presenting about blogs

last week i attended the learning consortium's conference in ontario, california.  on thursday afternoon i gave a presentation entitled expanding the reach of a blog which covers some of the data i've been collecting on the effect of the big question feature on learning circuits blog.  the session was lively with questions about the use of blogs in corporate settings, skepticism that blogs are just time sinks, and the explosion of tools and information that everyone is trying to cope with today.  i'll be summarizing some of the key points of the presentation in a post on learning circuits blog in the near future.

On friday i facilitated a hands-on workshop for people just starting to get involved in using blogs, wikis, and rss.  despite a technology snafu on the part of the organizers which had me scrambling for the first 30 minutes, the workshop went well.  all of the participants were new to anything but reading blogs.  by the end of the two hour workshop they had created their own blog and posted to it, worked extensively in a wiki, and walked away with a basic understanding of the simplicity and power of rss. 

this workshop grew out of a conversation i had with pat gallagan of astd at astd's techknowledge conference in las vegas last fall.  pat and i discussed that while there are indeed exciting possibilities that are emerging from all the new technologies that are being introduced daily, a small percentage of workplace learning professionals make up those who are truly competent in their use.  most learning professionals are still at the most fundamental levels of knowledge and skill with these tools - if that.  for those, like myself, who are adherents to moore/rogers diffusion of innovations model, this is no surprise.  these tools have been adopted by the innovators in our field, but truly wide spread adoption of blogs and wikis is yet to come.  introductory workshops for these tools are still necessary.  Thus my decision to create this workshop.

if you are interested in hosting this workshop for your company or organization, please drop me a note at eelearning at mac doc com.  i'll be glad to work with you to bring a fun and educational experience to your employees or members efforts to learn about these tools.  if you are a convention coordinator looking for pre-conference or post-conference workshops, please let me know if this sounds interesting.

Tags: blogs, wikis, rss, workshops, training, web20, train-the-trainer, instructional design

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