From eLearning to Learning (Pt. 4 of 5): A Case Study in Blended Learning

The unexpectedly explosive and transformational decision to try using Twitter to incorporate positive onsite-online e-learning experiences into Mount Prospect Public Library’s 2016 Staff Inservice Day “From eLearning to Learning” (the day-long exploration of how staff at the Library can better define and incorporate e-learning into its work) was almost an afterthought. It came up and was quickly adopted during a final planning meeting the day before the event, as I mentioned in the third of these five “case study” postings.

It’s not as if Twitter as part of our e-learning landscape is unfamiliar to trainer-teacher-learner-doers; we use it extensively in learning opportunities ranging from conference backchannel discussions to tweet chats along the lines of what #lrtnchat, #etmooc, and many others do. I often, through the “Rethinking Social Media” course I designed and facilitate for ALA Editions, call attention to the intriguing, cutting-edge work Rey Junco has done with Twitter and other social media tools in academic settings. And I’ve been lucky enough to experience high-end, dynamically-facilitated blended environments through participation in events creatively crafted by the New Media Consortium and other organizations.

But using it as a way of helping our “From eLearning to Learning” co-conspirators (the learners shaping and participating in the day-long event at the Library) opened doors none of us even began to imagine at the moment during which we initially discussed creating and using #mpplsid16 as a way of showing how social media tools can creatively, effectively, and easily help us redefine our learning spaces.

We primed the pump to engage in some major onsite rethinking about e-learning at the beginning of “From eLearning to Learning” by showing a few photographs taken within the Library and asking “Are These eLearning Spaces?”

E-learning space?

E-learning space?

E-learning space?

Within the first few minutes of my highly-interactive 45-minute keynote presentation/discussion, very few people responded to the question with a “yes.” By the time we finished that initial keynote/discussion period about what the term “e-learning” means in our learning environments, almost every hand in the room shot up in response to the same question asked while the same images were again on display—an acknowledgement that any space in which we have Internet access is potentially an e-learning space. (One lovely note I received at the end of the day built upon the conversation with a suggestion that made me smile: “Your Elearning spaces slide needs a picture of my Dodge Caravan.”)

More importantly, that rapid expansion of everyone’s vision of what the e-learning landscape currently encompasses provided an amazing demonstration of the way a well-designed learning opportunity, developed collaboratively with learners and their representatives, can transform learners (and learning facilitators) within a very short period of time.

Having suggested to our co-conspirators that they could use Twitter as a way to take notes to which they could later return, and as a way to extend the reach of our gathering far beyond the physical walls of the various rooms in which we were meeting, I turned my full attention to the onsite setting during my keynote presentation. I didn’t return to Twitter until we had our first break—the one between the keynote and the first of three periods set aside for breakout discussions. I was absolutely floored by the level of tweeting that was already occurring. Some people were responding (very positively) to what was taking place; others were observing what was happening around them. And a few were sharing content in those Twitteresque 140-character bursts that shot around the world. The result was that we were beginning to work onsite and online simultaneously, and a few of the tweets were being retweeted by others across the United States and in Europe (apparently attracted by my occasional use of the combined hashtags #learning and #innovation).

Seizing the opportunity during the break, I retweeted a few of the more thoughtful tweets and responded to a few of the tweeters—which, of course, set the tone for an extended onsite-online expaned-e-learning-environment conversation that was still continuing as I rode a commuter train from Mount Prospect into Chicago early that evening.

Recognizing the potential there for a stand-alone learning object that anyone could continue to draw upon as long as it remains available, I remained in my hotel room an hour longer than anticipated before heading out for dinner; I knew that if I didn’t collect and transfer those tweets into a Storify document that included light annotations to set the context for what had just occurred, I would lose the in-the-moment excitement the entire experience had generated. It was available to anyone that wanted to seek it out less than four hours after “From eLearning to Learning” had adjourned. It also has become part of an overall “From eLearning to Learning” suite of freely accessible resources for anyone interested in trying a similar experiment within their own learning environment; links are included at the bottom of this post.

I was part of the first-rate Mount Prospect Public Library Staff Inservice Day planning team that designed and facilitated the process. I was the keynote presenter-facilitator, and trained the staff facilitators who led the breakout sessions. I know Twitter, I use Twitter, and I adore what is good about Twitter. But even I remain stunned by the depth of learning and the nuances contained within that particular Storify item. It has plenty of playful exchanges. It has tweets acknowledging the conversational nature of the “From eLearning to Learning” Twitter feed. It has lovely, poignant tweets about personal learning experiences—including one about how the Library director posted her first tweet as a result of what she was experiencing that day. It had some wonderful comments about how much staff enjoyed and learned from the event, and how enthusiastically they are looking forward to building upon what we built together in the best of all possible experiential-learning (hands-on) approaches—something fun, engaging, meaningful, replicable, and actionable.

But what stands out to me most as I continue rereading it, skimming it for previously-missed gems, discussing it with friends and colleagues, and learning from what all of us at Mount Prospect Public Library created out of our individual and communal learning experiences within that very attractive and dynamic community of learning, is how much it captures the wonderful results flowing from onsite-online (blended) learning opportunities that are learner-centric, goal-driven, and designed to produce results.

Next: After “From eLearning to Learning (Continuing the Training-Teaching-Learning-Doing Process)” 

NB: This is the fourth of five articles documenting the process of helping to plan and facilitate a day-long exploration of how to effectively incorporate e-learning into our learning process. Companion components to “From eLearning to Learning” currently include a PowerPoint slide deck with extensive speaker notes, a facilitator’s guide, a lightly edited and annotated Storify document capturing that part of the conversation that occurred via Twitter, and online shared documents that contain content added by the learners during throughout the day of the main event. Some are shared here through those live links with the express approval of Mount Prospect Public Library training staff. For help in developing and facilitating a similar event tailored to your organization, please contact Paul at paul@paulsignorelli.com.

Testimonials

Photo by Dennis L. Maness

Selected Responses to Presentations/Writing

“Paul Signorelli is a master facilitator. He has a knack for making sure all voices are heard and sessions are productive, constructive, and timely. It’s a fine balancing act that he does with all the grace and polish of a Wallenda. “

–Stacy Hawthorne, colleague in the Arizona State University ShapingEDU community (June 17, 2022)

“Thank you, Paul, for previously mentoring and supporting me many years ago when I was a new member of the Association of Talent Development [South Florida Chapter] community. You were always genuine and generous and you played an important role on my journey, managing to strike that ‘delicate balance.'”

–Marla S. Grant, Esq., Certified Executive Coach (April 22, 2022)

“Thank you for the wonderfully inspirational time together today. I will be incorporating your ideas into my stories as I build a class on team building this afternoon.”

–Sylvette Wake, participant in “Inspiring Positive Action Through Storytelling” online workshop (ATD Sacramento Chapter, March 24, 2022)

“You are not dry and we appreciate that…You are like an atmospheric river storm.“

–Participant, “Making Meetings Matter: The Art of Effective Meetings” (Claremont EAP session), December 2021), in response to the question “What made this ‘meeting’ [the hour-long facilitated conversation about effective meetings] effective?”

“Paul was very engaging and presented the material in a way that was easy to understand. He showed not only his level of knowledge in the subject matter, but his compassion and belief in the topic.“

–Participant, “It’s About Time: Tips for Time Management” (Claremont EAP session), October 2021)

“I’ve really enjoyed this course and [have] gotten so much out of it. Learning about goals, objectives, [and] outlines has helped me tremendously…I also appreciated your humor and funny, light-hearted videos that you mixed in with the lectures. Thanks for keeping it interesting!”

–Jill Peth, participant, four-week online “Creating Online Tutorials” course, May 2021

“I’ve been doing advocacy for over 30 years and this reinforced ideas that I know but don’t put into practice all of the time. The idea of using stories to be more engaging and relevant with lawmakers and their staff is really a good approach and is effective.“

–From participant in “Storytelling for Advocacy” session at the California Library Association virtual conference, May 13, 2021

“I liked the interaction and involvement by the participants. This could have just been a lecture but wasn’t. The presenter did a great job of encouraging feedback during the program.”

