My sister's wedding

How wonderful it is to have family who have the means to make a difference... and the will to make it happen! Just over a month before my sister's wedding, just as I had been tipped into the earning abyss, my uncle phoned to say that he was using his Voyager miles to fly me 'home' for my sister's wedding. However, my sister was not to know until I actually arrived.

I was very careful to keep any whiff of the news out of my blog and my Facebook page just in case... although I did once bubble over on Twitter, being fairly confident that the news would not reach her ears from there.

My mom collected me from the airport on the Thursday before the wedding and then drove to collect my sister for a lunch date she had made with her. My sister had asked to be picked up from the car wash site, so I armed myself with a camera as we drew up alongside her car. This is the precise moment she turned to see me sitting in the passenger seat.
It is a moment I will cherish for a long time. The attendants at the carwash were bemused by these two middle aged women who leapt out of their cars and tearfully hugged each other, as one of them screamed over and over, "My sister is here! My sister is here!"

I have rarely had the privilege of being involved in something so absolutely perfect in execution and so rewarding in reaction.

Of course, there is a so much I could say about the wedding, but I doubt you would find it particularly interesting. There are photos on my Facebook page, if you'd like to see them. In the meantime I will share just this one other picture of the bride, the groom, the bride's three children and her grandson. When I saw my sister walk down the aisle looking so absolutely beautiful, I was in tears all over again. Tell me she's not a knockout!

So here I am...

I have been very careful not to let slip a surprise set up for my sister by my uncle. In spite of the fact that she doesn't interact with the blogosphere or Facebook, I have avoided all mention. But now that I am here, and the surprise has been sprung, I can let you in on the secret.

My uncle generously used his voyager miles to fly me to South Africa for my sister's wedding.

The look on her face was worth the 22 hour journey (door-to-door, that is), even though I hate to fly.

Tomorrow is the big day. It has not been without its hiccups for both bride and groom as a dress disaster and the hospitalisation tonight of the groom's father have been difficult obstacles to cope with. But we hope that it will all turn out well for them tomorrow.

More details when I return to the UK and have access to something faster than a 57.5Kbps dialup connection!

How far can we take this connectivity?

Recently a friend of mine died. He wasn't a close friend, and we were no longer in direct contact. But we had shared friends with whom we were both in contact and we kept track of each other that way. Most of my keeping in touch was done via Facebook.

Some years ago, a close friend of mine died of a brain tumour. She was in Cape Town. I was in the UK.

Many of our shared friends collected together in little huddles to mourn and grieve and remember and console each other, and then of course, they attended the funeral, where they were able to draw a sad line under a life that had been too short by several decades.

I had sent an email of sympathy to her husband, part of which was read out at the service. But I wasn't there.

I desperately wanted to fly 'home' to be among people whose hearts were aching as much as my own. But friends who hadn't seen me in years would be torn between taking advantage of the brief opportunity to spend time with me, and focusing on remembering Madeleine's brief life. I had no wish to upstage Mads on her final journey. I couldn't do that to her husband and young girls. So I sat here in the UK feeling sorry for myself.

On Saturday, my sister is getting married. My family and I spent three weeks in South Africa in April, a trip we booked a year previously, when the wedding had been scheduled for April. When it was postponed, we couldn't reschedule our flights without losing enormous amounts of money. And now that I am without a steady income, we can't risk the expense of another trip (at £800/per person). My parents, all my aunts and uncles, all my cousins will be there - with their spouses whom I have never even met, and their children (ditto). Only my own little family will be absent.

Have we reached the time when it has become appropriate to stream a wedding? Even a funeral? So that family and friends abroad can attend remotely. Greener. Cheaper. More inclusive.

I would have loved to join in the singing at Mads's funeral (we used to sing in the church band together, so I know her family would have chosen wonderful music). I would have loved to hear the eulogies, and wept a little weep that did not feel so very alone.

I would love for my family to be able to join in at my sister's wedding. She's had a rough journey and she's finally marrying someone resembling a human being. She will look stunning in her burnt orange dress as her son walks her down the aisle. Her eldest daughter will have done everyone's make-up to perfection. My aunts and uncles will sit around and catch up. My cousins' children will behave as children do at weddings, and my cousins will deal with them in a wide range of ways.

I would be glad of an image on my computer screen, so I would!

Sadly, my sister doesn't know anyone with the kit to make this happen, so we'll have to settle for the video and photos on disk when they finally arrive.

I've touched on the topic of web-funerals before, web-weddings are surely a variation on that theme. I just wonder why it doesn't happen....

Sequel to an African tale

My recent participation in a blogversation caused a fresh trickle of traffic to a post of mine from some time ago, including a comment which brought this blog by Kobus van Wyk onto my radar. I would like to encourage readers to swing by and offer support and encouragement.

An unexpected gift

Many of you will already know that today has been my last day in the office. There is much I could say on that subject, but that will be for another time. What I have to say today is only indirectly related.

I like to keep an open communication with my sons' schools. If there is anything going on at home that might impact their performance or their behaviour, I feel it's only fair that the teachers should have an indication... even if the details are witheld.

You can imagine that facing the prospect of self-employment a little sooner than planned has caused some tension in our household. And it has proved to be a very unwise time to enter a period of economic uncertainty - although we didn't realise this when the (ahem) pumpkin first hit the fan.

So I phoned the school and left a message for my younger son's tutor to contact me so I could bring her up to speed.

You see, our younger son is a worrier who assumes responsibilities and worries that are not his to take on. If you have been keeping up with this blog for a while, you will know that he recently changed schools and that he suffered terribly at the hands of bullies at his previous school. You will also know that he is a very insecure lad.

It doesn't help that he had a birthday a few days ago and - due to the economic climate in the Romeis household - we gave him a mere token and an IOU.

All these factors were bound to have him acting out at school.

Imagine, then, my sheer delight at being told by the teacher that she has seen no sign of anything untoward. That he has settled in well and made friends. That he is always courteous. That his work is always handed in on time. That he is always neatly turned out. That, in short, he is her dream student.

When your son's teacher tells you that she wishes she had a class full of kids like your son, that's pink cloud time. So, in spite of the fact that he didn't get a proper gift from us on his birthday, he inadvertently gave us a gift that every parent dreams of!

The lad is growing up. He's coping with this a lot better than I expected. A lot better than I am, in fact.

Do you consider your kids' teachers to be your partners? Do you discuss with them issues that you know of that might impact their performance at school? Do you expect them to return the favour?

Not everyone has a yacht!

Rant warning.

One thing I have noticed of late is a tendency to stinging retorts about how the erstwhile Lehman's employees will all be off in to the sunset on their yachts. This kind of fatuous attitude gets right up my nose.

Not everyone will have been a high flyer with a 6-figure salary package! Just because the senior execs command(ed) eye-watering salaries and enjoyed lifestyles that most of us can only dream of, doesn't mean that every newly jobless person is in the same yacht.

There must be a fair few people whose jobs were low on the food chain. People who don't have a fat cash cushion to fall back on. People with mortgages to pay, and kids to feed and overheads to meet. People like you and me... particularly me, actually, with effect from 4:30pm today!

Teachers - do we trust them?

Jeff Utecht was relating recently how much respect teachers are accorded in Thailand, something which is reflected in the form of greeting they are accorded within the culture.

I have long been concerned that teachers are largely disempowered in the UK. During my short time (2 years) in a further education college, I experienced deep frustration at the peremptory way the staff were treated - often over-managed and usually accorded less respect than the students. I kicked powerlessly against the lack of freedom to be flexible based on the requirements of my students. There was this thing called Curriculum and, whether or not it met the needs of our students, it had to be adhered to, since it had been developed by a collection of minds patently superior to our own.

Some of the learning materials prepared for the purposes of affording teachers professional development seem to contain the implicit message that teachers need to have everything explained to them , or they will never figure it out.

When I have raised the question: is it entirely necessary to explain this point? Will teachers not be able to figure that out for themselves? The answer is often rather arch and skeptical.

Which makes me wonder: if we have so little faith in these people, why are we allowing them to teach our children?

I think we should perhaps cut them a little slack. Give them a little credit.

I related in a recent post how people often speak to their children in a way that implies that we expect them struggle with or fail at a given task. I expressed the view that a healthier approach was to start from an expectation of success and to offer guidance that was couched in terms that aimed at facilitating success rather than avoiding failure.

