Xenophobia in South Africa

This landed in my Inbox today, shortly after I had responded to Rina's comment on yesterday's post. I can do no better than to add it verbatim here, and share how my heart aches. I'm a ridiculously optimistic person, but even I have entirely lost hope.

By R.W. JOHNSON
FROM WALL STREET JOURNAL EUROPE
May 27, 2008

CAPE TOWN, South Africa

South Africa is taking stock after two weeks of xenophobic riots. By the latest count, 50 people have been killed and thousands injured. Over 600 rioters have been arrested as the violence spread through all nine of the country's provinces. The images are shocking. Large, well-armed mobs of black people rampage through the townships, even the center of the commercial capital, Johannesburg . The necklace (burning tire) style of killing, so familiar from the civil strife that swept the country in the early 1990s, has made a horrific return. The plight of the foreign Africans has been desperate, with some 30,000 displaced and many of their shops and shacks ransacked or destroyed; unknown thousands have gone back home.

The damage to South Africa 's image both within Africa and beyond is very large. Perhaps worst of all, the riots have raised the question of whether the country really made a miraculously peaceful transition from apartheid to multiracial democracy, as so widely trumpeted, 14 years ago. In a ghostly reversal of history, mobs are once more in the streets, and as in apartheid days, the military has been called out to control them. The ruling African National Congress is used to thinking of large, politically mobilized township mobs as masses demanding democracy, and the soldiers out to bring them into submission the instrument of apartheid oppression. Now the roles are reversed, posing some disturbing thoughts about whether one has viewed the past correctly. Certainly the sight of workers attacking workers is a nightmare for the left. The greater fear is that this could all easily spill over into intra-South African tribal conflict.

Nobody knows how many illegal immigrants there are in South Africa . Most estimates suggest that up to four million Zimbabweans have fled here from Robert Mugabe's rule of brutality and enforced poverty. Mozambicans make up the second-largest group. But South Africa 's borders are porous and there are also large numbers of people from Malawi, Nigeria, the Democratic of Congo , Somalia and elsewhere in Africa. At a bare minimum there must be five million such illegals, though some think there are twice that number. Xenophobia is not new -- over 30 Somali shopkeepers were murdered in Cape Town in the last two years -- but the country has not witnessed civil strife on anything like this scale before.

The causes are obvious. A Markinor survey earlier this month found that only 42% of South Africans had jobs. Millions are housed in shacks lacking many basic amenities. It is now winter here and at night on the Gold Reef, on which Johannesburg was built, temperatures can fall below freezing, so the homeless can no longer live on the streets. In addition, soaring food prices and shortages of maize, the African staple, have left many hungry. Tempers have frayed and many point to foreigners as a major source of crime.

But the greatest complaint, inevitably, is that "They are taking our jobs." There is some truth to this: Employers generally find Zimbabweans and Malawians make desirable employees -- they are often better-educated, speak better English and work harder. In my little valley in Cape Town every single domestic servant or gardener is now from one of those two countries.
Some are political refugees from Mugabe's Zimbabwe but mainly they're economic migrants, drawn by South Africa's more developed economy. South Africa's per capita income is, for example, 36 times Mozambique 's.

Thabo Mbeki's government has floundered in response, clearly unaware that it has been sitting on a powder keg for some time -- despite warnings from African ambassadors here. Astonishingly, President Mbeki has failed to visit any of the trouble spots or even vary his program of frequent foreign visits. This has merely added to the general impression that the disaster is due to the government's having allowed everything to drift -- it simply couldn't be bothered to do its job. It failed to exercise immigration control; halved the number of riot police; abolished the rural commando system that used to patrol rural areas; propped up Robert Mugabe's regime in Zimbabwe, causing millions of Zimbabwean refugees to flee to South Africa; and did too little about jobs and housing for locals. Above all, in its pan-Africanist naïveté the Mbeki government assumed that all Africans are brothers. It failed to realize that to allow uncontrolled and massive immigration into a society already overflowing with unemployment is inevitably explosive.

The government has been frantically trying to suggest that right-wing whites or Chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi's Inkatha movement are behind the attacks. This is ludicrous. Chief Buthelezi has in fact distinguished himself in this crisis. He is the only major black leader to tour the trouble spots, to commiserate with the refugees and apologize to them, and to sternly threaten that any of his supporters who join the rioters will be expelled from Inkatha.

ANC leaders have preferred to give homilies, from a safe distance, about how when the ANC was in exile they received hospitality from many African countries and everyone must accordingly treat other Africans as brothers now. This fails to understand the difference between a country hosting a few thousand ANC exiles and the competitive impact in the labor, housing and other markets of millions of illegal immigrants.

The government has treated the problem as one of xenophobia only, as if it is all about people having the wrong ideas in their heads. The underlying causes have not been tackled and there is no sign that they will be. In its pan-Africanist enthusiasm the government has now signed a protocol allowing free movement of people within the 15-nation Southern African Development Community. When this comes into effect shortly, many million more Mozambicans and Congolese could well attempt to move to South Africa. Apostles of African unity like Mr. Mbeki cannot see why Africa should not follow the example of the European Union. In effect the street mobs are demanding the opposite. Further collisions can hardly be ruled out.

Mr. Johnson is southern Africa correspondent for the Sunday Times of London.

True greatness from Paderewski

A musician friend of mine in Cape Town sent me this story today:

Wishing to encourage her young son's progress on the piano, a mother took her boy to a Paderewski concert. After they were seated, the mother spotted an old friend in the audience and walked down the aisle to greet her.

Seizing the opportunity to explore the wonders of the concert hall, the little boy rose and eventually explored his way through a door marked "NO ADMITTANCE."

When the house lights dimmed and the concert was about to begin, the mother returned to her seat and discovered that the child was missing.

Suddenly, the curtains parted and spotlights focused on the impressive Steinway on stage. In horror, the mother saw her little boy sitting at the keyboard, innocently picking out "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star."

At that moment, the great piano master made his entrance, quickly moved to the piano, and whispered in the boy's ear, "Don't quit; keep playing." Then, leaning over, Paderewski reached down with his left hand and began filling in a bass part. Soon his right arm reached around to the other side of the child, and he added a running obbligato. Together, the old master and the young novice transformed what could have been a frightening situation into a wonderfully creative experience.

The audience was so mesmerized that they couldn't recall what else the great master played. Only the classic, " Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star."

When I think of how the great master might have reacted - what a hissy fit many great artists might have thrown - I am amazed. There's a lesson in there for all of us... and I won't patronise you by spelling it out!

On not being Gretzky

Today I went to watch my husband play ice hockey for the first time in a long time. The occasion was a now-traditional memorial fixture between his team and a favourite rival. A few years back, while returning from a game against my husband's team, a member of the opposition was killed in a car accident. Since then, every year, the two teams meet for this game over and above the usual fixtures which see them facing off against each other.

It needs to be mentioned that my husband plays for a recreational team of ... ahem... more mature players. The rules are adapted accordingly or they would spend a great deal more of their time recovering from injury - especially since they don't trouble themselves with such minor issues as "hockey season". They play all year through!

What I saw today was:

• some guys with the head knowledge of where they needed to be and what to do when they got there, but no longer possessing the speed to get there in time (my husband falls into this category)
• others who lack the instinct to transfer the drills they practise to the game - utterly devoid of a hockey brain, but out there trying their best
  
• some who had learnt to play the game too late in life ever to master the techniques needed to be able to play with any degree of aplomb

Wayne Gretzky famously said "I skate to where the puck is going, not to where it is/has been" (depending on which version of the quote you encounter). This presupposes that you have been playing the game long enough to have developed some skills, that you have the ability to predict with accuracy where the puck is going, and that you have the ability to do something meaningful with it when you get there.

With learning technology developing as fast as it is, and new apps appearing and disappearing at an alarming rate, I often feel that I am doing pretty much what my poor husband did this afternoon: that it is all I can do to chase the puck endlessly, knowing full well that by the time I reach the place it's currently headed, it will have gone somewhere else!

While I have been playing the learning game as a professional for a long time, now, I still lack the ability to state with confidence where the game is going (to the extent that I chicken out of the round of "annual predictions for the year ahead posts"). All I have to hope is that, when the puck and I find ourselves in the same space at the same time, whether by good luck or good management, I prove to have some skill with it!

