Dave Day

Discusses key issues concerning employee orientation in companies. Key role of the first-line supervisor as a natural extension of the training department; Role of supervisors in employee orientation; Implications on occupational training and manpower development.

A New Look at Orientation

I'm sure many of you will have come across Elgg before. For those that haven't, Elgg is an open-source engine that allows you to create your own Social Network. Founded in 2004 by Dave Tosh and Ben Werdmuller, Elgg was often pitched as a Social Network for education - perhaps the first foray into the world of 'online' Social Learning, some time before the phrase entered popular parlance.Dave Tosh has since moved to pastures new (as has Werdmuller) but I thought it would be interesting to touch base with Dave to talk about those early days before Social Learning became the phrase du jour...Ben Betts: When you were in the process of creating Elgg, did the phrase 'social learning' crop up or was it yet to emerge as a theme in education?Dave Tosh: I can't remember anyone talking about social learning back in 2004 when Elgg started. Blogging was just beginning to come on the radar, which did introduce some 'social' aspects but it was not referred to as social learning.BB: Which segments of the marketplace were quickest to adopt Elgg when you launched?DT: Education was the first group to experiment with Elgg, however, it was when things moved out of the Edu arena that groups became willing to pay for customisation which was the business model and ultimately dictated the future path.BB: In persuading your early adopters was there much focus on the command and control mechanisms within Elgg? Were people scared of how users might abuse a social system?DT: This was one of the major stumbling blocks when people tried Elgg. It was very deliberate that there were no roles and permissions. A student was on the same level as an educator as we tried to create a space where the individual (regardless of position) could control who to collaborate with and who got access to their content. This caused confusion and it was a constant battle to get people to try and forget (for the purpose of a trial) about the top-down, course centric, constraints imposed by the LMS platforms of the time in order to experiment with a platform that was bottom up, user controlled, and experience centric.There were other concerns raised when we visited the US around kids using the privacy options to plan attacks on the school and the school then being accountable due to provided them with the online platform for this.BB: In your opinion, is Social Learning a fad, a passing trend, or a sea change in the way we learn online?DT: I don't know enough about 'social learning' to comment. For me personally, learning is not a solitary pursuit. I feel the informal aspect of the learning process plays a crucial role in moving from the retention of fact to a real/deep understanding. This is something Elgg tried to address: it was not about access to course notes or course work submission but instead capturing and fostering the reflection that many students and researchers do in the cafe or pub after lectures as this was often, at least for me, when the grounding of understanding happened; in those informal discussions.BB: If you could have kept just one feature in Elgg for social networking, what would it have been?DT: This is a tough question as different components were important to different people. Some liked the group blogging component, others the fine-grain access controls - it was dependant on context. I guess if I had to choose, I would have kept, and focused more on, the aggregation side of things to make it easier for people to use their own tools but still participate in the community.BB: You open-sourced Elgg; was this a commercial or idealistic decision?DT: Elgg started out as a simple proof-of-concept - there was no business/commercial thinking involved at that time - so the decision to go open source was based on encouraging others to help build out the concept.BB: Finally, do you have any tips for how to engage and grow an online social learning community?DT: I am not sure about a social learning community. Regarding online communities in general, I would never underestimate the importance of having an engaged community; the community is everything. This is one of the biggest lessons I learnt during my Elgg days.About Dave:Dave Tosh is passionate about technology, in particular the web, and its potential for creating new learning opportunities for us all. Dave co-founded Elgg and is now to be found experimenting on a couple of ideas around information accuracy.

Where Social Learning got its start: An interview with Dave Tosh

Last week’s Government Workforce conference brought together hundreds of senior government learning and development leaders to discuss current and emerging trends and best practices across L&D landscape.Our 4th and latest conference was our most engaging and impactful. Some 50-plus government subject matter experts brought together hundreds of years of expertise, offering insight into cutting-edge practices for distributed/remote workforces, leadership development, informal learning, and managing the work function.As promised, we dispensed with the PPTs—and got right down to business in our 16 sessions. The session moderators and audience members engaged with panelists to dig deep into their stores of practical advice. A number of participants mentioned that the “behind the scenes” detail  and “war stories” shared were some of the most beneficial aspects of attendance.Some highlights:Panelists recommended favorite books. For example, A Theory of Fun for Game Design by Ralph Koster, and Dave Meier's book, The Accelerated Learning Handbook, were cited as resources for great methods and concepts for participative learning using a somatic, audio, visual, and intellectual model.We learned about Melanie Cohen of HUD’s TED- style talks. Check them out on Youtube. Click here to see one of her sessions.Powerhouse keynote sessions from Director Katherine Archuleta, Bill Treasurer, and Sardek Love really got people talking.Dozens of Tweets—almost 50—during and after the event!Many great stories about people making connections during the sessions and throughout the networking breaks.Some attendees managed to grab a person with an ATD badge to share how much they appreciated the conference. This is what they said:“I was able to stay most of the day and was very impressed with the content of the conference and the attendees, who were very engaged in every session I attended. Your lunch speaker was fantastic, too—I was lucky enough to sit at his table for lunch. I know you put in a ton of work on the conference—thanks so much for making it a very productive day for me. I certainly can’t say that for all the conferences I attend.”“I thought the conference was excellent in every facet. My colleagues commented similarly. I learned a great deal and I thank you very much.”“Great job on the conference! I heard a lot of good buzz in the hallways and in the sessions I ran. I thought it was great and the sessions rewarding.”Stay tuned for the learning to continue. In a few days, we will add video excerpts of conference highlights. In the meantime, continue the conversation with us by connecting with us on Twitter at ATDGov and join the ATD Government Community on LinkedIn to continue the conversation.