Perhaps it's time we adopted the same approach with the people responsible for educating the future doctors, lawyers, L&D consultants, Prime Ministers, entrepreneurs... and teachers.

Failing that, fewer and fewer people with creative minds and extraordinary abilities will be attracted to the field and we will have on our hands a downward spiral of self-fulfilling prophecies.

Get a (second) life

Until quite recently, I have not had the connection speeds at home required to be able to navigate around Linden with any great success. .. and of course, such things are banned at work. I have long been curious about the possibilities opened up for learning. Because I haven't been able to explore what's on offer, I have had to depend on other people's feedback and have been disappointed to learn that, for the most part, it seems that people are using the space to deliver chalk-and-talk sessions in a virtual environment. New wine. Old wineskins.

Now that we have a fast enoug connection, I decided the time had come to find out for myself what was on offer. I have signed up for a workshop that George Siemens is running on Wednesday, but of course, I have no idea how to get to it or how to participate once I'm there.

One of my Facebook friends offered to show me around. She said I should log in at around 8pm my time last night and wait for her. She would send me an invitation, which would show up in the bottom right corner of my screen. I should accept this and the option to teleport to where she was. I waited, not knowing enough even to try to look for her. Nothing appeared in any of the corners of my screen.

We used the IM feature in Facebook for a while, assuring each other that we were both logged in and that she had my avatar name right. Still nothing. After about 20 minutes of this, she declared herself baffled and gave up.

I tweeted my frustrations and a twitter friend of mine has offered to try to pick up where the other volunteer-tutor had left off.

I might not get a (second) life in time for the workshop on Wednesday, but I will get there in the end... "with a little help from friends, oh I get by with a little help from my friends." Take it away Joe Cocker (apologies to those who prefer the Beatles version)

A herd of collective nouns

Isn't English an odd language? I find it fascinating, of course, but (as my children assure me) I'm weird. For a non-native speaker, getting to grips with collective nouns is a nightmare. And what is the collective term for collective nouns anyway? Who knows why owls form a parliament, larks an exultation and sheep a flock? Why are geese a gaggle when they're walking and a flock when they're flying... and what are they called as they take off and some of them are airborne and others not?

My husband has been speaking English for so long that it has replaced his native Swedish as his first language. For the pedantic listener, though, there are clues that at least part of his English fluency was gained from non-native speaking parents.

One of those is that he refers to anaesthetic as if the 'th' were simply a 't'. His parents struggled to master the 'th' sound, and putting it straight after an 's' in the middle of a word like that was just plain rude! Mind you, they have no room to talk, the Swedes have an 'sj' combination that is likely to put your tongue into spasm!

The other is collective nouns. While he could probably do fairly well on a written test in which he had time to think of the correct collective nouns, conversational ebb and flow is another matter altogether. At some point he just gave up and started using 'herd' as his collective panacea. Thus:

• as we drive along a country road, we might encounter a herd of sheep
• when he is struggling against the flow of pedestrian traffic, he is barged by a herd of people
  
• when we go on holiday, his sweet blood ensures that he attacked by a herd of mosquitoes
• when the wheels fall off, he is faced with a herd of problems

But, best of all, when he heads downstairs first thing in the morning, he is preceded by a herd of cats.

See? It can be done. And, just in case you are one of the few people on the planet who hasn't seen the ad, yet, just because it's Friday:

One achievement - two perspectives

We had just dozed off last night when one of cats decided to subject us to an oration. She strode around our bedroom, giving voice. On and on it went and no amount of 'polite invitations' to her to "Shut up, stupid cat!" bore any fruit.

It dawned on me that she was probably regaling us with the tale of a successful hunt in which she risked life and limb to protect us from a marauding intruder.

I got up and switched the light on.

She was delighted.

"There. There it is see. I saved you. I protected you. Look at those fangs. See the dripping venom. What do you mean, where? It's right there. Are you blind, woman?"

I flipped back the corner of the rug and there it was.

A moth. About an inch from wing tip to wing tip.

I was unimpressed at the narrowness of my escape. Underwhelmed at the beast's ferocity. It's vicious fangs did not make my heart quail. Her tales of the danger to her own life and limb did not instil in me a sense of awe or wonder. My gratitude knew several bounds.

This was not the reaction Daisy had been hoping for and she proceeded to sulk.

I wonder how many other times I have been guilty of pooh-poohing what someone had thought was a great achievement until I came along to throw water over their campfire.

Hmm.

Signs of our times?

In the past two days I have seen two signs that made me wonder whether I was seeing a social commentary on the state of society.

Diversion: straight ahead
The first was actually a combination of two signs in tandem. They were the sort of temporary signs that sit on the road surface and look the worse for wear due to constant lugging about in the back of large lorries. The first said 'road closed ahead' followed by an arrow pointing right. Immediately behind it was one that said 'diversion' with an arrow point straight up.

Now I'm quite a smart cookie. I figured out the road that went off to the right was closed and they were giving me due warning before I tried turning in there (had I had any wish to do so). That instead, I should go straight and presumably at some point, I would be guided back to the route I had wanted to follow. I did wonder how obvious that might be to a new driver, but my mind was zooming off on more allegorical tangents (as usual).

When the side road is closed and the diversion is the road straight ahead. Hmm. That sounds a bit like JIT performance support to me. Instead of bucketing down a side road looking for a course to attend, I go straight ahead to the solution. But because this is a break from tradition, this is the diversion. Hmm again.

No pies
The second was just a few minutes ago. I was driving behind the delivery vehicle of a pie manufacturer. On the rear door of the van was the sign "No pies kept in this vehicle overnight". I had to smile. The time was once when no-one needed to put signs on the back of their van. Then we started to see post office vans and security comapny vans telling us that "No cash/mail kept in this vehicle overnight". This was followed by signs on shop doors telling us that the staff had no access to the safe. Obviously, in frustration at not being able to get our hands on this easy money, we started to steal equipment that we could fence, because we then started to see signs on vans telling us that "No tools kept in this vehicle overnight". Obviously this has got us so depressed that we must now seek solace in comfort food. Alas, even that avenue is now closed to the poor criminal!

We live in this high tech world, where data is the most valuable asset and people in the UK learn every week (it seems) of yet another case in which their data may have fallen into criminal hands due to ineptness on the part of some or other official. Yet in this same world we apparently have criminals who will break into a van, so great is their longing for pies. Perhaps it's because they're too busy hacking the government database to cook! Or perhaps it's a commentary on the increasing obesity of the British populace.

Somehow I think it will be some time before Gillian McKeith has to put a sign on her vehicle saying "No macrobiotic health products kept in this vehicle overnight".

Since you're alive to read this...

... I guess the universe didn't fall into a black hole after all. Have a look at this Hadron Accelerator rap from the scientists at CERN. Pretty cool. I reckon all science teachers should be taking the chance to cover something topical today and this seems like a good place to start!

Google reader has gone mad!

Just wondering if anyone else is having similar experiences with their Reader over the past few days. Yesterday, the number of new posts showing against some blogs was unrealistically high. When I had identified that I had, in fact, already read all the posts on that blog, I would select 'Mark all as read' and move on, only to have that same number of posts listed against the blog within seconds.

This morning, my account is showing 496 new posts, including 9 from me. Bloglines, on the other hand shows 21.

Any suggestions?

Implications and expectations

On Sunday afternoon, we had coffee with our neighbours. They have an eight year old with a few as yet undefined learning difficulties, who is somewhat behind on his development. Nevertheless, his mother asked him to offer my husband a slice of cake from a large plate containing several slices. "Keep it level," she said, "Well done."

I was struck by the fact that (a) she started from an expectation that he would succeed and (b) she couched the guidance positively. Not "Mind you don't tip/drop/break it." What to do, as opposed to what not to do.

It put me in mind of the the things we hear people say to their children:

• Mind you don't...
• You're going to fall off there
• Don't spill it
• You're going to bump your head on that corner
• Don't drop those
• Don't mess
• Don't splash
• Put your shoes on or you'll cut your feet (a favourite in England, while we barefoot Africans wonder what on earth there is to cut your feet on in this green-and-thornless land)
  

We're always starting from an expectation of failure and warning against it.

I wonder how often we unconsciously even build that in to our learning resources for adults. Many of our clients seem to be trying to move towards a more positively couched, empowering design for learning resources, but even so, I think it sneaks in unnoticed. Think about:

This is an assessment that will tell you what you already know and where you need to focus your attention.