One thing I do know. When I finally stagger off the ice and into retirement, I will be wrung out and panting, but exhilarated. I will know I gave it my best shot and that it was one hell of a game!

Twenty years, and still going strong

28 May 1988

Once I believed that when love came to me
It would come with rockets, bells and poetry
But with me and you, it just started quietly and grew
And believe it or not
Now there's something groovy and good
'bout whatever we've got
And it's getting better
Growing stronger
Warm and wilder
Getting better everyday

(Mama Cass: It's getting better)

Looks like we made it
Look how far we've come my baby
I'm glad we didn't listen
Look at what we would have been missing
They said, "I'll bet they never make it"
But just look at us holding on
Still together, still going strong
You're still the one...

(Shania Twain: Still the one)

Assessment must assess!

I am busy with a project at the moment, on which a bit of a sticking point has developed around the assessments. Some of the assessment questions being forward are, well, inappropriate.

One could argue (and I often do) that the most valid form of assessment is the performance management process. One's team leader and colleagues will be best positioned to assess whether your learning has resulted in any changed behaviours, increased skill, etc.

But there are times when compliance requirements must override such intangible evidence, and quantifiable evidence must be recorded. This generates the need for assessment.

Matters are not helped by the fact that the word that has passed into common parlance (thanks to the terminology used in the various applications) is "Quiz". It's hard to place much credence on an assessment that is termed a quiz, but it is what it is, so we'll move past that point.

The expectations of SMEs and sponsoring clients (and now I'm not just referring to my current project) seem often to be for multiple choice questions that are lifted straight from the text of the learning resource.

If it is possible for a person with no prior knowledge of a concept to take the assessment and pass, then I'd question the validity of the assessment. If the question is followed by a reference to page on which the answer may be found, even more so! At the very least, the questions must call for inference. Primary school children do comprehension tests on extracts from literature, where the answers may be found verbatim in the text. Once they get to secondary school, children are expected to be able to draw conclusions and to conjecture based on the given text. Why, when we're dealing with work-based adults, do we feel the need to revert to the verbatim approach?

We should be able to say with confidence that passing an assessment is indicative of something. Based on the fact that Joe Bloggs has passed this assessment, I should be able to assume that he has a good working knowledge of whatever-it-is. If this is not the case, then surely the assessment is a waste of time and resources.

When there is a compliance requirement for an assessment, this usually means that there is a regulatory body in the background. Let's imagine that a representative of this body is visiting our site. Proudly we tell him/her that 97% of our staff have passed the assessment on, say, first aid in the workplace. The rep asks to see the assessment.

Q1. Do you know where the first aid kit is kept?
(a) Yes
(b) No
(Correct answer: yes)

Q2. The position in which we place a person is known as:
(a) The pike position
(b) The first aid position
(c) The missionary position
(d) The recovery position
(Correct answer: d)

I can't imagine that this will fill the rep with any sense of confidence that, were he/she to take a tumble during that visit, any number of employees would be able to provide appropriate first aid. In fact, perhaps it is worth mentioning that I have a certificate that says I am a qualified first aider, yet I faint at the sight of blood - surely the assessment should have taken this small impediment into consideration?

I would also argue that a straightforward multiple choice assessment has limited validity. There are all manner of urban legends that tell of small children/monkeys/random generators that pass such assessments. All these aside, there are limits as to the challenge that such questions can present. Although it is worth bearing in mind that, with the technology at our disposal, there is much that we can do with multiple choice - instead of four text options from which to select, the user might be faced with images, video/audio clips or cartoon strips.

The trouble with assessment questions that go beyond "select the correct answer" is that they are likely to require some human intervention. Even if the answers are a couple of lines of text, someone will have to "mark" them, since the automated options are a bit thin and unreliable on this front. And this is where the rope hits the rudder. Quite often, elearning resources are requisitioned to obviate the need for human involvement in learning and development. I have lost count of the number of times I have suggested a project-based learning-cum-assessment to be submitted to the line manager within a specified timeframe, only to be assured that (a) the learners wouldn't do it and (b) the line managers would never agree to it.

Sigh.

Let's look at it this way:

• Do you really need a formal assessment? If not, skip it!
• Why? Your justification of your requirement will shape the assessment.
• How will it benefit the learner? And yes, this is the point... unless of course, this is purely a box ticking exercise.
• What do you want it to prove? What conclusions should I be able to draw from each person's results on the assessment?
  

Once you have drawn up your assessment, you need to ask yourself whether it serves these purposes. If not, I suggest you go back to the drawing board.

And above all, it must be possible to fail. If you have created an assessment that anybody can pass then what you have is not an assessment at all. It is an attendance register.

Who are "their own people" anyway?

You may be aware of the horrific things going on in South Africa at the moment.

For years, the South African unemployment rate has been sky high. Few of the local people believe the official figures and most believe the real figure to be at least 40%. For some time, Zimbabweans have been streaming in to South Africa, to the point that some sources say that there are more Zimbabweans outside Zimbabwe than inside (although the DFID gives a somewhat less extreme figure).

With violence, poverty and famine spreading across the rest of the continent, a growing tide of refugees is flooding in to South Africa from all over Africa, some from as far north as Somalia.

Forgetting that many of them are themselves the offspring of migrant workers from neighbouring countries, some South Africans have begun perpetrating the most astonishing crimes against immigrants. Some have taken to dragging refugees out into the streets and setting them alight.

As with many South Africans abroad, I increasingly find myself on the receiving end of a barrage of questions. As if I should have some insight into this sort of behaviour. I do not. But do people not realise the extent to which it betrays bigotry to ask (as far too many do), "How can they do this to their own people?"

In what way are these "their own people"? If there were to be an act of violence perpetrated by a gang of English thugs against a German family, or an American gang attacked a family of Canadians, would we ask how they can do this to "their own people"? I think not.

Simply because both perpetrator and victim happen to be black does not make them one another's "own people". In the western world, there seems to be this perception of Africa as a single nation. It is not. It is many nations, within which there are many, many tribes. These tribal bonds are often stronger than the national ones.

When discussing the British Empire's role in the slave trade, many people will mitigate the blame by pointing out that it started with Africans selling "their own people" into slavery. Once again, it was not "their own people" who were being traded, but the members of conquered tribes and nations.

I hate to sound as if I'm lecturing (perhaps I am), but the phrase "their own people" is not a million miles from "they all look alike to me".

I am not for a moment condoning or excusing this behaviour. Quite the reverse. But when deploring the violence, let's have an informed debate and not undermine our position by demonstrating bigoted ignorance.

I'll get off my soapbox now.

The down side of good manners

Rant warning - this post has little or nothing to do with learning, but is the outpouring of a heavy heart.

Featuring understandably big in the news in the UK at the moment is the story of a little girl who died of what appears to be starvation in Birmingham. Her 5 siblings were found to be emaciated and underfed. They were taken out of school, after their mother said they were being bullied.

There are few incidences of below-the-breadline poverty in the UK, so it seems unlikely that the parents could not afford to feed their children. Which would seem to indicate that it was their choice not to feed them. Perhaps their reasons will be made known during the course of the investigation.

Naturally, fingers are pointing at social services who allegedly only made one call to the house, finding no-one home, and did not return. The children's father, with whom they were no longer living, has called the situation a disgrace. I yelled at the telly, "Yeah, and where were you?" My husband reminded me that he may not have had access to his children (this is not an unknown situation - we have a very close friend who is still fighting to be allowed to see his twin daughters after their mother walked out him when they were just tots. They are now adults and one is married.)

And yes, if the story is what it appears to be at face value, these children have been failed by their parents and by social services.

But there have been accounts from the neighbours of how these children were so hungry they would take food left out for the birds. And yet these neighbours did not intervene. You see, that would have been rude. Interfering in one another's lives has become taboo in our western culture. "It's none of my business, you see." So we watch from a distance while children die of starvation, neglect and abuse. We tut to each other about the evidence we see of these situations, but we take no action.

I wonder. If my neighbours' stick thin children were "stealing" the food that I put out for the birds, would I not suddenly take it into my head that what the birds really needed to eat was peanutbutter sandwiches? And bananas? Would I not seek to befriend these children and invite them in for the occasional protein drink? Would I not notify the police? Would I not call social services repeatedly until they took action to shut me up? Would I not overcome my reluctance to interfere and try to speak to the parents?

