The Global Corporate Trainers, Instructional Designers and Learning Principles Educator Network

In the process of transforming a learning culture within a business organization, it is imperative that we use what we know about the way adults learn and how that translates into effective performance when applied in an online training environment. The key goal is to ensure engagement of employees in a given task not by programming every step that they are to take but providing latitude for them to collaborate with other learners in meaningful ways. This also lays the ground work for the development of an innovative mindset among learners.

John Seely Brown, an innovation expert made a very insightful statement when he stated:

"Organizations need to find the 'edge dwellers,' and 'pull them together and give them voice.' Edge dwellers are the change agents within an organization. They need to be given permission to experiment and push boundaries and they need to be provided with tools to have at their disposal, such as social media."

However, in order for this type of engagement to be enriching for an organization, there needs to be a focus on effective design thinking when designing irresistibly engaging learning experiences. To aid this thinking, three important elements need to be in place which are:

• Using Kolb's Theory as a basis which postulates four main learning styles: Converger, Diverger, Assimilator and Accomodator, we need to go further and modify it by applying what new research from the field of Cognitive Neuro-Science tells us about how adults engage in their learning when presented by an immersive E-Learning environment.
• A clearly defined purpose for learning and engaging in the learning experience. Designing a group of learning experiences for adult learners that makes explicitly clear the reason, purpose, and usefulness of the subject matter is a necessary component in reaching adult learners.
• A format or facilitation process that encourages participants to share their knowledge and experience freely. It is this very point that the concept of the Global Corporate Trainer, Instructional Designers and the Learning Principles Educator(or Expert) Network is offered as a choice with exciting potential to prosper business organizations and "jump start" innovation.

The Global Corporate Trainer, ID and LPE Network: What is its purpose and how does it work?

 

 Some of the problems that business organizations have experienced in the past and continue to experience in some organizations can be summarized as follows:

• When new skillsets are needed to be passed on to employees, engagement during the sessions might peak but then after the sessions are long over, little, measurable improvement in performance is seen. Why did the commitment to applying learning on a regular basis disappear?
• A new and potentially innovative change is proposed and supported at the time but then is left to sit and gather dust for a variety of reasons ranging from necessary budget cuts to potential loss of jobs if the innovation is pursued. When change is necessary, why are so many roadblocks erected to following through without even suggesting hybrid modifications or viable alternatives? Why do potentially innovative approaches suffer the "paralysis by analysis" effect?

 The development of the proposed network provides a needed "sandbox for innovation" where innovative ideas and effective, irresistibly engaging learning experiences may be developed through open collaboration not only with the noted business organization's trainers, ID's and LPE's but also with the same types of personnel from other business organizations who share common interests. The essential key to understanding the Global Learning Hubs and adjoining networks such as this one is to take a close look at the collaborative pathways that join them and think about this as a digital symbiotic relationship. This should make sense if we look at business organizations as living organisms. The benefits of such a concept would be as follows:

1. Costs for development are shared with other business organizations who have common interests and therefore the ROI is also shared according to a mutually agreed upon formula. In concept this is similar to the trade pact groups that already exist in today's world.
2. Open innovation can take root here as organizations involved would also have equal access to the other networks in the Global Learning Portal through collaborative pathways as shown in the diagram. Collaborating in this non-threatening environment allows for the testing of new ideas before they are brought back to the individual business organizations.
3. The learning culture of the business organizations improves as a result of the constant feedback from the Global E-Learning Hub which acts as a communication network between the adjoining collaborative networks and the individual business organizations. 
4. There is the potential for the sharing of knowledge among the 6 distinct Learning Portals. This would be especially important in collaborating to help improve infrastructure upgrading that is needed for developing countries to effectively participate in the global E-Learning enterprise.

There is a great potential to help many nations improve the quality of life for their inhabitants and especially for new generations that are being born, through the means of effective education. Due to the expansive global reach of the world wide web, we can help many nations to empower their children to be agents of change within their societies. We need to do this to counter the negative forces within many societies that would deny hope to new generations of ever conquering disease, poverty, war and political corruption. Remember that dictators maintain their power by keeping their people ignorant and in fear.

 [Remember, if you feel that the message of this post should be shared over social media, share it!]

 Next...Designing Effective Interactions For E-Learning