Wow! Personalised learning! But hang on. Suppose we start each module with a single sentence that says this module/section covers xyz and is aimed at users who abc. Maybe, just maybe the users are smart enough to figure out for themselves whether the module/section is something they need.

What you have learned in this section can be applied in xyz situations and will benefit you in abc ways.

Ooh! Skills transfer. Application. But suppose we asked the user to think about situations in which the material can be applied and what the benefits of these might be.

Just a thought.

There are TWO of us?!

Okay, this is just weird! I have a Technorati search set up on my name, so that I can check out what I'm being quoted on/accused of.

Today, I discovered that there's another Karyn Romeis in the world! This one apparently works as a manager at a company called Panera Bread in the Oklahoma City area. As if one of us wasn't enough!

Somehow, I never expected that. For a start, the spelling of my first name is rather unusual, although certainly not unique. Secondly, Romeis is not a common surname. It's German, and I came by it thanks to my Swedish husband. I know, I know. He had a German grandfather who lost all his money with the devaluation of the Mark after the first world war and fled to Sweden. Even in Germany, it's not a common name. Two unusual names together make up an even more unusual combination, and yet here's another one. In the USA of all places!

I'm pretty sure that there is a difference in the way we pronouce our shared name, though. I can't imagine what she does with the name I pronounce Rome-ACE, but I'm pretty sure she pronounces the first name to rhyme with Darren, whereas I pronounce it as if I'm talking about car insurance.

I know that Stephen Downes has a namesake, but neither of his names are that rare, so that's not entirely unexpected. I'll bet there are several Stephen Downeses out there, in fact.

This is weird.

I hadn't planned to, but...

... my circumstances dictate that I must adopt this route going foward.
Thanks to Mark Oehlert for the pointer.

Thanks for the laugh, Dave!

I haven't received the email, but Dave Snowden reproduced it here. Read it and weep... with laughter.

Why did the chicken cross the road?

What do I want from a search engine?

My manager and I were having a conversation today about his experiences trying to book flights online. It took ages, because he had to explore each of the returns on his search parameters, and in many cases, he would be several minutes into the process of booking the flights with a provider that was £30 cheaper than the competition, only to find, that, as he worked through the process, the price increased with the addition of all sorts of hidden costs. Back to the search results and down to the next provider listed. Is their price higher or lower than the last one? Higher? Move on. Lower? Start the process of booking the flights, and watch the costs rise as the process continues.

Time was once when you (or your secretary if you were Very Important) would phone 3 or 4 travel agents and book your flight with the cheapest one. Now there are just too many providers to speak to individually. But tell me how the process that my boss had to go through was so very different.

Now I have deliberately not yet looked at or taken on board anything about Google Chrome before getting this off my chest, so I have no idea whether or not it represents a step (or the whole journey) in this direction, but what I want is search engine that can do all that blarge for me.

I get the opportunity to fill in my requirements, and the search engine not only trawls the net for flights to wherever whenever, but checks how they stack up against each other for two adults with X suitcases and such-and-such other specifications. Rather than just skimming across the top to match words required with words included in the content (Google my name and see how many returns include the name 'Karyn' and the words 'Rome is'), it dips down into the content to see if the match meets the specified requirements in a meaningful way.

So much for cloud cuckoo land. Now I shall go and see what Chrome is all about! Is it as shiny as the name suggests?

The Big Question: To-learn list

Eek! This month's big question nigh brought on a panic attack. Hand me that brown paper bag, quick!

Facing the imminent prospect of self-employment, I am realising how much I don't know. My to-learn list grows daily until it is so large that I'm not sure how I'm actually going to find the time to do any work that brings in money!

Here goes.

I need to learn (in no particular order):

• how to customise this here blog to reflect the Learning Anorak's branding
• how to create a website so that I can make myself more find-able online
• more about the implementation side of things
• to keep accounts in such a way that I can fill in a tax return (at the moment, I don't have to do that)
• to fill in a tax return
• to market my services
• to invoice clients
• the differences between a limited company and a sole trader, and the respective advantages and benefits of each
• more about systems architecture
• more development skills
• more about LMSes

Can I stop now? I need both hands to hold the paper bag!

On being a maverick

I've touched on this subject before, but my recent turbulence has been a direct result of the fact that I appear to fall into the category of mavericks. I never set out to do that, and I didn't used to think of myself in that light, but this article in TrainingZone magazine resonates with me over and over again.

Take this paragraph, for example:

For example, mavericks have an overiding need to tell the truth. They feel that to do otherwise affects who they are and lessens their integrity – one of the principles that they hold dear. This is why communication can be fraught, their need to tell the truth far outweighing the need to not upset someone else. The trait not to upset someone is not usually as well developed as it is in others.

Absolutely! The thing is, it goes on to say:

This is generally because they have such high self esteem, there is little that will upset them and they naturally feel that everyone else is like them. (Do not assume, however, that they are unable to be hurt at work).

I'd like to say a loud amen to the parenthesis, but I'm not sure about the first bit. My pathetic yearning to be liked can't be consistent with someone who has "such high self esteem". Perhaps I'm not entirely typical. Then again - who is?

It's comforting to know that, after the closing paragraph of this post yesterday, I am not alone, after all!

Professional practice

Views expressed on this blog recently got me into seriously hot water and resulted in a watershed experience in my life.

Only time will tell if that turns out to be for good or ill.

The inevitable subsequent email exchanges with friends and family generated some interesting views on professional practice. One such exchange I thought worth sharing here.

My cousin is a GP. He was educated in South Africa, where he spent the first several years of his career in private practice. He is now living and working in the UK and chafing at the bit under the NHS. From time to time, he also gets into trouble by rocking the boat with his independent thinking and approaches.

As he says in his email (language warning - partial censorship is mine):

Sometimes it does not matter that you do the right thing but if it is not done according to the sometimes very stupid rules, one gets into sh*t. Your private opinions of course do not mean that you cant do a job according to the rules - that is being a professional.

His own experience is that of patients saying:

thank you for being personal

Thank you for helping

You are the first doctor who has examined me in the last 1/10/100 years - delete which ever is applicable. Imagine that - a doctor who is more like a witchdoctor able to diagnose and decide from the safety of his chair and computer and not lay a hand on the patient . . . . . .

I sometimes wonder about professional practice, about the different views of this indefinable concept. I wonder if the outspokenness that have gotten both him and me into trouble are familial traits or cultural mores. South Africans often cause gasps and winces in the UK, but others seem to have learnt to hold their tongues a lot better than I have.

I'm not very good at subterfuge. I cope much better in an environment where all the cards are on the table and spades are called spades. I don't understand the need for poker faces and secrets - and can't see how they equate to professional practice. Perhaps I have a mild form of Aspergers!

I consider it far more professional to say, right, this is where we are, warts and all, and this is what we plan to do about it. Am I alone?

Looking again at performance support

Jay Cross's recent post about performance support got this topic swirling in my mind again. It's one that he and I have discussed before. Yes, I know that the term has fallen into disuse and I have mixed feelings about that, but it's the concept I'd like to look at today.

I'm in favour. Just by the way.

But I'm not in favour of an automated self-help system if that's all that's going to be on offer. I think that many organisations who went down the route of EPSS (electronic performance support systems) were disillusioned because the result was not highly efficient, highly motivated, low-maintenance staff.

My view is this: people are high maintenance and there are no short cuts. Deal.

Putting an electronic system in place and expecting to be a cure-all for flawed, insecure, arrogant, assertive, shy, you-name-it human beings is doomed to fail.

I like the idea of an online, on-tap resource which people can interrogate at will to find the solution to the challenge they face right-now-this-minute in the workplace. I like the idea that performance support tools will provide me with the answer to "What do I do now?" "How do I do that?" I like it even more when the system answers the question "Whom shall I ask about...?" and includes a photograph, an email address and a telephone number.

But what if the challenge is that they are being harassed at work by another employee? What if the challenge they face is that they have been passed over for promotion... again? What if the challenge they face is that they think they're doing exactly what the system tells them to do and it still won't *&^%$ work?

In those situations, there is no substitute for people with skin on. And it's pointless saying they need to get a life or grow a spine. The challenges they face are very real to them and until they have figured out how to face them, it's going to have an impact on their state of mind, the people around them, the quality of their work.

Performance support is not just about making sure that people know what to do, when to do it, how to do it. Performance support tools can take care of all those things. What they can't take care of is human needs.