Whatever became of the village it supposedly takes to raise a child?

We're so very quick to storm outside and tell the kids to pipe down when they play raucus games in the street. We aren't afraid to go and knock on the neighbours' door to tell them we're had about enough of their son's loud music. We have no qualms about asking them please not to drive over our lawn. Let them inconvenience us and we will take action.

And yet, under our very noses, in our nice, affluent, first world neighbourhoods, children are being beaten, starved and abused... and sometimes we know about it!

There's a girl in my neighbourhood. She looks to be about 12. She doesn't go to school. She appears to have no friends but her cat. I have never seen her with any parents. I have never seen her smile. She spends hours drifting aimlessly around the nighbourhood on her scooter or sitting on a low wall outside her house, stroking her cat.

I worry about her, and yet I have done nothing. I can't for the life of me think of a valid excuse to go and talk to her. I tell myself to go and talk to her. Then I tell myself it's none of my business and perhaps she's just being homeschooled.

I am so angry with those neighbours whose inaction contributed to Khyra's death. But I am no better.

Mea culpa.

Second Life et al

Right at the outset, let me say that I have yet to be in an environment with enough bandwidth to be able to make Second Life a viable option for me. I have also yet to meet a client with the appetite for a solution which might involve delivery via SL.

That doesn't change the fact that I am deeply curious as to where it might go. and what it might have to offer. These thoughts bubbled up again today after I read Mick's post.

As I said in my comment on his post, it is important to grasp that SL is not a “computer game”. It’s a platform. People who go there and expect exciting things to happen are missing the point. After all, you don’t go to town and then sit around there waiting for things to happen. Nor do you go and drift aimlessly wondering what the point is of being there. You go because you have some fixed objectives in mind.

When the same is true of SL, it makes more sense. If you’re attending a meeting, visting an art gallery, attending a seminar, etc. you have a goal and a purpose and SL becomes the platform by which you achieve it.

Having said that, I see no point in using this new wineskin for old wine. Why use SL to deliver a traditional classroom-based, teacher-led, chalk-and-talk session? Instead, you could have a dispersed team from around the world carrying out a project together and learning as they go. You could have simulated scenarios that can’t be recreated in the physical world for whatever reason, and use those for learning. I have been told that there is a teaching hospital in SL, where patients with predetermined conditions await treatment by student doctors and nurses. Obviously, in the physical world, there is the risk of patients dying or suing. This risk is mitigated in a virtual environment.

I suspect that what people tend to do is to say: "This is what we've always done, let's do it via Second Life, because that will be sexy." Instead, I suggest we should be saying "This is what we want to achieve, is there some functionality in Second Life that will help us get there?"

And, yes, Second Life has been around for a while, now, but it is still a fairly fledgling technology. There are teething problems. The direction these technologies develop in can be dictated by their users. If we start making demands of it, start pushing the envelope in this or that direction, it will have to evolve to keep up.

Think about it this way: we can have a say in what virtual worlds become by dint of the magic words "I want..." This is what I suspect is happening with the Wii.

My reputation precedes me!

Yesterday I attended a design meeting for a new project. It is in its early stages at this point. The client contacted me and asked if I would attend. Apparently the author/SME had asked for me. We had worked together on a previous project, and he felt that the working relationship had been positive. He couldn't remember my name though. Instead he referred to me as that "bossy woman from L&D".

So, if you hear anyone talking about needing someone bossy for an L&D project, it's probably me they're after.

Let them know where they can find me.

NOT teaching to the test

It's exam time here in the UK, and of course, a lot of airtime is being given to this or that expert and this or that kid with an exciting viewpoint to present. The latest two I heard today were (1) that an expert has pointed at the currect system of assessment cannot be truly even handed, since each marker will interpret an answer slightly differently, and that (and this is the kicker) this meant that the assessment system was not a completely reliable picture of a child's abilities in a subject (gee wow!) and (2) that a kid is complaining that their high school education is so focussed on the final assessment that they're not actually getting a worhtwhile education.

We have been thoroughly embroiled in exams with our elder son taking his GCSEs and our younger one doing his key stage 3 SATs.

Interestingly, I have discovered (just today) that my elder son's music teacher has not been one of those that the aforementioned kid was complaining about. The music class has spent the most wonderful year doing all sorts of practical things, and learning blow-all theory.

A couple of weeks ago, as is the wont of teachers at this stage of the final year, the teacher set the kids the task of completing a previous year's GCSE paper. My son apparently scored the highest mark in the class... a magnificent 45/120. Looking at the paper afterwards, the teacher's reaction was, "Hm. I haven't taught you any of this stuff."

So it seems he ignored the curriculum and did his own thing with the kids. Hence the enjoyment of the class. However, if any of the kids want to continue with music into the 6th form, they don't stand a chance of being accepted to do so, because they won't have achieved suitable results.

So where does this leave us?

You teach to the test and the kids learn little they can apply or you don't teach to the test and the kids don't get to carry the subject over to further education.

Surely there must be another way?

Sadly, I suspect it means completely overhauling the education system, not just tweaking the existing one. It means throwing away everything we think we know about assessment and starting again from scratch. Which means, as far as I'm concerned starting with the premise: what do we want to be able to say of a properly educated 18 year old, how do we get them there, and how do we tell when whether we've succeeded or not?

I'm not going to hold my breath!

As it happens, my son has no desire to take music for his A levels. He has chosen Physics, Chemistry, Biology and Maths (talk about putting all your eggs into one basket!). The tradition is to take 4 subjects for the first year (AS levels) and then drop one, so you finish with 3 A levels. He wants to keep all four going.

I hope he's going to get better support than the "teaching to the test" approach. Much as I deplore the system, I also hope he's going to receive teaching that will enable to him to face the exams feeling that he's on familiar ground. If he's to succeed in his goal of getting into Bristol University to study forensics, he's going to need to play the system.

Sigh.

So, how did you get started... and what difference has it made?

For my dissertation, I'm exploring the impact of the use of social media on the professional practice of learning professionals. To the consternation of my rathe rconservative university, I am submitting the dissertation in the form of a wiki (although - strictly speaking - is it really a wiki if I don't open it up to the community to co-author, which of course I can't do in this instance).

Be that as it may, I'd like to know your story.

• How did you get started with social media?
• What was your introduction, and how did the journey unfold?
• What difference has it made in your professional practice?

If you've already posted on this subject, please just point me at that post/those posts via a comment below. If not, I'd love to have your input. You can either create your own blogpost linking back to this one, or post your contribution as a comment on this post. Please include your proper name (pseudonyms do not make for good references in academic writing), place/sector of employ and job title/description.

Note: I will regard your submission as inclusive of assent for its use in its entirety, or in part in my dissertation. The url for this post, or for the post you create/indicate will serve as the reference.

I'd be especially appreciative if you'd point your readers in my direction, too, since I suspect I'm only reaching a small group here!

If I had a hammer...

Mark Berthelemy addresses one my key concerns about the proliferation of rapid elearning materials.

I have seen some pretty dire PowerPoint presentations posing as learning materials in my lifetime. The thought of these perpetrators authors - being able to sex these things up and get away with inflicting them on learners for even longer...

Silk purse, anyone?

You gotta have mojo

I've lost my mojo. Last seen hightailing it out of the door of my office towards the end of March this year. If anyone sees it, please return it to me c/o The Learning Doldrums.

Since I escaped the tyranny of the formal education system (with apologies to all you wonderfully dedicated, overworked, underpaid teachers), I have been the most driven, self-motivated, passionate learner I have ever encountered. I love knowing new things.

But a strange thing happened to me on the way to an MA award which served to remind me of the importance - nay criticality - of one characteristic of the successful learner: motivation.

Because I want to know stuff, I process it and assimilate it at an alarming rate. Because I want to remember people's names, I can match more names to faces than most people I know. Because I want to. Because I am motivated.

Usually.

Then, just before we left for our holiday in South Africa, I finally received the results of an independent studies paper I had submitted in January. The university commits to returning results within 4 weeks of submission. It had taken 8 weeks for these to come back, during the last four of which I had made a pest of myself with repeated emails and phone calls, requesting my feedback.

I had failed!

