Category Archives: change

The motivating power of good questions

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Earlier today I had a short Twitter exchange with Alison Seaman (@alisonseaman) about some resources she found and shared related to new work on web and digital literacies. I noted in the exchange that I am very interested in the work on digital literacy specifically from the perspective of adult learners (in contrast to children and young adult learners).

She tweeted back: “Indeed. Literacy q’s also keep bringing me back to this question, which I think is related,” adding a link to a blog post she wrote in late 2011 titled “Adult education and lifelong learning orientations in the organisation: are adult learners ready?” [my emphasis]

What a great question.

Alison writes thoughtfully in her piece as she explores this issue. But two key points stick out for me:

  • We speak within organizations of the need for “continuous learning,” but how often do we consider the ability of adults to self-reflect in order to know how and what to self-improve? (My hunch: Close to never. Rather we tell them what they should “continuously learn” about because we supposedly know best.)
  • Most adults have a tendency to learn enough to become proficient – or “good enough” – and then stop there. I found this a key point in thinking about adults and digital literacy.

So we have at least a two-headed-monster problem here. We need to deeply consider whether adults can learn to continuously learn (is that self-reflective muscle strong or underutilized?). And then we need to overcome the tendency to just-get-good-enough.

I see this dynamic unfold (and feel it myself, frankly) in thinking about the development of digital literacies. It’s hard work to go from simply “being on” Twitter to turning Twitter and other social media into productive tools in a personal learning network. It takes persistence. Skill-building. Self-reflection. And a whole lot of social support. Not simply to become good at the technicalities of working social media tools, but to benefit from the broad and deep learning that an effective personal learning network can generate.

So what’s the motivation to move through all of that? I think it’s good questions. “Are adults truly ready to continuously learn? And what would an environment look like that truly fostered the ability for adults to learn to continuously learn?” Those work for me.

What are yours?

Also burying “the burning platform”

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Burning platform photo by Jose Mesa via Flickr

So while I am burying things, I am officially also burying the  phrase “burning platform.”

I cannot take direct create for this blinding-glimpse-of-the-obvious insight, but exactly what positive impact does this verbal imagery have on helping someone (or some organization) want to change? And if I am walking around in an organization that is consistently urging change because of yet another burning platform, wouldn’t I want to get to someplace a little safer? Smoke, fire and 20-story plunges into the sea are not part of my image of a healthy environment.

This notion actually came up during a conversation late last week with two organizations that are working with the Master’s Program in Learning  & Organizational Change at Northwestern University on re-thinking change management practices within organizations. One of the executives pointed out that our normal approach to inspiring change is to start with images inspiring fear. And how, she asked, does that put people in a good place to actually do something productive?

So: Burning platform. No longer part of my vocabulary. Burning platform.

Getting in our own way

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I’ve been off the blog routine for a couple of weeks as we kick of the new academic year at Northwestern. It’s always a busy (and fulfilling) time but this year we added an extra layer of frosting by launching a new social learning platform for our graduate program based on Jive software.

Early on there has actually been a huge bit of success. We allowed students into the new community site just to play around and socialize before classes began. It’s been a joy to watch students from all over the country reconnect with each other. I know we are laying the groundwork for our adult, professional students to work on developing their own digital literacy. Which is clearly the way I see our goal. It’s not just adding a social piece to our learning experience; we’re working on digital literacy.

But along the way I am also seeing just how creative people can be in getting in their own way. My ears perk up when I hear something that sounds like a fear or resistance that, really, is unfounded or has a very low chance of occurring. My interest here is more “hmmmm, that’s interesting” than “stop, wait! why are you being so stupid?” Because no one I work with is unthoughtful. But I do think some come into the digital world with interesting mental models.

And the more I think about it, I think the underlying issue is a fear of openness.

It’s personally scary being truly out in the open and sharing your thinking. It’s scary as an institution to be truly out in the open and sharing in the current legal/copyright environment. We can be very creative in both instances in expressing fears or resistance — sometimes even in small ways (“what if the software is buggy and one of my pieces becomes accessible publicly?”). Sometimes in ways that make the institutional fear a boogie man (“we can’t do that because…”). All of this just clouds the issue and impedes progress.

And the issue is: How do we truly reap the benefits of open, accessible knowledge sharing and learning?

Howard Rheingold flips the fear-based mental model with strategies in Net Smart. In his exploration of digital participation (one of his five digital literacies), Rheingold quotes researcher dana boyd:

There is some crappy stuff concerning me on the Internet – both stuff that I’ve produced and stuff that’s been written about me by other people. It’s not even a matter of blog posts or comments; I’m ashamed of some scholarly articles I’ve written and published! So what embarrasses me online is not just content I wrote foolishly but also content that I wrote with the intention of it being public and persistent. My way to cope with this is to constantly put up new content on the Internet that clouds out the past. To make a presence that is much more present me than past me.

[emphasis mine]

Rheingold himself goes on to write “you can’t easily erase bad talk about you online; a better strategy is to dilute it with good talk.”

I think at the end of the day, I’ll be happy if we start creating an environment where a small but growing set of students begins to see the world more through a lens like Rheingold’s.