I am somewhat inconsistent in my attitudes towards Maslow's hierarchy of needs. There are days/situations when I consider it to have value and then others when I roll my eyes (like everything else, it is not a panancea to be mindlessly trotted out in every situation). This is one of the former. If people's fundamental needs are being deprived or threatened by conditions in the workplace, their performance will suffer.

Now I'm not advocating that the organisation needs to take on the role of a wet-nurse, but there are reasonable provisions that can be made. My own observation is that people want to be heard. Providing them with a safe space in which to be heard by someone who is able to make a difference in a way that an electronic system cannot goes a long way toward ensuring that people are in a position to do enjoy their jobs and do them well.

Yes, yes, I know we've entered into the pink fluffy world of HR here. So go ahead and roll your eyes, but the bottom line is that we have got to care. The faceless organisation can't do that. The systems can't do that. The processes can't do that. The training provision can't do that. The performance support tools can't do that.

That leaves the people. You. Me.

The whole point of social media is that they put people in touch with people. It's not about the media, it's about the people. All these wonderful whizzbangy new systems we have these days aren't worth squat if people feel overlooked, ignored, unappreciated, undervalued. But this is the danger. We implement all sorts of systems to make things smoother, easier, but we tend to expect too much of them. They are just systems. They are designed to support processes. To support people takes other people. And part of a person's ability to perform in the workplace is an acknowledgement of their humanity.

Okay, I'll get off my soapbox now. Thanks for sticking with me!

Shattering the crystal ball

In January 1998, I dropped my elder son off for his first day at 'big school'. I was very good and didn't cry until he was out of sight.

He was six-and-a-quarter, average sized for his age, with very blond hair, knock-knees and thick glasses. Like many children who wear glasses from an early age, he had a tendency to screw up his nose all the time to keep them in place. Anyone looking at him would have labelled him a nerd on the spot.

They would have felt vindicated watching him settle in to school life in those early months. Unlike most of the kids, he could read and write. I know that in countries where kids are packed off to school aged 4, kids are able to read and write much earlier, but in South Africa, where school starts in a child's seventh year, we never saw the rush. He had pretty much taught himself.

His general knowledge was unparalleled, and he tended to prefer conversation with adults to that with his peers. He would ask me with a pained look on his face why the kids at school called him 'weird' and 'freak'.

South African schools are big on sport - every child is expected to play one winter and one summer sport. My son was one of those kids who was keen to try everything, so he signed up for cricket and tennis in that first summer term, followed by rugby and (field) hockey in the winter terms. Watching him on the sports field, you would not have been impressed with his prowess. His efforts on the tennis court were purely cognitive. He had seen people play tennis on TV, and he aped their actions. On the cricket field, the coach called him Jonty Rhodes, not because of his skill, but because of his enthusiasm. His rugby skills were a joy to behold: 29 little boys would be crowded around the ball down one end of the field with utter disregard for positional play. At the other end was one little boy lying on his back trying to do a shoulder stand and touch the ground behind his head with his toes. My son.

Early in the second quarter of the year, he had to give up hockey and tennis to attend occupational therapy classes in an attempt to bring his motor skills age up to his chronological age.

Chess was on offer from grade 3 onwards. My son asked the teacher if he could join. She was a bit nervous about setting precedent, so she set him to play one of the regulars to see what he was made of. He won and became the first grade 1 child to play for the school team.

His idea of fashion was the top T-shirt on the pile paired with the nearest pair of shorts or jeans. Colour? What did that matter? They fitted didn't they?

Like I said: nerd.

Today I dropped off my 16 year old son at the station for his first day in 6th form - the optional two years that follow compulsory education in the UK. He is almost 6 feet tall, with a 6-pack. The glasses were abandoned in favour of contact lenses when he was 10, and that changed his life. The contact lenses were abandoned a few years later.

He is Mr Popularity with the kids of his own age. The girls drool over him. He no longer plays chess, because only the nerds play at school.

He throws javelin and sprints 200m for the county. He plays rugby with fierce determination and no shoulder stands. He bowled for a men's local cricket team from the age of 14. One of his GCSE subjects was PE (including sports theory). If there is a sport on offer, he'll have a go.

Before leaving for school this morning, he styled his hair with my straighteners and checked his appearance carefully in the mirror. And as I watched him walk from the car to the station, I noticed a much older woman admire his rear.

So I've learned not to set too much store by early predictions. He's still the same person on the inside in many ways, but the early predictions of where he would excel and where he would fail have been proven so very inaccurate.

Do you have a learner who struggles to start with? Are you ready to give up on them? I suggest they might surprise you, yet! Just hold fire with those labels - you might need to print off a different set at the end of the day.

Learning styles... again

Clive Shepherd has broached this much visited this subject, and Stephen Downes (among others) has weighed in with his views. My own contribution takes the form of a paper I wrote some time ago, reproduced here verbatim. Apologies - it's a lot longer than my usual offering (it was originally submitted on my MA programme, which required 3000 words give or take 10%):

I am aware that when I state my view on learning styles, I am greeted with consternation that borders on accusations of heresy. Perhaps with this post (an adaptation of a paper I submitted on my MA programme) I can account for myself. I apologise that it is somewhat lengthy, but, if you are at all interested in the topic, I urge you to stick with it to the end. I have also included a list of links and reference in case your curiosity is sufficiently piqued to want to investigate further for yourself (which I hope it is!).

Background - personal stance

I first encountered the Peter Urs Bender personality styles model (original source unknown) in 1990 as a freelance training consultant in South Africa. It had become a popular feature of customer service and management development training programmes, and had been passed from hand to hand so many times that the name and underlying theories had become separated from the model itself. It did not occur to me to question its validity, since it seemed to make sense on an intuitive level. Like many others in my profession, I familiarised myself with the model and its application and jumped on the bandwagon.

I was introduced to the concept of learning styles as a formalised theory when I undertook a City & Guilds Certificate in Further Education Teaching at a further education College in 2000/2001, where it was taught as if it were fact.

The college itself was unswervingly committed to the Dunn and Dunn VAK model (1984), and every new student undertook a test known as QuickScan to identify their preferred learning style. The results were included on every student’s file and tutors were expected to show an awareness of the balance of styles represented in each class. Furthermore, lesson plans and schemes of work had to indicate where provision was being made for each learning style. (Note: at the time of writing, this approach was still in place)

Once again, because I found the material logical and easy to understand, it never occurred to me to question the validity of the theories or the research. I embraced it enthusiastically, to the extent that I developed a resource for my students at the IT learning centre, by means of which they could identify their own learning style and adopt some tactics that would enable them to maximise their learning experience at the centre.

In the intervening years, I have encountered an increasing number of anomalies to both the VAK and Kolb-based models (including Myers-Briggs and Urs Bender). I became concerned at the infallibility which appeared to be imputed to these models, when in fact few people seemed to be a perfect fit on anything more than a superficial level.

It should be known from the outset that my current stance is diametrically opposed to that held up to and somewhat beyond 2001 – although I would be hard pressed to name a single date or incident which marked the reversal.

Situation 1: Cert Ed case studies: deaf student

One of the assignments for the second phase of the C&G certificate involved learning style case studies. Of my four chosen case studies, one was deaf with attendant poor oral communication skills. I was surprised at the time that her QuickScan test showed her to be an auditory learner, and discussed this with the staff member responsible for testing. I was categorically assured that it was impossible for a deaf person to be an auditory learner, since they lack an auditory faculty. The test supervisor ascribed the anomaly to the student’s poor reading skills. It is true to say that, like many deaf people, her reading age was well below her chronological age (Brown and Adams, 1990), however, I was unsatisfied with this explanation, since she had had a reader for the test, who signed the questions to her.

The following is an excerpt from an email exchange between Dr Gemma Calvert[1], and me during July 2007 (Dr Calvert is the Reader in Cognitive Neuroscience, Department of Psychology, University of Bath):

KR: Do deaf people use the same areas of the brain to process sign language as hearing people do to process spoken language?

GC: The answer to the first question is yes, in part. Deaf signing activates some of the same auditory speech areas that hearing people use when listening to speech.

In research conducted by Mairéad MacSweeney, it was found that “the left posterior perisylvian cortex is of fundamental importance to language processing, regardless of the modality in which it is conveyed.” (MacSweeney et al, 2004). If the identification of an individual’s preferred learning style as auditory is an indication of brain area activity rather than of dominance of a sensory organ, this would imply to my (admittedly limited) understanding that a deaf learner is as likely to have an auditory preference as any other learner.