I had never failed an assessment in my life. I even passed my driving test on the first attempt. It's true to say that I scraped through history in high school by the skin of my teeth, but I did scrape through. This time I had failed. Failed, I say!

The feedback said that I had submitted what read like a lively presentation but did not qualify as a piece of academic writing. Also, I had not cited enough references.

I felt hollow. Deflated. And it was at that moment that my get-up-and-go got up and went.

You see, other than the independent studies module, all that remained was my dissertation. As I began writing the IS paper, it dawned on me that I was doing very well on my MA programme. I had passed all but one paper with merit or distinction. I realised that I stood a chance of coming out of this with a merit, maybe even a distinction overall! Wow! What a thought for a girl who had to wheedle her way onto the programme without a B degree. I decided I might as well give it a shot. So I figured it out. If I scored 82% for the IS paper, and got a distinction for my dissertation, that would give me an overall distinction.

I worked harder on that paper than all my others put together. I put in far more work than a 3,000 word essay warranted. I was pretty sure I'd get at least a merit, probably even a distinction, but would I hit that magic 82%?

Erm... no.

To make things worse, I had chosen to do a case study on a failed project (looking into whether it had failed because corporate trainers don't know enough about learning). Because it had failed, the staff had been re-deployed. Some had moved out of the business altogether. A rewrite was out of the question. Also, a rewrite would garner me a "pass" at best. No merits, no distinctions.

I was astonished at the extent of my demotivation. Not only did it impact the module I had failed, but it spread to the dissertation as well. It has been nearly two months, and I haven't touched it. Not a word.

I'm really struggling to pull myself together to care. In my head, I know I want to finish this. But my heart just isn't in it.

I know we tend to pooh-pooh old Bloom and his domains, but let me tell you that the affective domain has overridden the cognitive in this instance, even though the cognitive is trying to fight back.

Maybe you've got some learners who've lost their mojo, too. Maybe they need a little help getting it back. But don't give them mine! I need that back, please.

Need I say more?

Just recently, I had a conversation with a client. It went as follows:

Client: "Is it possible to make it so the user can't see the assessment until they've finished all the modules?"

Me: "Why would you want to do that?"

Client: "Well, because otherwise they might just do the test and pass, and then not do the modules."

Me: "Why is that a problem?"

I am adamant that, if a person already demonstrates competency in a particular area, in accordance with the criteria set by the regulatory body, there is no reason to waste their time (and consequently the organisation's money) by forcing them to plough through material that they already know.

Quite apart from which, consider the impact that this will have on the person's attitude towards learning resources in the future. As if we don't have enough of an attitudinal barrier to overcome as it is.

Please, please, please... let's remember that, in the field of corporate learning, we are dealing with grown-ups!

The lost generation... there is hope

This is both clever and heart-stirring. Thanks to Lynn Wernham for the link.

Are you famous?

When they left the Learning Technologies conference in January, Jay and Jane were struggling up the stairs at the station with a heavy bag. I was torn. Should I abandon my own bags on the platform and go and help them? Fortunately, I was beaten to the punch by a teenage boy who separated himself from his gaggle of friends and went to their aid. He returned to a chorus of gentle teasing from his friends and announced "He called me a gentleman and a scholar."

To save him from the teasing of his friends, I asked if he knew who Jay was. When I was met with blank looks, I gave them a potted history. "So is he famous?" one of them asked.

Good question. Is Jay Cross famous?

I have said before that I don't do star struck. I have met enough "stars" in my life to know that we all use loo paper for the same purpose and there are too many people who think that famous= superior, which it most decidedly does not. I once cause dismay and consternation by treating Lord Someone-or-other, former secretary of Northern Ireland, as an equal when he visited the college where I was teaching. He didn't seem to mind.

Many years ago, my niece once made a throwaway reference to her "famous aunt". That would be me. I asked her what on earth had given her the idea that I was famous, to which she replied, "Everyone knows who you are." She had lived all her short life in a small town where I had once been a prominent member of the amateur dramatic society. In my prime, I tended to play some pretty hefty parts, and sang at my fair share of weddings. Then I left and moved to Cape Town, shortly afterwards presenting a music programme on national television (I did a terrible job and my contract was not renewed). This meant that people regularly asked my sister about me (she looked enough like me to be instantly recognisable to anyone who knew me). My niece witnessed all of this, put it together in her young head and came out with famous. That's a bit 2 + 2 = Tuesday, but there you have it!

So I don't gush over movie stars and musos. And I have no appetite for people who are famous for being famous. During an infamous confrontation in Celebrity Big Brother (what a dreadful programme!) some time ago, the Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty - at the time a bigger star than than Hollywood's Cameron Diaz, according to some sources - was denigrated by one of the other contestants, Jade Goody, for having delusions of grandeur. Goody had come to prominence during an earlier non-celebrity version of the programme and was cut down to size by Shilpa's riposte that Big Brother was her only claim to fame. The incident brought worldwide coverage to the programme, all but destroyed Jade Goody's (ahem) career and made Shilpa Shetty (who went on to win the programme) a household name in the UK.

I tend to rave about people most folks have never heard of. "I got a shout out on Stephen Downes's blog!" I once announced delightedly in the office, to a round of "Who?" I got much the same response when I listed my dinner companions after Learning Technologies.

So is Stephen famous or isn't he?

Janet made a point today that resonated with me, as well. Sometimes the most unexpected people will make reference to something I have written on this blog. People who I would never have expected to count among my readers. So are we famous, too, Janet and I?

Of course, in the final analysis, it makes not the blindest bit of difference, but it's an interesting question. Maybe Andy Warhol was right. Perhaps everyone is now famous. Does someone call you in with a megaphone when your 15 minutes are up?

Whose call is it anyway?

I am looking for a dressing table. For the first time in the 20 years since we got married, we finally have enough space in our bedroom for me to have one... and I can't find anything that (a) I can afford and (b) is fit for purpose.

I have googled the matter till I'm blue in the face. I have seen more dressing tables than I could have imagined. I wouldn't have thought it possible to make them out of such a wide range of materials. Plastic, wood, metal, glass.

I have one question, though.

Why do the designers of dressing tables insist on incorporating tiny little drawers in their products? Up to 8 of the flipping things! What do they think I want to do at the dressing table? Collect stamps? Where's the cupboard bit with the standing space for my lotions and potions? I mean, wake up, dressing tables are primping stations. Don't they know this?

It got me to thinking about learning solutions. I wonder how often users grind their teeth in frustration and say to themselves "Why don't these designers get a clue?"

It's the end user who gets to decide how a thing should be and what constitutes good, bad and indifferent.

Over the weekend, our family was having a Led Zep fuelled debate in the car (I love that our sons enjoy much of the same music we do). Is their all time greatest song Stairway to Heaven or Whole Lotta Love? I was reading the sleeve notes of the Mothership album, and discovered that when when questioned about the former and its status as the definitive Led Zep number, Robert Plant (or was it Jimmy Page?) insisted that it wasn't. Kashmir was.

Now with all due respect, I don't think it's their call to make. Kashmir might have been the band's favourite. It might even have been the song that they felt defined them, but I reserve the right, as a listener (and therefore a consumer and customer) to say that they're wrong. For me, while Stairway is a unique, standalone song which will endure the test of time, the song that encapsulates Led Zeppelin is and always will be Whole Lotta Love.

Just as, when I buy a dressing table, I get to say what constitutes good design, and what it utterly useless.

Just as my users get to say when I have designed a resource that is the cat's whiskers and when I've designed a lemon.

Natives schmatives!

This month's big question from LCB centres on whether it is necessary to design differently for digital natives.

For me, the first hurdle is that I question the relevance of the whole native/immigrant thing. I find insupportable the notion that there is a point in history which serves as a watershed.

Yes, there are people who were born after digital technology became part of the scenery, and those who were born before, but so what? Technology has existed since man rubbed two sticks together to make fire (and threw sharpened sticks at animals so that they could cook them over that fire). So we are all native some form of technology. Technological advancements are now happening so fast that people born today are native to a technology that people born last week, last month, last year are not.

Also, a person born in one part of the (so-called flat) world has no access to the technology freely available elsewhere, so being born into the "digital era" doth not a native make.