–From participant in “Storytelling for Advocacy” session at the California Library Association virtual conference, May 13, 2021

“I took your class on social media when I first came back into the library world full time in 2010 or 2011. I wanted to tell you that through Twitter I have reached out to others in the profession as well as authors etc that I have used for many book discussions, readers advisory or other problems. I just wanted to thank you and let you know your course helped me develop in a way I didn’t think possible at that time.”

–From Patty Graziani Sussman, participant, four-week online “Rethinking Social Media” course, January 29, 2021

“I’ve been following @paulsignorelli’s blog since the #etmooc [Educational Technology & Media massive open online course] in 2013. His article about #ShapingEDU’s #LearningMan summer camp is typical in how it connects readers to a vast network of others who are committed to #learning #innovation and #creativity.”

–From Daniel Basill, President, CEO, Founder, Tutor/Mentor Institute, via Twitter July 22, 2020

“Thanks for this amazing thoughtful post about the #DigitalAdoptionSummit@trainersleaders. – buildingcreativebridges.wordpress.com/2020/05/27/ada… You have been quite an inspiration to our entire summit team!”

–From whatfix, the sponsor of a magnificent online three-day Digital Adoption Summit (conference) I covered on my Building Creative Bridges blog, May 26-28, 2020

“Thank you so much for providing such a great learning opportunity. I have downloaded the PowerPoints and saved the links to the video recordings of our sessions.  I know that I will be referring to these as I plan my trainings and try to learn more about effective training techniques.”

–From a participant in a four-part train-the-trainer series that started with a full day onsite and continued with three highly-interactive webinars (using Zoom) over a two-month period, March – May 2020

“Your [Future of Libraries] webinar was timely and important. Artificial Intelligence and Entrepreneurship aren’t something that everyone is either versed with or very comfortable with in their lives. But – you presented it in a way that was relatable.”

–From a viewer of an archived webcast recording, April 16, 2020

“Paul: I wanted to thank you for your contributions to the panel presentation this afternoon at ATD. Your human-centered approach (storytelling, humor, empathy) was refreshing!”
–From participant in the “Implementing Machine Learning and AI in Learning–Global Cases and Best Practices” session at the ATD (Association for Talent Development) 2019 International Conference & Exposition, Washington, DC, May 2019

“You brought in a lot of energy, humor and audience engagement through polls and questions. I personally believe the Q&A session nailed it.”
–From the colleague who arranged my “Future-Ready: A Roadmap to Using Ed-Tech to Hone Your Workplace Skills” interactive webinar for a global company based in India, November 2018

“I can’t say enough nice things about Paul Signorelli. He has a presence that transcends any medium. I was a virtual attendee and his passion for blended learning was palpable through the virtual connection. He proved, by virtue of his ability to connect with me and present content in an engaging manner, that we don’t have to learn face-to-face.”
–From an online (offsite) participant in the ATD Orange County blended program “Blended 2018: A Hands-On Evening of Engagement,” May 2018

“Very good presentation; kept everyone engaged.”
–From participant in the ATD 2018 International Conference & Exposition “Out of Our Seats: Road Maps for Learning and Collaborating Through Movement” session (San Diego, CA), May 2018

“#librarians: snatch you up some @paulsignorelli for your next staff training day. you won’t regret it. #elearning #mpplside16”
–Tweeted by a 2016 Mount Prospect Public Library Staff Inservice Day“From eLearning to Learning” participant, May 2016

“Great webinar; thanks for the knowledge.”
–From learner in “Giving and Receiving: The Nuts and Bolts of Moving from ‘Networking’ to ‘Building Sustainable Relationships'” session for PCI Webinars, April 2016

“Thanks for facilitating The Big Give! I left energized and with tons of ideas–a great evening.”
–From “Facilitating the Wisdom of the Crowd: The Big Give” session, co-facilitated with Janet Isom for our colleagues at the ATD Golden Gate Chapter (San Francisco), March 2016

“Thank you for a wonderful experience in your short course. I found it to be very informative and my ‘brain juices’ are flowing when I think about the different ways in which I could help promote library services and programs.”
–From learner in “Rethinking Library Instruction: Libraries as Social Learning Centers”four-week online course, March 2016

“Thank you for participating on the SMC (Saint Mary’s College of California Library] External Review Committee and for all of your efforts on our behalf.”
–From library administrator who organized and facilitated the efforts of our three-person external review committee that was convened to help the campus community plan for the future of its library and library services, February 2016

“This has been a wonderful class, and I’m so appreciative of the opportunities.”
–From learner in “Rethinking Library Instruction: Libraries as Social Learning Centers”four-week online course, February-March 2016

“It was so awesome. Someone today in another meeting brought up a point you had made…so already a ripple effect!”

–From “Learning for the Future: Habits of Mind and Teaching for Life Skills” session for faculty at Saint Mary’s College of California, Moraga, CA, October 2015

“Outstanding session. Thank you for being so focused on being interactive. Awesome!”
–From “Levels of Engagement: Attracting, Placing, and Retaining Volunteers” session at ATD (Association for Talent Development) Chapter Leaders Conference, Washington, D.C. area, October 2015

“Thank you so much for an excellent, interactive session!…The interaction between you and [co-facilitator] Maurice [Coleman] was such a perfect method of demonstrating how all of this works – and how easy it is that they should all try it.”
–From “Playing With Collaborative Tools Online” session via a Google Hangout for a live audience onsite at the Northeast Kansas Library System’s Innovation Day, April 2015

“…you have been the most engaging teacher of any on-line course that I have ever experienced. You certainly put a lot of time into responding to each person’s post with more than just a cursory acknowledgement. I have truly gotten more from this particular class than I have in a long list of classes that I have taken online. So thanks for what you are doing.”
–From learner in “Rethinking Social Media to Organize Information and Communities”online course, November 2015

Resume/CV

Paul Signorelli
1032 Irving, #514
San Francisco, CA 94122
E-mail: paul@paulsignorelli.com

LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paulsignorelli/

Overview

Photo by Dennis L. Maness, taken on the Hidden Garden Steps

Opportunity is at the heart of all I do in writing and learning—the opportunity to work more effectively and collaboratively, and to produce results that are meaningful to learners, to organizations, and to the customers/clients/communities we ultimately serve.

I collaborate with clients and colleagues in higher education and other learning environments to produce engaged, motivated, productive learners and partners. I see learning and collaboration as a process rather than solely as an event. I want to make a positive difference in our workplaces and within our extended onsite and online communities. I want to be sure that our learning efforts and the way we work within our communities are collaborative, learner-centric, results-driven, and designed to extend well beyond the physical and virtual learning spaces we create.

I work with you to nurture these results through highly-interactive presentations and facilitated learning sessions designed to respond to the specific challenges you are facing.

Education

University of North Texas, MLIS
Golden Gate University, M.A., Arts Administration
UCLA, B.A., Political Science

Skill sets:

• Writing
• Facilitating group discussions face-to-face and online to produce positive strategic outcomes
• Public speaking (with a strong focus on high levels of interaction with audiences)
• Program management
• Collaboratively designing and implementing innovative, effective workplace learning and performance (training) projects and programs onsite, online, and in blended environments at the national, regional, and local levels
• Creating and nurturing sustainable face-to-face, online, and blended communities of learning, collaborations, and partnerships
• Leadership on boards, committees, programs, and projects
• Online research to track future-thinking ed-tech, social media, and lifelong learning trends
• Entrepreneurship that connects a variety of stakeholders to produce positive, concrete results
• Marketing and public relations
• Strategic planning
• Fundraising
• Quickly absorbing new information to keep up with developments in educational and workplace technology

Publication (Partial List)

Books

Change the World Using Social Media (January 2021, Rowman & Littlefield), a story-driven exploration of how activists incorporate social media into their small-, medium-, and large-scale efforts to produce positive change in their communities

Workplace Learning & Leadership, a staff training guide co-written with Lori Reed for ALA Editions to highlight examples of trainers as successful leaders within their organizations (April 2011)

Also:

*Contributor to 101 More Ways to Make Training Active (Elaine Biech, editor; April 2015)

*Contributor (“Infinite Learning,” a chapter on fostering lifelong learning through libraries) to Information Services Today: An Introduction (Sandra Hirsh, editor; March 2015)

*Contributor to The Book of Road-Tested Activities (Elaine Biech, editor; May 2011); online excerpts available

*Editorial Board Member for 2^nd edition of Sandra Hirch’s Information Services Today: An Introduction

 

Blog Postings

Building Creative Bridges (articles on training, learning, technology, collaboration, activism/advocacy, and innovation)

ShapingEDU blog (regular contributor providing articles on lifelong learning, innovation, and broadband access)

American Libraries Magazine blog (occasional guest contributor providing articles on learning, technology, innovation, and libraries for this group blog)

ATD Learning Technologies blog (occasional guest contributor providing articles on learning, staff training, technology, and innovation for this group blog)

Book Reviews

“Abandoned in the Wasteland,” Minow & Lamay, SF Review of Books (10&11/1995)

“AI: Mind-MELDS With Our Learners and Our Machines,” ATD blog (2/7/2019)

“The Craft of Research,” Wayne C. Booth and others, SF Guardian (5/1996)

“Get Lucky,” Thor Muller and Lane Becker, ASTD’s Learning Circuits (online) (8/7/2012)

“The Hindenburg Crashes Nightly,” Greg Hrbek, SF Chronicle (10/31/1999)

“Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard,” Kiran Desai, SF Bay Guardian (9/1998)

“LibraryThing” List of Books on Training, Creativity, Collaboration, and Other Topics

(Includes Ratings and Reviews), updated regularly

“Myth Buster: Debunking What Otherwise Might Lead Us and Our Learners Astray,” ATD blog (8/7/2018)

“The Business of Speaking for a Living,” ATD Blog (1/17/2019)

“The Life of God (As Told by Himself),” Franco Ferrucci, SF Bay Guardian (11/1996)
“The Silent Duchess,” Dacia Maraini, SF Bay Guardian (11/1998)

“Thinking, Fast and Slow,” Daniel Kahneman, ASTD’s Learning Circuits (online) (7/16/2012)

“Unlearning What We Think We Know to Inspire Successful Learning,” ATD’s Science of Learning blog (online) (12/30/2015)

“Us+Them: Tapping the Positive Power of Difference“, Todd Pittinksy, ASTD’s Learning Circuits (online) (11/21/2012)

Print and Online Articles

“Adult Learning: When Miracles Happen,” ALA-APA Library Worklife Newsletter (5/2010)

“Are You Following Me?” (with Lori Reed), American Libraries (11/2008)

“Artificial Intelligence: Transforming the Nature of Work, Learning, and Learning to Work,” Top of Mind blog, The Tambellini Group (August 21, 2018)

“Be Ready for the Learning Space of the Future,” ATD Learning Technologies blog (8/14/2014)

“Books, Technology, and Learning: Looking at the Past to See Our Future (MOOCs as Textbooks),”New Media Consortium blog (6/11/2014)

“Breaching the Language Barrier: Literature in Translation,” SF Bay Guardian (5/1997)

“Collaboration Leads Way in ALA Editions’ Social Media Basics Course,” ASTD’s Learning Circuits (online) (10/15/2012)

“EdTech Continuous Change and Innovation: Nesting With Black Swans,” New Media Consortium blog (7/22/2015)

“E-Learning: The Product of a Risk Is a Lesson,” American Libraries online (2/15/2011)

“Fighting for Arts Education,” Teaching Theater (Summer 1991)

“Mixing and Extending Reality: EdTech Options in Higher Education,” Top of Mind blog, The Tambellini Group (12/11/2019)

“Professional Growth Through Learning Communities,” (with Lori Reed), American Libraries (5/2011)

“Imagine, Creativity, and Communities of Practice,” ASTD’s Learning Circuits (online) 6/6/2012

“Open Innovations: #etmooc, Connected Learning, and ‘MOOChorts’ of Lifelong Learners,” New Media Consortium blog (9/30/2014)

“Remodeling on a Budget,” American Libraries online (4/2010)

“Revolutionizing e-Learning: Innovation through Social Networking Tools,”
Learning Solutions Magazine (10/12/2009)
“Skype as Conference Tool,” American Libraries (5/2008)
“Skype Me: When Learning Is Just a Call Away”

Learning Solutions Magazine (2/28/2011)

“Technology, Road Rage, and Customer Service” (with Maurice Coleman),

WebJunction online (11/22/2010)

“10 Tips for Incorporating Ed-Tech Into Your Own Development,” ATD Learning Technologies blog (3/23/2016)

“The 2010 Horizon Report: What Learners Look to Us to Learn,”

Learning Solutions Magazine (3/5/2010)

“The 2011 Horizon Report: Keeping Up with Learners and Technology”
Learning Solutions Magazine, (3/16/2011)

“Up and Out of Your Seats: Engage Learners Through Movement to Produce Tangible Results,” TD Magazine (11/18)

“What Makes a cMOOC Community Endure? Multiple Perspectives From Diverse cMOOCs,” Educational Media International. Routledge. (6/19/2015)

“When (Big) Data Changes the Way We View Our World: A Brief Case Study,” New Media Consortium blog, (9/11/2014)

Writing Workshops/Conferences Attended

Squaw Valley Community of Writers’ Conference (2001)
Margo Perin’s two-week writing workshop in Vagliagli, Italy (1999)
Novelist Molly Giles’ one-day writing workshop in Marin (1996)
Part of a six-member writing group in San Francisco (1995-98)
Novelist Anne Lamott’s weekly writing workshop in Marin (1995)

Professional Experience:

Writer, Trainer/Educator, Presenter, Project Manager, Consultant
2007 – present

California Library Association—Project Manager, Statewide Advocacy Training Program (December 2019-)
Consultant/Project Manager – Contract
Working with California Library Association to develop a statewide training program for library staff members interested in honing their skills as advocates on behalf of libraries throughout the state

ShapingEDU (2018 – present)
Facilitator/Committee Co-chair
Serving as “co-mayor” of a ShapingEDU committee seeking to strengthen connections between higher education and employers on behalf of students; also, one of three Storytellers in Residence (July 2020 – June 2021)

ALA TechSource/ALA Editions, ATD, PCI Webinars, and Others (September 2010– ongoing)
Writer/Trainer/Presenter/Consultant – Contract
Designing/delivering/facilitating onsite and online courses, workshops, and highly-interactive keynote presentations on a variety of topics
Subjects include “Artificial Intelligence in Learning,” “AR/VR/XR in Learning,” “Developing Community Partnerships,” “Incorporating Technology into Your Workplace,” “The Future of Libraries,” “Rethinking Social Media,” “Rethinking Digital Literacy,” “Rethinking (Library) Instruction,” “Working With Difficult Customers,” and “Nonprofit Management Basics”
Environments: Adobe Connect, Moodle, Zoom, Google Hangouts, Skype, PowerPoint, WebEx, Word, and others

American Library Association (2011 – 2018)
Project Management – Contract
Worked with ALA staff to recruit, orient, place, and coordinate onsite volunteers for the Association’s annual conferences in cities throughout the United States

OCLMOOC (Open and Connected Learning Massive Open Online Course (2014)
Instructional Design and Online Course Facilitation – Volunteer
Worked with Canadian and Australian colleagues from the ground-breaking Educational Technology & Media MOOC to design, produce, and facilitate this connectivist MOOC for educators interesting in learning about learning in online environments; more information at https://oclmooc.wordpress.com/about-oclmooc/.