Situation 2: inconsistency of style

By 2001, I had identified myself by means of the QuickScan questionnaire as a primarily kinaesthetic learner, and by means of the various models based upon Kolb’s learning cycle diagram (DeBello 1990) as an activist (Honey and Mumford model – Honey and Mumford, 2000) and an expressive (Peter Urs Bender’s model, year unknown).

Superficially, this would account for my extrovert nature and my tendency to start activities without first taking time to familiarise myself with instructions and constraints. However, this failed to account for the fact that I was able to make perfect sense of the pictorial instructions that came with flatpacks whereas my husband, purportedly a visual learner, was not. Nor did it satisfactorily explain my skill and preference for quietly contemplative, reflective activities such as reading, sudoku and cryptic crossword puzzles.

Niggling doubts

As I see it, the following shortcomings need to be considered:

1. The very method of test completion immediately disadvantages certain people. For example, is a written test appropriate for a person with severe dyslexia? Even when the services of a scribe are engaged, is there certainty that the introduction of a third party in no way influences the outcome?
2. The circumstances under which the test is taken may influence the outcome. If the test is taken at the start of what is to be an academic course of study, the learners are likely to be mindful of their approach to classroom based learning as they respond. However, if the test is taken as part of a management development programme, the learners are likely to be mindful of behaviours and habits in the workplace.
3. A single individual is likely to adopt widely differing approaches to different learning activities – almost certainly within the course of a lifetime, but even possibly within a single day. For example, consider the learning approaches that may be adopted in the following circumstances:

• Acquiring fluency in a language
• Learning to drive a car
• Memorising the highway code
• Gaining proficiency in the use of a new software application
• Mastering a new piece of piano music
• Learning to sing a new song
• Recognising “what not to wear” as identified in the popular television series of the same name.

As long ago as 1948, Bertram Forer had begun to conduct experiments that cast doubt over the validity of the concepts of learning and personality styles. The Forer effect “is the observation that individuals will give high accuracy ratings to descriptions of their personality that supposedly are tailored specifically for them, but are in fact vague and general enough to apply to a wide range of people.” (Wikipedia, 2007). This is closely related to Marks’s theory of subjective validation, which “occurs when two unrelated or even random events are perceived to be related because a belief, expectancy, or hypothesis demands a relationship” (Wikipedia, 2007)

There is not even the convenience of a single ontology when it comes to discussing learning styles. Coffield et al identified no fewer than 71 models (2004), each of which identifies learning styles according to a different set of criteria. Whilst there is commonality and overlap between some models, there is no mapping the VAK model to the MBTI model, for example: a visual learner is no more likely to test as any one of the many possible Myers-Briggs combinations than any other. And again, there is no way of predicting whether an auditory learner is more likely to be an expressive, analytical, driver or amiable on the Urs Bender model.

Into this minefield, the teacher or corporate trainer (referred to collectively as teachers from here on) is often expected to venture by a management totally unaware that their own understanding of the field is not unlike that of the Indian fable about three blind men describing an elephant, each only touching one part of the animal. Teachers appointed to an organisation are presented with the functionality of the organisation’s chosen model, and are thereafter expected to comply with this model, conducting tests few are qualified to conduct and basing their teaching approaches on deductions that few are qualified to make.

In the formal education sector, learning style models have been widely adopted as a top down measure from the state. Some schools are still adhering rigorously to the tenets of the VAK model, in spite of the fact that (to my firsthand knowledge) the National Strategies have been instructed by the DCFS to withdraw all their learning materials on the subject. This was as a consequence of a report called About Learning submitted In June 2004 by the Demos think tank to Schools Standards Minister David Milliband. The report declared learning style models to be of “doubtful reliability and validity”, pointing to a lack of evidence that teaching practice was in any way improved by their use – even suggesting, in fact, that the converse was true.

They know not that they know not

The level of commitment to the model of choice in various organisations appears, in some cases, to have reached almost mindless proportions. Witness the following accounts:

1. A recruitment advertisement listed as ‘essential’ the ability to deliver learning which engaged “all four learning styles”. When I enquired about the learning styles model being applied, it became clear that there was an underlying assumption that there was only a handful of models to choose from and that “everyone knew” that MBTI was accepted as the industry standard. It also became clear that the model being referred to as MBTI was, in fact, Honey and Mumford’s model.
2. Holly Lodge Girls’ School in Liverpool has introduced a colour coded system which identifies learners’ according to their learning styles (DfES website August 2007).
3. A fellow student on my MA programme indicated that tests had been conducted at his school using one of the Kolb-inspired quadrant models. Results showed that the largest proportion of children in the school belonged to one quadrant, while success within the current assessment system had been identified as being largely the province of children belonging to the diametrically opposed quadrant. The head teacher instructed teachers to find means of converting children from one learning style to the other.

Where teachers are expected to draw up lesson plans that cater to each of the styles of their organisations chosen models, they are at risk of building up expectations of which learners will engage with which activities. It is undeniably useful that teachers are encouraged to plan lessons with a wide range of activities, rather than the monomodal “chalk and talk” approach of years gone by. It is indubitably true that learners are more engaged with the learning in such instances. However, one wonders whether it is it not just as likely that the learners are able to remain interested due to the changing “scenery” in the form of media and delivery mechanisms rather than because a particular learning style is being addressed.

The subject of learning styles crops up in repeated debates in the edublogosphere. In Educause Connect in June 2008, Catherine Howell opines that “what they actually offer is less than a theory of learning than a caricature of learners”. Her contention is that “researchers can’t agree on “what” learning is (neurophysical? social? psychological?), second because they can’t even agree “where” it occurs (in the teacher-student relationship? in the classroom? in the student’s head?).”

In his “x28’s new blog”, Matthias Melcher reflects on his abortive attempts to find recent online resources about cognitive styles, and observes that online aggregator searches are conducted mainly by non-English speaking countries, where the concept still appears to have more currency (5 July 2006). Since his profile includes links to his own results from a variety of such tests, one assumes that he sets enough store by this information to regard it as meaningful to his readers. This is borne out by the opening sentence of a later post on the same blog (the emphasis is his): “C. Quinn and H. Jarche have one word on learning styles: “rubbish”. I do not agree.” (2 July 2007). Sadly, he has not provided a link to the offending posts by the two authors. In his view the fault lies in that adherents of learning style theories tend to overload the concept with the classification of personality styles in addition to cognitive styles of learning and, moreover, fail to distinguish between styles and abilities. In his view “as long as style is confused with ability, teachers and researchers won’t admit to themselves that they also belong to one or another style, or they will take it for granted that they belong to the “superior” one”. (Melcher, 2007)

I have not found any evidence of one style being put forward as superior to another in any model.

Donald Clark – admittedly a well-known iconoclast, and something of a sensationalist in the edublogosphere – describes an instance where he “presented the Coffield research on learning styles at a coaching conference” after which he “received an abusive email from Peter Honey (who was in the audience)”. Allegedly, at some point during an exchange of emails between the two parties Honey “did admit, however, that there was no scientific evidence to back up his theory – the famous Honey and Mumford model.” (Clark, 2007)

I think I could do no better than to end with an (unfortunately lengthy) extract from James Atherton’s Heterodoxy blog, in a post unequivocally called Learning Styles Don’t Matter (2007) in which he describes the members of a class:

In this class there is a serialist pragmatist kinaesthetic learner (who is also field-dependent, not to mention his MBTI) primarily a convergent thinker, high on logico-mathematical intelligence but low on linguistic intelligence, sitting next to a holist, reflector, primarily visual and field-independent... who is also chronically shy (no-one mentions that). Even assuming that such things can be assessed with some validity and reliability, which is itself far from clear — what are you going to do about it? There are after all thirty other students in the class, each of whom could be described in similar terms. And two-thirds of them are female, and one-third male (two of whom are gay). Five of the class are from ethnic minorities, two are dyslexic, one is visually impaired, and three are clinically depressed (although only one of them knows it). Six are "mature" students — at least, they are chronologically over 25.

In other words, a fairly typical class, composed of people. (One of them has his Yorkshire terrier in a holdall, but perhaps we can ignore that.) You, of course are...

References

Atherton, J S (2002) Heterodoxy: Learning styles don't matter [On-line] UK; Available: http://doceo.co.uk/heterodoxy/styles.htm Accessed: 2 July 2007

Bender, Peter Urs (1997) Leadership from Within. Stoddart. ISBN 0773759034. Questionnaire originally undertaken (source unknown) 1990 – extract reviewed online at http://www.peterursbender.com/quiz/swtable.html 29 September 2007.

