH continuum – Pedagogy –> Andragogy –>  Heutagogy

Hobby – learned to do it but didn’t go to school for it. How did you go about learning it?

  • Listened to radio, watched YouTube videos, watched other people, trial and error, repeated activity, conversations/reflections/group learning, read books, break things down into smaller parts, seek out a mentor, exploring, testing hypothesis, fail, get stuck and find a way through

Kids know how to do heutagogy – very natural; self-determined learning.

~21:45 To what extent do we incorporate heutagogy into our classrooms?

  • Context and experience – the neurons you bring to the learning table
  • Competence and capability
  • Negotiated learning; let the learner contextualize stuff for you
  • Experiential learning
  • Flexible assessment
  • Chunking the learning
  • Chunk the assessment
  • Flipped classroom
  • Project-based learning

The learning leader: New skills

  • Happy with ambiguity – have to give up control and power
  • Have to trust people
  • Relationship oriented
  • Process not content oriented
  • Coach and guide
  • Scientist
  • Facilitator
 

Four storytelling techniques to bring your data to life — from sloanreview.mit.edu by Nancy Duarte

Excerpt:

Even though most corporate roles now work with data, it’s shockingly easy to forget that people generate most of it. When a user clicks a link, gets blood taken at the lab, or sets up a smartwatch, that person generates data. As people move, buy, sell, use, work, and live, their actions nudge numbers up or down and drive organizational decisions, big and small.

If it’s your role to communicate data insights and persuade people to change their behavior, you’ll have more influence and promote better decision-making if you emphasize the people behind the numbers. In a story, we root for the hero as he or she maneuvers through roadblocks. To use data to steer your organization in the right direction, you need to tap into the human tale your data can tell.

 

 

From DSC:
The items below are meant for those involved with digital transformation, developing strategy, and keeping one’s organization thriving into the future.


Strategy in the Digital Revolution with Ryan McManus — from dukece.com; with thanks to Laura Goodrich for this resource out on Twitter

Description of webinar:
Today, every business is focused on digital transformation, yet most organizations are struggling to realize value from their efforts and investments. Less than 20% of business leaders believe their digital transformation efforts have been successful. With unprecedented access to data and technology, how is it that firms and their leaders are experiencing such disappointing results?

At the root of the problem is the disconnect between how leaders understand strategy and the new rules of the digital revolution. Most leaders haven’t been taught how to think about a world that is very different from the one which gave rise to popular strategic concepts, and as a result, they apply outdated strategy models and thinking to the new world, trying to squeeze the competitive realities of the digital revolution into linear, analog strategic planning concepts.

In this complimentary on-demand webinar, Ryan McManus, lecturer at Columbia University Business School and Duke Corporate Education, discusses the New Strategy Playbook, including:

  • The current state and evolution of the digital revolution, and what’s next
  • The four levels of digital strategy: how you can adapt your approach to win
  • Why traditional approaches to strategy have reached their limits
  • Implications for leadership development

Example slides:

Also see:

http://dialoguereview.com/how-to-think-strategically-in-2020/

 

IT career goals 2020: Most-wanted technology and core skills — from enterprisersproject.com by Carla Rudder |
What are the top technology and core skills IT professionals should explore now to advance their careers in the years ahead? Recruiters and tech execs speak

Excerpt:

If you are in IT, it’s wise to check in regularly on career progress – because staying still for too long could quickly lead to falling behind.

“You should be constantly evaluating whether you have the necessary skills to remain relevant and get ahead, and whether your career progression is aligning with your own goals and aspirations,” says Jim Johnson, senior vice president of Robert Half Technology.

If you are in IT, it’s wise to check in regularly on career progress – because staying still for too long could quickly lead to falling behind.

From DSC:
Especially for students/grads pursuing a tech-related career: Be sure you know what you’re getting into. Developing and enhancing your learning ecosystems are key things to do — throughout your career! #LifelongLearning.

 
 

Also see:

Live from Bett: What’s new in EDU–Free resources to boost engagement and collaboration — from the Microsoft Education Team on January 22, 2020

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

In addition, on the day of a presentation, educators and students now can help every person in the classroom or audience understand what they’re saying by clicking on “Present Live.” Live Presentations enables every audience member to view the presentation on their own device, such as a laptop, tablet or phone. Each audience member can turn on live captioning and choose subtitles from more than 60 languages. They can even navigate between slides, so they don’t miss a single, important detail. The audience is engaged throughout the presentation and sends reactions in real-time. After the presentation, the audience can provide feedback on the content and delivery of the presentation, which educators and students can use to improve skills over time.

Live Presentations will be coming soon to PowerPoint for the web as part of Office Education, which educators and students can access for free. If you haven’t already done so, get started with Office 365 Education now.