Hidden Garden Steps Project (January 2010 – December 2013)
Founder/Co-chair – Community-based Volunteer Project
Was involved in every aspect of bringing this $450k effort to create a public artwork with accompanying gardens in San Francisco’s Sunset District; worked collaboratively to:

• Create and implement strategic, fundraising, and marketing plans to bring the project to a successful conclusion
• Serve as project liaison with City/County officials and employees, nonprofit organization representatives, local business representatives, individual community volunteers, and the company installing the completed mosaic
• Chair monthly meetings of organizing committee members during the four years the project was underway, and document the proceedings
• Serve as project manager working with key stakeholders during the installation of the 148-step mosaic installed on an existing City/County of San Francisco concrete staircase
• Continue to serve as one of two site stewards to help maintain the site

Hospice of Palm Beach County, Florida (August 2011– January 2012)
Training Analyst, Content Developer, and Trainer – Contract
Commute between San Francisco and West Palm Beach (FL) to:

• Help key players in the organization focus on the change-facilitation aspects of learning as much as they focused on the technology (HomeCare Homebase software and Samsung Galaxy tablets) being introduced
• Rewrite vendor’s manuals to correct errors, list learning goals and objectives so learners could see what each section offered, and create a consistent use of key learning terms to make the manuals easy for learners to use
• Create job aides that were consistent in appearance to what learners found in the manuals; these were designed to help learners quickly find concise step-by-step resources for use in the field (i.e., at the moment of need)
• Help create focused and manageable agendas for each of the workshops (more than two dozen), with strong focus on how much could be assimilated in a single learning session
• Facilitate more than 10 in-classroom instructor-led training sessions for a variety of learners (nurses, social workers, chaplains, home health aides) so they could begin using the Homecare Homebase PointCare software on Samsung Galaxy tablets during the Wave 1 roll-out of this project

Blue Shield of California (September – November 2010)
Instructional Designer – Contract
During the two-month run of this project to help employees company-wide learn what they needed to know to begin implementing the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act:

• Co-write the first drafts for three five-minute video scripts in one day at the end of my first week onsite
• Wrote three additional scripts while helping to fine-tune the initial three scripts
• Worked with the colleague who filmed and translated those scripts into polished videos
• Translated each script into a PowerPoint presentation that was posted as a consistently branded back-up learning object for employees
• Worked with staff to create a simple online resource to help employees find the various learning objects available to them
• Supported efforts to market the learning objects to employees

Sutter VNA & Hospice (February – July 2010)
Training Specialist – Contract
Traveled throughout the San Francisco Bay Area and the Sacramento area during the course of this project to:

• Assist the client’s permanent education department staff in step-checking learning materials (manuals and job aides)
• Assist management in sessions preparing learners for the change they were about to experience while moving from paper- and laptop-centered record-keeping onto smartphones using the Homecare Homebase PointCare software
• Facilitate more than 40 in-classroom instructor-led training sessions for a variety of learners (nurses, social workers, chaplains, home health aides) so they could begin using the Homecare Homecare Homebase PointCare software on smartphones during four different four-week roll-outs of this project
• Provided one-on-one face-to-face and phone support for learners after they completed their two-week series of workshops

NorthNet Library System (April – September 2010)
Writer & Editor – Contract
Helped shape and edit the extensive (93-page) online consumer health toolkit that remains available at http://www.library.ca.gov/lds/docs/HealthToolkit.pdf)
Environment: Adobe Acrobat Pro 9, Word

LE@D (September 2009– 2011)
Writer & Instructional Designer – Contract
Writing asynchronous online courses
Completed a course on “Mentoring Basics” and mentoring webinar
Environment: Word to produce the course content before a designer translated it into the online format

Infopeople (October 2007 – May 2009)
Training Consultant – Contract
Coached and edited online webinar presenters
Wrote for training blog
Participated in initial efforts to shape and upgrade a “Master Trainer” series of courses
Assisted with marketing efforts
Environment: used PowerPoint, Word, and Excel; presenters’ webinars were via Angel and other platforms

ALA Editions, ATD Science of Learning newsletter, Rowman & Littlefield, Others (October 2007 – ongoing)
Freelance Writer – Contract
Writing Change the World Using Social Media for Rowman & Littlefield (publication projected for 2019)
Co-wrote Workplace Learning and Leadership (published by ALA Editions, April 2011)
Contributed chapter to Sandra Hirsh’s Information Services Today: An Introduction (1^st Edition) (published by Rowman & Littlefield, 2015)
Contributed two activities to Elaine Biech’s The Book of Road-Tested Activities (co-published by Pfeiffer and ASTD Press, May 2011) and one to her 101 More Ways to Make Training Active (published by John Wiley and Sons, 2015)
“Revolutionizing e-Learning: Innovation through Social Networking Tools,” e-learning Guild online publication
“Skype as a Reference Tool,” American Libraries magazine
Links to selected other published articles
Environment: Word

Personnel Analyst (Director, Volunteer Services & Staff Training)
San Francisco Public Library
1993 – 2007

1. a) As a Library Personnel Analyst (2001-2007), I served as Director of Staff Training for the entire Library system. Assisted in employee recruitment, hiring, orientation, and continuing training needs for the system’s more than 850 employees. Developed the Library’s annual training plan and oversaw the training budget. Wrote curriculum and delivered training on a variety of topics; hired instructors; developed and scheduled classes and workshops; produced a quarterly print and online training schedule listing more than 40 workshops from a variety of sources; and was an active member of the statewide Infopeople “Master Trainers” program for those managing training programs in libraries. Also worked on a variety of special Human Resources projects including preparation of a revised Employee Handbook, which included extensive material about employee health-care benefits; serving as the Library’s representative on a city-wide healthy-city initiative supported by the mayor; and serving as an ergonomic evaluator after helping shape the curriculum for an ergonomic train-the-trainer program with City Department of Public Health colleagues.
2. b) As Director of Volunteer Services (1993-2007), I designed, implemented, and managed and marketed a program which had over 150 volunteers on assignment weekly and others who were available for short-term assignments throughout the year in the Main Library and many of the 27 branch libraries in San Francisco. Participated in Human Resources Division negotiations with Library union members on issues affecting the Library Volunteer program. Developed and maintained ties with business colleagues in other libraries throughout California and in Bay Area nonprofit organizations.  Wrote, edited, and oversaw production of manuals (human resources, computer and docent training), newsletters, and other program materials. Developed and conducted orientations and training sessions. Wrote press releases and prepared monthly calendars of events for the Library system. Responsible for programming and marketing a well-attended series of author readings at the Main Library.

Environment: used Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Outlook, LotusNotes, WordPerfect

Executive Director, Teens Kick Off
In charge of management, budgeting, human resources, volunteers, financial, fundraising/grant-writing and marketing/public relations operations for this theater group in which teenagers in recovery from alcohol and drug addiction performed for other teenagers through California; program focus was peer-to-peer alcohol and drug intervention. Developed and implemented new programs to meet business needs. Worked with board of directors, maintained financial records, prepared financial reports for board review, and collaborated with a board member with human resources expertise to prepare the organization’s first personnel manual. Wrote and produced publications.

Publications Editor, San Francisco Conservatory of Music
Strong involvement in project management and assisting public relations director and admissions staff in marketing the Conservatory to a worldwide audience during a period of substantial increases in student enrollment. Wrote, edited, and oversaw production of Conservatory publications (collegiate and other department catalogs, recruitment brochures, annual reports, monthly calendar of events, and many others). Worked with designers and sometimes designed publications. Arranged for media coverage of student and faculty recitals. Was in charge of budgeting, budget supervision, and box office operations during director’s leave of absence.

Managing Editor, Prelude Magazine
Established and managed project production schedules and was in charge of human resources operations. Worked on all aspects of producing this 64-page monthly classical music and arts magazine (writing, typesetting, editing, layout and paste-up, including redesign of the magazine).

Assistant to the Director, Monterey Peninsula Museum of Art
Assisted director in screening and hiring new staff. Helped write and edit grant proposals. Involved in managing projects including selecting and implementing installation of a computer system which included the collection inventory and membership lists. Responsible for marketing and public relations operations during a period when media coverage of museum exhibitions and activities increased rapidly. Wrote press releases and cultivated media contacts. Wrote, edited, and did layout and paste-up of monthly calendar of events and Museum catalogs.

Instructor, Foreign Language Schools, Tokyo
Taught English as a Second Language courses in two large vocational schools in Japan.

Freelance Writer
Please see “Publications” section for partial listing of published writing.