Many are the people, born well before the hypothetical digital watershed, who have taken to the technology without a murmur, while others born long after haven't the foggiest. This matter has been addressed in inimitable style (which will be utterly lost on anyone who struggles with the concept of irony) over the past few of days by the irascible Grandad, one of my favourite bloggers (language warning). On the other hand, my nieces, born indisputably into the digital era, can't blog about their difficulties with the technology, because they wouldn't have a clue how!

Rather than trying to divide people into two camps, I would suggest that we approach each project without preconceived ideas:

• Who is my audience for this project?
• What do they need in relation to this initiative?
• What is the best way to meet their needs, taking into account all factors, constraints and available tools?

Then, when the next project comes along, throw away the information compiled for this project and start again with a blank slate.

One size does not fit all. One size doesn't even fit most. One size fits one size... and one shape.

Biblical precedents for modern L&D practice

At the Learning & Skills Group conference on Wednesday, I was struck more than once by the Biblical precedent for current wisdom in the field of L&D and knowledge management.

Wells and cisterns
The first instance came during a discussion with Clive Shepherd about the open-handed approach to knowledge: that conflict between the corporate tendency to play your cards close to your chest to keep your competitive edge, and the learning world tendency to share what we know and learn, so that the whole community can benefit.

It brought to mind the issue of cisterns and wells as addressed in the Bible. Cisterns were static stores into which one place water purely for one's own use, whereas wells were dynamic - fed by underground springs. Obviously, the water in the cistern could become stagnant, while the water in the well was always fresh and new.

I can't remember who it was who explained how generosity with knowledge makes good fiscal sense, but the notion sits well with me at a gut level.

Many years ago, I belonged to a network of female professionals in Cape Town. One month our speaker was the most highly qualified female banker in the country at the time, who also happened to be an ordained minister (one of the first women to achieve this, as well). She explained how the Biblical concept of personal tithing made macro-economic sense. It seems the principle holds true for more than just material wealth!

New wine/old winsekins
The next was when Donald Clark was pillorying the use of resources such as Second Life to run traditional classroom teaching events. Why are we forcing old models onto new technology? Why are we pouring new wine into old wineskins? The old wineskins aren't able to cope with it. We should look at the new technology and ask ourselves how we can use it to meet the needs that exist, rather than how we can use it to do what we have always done.

Of course, that portion of Scripture goes on to declare that "no one after drinking old wine wants the new, for he says, 'The old is better.'" Which is where the analogy breaks down for me in respect of L&D... although I know of some who would say that this principle applies to teaching and learning methodologies, too!

Ironically, Dave Snowden used the new wine/old wineskins analogy yesterday, too.

Here endeth the lesson ;0)

Getting beyond courses

Yesterday, I attended the Learning & Skills Group conference. This group was born out of the Learning Technologies conference earlier in the year, and served as a follow up during which the community got to discuss issues of interest to us, under the guidance of some leaders in the field.

I attended four sessions and found common threads across them all, which I will probably address over the next few days.

Isn't it frustrating when someone prominent stands up on the platform and says stuff that you've been saying for years? Only, no-one listens when you say it. But when this person gets up and says it, everyone nods sagely and declares it wise and original.

I don't flatter myself that I am an original thinker, but for at least two years, I have been pushing for a concept which has gained little traction, and that is this:

We need to stop thinking that work related needs=training=courses.

One of my colleagues shared how her team has a tendency to claim not to have received any training if they haven't attended any courses. And we're talking learning professionals here, who should know better.

Charles Jennings, in his presentation, spoke of Reuters' 70:20:10 rule (which is a variation on Jay Cross's 80:20 rule. The idea is that 70% of work-related learning takes place as "learning on the job", 20% is learning through coaching, feedback, networks, etc. and only 10% is the result of formal learning. But of course, it is into this 10% that the bulk of our training budgets are poured.

This implies that it is the learning, or worse: the training, that is the goal. But work-based learning is supposed to be a means to an end. It is supposed to enable people to do their jobs better and more confidently.

Two years ago, I presented a proposed solution design to a client. The client was introducing new business processes and new IT systems to support them. The solution I proposed consisted largely of an interactive map of the business processes, which the user could use to drill down into the various phases of the process and the various tasks involved in each phase. It also included:

• search facilities
• contact details for identified experts on each of the phases/tasks
• the option to drill down into a list of tasks associated with a certain job role
• user generated top tips, discussion forums, FAQs, etc.
  

When I presented this to the client, the client-side learning professionals looked at me and asked, "How is this learning?" They were adamant that this constituted information, not learning, and insisted on the inclusion of a by-task learning path through the material for each role, topped and tailed into... a course.

My approach had been to talk to the users and identify what would best suit their requirements. I pictured a person working their way through the still unfamiliar process and thinking, "What do I have to do at this point, again?" "How does that go, again?" What I designed was a solution that would give them access to this information as quickly as possible so that they could get on with their jobs.

As it turned out, the project bombed, so the matter became moot anyway, but can you tell thay it still galls me just a tad?

During his session yesterday on the "Curse of the Course" (in between giving teachers an unwarranted hard time) Donald Clark reminded us that much of what is labelled as blended learning is in fact blended teaching, with the focus on the material or the teacher/trainer.

We're supposed to be in the business of enablement. Of empowerment. This is why I drive people nuts by banging on about the learner's perspective. We need to look beyond the learning to the person who's going to be using it and ask ourselves whether it will do the job, deliver the goods.

In fact, Charles Jennings made a strong argument to stop talking about them as "learners" and instead to refer to them simply as "people". By referring to them as learners, we major on their usage of our learning solutions, putting the solutions at the centre of the equation. By referring to them as people, it puts them back in the centre and the solution in its proper role of support resource.

So perhaps it's just semantics, but a paradigm shift is certainly called for, and if semantics will help...

My favourite space!

Doug Belshaw has shared a composite picture of his attic-office - a space he is sorry to be losing as he and his family move house. He has challenged his readers to share photos of their favourite study spaces.

Of course, I'm going to break the rules.

We have recently moved into a new house. Much bigger than our previous house, with all sorts of extra spaces. While they don't qualify as study spaces, the fact that Doug's shoeless feet are clearly visible in his picture gave me to think that his study space is also a relax space. I thought I'd reciprocate with pictures of my favourite relax spaces in our new house.

First off, there's the conservatory. Large, airy, comfortable. We often retire to this area with coffee after a meal. It makes a great chill out zone. Because of the way it has been constructed, including the brick wall you can see on the left, the room is pretty warm. But it also has another potential use: there's a completely open walk-through from the dining-room, so we could add an extra table and have a sitdown meal for 20 people. I can't wait to have a go at that!

But our favourite space has got to be (like Doug's) the attic. We have decided to use it as a family room. The TV is up there, together with the DVD player (not the XBox - that's elsewhere in the house!). There is a bookshelf full of reference books for resolving family disputes, and checking up on "facts" spouted on the telly without having to power up a computer (although, this is a distinct option as well). The ironing board is also up there, because I can iron for hours on end, but only if there's something to watch on the telly.

Most people are horrified when I describe the colour scheme in the room. We LOVE it! It leaves the lounge free to entertain guests, while ensuring that the kids have somewhere to go when the adult conversation gets boring, and they don't have to compete for volume with the talk. This is our family bolt-hole, and we spend hours up there. What it needs is a few brightly coloured bean bags. I found some in South Africa, but transporting them over by plane would have been tricky. While beanbags are plentiful in the UK, they tend to be in browns and beiges which, while beautiful, are not what we're after!

So - sorry that it's not a study space, Doug, but they are both spaces I treasure beyond my study space. Anyone interested in seeing more pictures of our new house can find them in my Flickr account.

Why do I blog?

This is a topic I've visited to various degrees before, but a recent post from Tony Karrer got me thinking that it might be time to take another look at why I blog. As ever, it is in the comments on Tony's post that many gems lie - don't miss those... and I don't just say that because I am one of the commenters ;o)

This blog is not my attempt to win the wider world over to my own particular brand of (ahem) wisdom. It is instead the place where I hang my ideas, experiences and thoughts out in the wind and stand back from them to see whether they have value, whether they stand up to scrutiny. I like the fact that others stop by and share their views. I like the fact that I can do the same with their blogs. I treaure the relationships that have come out of my time as a blogger.