Bishop, D. V. M. and Adams, C. (1990) A Prospective Study of the Relationship between Specific Language Impairment, Phonological Disorders and Reading Retardation Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry 31 (7), 1027–1050. doi:10.1111/j.1469-7610.1990.tb00844.x

Clark, Donald (2007) Professor pans ‘learning style’ teaching in Donald Clark Plan B 12 August 2007. Published online at http://donaldclarkplanb.blogspot.com/2007/08/professor-pans-learning-style-teaching_12.html. Accessed 15 August 2007.

Coffield, F.; Moseley, D.; Hall, E.; Ecclestone, K. (2004) Learning Styles and Pedagogy in Post-16 Learning. Learning and Skills Research Centre.

DeBello, T.C. (1990) Comparisons of Eleven Major Learning Styles Models Journal of Reading, Writing and Learning Disabilities, 6:203-222. Accessed online at www.ldrc.ca/projects/atutor/content/7/debello.htm 4 July 2007.

Demos think tank (2004) About Learning. Published by Demos. June 2004. Accessed online at http://www.demos.co.uk/files/About_learning.pdf on 15 August 2008.

DfES (DCFS) website (2007) Case study: Holly Lodge Girls’ School accessed online at http://www.standards.dfes.gov.uk/sie/documents/hollylodge.pdf on 15 August 2007.

Dunn, R., Dunn, K., & Price, G. E. (1984). Learning style inventory. Lawrence, KS, USA: Price Systems in Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learning_styles accessed 29 September 2007 and Learning Styles and Pedagogy in Post-16 Learning (2004) Coffield et al.

Forer, Bertram R. (1949) The fallacy of personal validation: A classroom demonstration of gullibility". Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology 44: 118-123. In Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forer_effect) last accessed 29 September 2007

Honey, Peter and Mumford, Alan (2000) Learning Styles Questionnaire (80-Item). ISBN 1 902899 07 5.

Howell, Catherine (2005) Do learner profiles enhance learning? In Educause Connect 8 July 2005. Accessed online at http://connect.educause.edu/blog/catherine/dolearnerprofilesenh/730?time=1191104571 2 July 2007.

MacSweeney, Mairéad et al (2004). Dissociating Linguistic and Nonlinguistic Gestural Communication in the Brain. NueroImage 22 (2004) pp 1605-1618.

Marks, David F. (2000) The Psychology of the Psychic. Prometheus Books ISBN 1573927988. In Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forer_effect) last accessed 29 September 2007.

Martin, Isabel (date unknown) Helping Students to Learn More Effectively accessed online at http://www.quickscn.com/studyscn/WKCQS1.htm 29 September 2007

Melcher, Mathias (2006) Cognitive Style Theories in x28’s new blog. Online at http://x28newblog.blog.uni-heidelberg.de/2006/07/05/cognitive-styles-theories/ Accessed 2 July 2007.

Melcher, Mathias (2007) Learning Styles called Rubbish in x28’s new blog. Online at http://x28newblog.blog.uni-heidelberg.de/2007/07/02/learning-styles-called-rubbish/ Accessed 2 July 2007.

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[1]My thanks go to Professor John Geake for putting me in touch with Dr Calvert

So let me explain...

I am about to become self-employed. It's an idea I have been toying with for some time, but it never seemed like the right time. Many of you have told me time and again that you think me ill-suited to the corporate machine. The trouble is, I am rather well suited to the financial security of a regular paycheque.

Then a whole bunch of circumstances came together very quickly which resulted in my having to hand in my notice at work. Perhaps I will go into more detail at some later date, but the situation is still a little fragile.

So the Learning Anorak has been born. The logo is still a work in progress, and is receiving the attention of a professional, but this is it for now. What do you think?

For some time I have been referring to myself by this name in various spaces, so it seemed logical to carry the theme through.

Many people have been extraordinarily supportive. Mark Berthelemy has (as always) shared freely of his advice and expertise. Harold Jarche, who has walked this path himself, has made himself available as friend, mentor and adviser. Kristina Schneider has been a shoulder to cry on, and has applied all the right insults to the right people to become a friend for life. Several people have given me the names of people and organisations to contact. A man I have never met (but who knows my husband) has offered to put my details in front of the board of a large organisation.

You see, I know I'm good at what I do. And there are people who will back me up on that. The trick is to get the word out there, and people have been astonishingly kind in helping me to do that. I remarked on this in conversation with an associated recently, to which he replied, "Well the more you slice this cake, the bigger it grows."

So I have hung out my shingle. Advice, references and introductions... and prayers... welcomed!

It's a very sad thing...

For some years, I have been targeting a specific organisation as a place I'd really like to work. I've had cause to visit their premises several times and have always felt bouyed by the evident passion and enthusiasm of the people who work there. Having had my fill of cynicism and eye-rolling, I relished the idea of being surrounded by fellow wild-eyed zealots. They have always struck me as an organisation that is prepared to break with tradition, to push the envelope, to... oh heck, there's no other way of saying it... think outside the box, colour outside the lines (pick your cliche).

On every occasion, my applications have fallen at the first hurdle, and I was at a loss as to why. As recently as a few weeks ago, I made yet another application and yet again did not make the first round of interviews. This time, I was able to contact the person recruiting for the role and find out where my shortcomings were, so that I could address them next time around.

I was deeply saddened that my application was dismissed primarily because I do not hold a first degree. I have cobbled together enough pieces of formal education over the years to be accepted onto not one but two post-graduate study programmes. I am half way through a Master's degree programme. I have more informal learning than you can shake a stick at, and twenty years of experience in the field of L&D. How gut-wrenchingly dismaying that all this counts for nought if you cannot produce a piece of paper that says that you have a Bachelor's degree.

Yes, there were two other points on which I didn't demonstrate evidence of competency, and that is my fault. But the way that the response was worded made it very clear that the primary reason for my rejection was that dratted piece of paper.

You know, when I left school, I would have loved to go to university, but the money wasn't there, and the banks wouldn't agree to a loan, since I was a girl who wanted to study mechanical engineering design. Shock horror. The attrition rate among girls in that field was so high, and the employment opportunities for women so rare in those days, that the banks didn't consider it a worthwhile risk.

In the intervening thirty years, I have bust my butt to make up for what recruiters saw as a lack. I followed (and passed) two teaching diploma courses simultaneously from in the period 1980-82. In addition to the things I have already listed, I have attended more short courses than many people have had hot dinners. I have put myself through so many CBT and VBT programmes on such a wide range of subjects, it would make your head spin.

When I decided to embark on my current MA programme, most universities could not see beyond my lack of a B degree (including the organisation at the heart of this post - in spite of the fact that it is theoretically possible to gain access by other means of proving competency). When I approached my current university, they said "Good grief! Of course we'll have you." And never once have I felt that the rest of my cohort outperforms me in any way because they have something I don't. Quite the contrary, in fact.

I had honestly hoped that my disadvantaged start was something I was going to be able to put behind me. But, sad to say, it seems that this is not to be the case. Even though it is some time since I my big four-oh.

When I suffered my first broken heart, an older, wiser woman told me that the best thing to do when you've been rejected is to look good and have fun. Let him see what he's missed out on, darling. What do you suppose the professional equivalent is?

Surely we have reached a stage in our attitudes towards learning where we see beyond formal programmes? Have we not moved on from the perception that only a university can really educate a person, where university educated=superior, non-university educated=puh-lease, don't waste my time?

Yes, I am a bit annoyed. Yes, I am feeling a bit bitter, and the chip on my shoulder is probably digging into my stiff neck.

But most of all I am sad. Disillusioned.

Meaningful assessment

We're a long way from through the turbulent period that I referred to in my last post, but I just had to get this off my chest.

I have a son who is closing in on his 17th birthday. In the UK, this means that the will be old enough to start learning to drive. This, in turn, means that he is madly trying to learn the highway code for the theory test.

I looked for a few sample tests online for him to try out... and, of course, tried them out myself. Like all drivers of many years' standing, I didn't fare too well! But one of the tests got right up my nose. I got 0/20!

Unlike all the other tests, this was not a multiple choice option. This test presented a picture of a roadsign and asked what it was. Fine, you might think. When I'm driving along the road, I don't get four options under each sign from which to select the right one. So, if I am not able to recognise the sign without prompts, I should probably not be driving, right?