Reporter/Bureau Chief, San Joaquin News Service
Wrote, edited, and photographed on a variety of topics including county government, local social issues (gangs, child abuse, problems within the San Joaquin County Housing Authority, difficulties faced by new immigrants), agricultural land-use and statewide water development issues, Sheriff’s Department activities, and general features for the three newspapers supporting this news service in California’s Central Valley.

Related Experience

Technology

Currently working extensively to explore how artificial intelligence, augmented reality, virtual reality, and mixed reality are affecting lifelong learning and current workplace operations globally; remain involved in exploring and using technology that facilitates onsite, online, and blended learning and community collaboration. Work with clients and their employees to help facilitate the positive, effective introduction of new technology into their worksites.

Languages
Have studied Italian, Japanese, French, Spanish, and a bit of Hebrew.

Professional Affiliations
ALA (American Library Association)
ATD (Association for Talent Development)
Learning Guild
PEN America
ShapingEDU (Future-facing Arizona State University-based group exploring ed-tech trends in higher education and other learning environments)

Volunteer Work
Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI) at San Francisco State University, Curriculum Development Committee (June 2019 – present)
ShapingEDU (2018 – present)
FOEcast (Future of Education Forecast), founding partner (2018)
NMC (New Media Consortium) Horizon Project advisory boards/expert panels (2010-2017)
San Francisco Parks Alliance, Parks Policy Council member, one-year term (2014)
Hidden Garden Steps, organizing committee co-chair (2010-2013); one of two site stewards (2014-present)
American Library Association: two two-year terms, including a year as committee chair, on the American Libraries Advisory Committee, and one year on the Publishing Committee
ASTD/ATD: variety of local, regional, and national positions, including Chapter President (Mt. Diablo Chapter, 2010) and member, National Advisors for Chapters (2011-2012)
Asian Art Museum, helped with public relations (six months)
National Kidney Foundation of Northern California Authors Luncheon Committee member (four years)

Presentations/Resources

Presentations/Facilitated Sessions (2019)

ALA Editions (online courses/webinars)

ATD—Association for Talent Development—International Conference & Exposition (Washington, DC)

eLearning Guild—Learning Solutions 2019 Conference and Exposition (Orlando, FL)

PCI Webinars (webinars)

ShapingEDU Second Annual Unconference (Tempe, AZ)

Presentations/Facilitated Sessions (2018)

ALA Editions (online courses/webinars)

American Library Association Ambassador Program (online and onsite orientation sessions for volunteers; New Orleans, LA)

ATD—Association for Talent Development—International Conference & Exposition (San Diego, CA)

ATD—Association for Talent Development—San Diego Chapter monthly meeting (live onsite/online blended presentation)

PCI Webinars (webinars)

Pursuitica (webinar for staff of global telecommunications company based in India)

ShapingEDU First Annual Unconference (Tempe, AZ)

SWFLN (Southwest Florida Library Network) webinars

Presentations/Facilitated Sessions (2017)

ALA Editions (online courses/webinars)

American Library Association Ambassador Program (online and onsite orientation sessions for volunteers; Chicago, IL)

ATD—Association for Talent Development—Southern California Regional Conference (Los Angeles, CA)

New Media Consortium Summer Conference (Boston, MA)

PCI Webinars (webinars)

SWFLN (Southwest Florida Library Network) Staff Development Day Keynote Speaker/Workshop Facilitator (Fort Meyers, FL)

SWFLN webinars

Presentations/Facilitated Sessions (2016)

ALA Editions (online courses/webinars)

American Library Association Ambassador Program (online and onsite orientation sessions for volunteers; Orlando, FL)

ATD—Association for Talent Development—International Conference & Exposition (Denver, CO)

ATD—Association for Talent Development—National Advisors for Chapters (webinar)

Five-County Regional Library Consortium Staff Development Day Keynote Speaker/Workshop Facilitator (King of Prussia, PA)

Mount Prospect Public Library—Staff Development Day Keynote Speaker/Workshop Facilitator (Mt. Prospect, IL)

New Media Consortium Summer Conference (Rochester, NY)

PCI Webinars (webinars)

Presentations/Facilitated Sessions (2015)

AEJMC–Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication–Annual Conference panel discussion member (San Francisco, CA)

ALA Editions (online sessions/courses/panel-discussion participant)

American Library Association Annual Conference/Library and Information Technology Association (San Francisco, CA)

American Library Association Ambassador Program (online and onsite orientation sessions for volunteers)

ATD—Association for Talent Development—Chapter Leaders Conference (Arlington, VA)

#etmooc—Educational Technology & Media MOOC learning community (facilitated/co-facilitated tweet chats)

KIPA—Knowledge & Information Professional Association—Conference (Denton, TX)

Library of Virginia Directors’ Meeting (Richmond, VA)

NEKLS—Northeast Kansas Library System—Innovation Day virtual presentation via Google Hangout

New Media Consortium Summer Conference (Washington, D.C.)

New Media Consortium (online panel-discussion participant)

PCI Webinars (multiple online sessions)

Saint Mary’s College of California session for faculty (Moraga, CA)

Virginia Library Association Annual Conference (Richmond, VA)

Links to Presentations & Other Resources

“Best Practices: Creating and Managing Mentoring Programs”
Tips, Sample Applications, and Resources—Updated July 2009
(PDF)

“Best Practices: Creating and Managing Volunteer Programs”
Tips and Basic Template—Updated May 2009
(PDF)

“Blend It 2015: Using Technology to Create Effective Onsite/Online Learning Spaces”

American Library Association Annual Conference Presentation (LITA) —June 2015

San Francisco

(PowerPoint Presentation)

“Building Meaningful Collaborations”
ASTD (American Society for Training & Development) Mt. Diablo Chapter—December 2008

Danville, CA
(PDF)

“Collaboration, Technology, Social Media, and Learning: The 2012 Horizon Report–Higher Education Edition”

ASTD Mount Diablo Chapter Monthly Meeting Presentation—June 19, 2012

with Samantha Adams

Danville, CA

(PowerPoint Presentation)

“Community and Collaboration in an Onsite-Online World: An Annotated Bibliography”
Updated March 19, 2013
(PDF)

“Community Collaboration: Helping Shape Our Communities”

Northeast Kansas Library System: Library Directors Institute—November 7, 2013

Valley Falls, KS

(PowerPoint Presentation)

“Community Partnerships: How to Get It Done”

ALA Editions Webinar—April 2013
(PowerPoint Presentation)

“Conflict Resolution/Difficult People:

Why Am I So Angry (And What Are You Going to Do About It?)”

Webjunction Webinar—October 2010

with Maurice Coleman
(PowerPoint Presentation)

“Connected Learning for Library Staff and Users”

PCI Webinars—November 2015
(PowerPoint Presentation)

“Continuous Change & Innovation: Developing Skills to Deal With Black Swans”

New Media Consortium Summer [ed-tech] Conference—June 2015

with Samantha Becker

Washington, D.C.

