Collaborative Learning Network Newsletter
A Biweekly publication on collaboration and learning from Learning Mastery
V. 3, No. 6
March 16, 2001
Facilitating Virtual Teams that Learn, a one-day workshop with Dori Digenti in Boston, MA, will be held on Friday, June 8, 2001. This workshop will cover the stages of virtual team development, and include demonstrations of an online virtual team environment. Special attention will be focused on facilitating team learning through a team collaboration approach. Full details at
"Process Consultation & Organizational Culture," a one-day workshop with Edgar Schein, will be held in New York City, Thursday, September 27, 2001. Full details at
http://www.learnmaster.com/workshops/index.htmlOnline Social Networks 2001 is a virtual conference dedicated to an exploration of social networks, learning, knowledge, and community, takes place March 28 – April 11, 2001. Keynoters include Lisa Kimball, Howard Rheingold, Amy Jo Kim, Nancy Rhine, and other thought leaders. The Elearning focus session will be facilitated by members of the Collaborative Learning Network.
Conference info and registration is at:
http://www.groupjazz.com/osn2001/One of the ways that elearning can help us to learn more effectively is through combining the strengths of design and technology to create informal learning environments (See my article "Make Space for Informal Learning," in Learning Circuits, August 2000,
http://www.learningcircuits.com/aug2000/digenti.html)Often, the most valuable learning takes place serendipitously, by random chance. Organizations can begin to help the process along by creating both opportunities and online environments that support the meeting of people for new knowledge creation. See Steelcase's Paul Cornell's summary of the utility of informal learning environments (with a useful model at the bottom of the article).
http://www.steelcase.com/knowledgebase/growinfl.htmThe most persuasive case to be made for virtual project management tools and full utilization of shared collaborative design spaces is when project managers can see the power of these methods right before their eyes. In the UK, the Acme shipyard is building a warship with Finnish manufacturer Wartsila. When a change is needed to the specification, for example, an increase in engine size, the new specification is fed in. Then the 'collaborative design review' link is clicked, and Wartsila communicates with the Acme's website. Changes are made and agreed, and a 'ripple effect' - altering the size of other components, weights, and costs - automatically occurs. The ship project manager, and engine and component suppliers, can see the impact on the overall vessel in real time. Similar links are managed with all component suppliers through a central search engine. The result: faster processing and reduced costs. See the full article, "Fluffy and peachy - the great hope of British manufacturing," at:
http://www.guardianunlimited.co.uk/internetnews/story/0,7369,386072,00.htmlWhat if, instead of finding, documenting, updating, and disseminating an expert database in your organization, you could create a real-time, dynamic expert knowledge base that automatically updates itself based on what individuals are talking about in their email communications? And what if this capability also included crawling other internal resources and the Web to bring together needed information automatically? This is the promise of some emerging software such as Knowmadic, Autonomy, Tacit, and others, that promises to make knowledge management more automatic, more painless, and more encompassing. Check out a recent review of some of the products in "A Growing Body of Knowledge," by Christopher Lindquist:
http://www.cio.com/archive/021501/et.htmlã Learning Mastery, 2001. All rights reserved.