When I read some of my older posts, I find that I have moved on from those views and ideas - sometimes to such an extent that I cringe to read those words which are permanently linked to my name. And this has been largely due to encountering the thoughts and views of fellow bloggers who have been brave enough to send their fledgling ideas out into the world.

I know that there are those who consider blogging to be an egotistical pastime. Many of my colleagues feel this way. However, in an attempt to share how untrue this is, let me relate something totally left field:

My younger son is a wrestler. Sadly, not the noble art of Greco-Roman wrestling, but its showboating relative to be found in the world of WWE. He is still fairly new at it, and is scheduled for his first bout at the end of May. Excitedly, he told me that I would finally get the chance to see him compete.

It took every ounce of parenting skill I have (which is probably not a lot) to explain why I would not be there.

I have been in the crowd for every single thing my kids have done. Every stage performance, every chess tournament, every sporting endeavour. I have screamed myself hoarse. I have applauded until my hands stung. I have tried endlessly (and totally without success) to whistle through my teeth. I have "Woohoo-ed" more loudly than the rest of the crowd put together. I have mopped up the bitter tears of the loser and coached the art of winning with grace and losing with dignity. I have always made sure that my boys know that, win or lose, there is someone in that crowd who is rooting for them and doesn't care who knows it. I have no shame!

And yet, I am opting out on this occasion. How could I?

Let me explain that there is no way I could sit in the crowd and watch someone hit my son, especially since, as a "face", my son would be coming up against a "heel". I know it's all fake (although you didn't hear that from me!), but sometimes the wrestlers really get hurt. Also, part of the idea is to "sell" - to pretend to be in enormous pain. Would I be able to tell when he was selling and when he was genuinely in pain? I have worked hard on my son. He is the product of fourteen and a half years of a labour of love. He is "flesh of my flesh and bone of my bone". and I didn't do all that so that I could sit by and let some "baddie" to try to smack the living daylights out of him! Bear in mind that this is the son who has been the victim of much bullying in his life, which I have shared before on this blog.

Fortunately, he understood. His Dad and elder brother (hardier souls than I) have agreed to make a valiant effort to make as much noise as I would normally be expected to make (they are unlikely to succeed - there are only two of them, after all).

So, what is the point of that saccharine sweet revelation? Simply this. I am not detached from my thoughts and views. The line between what I think and what I feel is not very clearly drawn I am a naive soul and I invest myself in everything I say and do and think. There have been times when I have shared my theories in this blog or in comments on others' posts, only to see them mercilessly demolished by someone else. Sometimes, when the debate is purely academic or intellectual, that's no big deal, but there other times when I react in much the same vein (although to a lesser degree) as I would were I to see my son taking a beating in the ring.

Blogging can be a humbling experience. It can even be humiliating. But, if you make it your goal to learn as much as you can from the process rather than simply to bare your own soul, you will find that you learn more than you thought possible. Stretching and growth can also be uncomfortable, as you are forced to hold some of your less well formed notions up to the light and recognise that they are unfounded or inaccurate. But, at the end of the day, it must be a worthwhile experience... otherwise we wouldn't keep it up, would we?

No guarantees!

While I was on holiday in South Africa, I spent a week in East London, where I spent many years of my childhood. Many of my childhood friends are still there, most of whom I haven’t seen since my teens. On several occasions, I saw faces that I was sure I recognised, but I couldn’t be sure whether or not I really knew and if so, where from.

On one occasion, however, there was no doubt in my mind, and it caused me enormous grief.

My husband and I had taken our boys down to the glorious Nahoon Beach for a swim and, as we parked the car, I noticed a hobo rooting in the grass next to the parking lot. Even from the side, I knew who he was. There was no speculation this time. Not only did I know that I knew him. I knew how I knew him and what his name was. He was in my class in std 4 (grade 6) and his name was Luke Delport (not his real name). He was completely unaware of my presence as I stood staring at him. Totally engrossed in whatever it was he was trying to dig out of the soil, he was blissfully unaware of the quandary in which I found myself.

He was filthy and dressed very warmly for such a sunny day. His clothes were as filthy as he was and in poor repair.

Should I go up and say hello? Would I be able to speak without crying? Would he know who I was? Did he even have a clear idea of who he was?

Impatient to get to the beach, my family was urging me to get a move on. Torn between reluctance and relief, I dragged myself away, just as Luke began to mime playing basketball.

Like a dog with a bone, I worried at the matter all the time we were on the beach. What had become of the 11 year old boy I used to know? Scenting the potential for a story full of pathos, my boys asked me questions about him, hoping to hear about a brilliant scholar, outstanding sportsman, popular child. Luke was none of these things. He was a poor performer academically, a fair tennis player, often in trouble with the teachers, not particularly well-liked by other kids and with nothing to make for a suitably tragic hero.

Nevertheless, he had been a little boy, like any other. With his whole life ahead of him. And here he was, ruined and broken and digging in the grass for some imaginary treasure.

I looked at my boys, at the other children on the beach and realised that none of them come with a guarantee. There is no assurance of a bright future. No guarantee that they will remain sound of body and mind. We just have to do the best we can. Parents, teachers, community members.

When we left the beach, Luke was not there. I went home and tearfully told the story to my sister who assured me that, whoever I had seen, it was not Luke. Luke was a successful businessman, married to a trophy wife after the failure of his first marriage. He had a brace of ill-behaved children who were poor performers academically, fair tennis players, often in trouble with teachers, not particularly well-liked by other kids…

Loading sheds, shedding loads

Apologies for the long silence. I have been on holiday in South Africa for a little over 3 weeks and decided to take the unplugged approach (for the most part). Apart from anything else, the connection speeds available to me were laughable.

I thought I'd share some of my observations about the changes in South Africa for my first post back in the saddle. Before I do, however, let me say categorically that I had the most wonderful time. That, in spite of the fact that we have no plans to return, I felt that my pulse beat in time to the rhythm of the people and the place in a way it spectacularly fails to do in the UK. I hooked up with family and friends and it was as if we had never been apart. The sun shone, the sky was blue and I felt truly alive.

That said: life is harder than it was when we left 9 years ago and when we last visited five and a half years ago. Things are wa-ay more expensive. Crime is up. Unemployment is up. Security measures on houses are even more extreme.

Much of this was largely to be expected, based on what we had learned from the news. However, there were a few surprises.

Loadshedding
Several years ago, the national electricity supplier, Eskom, was set to be privatised. It was known at the time that the infrastructure would soon become inadequate, but the matter was not addressed, because the expectation was that this would be dealt with by the incoming powers that be. This privatisation never happened. Moreover, many of those who knew what needed to be done joined the braindrain and are now probably in the UK, Canada, Australia or New Zealand.

What did happen was that power was laid on for far flung rural areas - something which had been promised for many a year, but for which the existing infrastructure was inadequate. What also happened was that the informal settlements (locally known as squatter camps) figured out how to obtain... ahem... "informal electricity" by running wires directly from the overhead mains cables (and people developed ingenious ways of stealing underground cables to melt down and sell the copper).

As a consequence, Eskom can no longer supply the country with uninterrupted power. A system of loadshedding has been introduced. In East London, where my family lives, the power is shut off every second day for two hours. In Cape Town it is one 3-hour period during the week. Some of the larger stores and/or shopping centres have generators, but many do not, so many cannot operate effectively during these periods. Loadshedding is conducted on a rolling basis across an area, so you might madly set about making up for lost time as soon as your power comes back up, only to discover that your client/supplier is now experiencing their scheduled power outage.

How this country is going to host the 2010 soccer world cup, I have no idea!

Of course, since the loadshedding is a scheduled business, any criminal with half a brain has figured out that all the sophisticated security equipment is disabled during loadshedding. This allows them a neat and predictable 2 hour window to focus their attention on houses where the electrified fences are now not electrified, the burglar alarm is disabled and the armed response units are not going to get to know about the robbery until the burglars are long gone.

Recycling and the environment
When we moved to the UK 9 years ago, we were appalled at how little recycling took place here, compared to the provision in South Africa. Nine years later, the UK has stepped up its provision immeasurably, while South Africa has withdrawn much of theirs. It broke my heart to have to throw aluminium cans and PET bottles into the rubbish bin while we were there.

Mind you, there are other ways of recycling!

