After lunch Louise Turnbull from OTEN spoke to us about a case study “Using technology to do our business better”.

Of the 38,000 students through OTEN, all have access to online learning support, and 3,000 of those actually study online. To get to this point, they took an elearning/ ebusiness approach and linked it closely to the corporate strategic plan. Since 2001 they have had various annual plans, and this year for the first time they don’t have a separate plan for elearning/ ebusiness. Louise then talked us through the features their OLS (OTEN Learning Support) site has and some of the technologies like virtual classrooms and tools for resource development that they are experimenting with this year.

Back to Nigel…

We got to see screenshots of the BBC intranet - they established some conventions eg particular information in particular locations. Also it includes links to personal info such as PDPs, expense claim processing, transport bookings. Also clustering of like information eg shared research that embodies simplicity and transparency. They also have resource development tools available (use Toolbox 3.0). Uses templates for learning design, power to build modules given out to the masses. Also each internal course has an online space, template driven, can be as simple or as complex as needed and wanted. Based on templates in Word and Powerpoint so that there could be no “I can’t do it” barriers.

Learner Centred Design (circles diagram #3 from Downes and Marzano)

Tacit Knowledge
Organisations generally have no means of surfacing the tacit knowledge.

Learning Organisations
- A place where learning is respected
- An organisation that can learn from within and from outside and where knowledge is shared.
- everyone sees themselves as a learner, a teacher and a source of business knowledge.

‘There is no simple, linear hierarchy and progress from data to information to knowledge. There is a complex intermeshing, such as a continuous churning of insight, the meaning of which changes in different contexts and conversations.’ Educause Review Sept/Oct 2003

Tables then responded to questions posed earlier in the day. Each table had to present their solutions briefly.
Some sensible advice was generated, some of the more exciting ideas were…
- skill sharing should be a KPI for someone high up in the organisation to enable a culture of sharing of tips and tricks.
- be comfortable with failure and taking risks

Answers to my question from another table were:
- training and resources are the foundation
- identify the linkers, hubs and bridgers (see earlier post)
-then enable these three groups, give them trust
- put in place the infrastructure to make it happen
- reward risk taking and collaboration
- investigate blogs and wikis

There is more information on the BBC entry on Wikipedia than there is on the BBS site. Wikipedia is a great example of a self-healing, self-generating organism.

BBC has establised a Leadership wiki internally. This has grown over time to include contributions from over 1200 people. Anyone internally can ask for a wiki to be set up, with both open and closed groups accepted. Information literacy is critical in this world - being conscious of potential for bias, this goes for all websites. Through the huge audience using wikipedia, there is a quicker moderation of dodgy information being added.

about 200 bloggers read by about 8,000-10,000 people. (think I got the numbers down right!).

Thought from the table:
Think about lean-in and lean-back technology, DVDs can be either.