(PowerPoint Presentation)

“Cover to Cover: Redefining Books and Library Collections in Learning”

PCI Webinar—June 2014

(PowerPoint Presentation)

“Critical Thinking and Assumptions in Decision-making”
Updated April 18, 2011
(PDF)

“Designing Engaging Learning for Library Staff and Users”

PCI Webinar—October 2013

(PowerPoint Presentation)

“Developing Communities of Learning”

PCI Webinar—December 2013

(PowerPoint Presentation)

“Ed-Tech, Learning, and NMC Horizon Reports: What’s In It for Us…and Our Learners”

ATD (formerly ASTD) Golden Gate Chapter Monthly Meeting Presentation– May 15, 2015

with Samantha Adams Becker

San Francisco, CA

(PowerPoint Presentation)

“Ed-Tech Trends: Identifying and Incorporating Them Into Your Workplace”
ATD (Association for Talent Development) 2016 International Conference & Exposition — May 2016

Denver, CO

(PowerPoint Presentation)

“E-learning: Annotated Bibliography for Library Training Programs”
Updated February 23, 2011
(PDF)

“E-learning: Basics and Best Practices”
Updated July 1, 2010
(PDF)

“E-learning: Google Chat as an E-learning Tool (Transcript of a Live Session)”
Live online session held October 13, 2009, with University of Nevada, Las Vegas Journalism students
(PDF)

“E-learning: Tools, Resources, and Innovations”

Postings on Building Creative Bridges Blog

“From eLearning to Learning: A Daylong Highly-interactive Exploration”
Mount Prospect Public Library—May 2016

Mount Prospect, IL
(PowerPoint Presentation)

“From eLearning to Learning: A Daylong Highly-interactive Exploration”
Mount Prospect Public Library—May 2016

Mount Prospect, IL
(Five-part Case Study Posted on Building Creative Bridges Blog)

“From Words to Pictures: Imagery in PowerPoint Presentations”
California Library Association Annual Conference Presentation — November 2008

Long Beach, CA
(PowerPoint Presentation)

“Horizon Report for Libraries (2014)”

PCI Webinar—December 2014

(PowerPoint Presentation)

“How to Teach Online: A Beginner’s Guide”

ALA TechSource Webinar—January 2014

with Dan Freeman
(PowerPoint Presentation)

“Ignite, Interact, & Engage: Maximizing the Learning Outcome”
ALA Annual Conference Presentation—Learning Round Table

with Sharon Morris — June 2012

Anaheim, CA
(PowerPoint Presentation)

“Instant Professional Development (podcast)”
Episode 101 of Maurice Coleman’s T is for Training biweekly one-hour podcast; focuses on the use of Twitter backchannels as learning tools in conferences and expands into an exploration of how we all play the role of trainer-teacher-learner in many different parts of our lives; additional thoughts posted on Building Creative Bridges blog

June 2012

(Archived 45-minute audio-recording)

“Leadership: Trainers as Leaders–Introduction and Resource Sheet”
Updated July 1, 2010
(PDF)

“Leadership: Trainers as Leaders (Overview)”
American Library Association Presentation/Panel Discussion—Learning Round Table—June 2010
with Maurice Coleman, Sandra Smith, and Louise Whitaker

Washington, DC

(PowerPoint Presentation)

“Learning that Sticks: A Demonstration” (PowerPoint Version)
Original PowerPoint presentation with speaker notes, delivered face to face to a prospective learning client February 2013

(PowerPoint Presentation)

“Learning to Learn: Tips for Thriving in Tech Training” (Video)
This 11-minute presentation, prepared with Captivate and posted on YouTube for learners who are about to tackle any new tech tool, addresses the challenges of overcoming unfamiliarity with these tools and the need for help with the learning process itself. It is also designed to demonstrate how trainer-teacher-learners can address the challenges their learners face.

October 2013

(Captivate Video)

“Learning to Learn: Tips for Thriving in Tech Training (Summary Sheet)”

Updated October 1, 2013
(PDF)

“Libraries as Partners in Lifelong Learning”

PCI Webinar—July 2014

(PowerPoint Presentation)

“LibraryThing” List of Books on Training, Collaboration, and Other Topics

Includes Ratings and Reviews
Updated Regularly

“Lifelong Learning (Learning for the Future: Habits of Mind and Teaching Life Skills)”

Saint Mary’s College of California Faculty Workshop—November 2015

Moraga, CA

(PowerPoint Presentation)

“Making Space: Exploring Innovations in Onsite and Online Learning Spaces”

KIPA (Knowledge & Information Professional Association) 2015 Conference “Invited Talk”—March 2015

Denton, TX

(PowerPoint Presentation)

“Marketing 101: Creating the Voice of a Successful Organization”
ASTD Chapter Leader Webinar—June 2011
(PowerPoint Presentation and archived audio-recording of this one-hour live webinar)

“Mastering Online Facilitation (Part 1 of 4): Leading Engaging Meetings and Webinars”

SEFLIN Webinar—July 2014
(PowerPoint Presentation)

“Mastering Online Facilitation (Part 2 of 4): Assessing and Addressing the Need for Meetings and Webinars”

SEFLIN Webinar—August 2014
(PowerPoint Presentation)

“Mastering Online Facilitation (Part 3 of 4): Organizing, Scripting, and Preparing”

SEFLIN Webinar—August 2014
(PowerPoint Presentation)

“Mastering Online Facilitation (Part 4 of 4): Keeping Sessions Lively”

SEFLIN Webinar—August 2014
(PowerPoint Presentation)

“Memorable Meetings: Planning for Successful Encounters”
ASTD Chapter Leader Webinar—August 2016
(PowerPoint Presentation, free archived recording of the session)

“Mentors and Proteges: Creating Successful Workplace Programs: Resource List”

Prepared for the LE@D—Lifelong Education @ Desktop–program,
University of North Texas

(PDF)

“Mentoring Onsite and Online”
PCI Webinars—May 2014
(PowerPoint Presentation with Speaker Notes)

“MOOCs, Online Learning, and Higher Education”
Association for Education in Journalism and Higher Education Annual Conference Panel Discussion—August 2015

San Francisco, CA
(Storify Document—no longer available online because Storify shut down)

“Nonprofit Basics”

ASTD National Chapter Leader Conference Presentation—October 2011

with Walt Hansmann

Arlington, VA
(PowerPoint Presentation/later adapted into a webinar for ASTD)

“Perfect Blend (Creating and Facilitating Onsite/Online Meetings)”

ATD (Association for Talent Development) National Chapter Leader Conference Presentation–October 2014
(PowerPoint Presentation)

“Playing With Collaboration Tools Online”

Northeast Kansas Library System (NEKLS): Innovation Day Session—April 29, 2015

Blended Session Delivered via Google Hangouts to Onsite Audience

(PowerPoint Presentation)

“Playing With Collaboration Tools Online—Supplemental Resources”
Handout Prepared for Northeast Kansas Library System (NEKLS) Innovation Day Session—April 2015
(PDF)

“PowerPoint Best Practices for Onsite and Online Presentations”
ALA Annual Conference—CLENE Training Showcase

June 2008

Anaheim, CA
(PDF)

“Social Learning Centers” (Learning to Meet the Future: Libraries Developing Communities)
Library of Virginia Directors’ Meeting Presentation—September 2012

with Maurice Coleman

Richmond, VA

(PowerPoint Presentation)

“Social Learning Centers and Libraries”
ALA Annual Conference Presentation—Learning Round Table Presentation/Panel Discussion—June 2011

with Maurice Coleman and Buffy Hamilton

New Orleans, LA
(PowerPoint Presentation)

“Social Learning Centers: The New Fourth Place”
Computers in Libraries 2011 Conference Presentation (via Skype) —March 2011

with Maurice Coleman and Jill Hurst-Wahl

(PowerPoint Presentation)

“Social Learning Centers: Thinkers Worth Knowing”

A Visual Bibliography Prepared with Maurice Coleman—September 2012

(PDF)

“Social Media, Library Partnerships, and Collaboration: More Than a Tweet”

PCI Webinar—February 2014

(PowerPoint Presentation)

“Strategic Planning 101: Working in the Construction Zone”
ASTD Chapter Leader Webinar—March 2011
(PowerPoint Presentation)

“Technology in Face-to-Face Training”

ALA TechSource Webinar—September 2010
(PowerPoint Presentation)

“Technology in Online Training”

ALA TechSource Webinar—September 2010
(PowerPoint Presentation)

“Ten Tips for Incorporating Ed-Tech Into Your Own Development”

Article Written for ATD Learning Technologies blog and newsletter—March 2016
(Article)

“That Was Great! Now What? (Providing Learning That Is Used)”

American Library Association Annual Conference Presentation (Learning Round Table) —June 2014

Las Vegas, NV

(PowerPoint Presentation)

“Training, Teaching, and Learning 2012: State of the Industry Reports”
ASTD Sacramento Chapter Meeting Presentation—January 23, 2012

Sacramento, CA (repeated for Mount Diablo Chapter in February 2012)
(PowerPoint Presentation)

“Training-Teaching-Learning: State of the Industry (Summer 2015)”
PCI Webinars—July 2015

(PowerPoint Presentation)

“Volunters Management: Annotated Bibiliography on Using Web. 2.0 (Social Networking) Tools in Volunteer Programs”
Updated January 11, 2010
(PDF)

“Volunteer Retention 101: Thanking and Rewarding Our Supporters”

Webinar co-presented with Rick Kerner for ASTD chapter leaders—December 5, 2012

“Web Conferencing and Presentation Skills for Meetings. Trainings, and Learning Sessions”
Updated July 23, 2014
(PDF)

Professional Memberships/Affiliations

ALA (American Library Association)

ATD (Association for Talent Development)

PEN USA

ShapingEDU (Global Initiative, through Arizona State University, to reshape higher education)

Languages

Have studied Italian, French, Japanese, and Spanish

ATD ICE 2016: Tapestries, Transformations, and Pedicabs

Memorable learning experiences (e.g., workshops, webinars, and well-designed conferences) often are tapestries of personal experiences and shared wisdom-of-the-crowd moments—and there is no doubt in my mind that the ATD  (the Association for Talent Development) 2016 International Conference and Exposition (ICE) that is currently unfolding in Denver can be described in those terms.

