Little Boxes

For those of you who know me well, you will know that for years I have had a complete abhorrence of putting people, their attributes, their personalities, etc. into little boxes (and have you noticed how often there are just 4 boxes into which one of which we all amazingly fit?).

Now, whilst professionalism at long last seems to be improving in the L&D world (thank goodness, as it's about time - a subject for another blog I think) the act of stereotyping, for that's what it is, still seems to abound.  Every day I come across some statement which goes along the following lines .... "and we need to take into account those who belong to (put in the name of your own favourite box here) because their requirements might be different to those in (and now enter the name of another favourite box here) ...".  What a complete load of old tosh me thinks and I have always thought so, and will continue to do so until someone proves me wrong - but that hasn't happened yet!

My ire was first aroused when I came across a very popular 'Learning Styles' inventory back in the late 1980s.  I simple couldn't believe that people were so gullible as to think for one moment that human beings displayed preferences for learning which neatly fitted into one of four boxes (or none, as some, like yours truly, has shown) using a tool which had no validity (since proved by independent research) or reliability.  But people did think so and, amazingly, they still continue to do so.  "We must take into account their learning styles" is a phrase that I still see and yet no one has told me how I am supposed to do this, irrespective of the means of delivery used in an educational, training or development programme!

Today there is another box system into which we are all supposed to fit depending on our age!!  This 'classification' system is being used to 'tell' others how people will react to using Web 2.0 tools and applications.  Again, I keep on coming across totally unproven statements, such as "Generation Y will want and expect ..... because they are ..... " whilst the poor 'old' baby boomer generation (that's supposedly me folks, based on my age) are simply a lost cause when it comes to using Web 2.0.  Well, have I got news for those who perpetrate such nonsense this baby bloomer is blogging - so there!!

Oh please, let's get real and stop trying to categorise people into nice, neat, simple boxes because it just doesn't work, it's an insult to the complexity which is humanity, and it makes our profession look completely idiotic - even though it has earned some people a nice little sum over the years.

OK, rant over, that is until the next time.

The place of design in learning

I have dithered for a while about doing this but I can't put if off any longer, even if my main reason is that everyone else I know is already doing it - blogging I mean.

There is so much going on at the moment in the L&D world about which I feel strongly and with which I am actively involved, that I am now humbled into thinking why should I keep it all to myself?

On Tuesday, at a British Institute for Learning and Development Connect meeting, I decided that the time had come to 'publish'. The meeting was concerned with Learning Design ( a subject about which I am immensely passionate) and Web 2.0 applications. Whilst I write articles regularly for a well-known publisher, these are only read by those who subscribe to the publication. One of the strengths of blogging is to publish your views for anyone to read and, more importantly, to comment on.

The use of blogs, wikis and social networking were all covered in the meeting from both technological and learning perspectives. As one of the speakers, I did my best to look at these applications from a learning perspective, as I have never liked seeing the technology tail wagging the learning dog and there was certainly a lot of wagging going on I can tell you!

I've now got to get to grips with this blogging technology, so my apologies if my early posts are somewhat on the basic side but I will try to improve in this regard. I am also aware that, in the fullness of time, I might decide that the decision I took on Tuesday was the equivalent of some glorified ego trip, in which case my blogging days will be over - I really hope that it doesn't come to this though.

Judith