 

From DSC:
Might this type of functionality be a solid component of a global, next generation learning platform? Hmmmm…

 

Modular, stackable learning — What it means and why it will transform learning in the workplace — from linkedin.com by Anant Agarwal

Excerpt:

One example is by unbundling the traditional learning “packages” — Associate’s, Bachelor’s, and Master’s degrees — into more manageable learning chunks that are also tied to real career and life outcomes. This is what we call modular learning, and it’s the foundation of all the programs available on edX. Modular learning enables working professionals to learn new skills in shorter amounts of time, even while they work, and those seeking a degree are able to do so in a much more attainable way. They also earn credentials for the smaller modules of learning, thereby garnering value and positive feedback early in the process of advancing towards full degrees. This early positive feedback also increases motivation for learners to persist towards the full degree, if that is their goal.

 

20 digital transformation leaders to follow on Twitter in 2020 — from enterprisersproject.com by David. F. Carr
Committed to digital transformation this year? Follow these people for perspective and emerging lessons

Excerpt:

One of our New Year’s resolutions was to refresh and expand our Twitter feed for digital transformation leaders, reviewing them not just for the use of the right hashtags but for the content they share.

There are a few repeats from a similar list we shared last year, but for the most part, we tried to give you new Twitter handles to follow. This year’s list includes CIOs, authors, consultants, and cloud computing leaders. Some only post on technology topics, while others share thoughts on family, culture, politics, and favorite movies.

The common denominator we looked for was a thoughtfully curated feed that’s not entirely self-promotional but adds to the conversation we’re all having about how to understand the potential of digital transformation and put it to work for our organizations.


From DSC:

While these types of lists invariably leave off a ton of extremely talented individuals and organizations who are worth following as well, such lists are a good starting point for:

  • Someone to use to begin tapping into streams of content in a given area
  • Observing the topics, issues, ideas being discussed
  • Building one’s network
  • Seeing who these folks follow and who they respect
  • …and more.

Searching for the top __ people of Twitter in subject XYZ is a solid way to enhance our [lifelong] learning ecosystems.

 

From DSC:
If you are using a tool like Cisco Webex in your school, consider implementing the idea below.
I’d like to thank Mr. Steve Grant and Mr. Nelson Miller from the WMU-Cooley Law School for their work in implementing/recommending this approach.

If you are using a tool like Cisco Webex, you can use it to share content to displays, laptops, smartphones, and tablets. If the professor starts a Cisco Webex Meeting Center session using their own personal room, the students can then join that meeting via their devices. (To eliminate noise and confusion — as well as to reduce bandwidth — the students should mute their microphones and choose not to send the video from their webcams.)

If you were doing a think-pair-share, for example, and you really liked what a certain pair of students had going on, one of the students could share their work with the rest of the class. By doing so, whatever was going on on that student’s device could be displayed by any projectors in the room, as well as on any other devices that were connected to the Cisco Webex Meeting Room.

“So you could project any student’s work as students proceed with in-class exercises. Projecting student work adds another level of accountability, excitement, and concentration to in-class exercises.” 

*********

Also, using the Cisco Webex Meeting Center in your face-to-face classroom not only opens up that sort of collaboration channel, but, via the chat feature, it can also open up a running backchannel to draw out your more introverted students, or those students who have questions but don’t want to have the spotlight thrown on them. 

*********

 

Gen Zers and Millennials More Likely Than Older Generations to Embrace Continuous Learning; Also Feel More Stressed by Pressure to Learn New Skills — from prweb.com

Excerpt:

BOSTON (PRWEB) JANUARY 14, 2020
When it comes to updating professional skills, continuous learning is more important to Millennials and adult Gen Zers than to Gen Xers and Baby Boomers, according to a survey of 1,048 adults, conducted by getAbstract, a company that summarizes top business books, articles and videos.

More than half of Millennials (58 percent) and adult Gen Zers (52 percent) said success in their careers depends on updating their skills and knowledge frequently, compared with 35 percent of Gen Xers and 34 percent of Baby Boomers.

However, younger workers are also more likely to feel stressed about the need to continuously update their skills and knowledge. Almost one-third (31 percent) of Millennials and Gen Zers said engaging in continuous learning stressed them out, compared with 19 percent of Gen Xers and 15 percent of Baby Boomers.

 

Excerpts:

We see the AI space poised for an acceleration in adoption, driven by more sophisticated AI models being put in production, specialized hardware that increases AI’s capacity to provide quicker results based on larger datasets, simplified tools that democratize access to the entire AI stack, small tools that enables AI on nearly any device, and cloud access to AI tools that allow access to AI resources from anywhere.

To fully take advantage of AI technologies, you’ll need to retrain your entire organization.

 

DC: Precursor to a next gen learning platform…? Another piece is falling into place.

 
© 2025 | Daniel Christian