There are several thousand of us here. Each of us is having our own personal conference, with its own spectacularly transformative learning moments. And there is a communal (collaboratively shaped and shared) experience that, as I wrote in an earlier piece, transcends time and physical space. Each of us—whether we’re actually physically onsite, participating from an offsite location via the Twitter hashtag (#atd2016) and other social media resources, or, in the best of all worlds we can imagine and actually help construct, creating a completely blended experience—brings our own unique experiences and expectations to our world-sized conference “room.” Each of us also benefits from the shared moments ranging from hallway conversations and discussions over dinner to the we’re-all-in-this-together communal experience of inspiration that comes from being with thousands of others in a huge auditorium while enjoying a keynote speaker’s presentation. (This, in its own way, extends as well to our offsite co-conspirators, aka fellow learners, who are creating a conference-as-learning-experience by reading and responding to what we are also creating in the Twitter backchannel, on Facebook, on Periscope, and elsewhere. )

Each time I participate in a conference onsite, online, or both—the blended approach is one I increasingly pursue with increasingly-lovely pleasures and rewards—I end up walking away transformed. I consciously attempt, through my writing and the use of tech tools including Storify, to capture and extend those moments of transformation so they won’t be lost to me or to colleagues interested in pursuing their own equally delightful individually and communally-constructed pleasures and rewards. And just when I mistakenly believe I have explored and shared all there is to explore and share in this admittedly odd approach to blended-learning, I find myself experiencing another five-year-old-child’s moment of wonder.

(almost) no one left outside the conversations at #atd2016

The almost naïve sense of wonder this week has come from further incorporating simple (low-tech) phone calls into the more high-tech, innovative blended-learning mix that is becoming increasingly familiar to many of us. It started a couple of days ago when, even before getting out of bed here in the hotel where I am staying, I saw that one of my cherished training-teaching-learning-doing friend-colleague-mentors (Maurice Coleman) was already up on the other side of the country and posting items on Facebook (for shame, Maurice: posting on Facebook before noon on a Saturday!). Missing the sound of his voice and the unique insights he would bring to the table if he were physically here, I called with the intention of talking with him for no more than a few minutes; more than half an hour later, we had completed an exploration by phone that helped me connect what I had experienced in an entirely different blended environment a week earlier with what was unfolding here—part of the process of constructing my personal conference-as-learning-moment here at ATD ICE 2016.

Because it was such an unexpectedly stimulating and rewarding moment and because it was becoming an important thread in the tapestry-in-progress I am creating, I repeated the call to him yesterday morning after seeing him, once again, posting before noon on a weekend. And that’s when the ATD ICE 2016 magic leapt to a higher level: the result of our conversation was that Maurice—who is not (yet) an ATD member—actively joined the #atd2016 conversation. And colleagues here onsite started interacting with him via #atd2016. And then another of my non-ATD training-teaching-learning-doing colleagues jumped in by retweeting one of Maurice’s conference tweets. And I started interacting with that colleague via the conference Twitter backchannel, too.

a combination of Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride and “Fellini’s Roma”

As Maurice and I were finishing our second ATD-ICE-2016-by-smartphone conversation, he asked me to give him a blow-by-blow description of a walk I had taken with friends here the previous evening because he was intrigued by how that walk had begun at the end of a three-hour-long conversation with one group of colleagues in a local tavern and somehow extended for the duration of a combined walk/pedicab ride to a restaurant where we continued that conversation with a slightly reformed group we acquired on our way to dinner. He grew more and more incredulous as I told him how we would unexpectedly meet someone who then joined the group while others peeled off as needed to participate in other conversations/learning moments. And I suspect his jaw dropped a bit when I told him about the brief stopover in a hotel lobby where, while I was attempting to send a direct message to a colleague via Twitter, I turned around to discover that the intended recipient of the tweet was walking across the lobby to say hello to what then constituted the core of that particular iteration of the group. She eagerly accepted our invitation to join us as we made the spur-of-the-moment decision to take pedicabs the rest of the way to the restaurant. (You probably already know that breaking a group of six trainer-teacher-learner-doers into groups of two and creating a mini-caravan of pedicabs up a major thoroughfare in a city like Denver is going to result in a wonderfully bizarre scenario that looks like a combination of Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride and Fellini’s Roma. We were happy. The fabulous pedicab drivers were happy. And no residents of Denver appear to have been injured in the course of our move from hotel lobby to restaurant dining room.)

There’s so much to unpack in all that I’ve attempted to describe here. And there’s so much more ahead of us as our conference-as-personal-and-communal learning moment continues to unfold. But what is clear to me at this stage in the game is what I said to a close friend over dinner the night I arrived here: what I most look forward to at these conference-as-learning-moments is the experience I don’t yet know I am going to have.

That’s the magic of learning.

N.B.: Paul’s onsite participation at ATD ICE in May 2016 includes the following activities:

• Signing copies of Workplace Learning & Leadership on Tuesday, May 24 from 12:30 – 1 pm in an “Author Meet & Greet” at the conference bookstore. 
• Facilitating “Ed-Tech Trends: Identifying and Incorporating Them Into Your Workplace” session on Wednesday, May 25 from 10 – 11 am                                                                                                                     

The “10 Tips for Incorporating Ed-Tech Into Your Own Development” article he wrote for his session has been published and is available on the ATD Learning Technologies blog, and he has three brief reviews attached to books available in the ICE bookstore onsite here in Denver.

 

From eLearning to Learning (Pt. 5 of 5): A Case Study in Blended Learning

The learning event has ended; the learning process continues. And, when all is said and done, one of the many important ways by which any of us can and will measure the success or failure emanating from Mount Prospect Public Library’s 2016 Staff Inservice Day “From eLearning to Learning” (the day-long exploration of how staff at the Library can better define and incorporate e-learning into its work) will be through the transformations it actually does or does not manage to produce for those involved and for those they/we serve.

As mentioned in earlier sections of this case study of how a day-long exploration of e-learning can lead to more productive, effective, and creative use of e-learning within an overall learning landscape, we already know positive, potentially far-reaching transformations were occurring. Co-conspirators (the onsite participants in this training-teaching-learning-doing opportunity) clearly expanded their definitions and understanding of the state of contemporary e-learning and the possibilities it provides in workplace settings. Some of them posted their first tweets as part of the process of gaining a richer, more nuanced vision of how Twitter and other social media tools can be engagingly integrated into onsite as well as online learning opportunities to the benefit of everyone involved. Many of them contributed ideas face-to-face and online to expand the use of e-learning among staff members and among library users near and far. And some of them used Twitter to talk about what they hope and intend to do as a result of what they experienced.

As a co-learner as well as planning team member and presenter/facilitator in “From eLearning to Learning,” I know even I left feeling unexpectedly and significantly transformed by my involvement. I’m sure there is a wonderfully academic term to describe what I felt as the day came to an end and during the hours of reflection and conversation I’ve had with colleagues since leaving Mount Prospect, but I keep coming back to something far more basic and visceral: it blew my emotional pipes out! I was stunned. Elated. Inspired. And, at times, close to tears. Because everything was so…much…more…wonderfully and overwhelming intense and inspiring than even I expected it to be; I already carry a deep sense of gratitude to the staff members who invited me into the process and to those magnificent staff members who pushed the learning envelope so far during our onsite and online time together that day.