Only, this is where the automated testing process falls down. Because of the limitations of the technology, responses were only marked as correct if the user entered the description verbatim from the highway code.

How is "decrease speed" a more correct response than "slow down"? Why is a "speed limit" not as acceptable as a "speed restriction"?

Even supposing I was able to answer all 20 questions verbatim, how is that any indication that I know what I'm supposed to do?

Surely the true measure of my knowledge of roadsigns is that I know how to respond to them? Note to my son: Shouting out "You're telling me!" does not constitute the required response to this sign.

It all comes back to our knowledge versus behaviour argument.

Then again, even knowing what to do and when to do it is no guarantee that it will be done! I am fairly certain that every single boy racer in the town knows that the speed limit restriction is 30 miles per hour. I'm fairly sure that he also knows what he needs to do in order to observe it. But to what extent does his actual behaviour reflect this knowledge?

Hmmm.

We may experience some turbulence

Things ahead are looking decidedly stormy and uncertain. The wheels are falling off in all directions. You may already have noticed a few changes on the blog. I apologise if you are adversely affected by them.

I'm in for a rough ride for the next few weeks, and there is a strong likelihood that no-one will be getting much sense out of me, so I'll spare you the gory details and see you on the other side... deo volente.

The accidental tourist looks at clouds from both sides now

My husband, a newbie blogger, shares his views of cloud computing. I think some of the issues he raises will either gel with or grate on the views of some of the readers of this blog. Which camp are you in?

Mourning the person unknown

There are times when my naturally empathetic nature causes me great distress. Today, I read about the passing of Leroy Sievers. He had not really made a blip on my radar until very recently as a result of something Andy Carvin said on Twitter.

This is the third time in quick succession that someone has died who was unknown to me, but highly respected, honoured, possibly even revered by people within my online circle. The other two were Randy Pausch and Lee Baber. When I read Vicki Davis's post about Lee's death, I followed a link that took me to Lee's Facebook page and discovered that she and I had 6 friends in common. Yet I didn't know her.

In every case I found myself wondering how I could not ahve known them. Good grief - look at their legacies! Did I have my head in the sand?

The grief of people I know causes echoes in my own heart and I hurt, too. I mourn these people I did not know. I feel cheated that I only found out about them when it was too late. I read about their work, the impact they had on the world around them. The deep affection they sparked in those who knew them. The energy they exuded. And I find myself feeling a sense of loss. A sadness that they are no more. Sure, they have all left a legacy. But they have also all left a hole. People who feel as if they have been torn open and plundered. People who must now contemplate a life where the word 'normal' just can't apply, because 'normal' was a paradigm in which the presence of the person now gone was a given.

At times like these, I feel as if I just want to pull you all closer and acknowledge and thank you for your presence, your influence, your contribution. You have become an inextricable part of my world view at this stage of my life.

I'd like to end this post by pointing at this series of Calvin & Hobbes cartoons - possibly the saddest thing Bill Watterson ever did, and he nailed it perfectly. Those of you who have been around me for a while will know that for me to use the strip as an analogy is neither unusual not a trivialisation. I consider Bill Watterson's work to include momentous wisdom on occasion, and it often resonates with things that run very deep in me.

I'd like to say with Calvin: Don't YOU go anywhere!

Okay?

Come here!

I'm sitting here in my study at home. In the next room is my younger son on his laptop. In the room next to that is my older son on his. They're playing a game called Gunz. My older son has created a clan, which he has invited my younger son to join and he's teaching him some of the techniques he has learned. They call to each other in the next room, while their avatars interact on screen.

At one point, my elder son called out, "No wait! Le tme show you how to do that, come here."

My younger son, got up and made the long and arduous journey of about 6 steps.

"No, not you!" said his brother, "Him." He pointed at his brother's avatar on the screen.

Sometimes, when one of them has learned something new, he wants the physical presence of his brother in the room, so that he can show him the keystroke sequence in conjunction with the on screen dynamics. Other times, physical presence is not required and "Come here!" is a command to be obeyed virtually, not literally.

It's an interesting dynamic, and I can't help feeling that they would do well to invent two different terms to communicate their expectations. Then again, most of the time, the circumstances seem to be the clue as to which "Come here!" applies on this occasion. So perhaps I'm just being middle-aged and overly practical (I do, after all, tend to call for the establishment of taxonomies a lot of the time these days, working as I do with teams drawn from different businesses, sectors, contexts).

I love it when my boys play nicely together. When they were little, they used to play long, involved games of pretend, which seemed to consist more of plot-setting than of actually playing (but I always thought the collaborative strategising was a worthwhile skill to develop, so I left them to it). Now that they're older, they still prefer to play as a team than as opponents - facing the rest of the avatars together (sing with me now, "It's you and me against the world...").

When they were very little and the baby took something that belonged to the toddler, the toddler would want it back without making the baby cry. So I told him, "Find something he wants more. If you can learn to negotiate, you'll have a skill that you can use for life."

To this day, my older son will go to great lengths not to do whatever the teenage equivalent is of making the baby cry. This entails teaching him everything he knows as soon as he learns it. He will even set himself up as a willing target for his brother to try out new fight moves on until he has mastered them enough for them to go out together and conquer the rest of their virtual planet.

It isn't always the older one teaching the younger, but it usually is - and my younger son accepts it as his due to be the padewan. Interesting case study for the birth order psychology adherents, I guess.

Come here. Let me show you. Let me teach you. Come here in person. Come here in your avatar form.

Yeon Duk Woo - partnerships in learning

Nothing I say about or add to this young man's address would do it any justice. Please just view it yourself and be moved, challenged... maybe even changed. Hat tip to Dave Warlick for the pointer.

Knowledge does not equal skills does not equal behaviour

This post and the ensuing comments had previously been removed at the insistence of my manager. Since I no longer work for them, I feel no qualms about reinstating the post. Unfortunately, I am unable to reinstate the comments.

One of the things that really bothers me about compliance type training is the whole assessment model and the conclusions that are drawn from it.

Increasingly, it seems to me that the way we demonstrate to the marketplace our excellence in a particular area is to acquire accreditation. We acquire accreditation by complying with the stated behaviours as laid out by the accrediting body. We demonstrate compliance with the required behaviours by... well by passing a multiple choice test, of course!

The thing is, the multiple choice test is usually so facile that pretty much anyone can pass it, so essentially is assesses nothing. Well, that's one of the things anyway.

The other is that a multiple choice test... or any written test for that matter, is not evidence of behaviour.

Let's say the matter at hand is people management. We can put our manager through any number of training interventions, ranging from boring to highly engaging. What we test at the end (if the test is written) is knowledge. As I have said several times in meetings over the past few days - if knowledge equalled behaviour, our jails would be empty.

Let's say we really branch out and devise a role play test of some sort, presenting our friendly manager with a whole bunch of scenarios in which he must acquit himself. Even supposing some of those tests are blind, they test skills. Being able to do something and actually doing it are not always the same thing.The only way to assess whether behaviour matches up to standards/expectations is through on the job assessment, which brings us back to our performance review process.

Far too often, the appraisal/review/call it what you will process is seen as something that a manager does to a staff member. Almost as often, the manager resents having to take the time away from the day job to carry out these reviews.

Over the past few days I have had to look at ways that make clear the following two points:

• A manager is supposed to manage people. A manager is not just an operative with a higher salary. Supporting the personal development of staff members is the day job. Sadly, managers' own KPIs seldom reflect this.
• Managers do not review staff members' performance. Managers and staff members discuss past performance, future development and long term career planning together and set in place together some objectives to help each staff member realise their potential.

In the movie Rain Man, Dustin Hoffman's character is a numeric savante. He can perform the most spectularly complex numeric calculations in his head. He knows numbers. But when asked how much change he should get from a simple purchase, he didn't have a clue. He simply could not transfer his numeric knowledge into a practical skill, let alone a behaviour.

Knowledge ≠ skill ≠ behaviour.

How do you make it right?

This post is not directly related to learning, but it has a lot to do with school and expectations and bullying and exclusion.

Nearly thirty years ago, I finished high school. I am still in touch with several of the girls who were in high school with me. Some have remained in touch ever since high school, others have regained contact with the advent of Facebook.

But there has been one girl I have been hunting for for over 10 years.

