I had the chance (and the energy!) to catch up on my web reading and vid viewing on the weekend. I got to watch some great podcasts by Mike Rohde, and that inspired me to try to capture my learning.
I caught up with quite a few Peter Senge videos to revisit the five disciplines, systems thinking in particular, and his move to advocating for greater awareness of the unseen consequences of our actions. He particulary highlights environmental and social consequences, which are often not seen before they occur far away from the cause (children working in factories) or over time (reduction in available fossil fuels), or both (melting of glaciers). I made some quick notes regarding the disciplines here:
These are some of my brief notes from my web weekend 🙂
Nancy White interviewing Etienne Wenger-Trayner:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NsnGKZXN80U
- Learning becomes a social discipline
- design as process of social learning
- create a story out of everybody’s story
- bigger than the sum of the parts
- whose voices are being heard
- where do we put boundaries
- where do we cross boundaries
Peter Senge on Leadership
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68unIDHgWhY
- Leadership is about the capacity of a human community to shape its future
- The creative orientation
- How we accomplish things that really matter to us
Peter Senge: Breaking the Cycle of Fatalism
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6SRBiHH3BCI
If you do not shift people’s belief that they cannot affect their future nothing else you do will matter – every type of help you give them will just reinforce that the fact that they cannot help themselves – reinforce their sense that the power is there – outside of me
(Quoting Mwalimu Musheshe)
Systems Thinking with Peter Senge
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1G0Fs__u4g
- Systems thinking means it is not just about the decision but it is about the conversation that we had – did it build a sense of trust and understanding
- For learning to take place I have to be prepared to be wrong
Navigating Webs of Interdependence
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HOPfVVMCwYg&feature=player_embedded#!
- Forgoing short term for long term
- Collective achievements
- Collective intelligence
One of the best posts I have read in a long time is this one by Jane Hart, where she describes 10 reasons NOT to create a course – and 10 other options (with examples). Jane’s reasons will make a lot of sense to people. She then goes on to suggest alternatives – and provides examples for each suggestion. Some of these examples are valuable in their own right. Tiny Training was eye-opening for me for a couple of reasons. Firstly I wondered how Jane could possibly design and maintain another site! Secondly, this site finally convinced me that Twitter could be used in creative, meaningful ways to promote and embed learning. The site lists a range of Tiny activities which could be quite valuable in complementing other learning activities.
Another site Jane’s article mentioned was Dave’s Ensampler – Types of Job Aids. I believe strongly that many skills covered in training programs could be addressed – or at the very least reinforced by – well designed job aids. This site provides exdamples of different types of job aids, and some design tips for designing your own.
So – in wrapping up this post – what I learned helped me feel energised and equipped again to look at my work in a different way, and to seek to provide a learning context where the learners can effectively manage their pathways.