Poverty being what it is, there are large numbers of what my mother calls "bin diggers" who go through the garbage bags waiting for collection, looking for items that can be recycled. Aluminium cans are transformed into ornaments, toys and fashion accessories. PET bottles are used as gardening implements. Plastic shopping bags are torn into strips and woven or crocheted into rugs and hats. My parents keep their vegetable waste for the compost heap, but potato peels apparently attract spider mites, so these go into the trash. I was roundly chastised, however, for scraping them straight off the board into the bin. They have to be put into a plastic shopping bag which is tied at the top, so that the bin diggers don't get their hands all mucky.

On garbage collection day, you can spot vast armies of women sitting under trees surrounded by bags filled with the spoils of the day's foraging. In due course, they will be collected, but they're not letting those bags out of their sight until then! Driving along the roads, you would expect to see the impact of their foraging, in the form of some sort of mess or litter. You would be wrong. These women are very careful to replace everything they don't want in the black garbage bags and then tie them closed, leaving them neatly at the end of each driveway as the refuse collectors would expect.

Sadly, this resourcefulness can do nothing to rescue the wetlands that are being drained to build developments which the infrastructure cannot possibly support. Nor can it prevent the wholesale flattening of trees for the same purpose. The environmental organisations are powerless in the face of the bribery of officials to approve this, that and the other new development and corruption of this nature looks set to rob the country of the natural beauty that brings in the vital tourist dollars, pounds and euros (related side issue: my sister-in-law has been sponsoring a group of homeless, bushdwelling children for several years. She has made several attempts to get them identity documents so that they can apply for legitimate work, but the officials have made it abundantly clear that they will only consider the applications in exchange for a hefty bribe which she is neither able to afford or countenance).

Making a difference
Need in South Africa means something very different from need in the UK. Needy children there are likely to live in a home with no indoor plumbing or electricity. They may share a single-roomed dwelling with 6 or 7 others. They may well be physically and sexually abused. They are likely to have TB and/or be HIV positive. The food they receive at school is all the food they get. Small actions can make a fundamental difference. Which is why I am so proud of my many friends who are involved up to their eyeballs in this project (the woman in the blue top in the photo to the right of the logo on the home page is my best friend, Lynda from whom I parted with bitter tears on Monday).

The life I touch for good or ill will touch another life, and that in turn another, until who knows where the trembling will stop or in what place my touch will be felt.

Karin Colson

This has been a long post. If you've made it this far, thanks for sticking with me!

LCB's big question for April

This month's big question is:

What would you like to do better as a Learning Professional?

The answer is simple: I would like to have better technical nous.

My html is (to use a very English term) pants! I am useless with architecture. I can barely sort out my blog template using the standard ones on offer, let alone create my own customised version. I am clueless about widgets. I know precious little about SCORM, LMSs CMSs.

I come up with all these grandiose ideas of what I want to do when it comes to designing a learning resource, and then someone asks me the dreaded question: "How do you plan to achieve that?" Oh crud, I don't know - I'm just going to wave my arms and talk loudly and the production pixies will weave their magic.

I hate being ignorant. I hate the limitations it places on me. I hate the fact that I run the risk of making promises I can't deliver on because I've overlooked some fundamental factor or other.

Aaarggghh!

Don't write anyone off!

Last night I saw a video clip of a father and son duo called Dick and Rick Hoyt. I was in a public place, so my loud, wracking sobs were something of an embarassment!

Tell me this father's dedication doesn't touch you!

Rick and I were born in the same year, so I am very aware of the fact that Dick must be around 70 years old. Watching this man bodily lift his son out of the water so that he can "experience the thrill of the race" was a very humbling experience for me. It caused me to revise my ideas of how I behave towards my own children. And towards the people whose learning journey I stand to influence from time to time.

Please take a moment (okay - 10 minutes) out of your busy day to watch it.

Note: If you're the sort of person who is offended by worship music, the audio of last half of the video might not sit comfortably with you.

Oh, and you might be interested to learn that Team Hoyt was refused entry in the London Marathon for health and safety reasons!

Just for a laugh... it's Friday after all!

Because of a miscalculation, I've had 200% utilisation for the past week and a half. As a consequence, I've had a week of 11 hour days. I am totally exhausted and given to totally illogical fits of the giggles.

This YouTube video set off another one. Love the music, too. Was that Nickelback I heard right at the beginning?

On being a little fish

For the past couple of weeks or so, I have been seconded to a bid team on behalf of our group.

Normally, I work as a learning consultant/designer within the L&D team. Everything that crosses my desk is L&D related, and it is my job to identify the best way of handling it and to design the learning solution. In my world, the learner/user of my resource/solution is the end user.

So this past couple of weeks has been a real eye opener. Our organisation majors in business process outsourcing, and, without revealing too many details, I was working on one of the many bids being prepared in this regard. Of course, L&D forms part of the equation, but a very small part. Before we can even talk about L&D, decisions have to made about how to conduct the outsourced service in the first place. There are logisitical issues, business processes, IT requirements, HR issues, software applications, partnerships to be formed, suppliers to be identified. It's all very complicated and results in massive documents which I'm glad it isn't my task to read.

My role is a very small part of the whole - I need to put together a proposal on how the L&D side of things will be handled for the staff who will be involved in the implementation of the BPO model. The end users of the outsourced solution are not the end users of the L&D solution, which was a weird place for me to be. Also, whatever L&D solution I put together will be moot if the client decides they don't like the model for the solution. Normally, when I design a learning solution, all the decisions about processes and business models, etc. have already been taken, so I'm walking on relatively firm ground. Here I was, designing a hypothetical learning solution for a hypothetical implementation.

The conversations around the table at team update meetings seldom touched on anything that had direct bearing on me and even less often required my input. Everyone seemed to know what they were doing and where they were going. It took me a while to realise that they were no more certain of anything than I was at that stage, but (having more experience of big bids than I) they were not rattled by that sense of sculpting with mist.

I mentioned to the bid director last night that this had all served to remind me how much I loved L&D. "No matter how brilliant your implementation, if the L&D isn't effective, the whole thing will flop," quoth I smugly. He pointed out that the leader of each stream claimed the same thing about their field: no implementation could succeed without the hardware, the software, the network, the people, the facilities. The success of the implementation depends on achieving joined up working between all the aspects. I had to concede that he had a point! I was a drop in the bucket - no more significant than all the other drops.

For various reasons, I am handing the project over to a colleague today and I am surprised to confess that I have mixed feelings about it. I like being able to focus on L&D things. I like being immersed in L&D. But the sense of cameraderie on the bid team was greater than I have experienced anywhere else, and people seemed to be having so much more fun (there was certainly a lot more noise) than is the case in my quiet office where people seldom speak to one another.

One way and another, it has certainly been helpful to see L&D in context from the very early stages of a proposed implementation!

Karyn unplugged

Nineteen days after moving into our new house, we are still without connection to the Internet. Put like that, it doesn't sound like much of an issue, but let's just break it down, for a moment.

Bearing in mind that there are four people in our house, two adults (one of each gender) and two schoolgoing teenagers, this means (in no particular order) nineteen days without :

• private email accounts
• Facebook, MySpace and all that that implies (no Scrabulous... gasp!)
  
• ball by ball reports on the cricket going on down in New Zealand... or any other sport, for that matter
  
• working from home and, with a 21 mile drive each way and diesel at £1.13/litre (that's £4.97 or $9.95 per gallon, folks), believe me when I say I'd like to be able to do that at least twice a week!
• the freedom to check what the £:$ conversion rate is at the drop of a hat
• access to resources for homework
• instant messaging
• free international calls via Skype
• any progress on my dissertation (which is being delivered online)
• being able to search for a good recipe for bobotie for my dinner guests
• a single glimpse of new photos of my grandnephew

I'm sure I'll think of other things, but that list flowed without a pause! I feel as if I've been exiled. I can't understand how it can take so long to arrange. The router arrived within days, and my husband dully installed it. Someone, somewhere just needs to flip a switch, or click a mouse or something.

Some of the things on the list I can occasionally do from the office (such as my personal emails), but it doesn't do to abuse these things, or they will go the way of Facebook and be blocked. My husband (as a CIO) can do wahtever he pleases online, so he's alright, thanks awfully. But our sons don't have that luxury.