You see, I wasn't quite one of the 'beautiful people' in high school, but I wasn't far from it. I was bright, bubbly, pretty (if I say so myself), sporty. I was popular with the boys. I was in the first team for netball and atheletics (track). I was in debating team. I played significant roles in all the school plays. I sang in choir. I was on our version of an academic honour roll. In other words, I was your basic all-rounder. I don't say this to brag, simply to set the scene. The fact that I was riddled with insecurity and constantly in trouble with the teachers because I had no brakes on my tongue (still don't!) was beside the point.

When it came to playing rounders during PE classes, I wasn't the first one chosen, but I wasn't far down the list.

There was one girl who was always picked last. In fact, she wasn't 'picked' at all - she was simply allocated to the side that got second pick. She was a large, lumbering girl. While her weight was probably something she could have done something about, her lack of agility was no doubt genetic. I will call her Jenny.

Her face haunts me. Every PE lesson she knew the drill and she simply stood there, waiting for inevitable. To my shame I was always relieved that I wasn't like her, that I didn't have to deal with that ritual humiliation.

One week, it was my turn to choose, and I got first pick. I chose Jenny. I thought I had the chance to make her feel special just for once. I thought I was being so big-hearted and magnanimous, but everyone laughed, and her shame was worse than ever. Our team got soundly whipped and I was ridiculed for not knowing how to choose a side... in front of Jenny.

As clear as day I can still see her face, and the hurt that was written all over it still cuts me to the quick. Is there any group capable of greater cruelty to their peers than a bunch of teenage girls?

At our 20th reunion, I looked out for her. I hoped to hole up in a quiet corner with her and lay the ghosts to rest. She wasn't there. Why would she be? Why would she want to be reunited with us? For the ten intervening years I have hunted for her. Facebook. Friends reunited. Google. Naymz. LinkedIn. You name it. I have found people with the same name all over the place and contacted every single one of them, only to learn that this was not the person I was looking for.

Then, a couple of days ago, someone mentioned on a new FB group that she was in contact with Jenny's older sister. I asked if she knew how to get in touch with Jenny and was immediately provided with both her home number and her cell phone number (I have pointed out the risks to the person concerned, but that is another issue for another time).

Now I finally hold in my hot little hand the means to contact Jenny and... and... WHAT DO I SAY????

I never thought this far.

Maybe by phoning her and raking up the past, I will just make it all come flooding back - all the hurt and humiliation she thought she had finally left behind.

So tell me, those of you who were the Jenny of your year... how would you prefer the likes of me to handle this? By seeking exoneration from my own pain, would I selfishly be making hers worse?

Vicki, I think you have experience that could help, here. You have shared stories that resonate with this one.

Apologies for the even-more-personal-than-usual post, but perhaps it serves as a sobering reminder that two-thirds of a lifetime later, the foundations laid in high school still remain.

Imagine...

Imagine if no-one ever spoke at meetings unless they were certain that they had the definitive, final solution.

Imagine if no-one ever chatted to their friends unless they were absolutely 100% sure of their facts.

Imagine if no-one ever published an academic paper unless they knew that no-one anywhere could find fault with it.

Imagine if no-one ever conducted a workshop unless they knew that they could answer absolutely every question that the attendees might raise.

Imagine if no-one ever presented at a conference unless they knew every last detail about the subject.

Imagine if no documentaries were ever released until every last piece of information had been captured.

Imagine if no-one ever sent an email unless they were sure it was complete and accurate.

Imagine if no-one ever spoke to their colleagues until they had collected every fact on a subject.

What a silent world it would be! What a small handful of people would hold all the knowledge in the world, until, as they died off, eventually no-one knew anything, because no-one shared their incomplete perspectives and the complete perspective was never achieved.

Ridiculous.

Of course, ridiculous.

So why oh why do we impose these restrictions on collaborative knowledge building, learning, sharing that happens online? Why the moved goalposts? Why the special treatment?

Speakeasy learning

This post and the ensuing comments have been removed by the author. I apologise for any inconvenience caused if you have followed a link to get here.

Learning as a journey

Apologies for those who will see this as a "well duh" post, but I was struck afresh by the analogy of learning as a journey this weekend.

On Sunday afternoon, my husband and I suddenly decided to head for the coast. I needed to feel the sand between my toes. I was born and raised within earshot of the sea and, until we left South Africa, lived at most half an hour's drive from the ocean. Since our arrival in the UK, we seem to have been moving further and further from the sounds, sights and smells that go together with coastal life. So, green or not, and in spite of the cost of fuel, off we set.

We had never previously visited the stretch of coastline that is closest to our current home, so we picked a coastal town that seemed reachable. John did the driving, and I did the navigating (whatever some people - severe language warning - may say on the subject, I am an excellent navigator).

I began to see the partnership as being analogous to that of student and teacher:

• If we see John as the student, I was going along on his journey and had a vested interest in its success.
• If I was in the role of teacher, I was the one telling him where to go and how to reach his objective, even though I had never been there before.
• Because I had the map, I could have told him the entire route he needed to take when we set out, but he would simply have found this confusing. Instead, I would give him the information he needed just as he needed it: "Straight over here, and then left at the next exit onto the A14"
  
• Maps are not infallible (neither are people) so there were one or two surprises along the way. We dealt with them as they arose.
• We reached our destination together.

I got to feel the sand between my toes and stood with my feet in the (surprisingly warm) Atlantic... just as the rain came lashing down.

On the return journey, we switched places and I drove while John navigated a different route back. Long ago we realised that it was not good for our relationship for him to teach me anything. He gives information in the order in which he thinks it ought to be given. I get impatient, because I want it in a different order, and he gets impatient because I keep interrupting him with questions.

As we drove, he would tend to give me longer term instructions than I had given him: "Straight over here, then straight over the next two. Junction 21 could be complicated, but you need to go straight over it and keep going till we get to junction 9." When we passed junction 13 and it had a sign that pointed to our home town, he had wasn't following the map, so there was a period of uncertainty as I worried I might have missed the off-ramp, and he struggled to find our position on the map.

Now, I'm not trying to diss my husband here. I just think I might be the better teacher. He has other skills. But the difference in approach reminded me somewhat of the difference between just-in-case information and just-in-time learning.

Just in case tells you everything long before you're going to need it. Then when you do need it, you have to sift through your memory to find it again, by which time, the moment may have passed. Just in case also leaves you high and dry when the unexpected takes place. Just in case makes no allowance for the gap between head knowledge and practical application.

Just in time tells you what you need to know when you need to know it. Just in time keeps pace with you, so that the information you need is on hand when the unexpected happens. Just in time reflects what is happening now, so it directly addresses the practical application.

Of course, you could argue that both approaches worked equally well, since we arrived home without incident. I will say, though, that I found a way to convert the just in case to just in time. At each roundabout, I would ask "I assume I go straight over here?" John would answer the question and then follow it up with a long stream of additional information. I paid attention to the next 'to do' on the list and tuned the rest out so as not to muddy the waters of my understanding.

For me the interesting thing is that we were both working from the same map. I'm not sure how practical this is for people who work with a pre-established national curriculum and 'achievement' targets to meet. But in a corporate learning environment, the analogy follows more readily.

Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome...

John Romeis to the blogosphere.

John is an IT/logistics professional who has been experimenting with things like uBuntu and the like at home and muttering about his frustrations with them. I have said more than once that he should blog about it. I firmly believe that there are people out there who (a) would be interested in his observations and (b) would be able to make suggestions to overcome some of the frustrations he has experienced.

Please will the more technically minded among you drop by and encourage him. This is a very bold step for a man unaccustomed to putting himself in the public eye.

Friday smile

Ever had one of those moments where you're thought, "Rats! I wish I had my camera with me"?

I had one today. Mind you, since I was driving at the time, having my camera with me wouldn't really have provided me with a solution!

So, without benefit of pictures, let me try to describe the scene for you to start your Friday off with the same smile I did.

As I was driving in to work very early this morning, I saw a few things that I don't normally get to see an hour later when the rhythm of the day has stepped up. One of these was the following sight.

Two old dears were out for a brisk morning walk. Not quite power walking, but certainly not strolling, either. There were kitted out in matching tracksuits, baseball style caps and trainers. The lady on the left was walking determinedly with her head down. The lady on the right was talking nineteen to the dozen, with all sorts of accompanying hand gestures.

Then I noticed their caps. Neatly stitched across the front of the cap on the left was the word "Walkie" while the cap on the right said "Talkie".

I kid you not.

I 'bout split my face grinnin' at them.

They didn't notice.