They are feeling thoroughly deprived. They are also worried about losing contact with their friends. This has been an interesting insight. All things being equal, they communicate with their friends far more often than I ever have with mine, but their relationships are less robust and apparently may be adversely affected by an absence of several weeks. I'm trust this isn't true of all their friendships. I genuinely hope that they each have at least one friend with whom they can pick up the threads after long absences.

In a week's time, I am going on holiday to South Africa, where I will meet up again with my best friend, who is possibly the biggest luddite and worst correspondent on the planet. I haven't seen her - and have hardly heard from her - since she threw me a surprise party for my 40th birthday (which was several years ago during my last visit to Cape Town!), but I am (fairly) confident that it will be as if we were never apart.

That's an unplugged relationship destined never to go online. Right now, I have cause to be very grateful for the unplugged things in my life! I'd go nuts without them.

Setting

I'm not sure to what extent setting is practised outside of the UK, but many schools here practise this. Kids of similar abilities are grouped together in lessons. I won't attempt to explain the reasons for this - I'll leave that to the teachers out there. Let me say, however, that I support the concept. When I could, I tended to practise this myself during my years as a classroom based IT trainer. It reduced the risk of having one person bored out of their skull or totally out of their depth.

Be that all as it may, my younger son recently changed schools due to our house move. The school he now attends has a much stronger academic record than the previous one. At his previous school, he was in the top set for just about every subject. The new school conducted assessments and placed him in the second (of eight) sets for science, which is pretty much what we expected, since this is a very strong subject for him. However, he has been placed in the sixth (of eight) sets for maths, and the bottom sets for French and English. As far as I can tell, there is no setting for the other subjects.

My view is that he should be in the set where he will receive instruction that is appropriate for him. I guess I've grown up enough not to want to be competitive about this and have him in the top set at all costs.

However, I've been mulling over the implications of the disparity. Is it just because the kids at the new school are academically stronger than those of the school he has left? Is it possible that they could be that far advanced? After all, he has been working on the maths curriculum for the year ahead of his for several months, now, and yet he is in the bottom 40% for the subject. Was he in the wrong set in the school he has left? Is the assessment/evaluation process at the new school flawed?

It all remains to be seen. In the meantime, I hope they will allow him to make some input about how well the level of instruction meets his needs in each of his current sets.

Passion quilt: inviting myself

I haven't been invited to participate in this meme, but I thought I would anyway!

My contribution takes the form of a picture taken by prth8machine, otherwise known (I think) as Jeremy Roof, and I'd like to add the caption:

It's okay to make mistakes!

Discovering where one's priorities lie

Wendy Wickham's latest post about her Facebook experience gave me pause.

Facebook is one of the many things that is blocked within my organisation, so I can't catch up at work. Okay, I can deal with that. I might not fully agree with it, but I can deal with it.

There is a 5 working day delay before we can apply for internet access from our new house (that's tomorrow... woohoo!) I find myself wondering about the notion of a "working day" in this day and age, but I digress.

So, while I can catch up with my emails from the office, I have been bereft of Facebook.

Well, almost.

There is the possibility of using my husband's mobile phone as a modem and connecting that way (of course, I could just use the phone itself, but I can't be bothered with the tiny little screen when I have alternatives). This approach comes with a price tag, so I have to be selective about what I choose to do online, and this is where it gets telling.

I don't bother with any of the things I can access from the office, which means I home in on Facebook like a smart bomb.

I have not read any of the messages from my professional SIGs. Nor have I kept up with the activities of those groups. I have not kept up with the activities any of my special interest groups, to be honest. I have not checked to see whose status has changed, or who has updated their pages. I have not looked to see who has posted new photos. I have not responded to any of the invitations to load this, that or the other new application. I have ignored the new additions to my Funwall.

I have responded to friendship requests. I have read the personal messages in my Inbox (but not answered them). I have read and responded to only one message on my wall.

BUT

I have kept a beady eye on my Scrabulous games.

Well, you've got to attend to the important things!

Moving house: a plethora of change management analogies

We have just moved house, and the whole way through the (painful) process, I was constantly reminded of my day job - not necessarily the things that I do, but the things that my clients do that mean that they need someone like me to come in and do my thang. All the following notwithstanding, I love my new house (even if it doesn't boast a back garden like Janet's - did you only post those photos on your Facebook page, Janet?)

In no particular order...

In the build up to the move, there was the whole business of selling one house and buying another. We had realised that our home was no longer fit for purpose, so we went on a hunt for a new one. We prequalified the available products/houses based on spec and then went and had a look at a few likely candidates. We didn't go for the first one we liked.

We dealt with mountains of red tape, and spent an awful lot of money on this that and the other small thing that needed to be taken care of.

The relationships with the other parties varied: our buyers were difficult, cantankerous and obstructive. They dragged their heels and kept us guessing. They were rude to the estate agents. Our seller was lovely. The house was the first one his wife and he had bought together when they married straight out of university. They had designed the extensions themselves. Both their children had known no other home. It was hard for them to let go, which we understood perfectly, having gone through that ourselves with our first house in Cape Town. He came personally to hand over the keys, rather than letting the estate agents handle it, and he introduced us to the neighbours.

There were submerged hiccups:

• We couldn't figure out how to open one of the kitchen cupboards until my husband discovered a hidden safety catch of a type unfamiliar to us
  
• Here and there, there are issues that need our attention - mostly decorative, but one or two structural
  
• The fit isn't perfect - I don't have enough cupboard space in the kitchen, and our large 3 seater sofa won't fit through the door into the house (it's been relegated to the garage... an almost new, expensive leather sofa... sigh!)

We're going to need to make a few additional purchases to adapt to the new environment:

• We don't have enough curtains
• There isn't a place suitable for our current bookshelves, which means we now have to decide whether to buy new ones or have custom-built shelves installed (perhaps I should get the Downes in!)
• Our elder son has been unable to switch schools so close to the end of this, the last year of his compulsory education (a big exam year), so we have had to find him lodgings in the town we have just left. I am NOT happy about that :o( I would prefer to find him a lift with a commuter, but we have had no responses to our appeal
  
• The dining room table in our last house was built in, and bar counter height, which means we have no table and a host of chairs of the wrong height

On the day of the move, our buyers wanted to take delivery of the keys before we had even had a chance to empty the house of our belongings. They became quite threatening.

We still haven't figured out how to control the boiler so that we have hot water and heating when we need it and none when we don't

We are surrounded by boxes. We often face the knowledge that an item needed right now is "here, somewhere" but the schlepp of having to unpack several boxes to find it is more than we have the stomach for, so we either go without or, in extreme cases, go out an buy a new one.

The estate agent who sold our house phoned today to ask me for the code for the burglar alarm. When I saw his number displayed on my phone's screen, my belly flip-flopped. I had thought the whole process was behind us. It was a minor query, but it reminded me that there is always at least one last thing.

The whole process cost us more than we had anticipated. We expected to be slightly to the good after equity on the last house was paid out. We are not. We are slightly to the bad, in fact.

I have been strongly tempted to simply opt for take-aways and heat-and-eats, so that we can focus on unpacking boxes, but our younger son suffers from anxiety, so we need things to develop a feel of life-as-usual as quickly as possible. This has meant being disciplined about dealing with slightly unfamiliar surroundings and being prepared for things to take slightly longer than usual.

Since we sold our house in Cape Town 10 years ago, we have moved house 7 times. We have noticed that, each time, we seem to plan less and just fly by the seat of our pants. This is because we know by now what things need to be done, and we simply do them as the situation arises. We don't spend hours sweating over the prep - we just get on with it. However, when we were new to the whole business, we definitely needed some guidance from those who had been through it before. We drew up a checklist of the things that needed to be thought about and resolved, so that we could minimise the things that got overlooked.

Oh, and on the subject of our new home town, I can't pass up the opportunity to link to this site about the history of the town. Contrast that with this. I know which one I prefer!

Just to finish, I would like to make one point unrelated to learning, knowledge and/or change management:

One evening a couple of weeks back, I was sitting with a group of people, when someone remarked that I looked tired and stressed. I was about to trot out the cliche that moving house is supposedly as stressful as losing a loved one. Unusually for me, I engaged brain before opening mouth, and I remembered just in time that the young man sitting next to me had lost his mother just days before. I looked at this grieving lad and got a healthy dose of perspective: Moving house, on a par with the death of a loved one? No, it flipping isn't!