Among the continued-learning opportunities I already have pursued is the opportunity to expand upon and adapt in my own way a learning approach I saw Tom Haymes, a fabulous New Media Consortium (NMC) colleague, use during his own “Idea Spaces” presentation at an NMC conference a couple of years ago. His onsite Idea Spaces presentation and discussion gave all of us plenty of room to learn from him in the moment, to learn from each other in the same moment, to reflect upon what we were hearing and learning, and to see the “event” as part of a process.

More significantly, Tom created a beautifully expansive learning opportunity that helped me see how onsite and online learning could seamlessly be interwoven. His slide deck was posted and available on an Idea Spaces website (which, as I glance back at it in writing this part of the “From eLearning to Learning” case study, has expanded tremendously and magnificently since I last visited it.) The site itself was and remains a stand-alone expansion of what he was sharing with us; it was and is, at the same time, an integral part of the onsite experience. It includes a variety of resources for those of us interested in pursuing the topic in our own way. On our own time. Whenever we want to continue the training-teaching-learning-doing process. And, with that in mind, it occurred to me that what all of us designed for the onsite “From eLearning to Learning” experience easily translates into a modified version of what Tom modeled through his use of WordPress as a platform for the onsite version.

Tom (and many others) have used WordPress as a virtual course meeting place. I’ve used my own website “Previous Presentations” page as a central virtual meeting place for ongoing use and exploration of the material we all developed through the planning process and our onsite participation, and have added links to  the content to the “Presentations/Courses” page of this WordPress Building Creative Bridges blog, which serves as a secondary website/learning resource to expand the reach of what I do and document. I’ve also made minor modification to the slide deck I posted so there are references to the other current components of the suite (including the Storify document). The Storify document ends with a note providing a link to the PowerPoint deck with extensive speaker notes. This five-part case study on my blog is becoming an integral part of the suite by including links to other components at the bottom of each of these articles, and there are references to it sprinkled among the other resources and promoted via my LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook accounts. And I’m looking at fine-tuning and providing access to additional resources that came out of the planning and day-of-the-event interactions so anyone interested will have a road map they can follow in the same way that Tom’s Idea Spaces continues to serve as a virtual road map and very real, tremendous source of inspiration nearly two years after I participated in the onsite version.

So, there we have it: the current state of e-learning and a view toward pulling it into the overall world of learning rather than being something all-too-often mistakenly seen as inferior to other types of learning. We learn onsite while incorporating online learning opportunities that produce potentially long-lasting, useful resources openly shared with anyone who might benefit from them. We learn online synchronously and/or asynchronously so that learning occurs at our moment of need, when we are ready and primed for it, rather than being where we were a decade or two ago—largely dependent on the availability of teachers and trainers who stood in the front of a room and lectured at us. In the contemporary learning environment onsite and online, there often is no front of the room. The room is the entire world, the learners are fabulous, often self-motivated, inquisitive and collaborative co-conspirators in the learning process, and in the best of situations we are able synchronously or asynchronously to enter the room and work with our co-conspirators to produce positive effects that ripple out into our extended community of work, service, and play.

I look back at the annotated, lightly-edited Twitter transcript on Storify and smile as I reread a few of my favorites among the many wonderful tweets that came out of our time together:

• “Whenever @paulsignorelli says ‘co-conspirator’ can’t help but thnk of mvie ‘The Conspirator’ abt plot to assassinate Lincoln #mpplsid16”
• “Transformation today; we now recognize #elearning spaces; they’re everwhere! #mpplsid16”
• “So important to stay excited about elearning long after today #mpplside16”
• “What can we do to commit to #elearning after today? Make the time for the things we want to learn about! #mpplsid16”
• “I just got elearned #firsttweet #mpplsid16”

And as I reread and reflect upon the content and the entire experience–and feel in a very real sense that the moment has not yet ended—I respond synchronously and asynchronously, both humbly and with a tremendous sense of elation and in the spirit of moving from elearning to learning, to that learner who just “got elearned”: “I learned.”

NB: This is the fifth of five articles documenting the process of helping to plan and facilitate a day-long exploration of how to effectively incorporate e-learning into our learning process. Companion components to “From eLearning to Learning” currently include a PowerPoint slide deck with extensive speaker notes, a facilitator’s guide, a lightly edited and annotated Storify document capturing that part of the conversation that occurred via Twitter, and online shared documents that contain content added by the learners during throughout the day of the main event. Some are shared here through those live links with the express approval of Mount Prospect Public Library training staff. For help in developing and facilitating a similar event tailored to your organization, please contact Paul at paul@paulsignorelli.com.

From eLearning to Learning (Pt. 3 of 5): A Case Study in Blended Learning

There is always a moment of stunned silence when I initially tell new “co-conspirators” (i.e., prospective clients) that I want to be onsite in their city a full day before the day of an event/presentation (e.g., arriving Wednesday evening for a presentation to be held on Friday). And the silence deepens when I explain that I would prefer to fly out the morning after a day-long event rather than rushing off to an airport as soon as the final words I’m going to say have passed my lips. Parachuting in and then being quickly airlifted out, I explain, is not a great way for us to work together to produce the concrete training-teaching-learning-doing results we all hope to produce.

“We don’t have it in our budget to pay for three nights of a hotel,” they usually admit.

And that’s when the “co-conspiratating” process begins. I explain that arriving so early guarantees that they’re going to receive the best I can deliver since they won’t be facing a bleary-eyed, half-coherent presenter-facilitator exhausted from spending the night in an airport because of a delayed flight. I tell them that I want to have a leisurely tech check of the onsite facilities so we can anticipate and trouble-shoot any unexpected problems we identify during that day-before-the-event meeting. I also want to have a final face-to-face fine-tuning session with them so I can personalize the slide deck and speaker notes I’ll be using with them and the co-conspirators who are the learners. I tell them, furthermore, that I want at least a few hours on my own to explore their community, overhear conversations about what is important and happening in that particular moment in that particular community so I can more effectively work with them to deliver what they have asked me to deliver during our formal time together. And, most importantly, I tell them that I don’t want to have to rush back to an airport and, by engaging in that anxiety-producing beat-the-clock exercise which currently is even worse because of extended lines to pass through airport TSA Security checkpoints, miss the opportunity for the level of post-event discussions onsite and online that produce some of the loveliest learning moments for all of us.

We always find a way to overcome budget constraints. After all, we’re trainer-teacher-learner-doers: we know how to seek and implement solutions in the moment.

And once we have passed that hurdle, magic happens—as was the case recently during Mount Prospect Public Library’s 2016 Staff Inservice Day “From eLearning to Learning,” the day-long onsite and online exploration of how staff at the Library can better define and incorporate e-learning into its work (which is at the heart of this case study).

Arriving in Chicago late Wednesday afternoon for the Friday event gave me time to literally become grounded and comfortable so I could be at my best for my co-conspirators. They had helped me make arrangements to stay at a place in Mount Prospect that was accessible via a free shuttle ride from O’Hare Airport, so I was completely coddled (relatively inexpensively, mind you; that’s part of the process for all of us); I arrived in their town completely relaxed and focused early Wednesday evening. (It was an added benefit to all of us that I had the opportunity to have dinner that evening with a lifelong friend who lives in the area, and we dined at a wonderful restaurant one block away from the library—which meant we had a relaxing conversation, I had an initial glimpse of the town shortly after arriving, and I was already feeling comfortable before a Library staff member picked me up Thursday morning to drive me back to the Library for our meetings and a leisurely lunch.)

The magic I have come to expect from this level of pre-session conversation and tour of the area where I will be working began almost immediately. As we returned to a theme we had been discussing from January to early May of this year, we once again talked about ways to easily take the onsite learners into online environments so they would viscerally understand the nature of our dynamic onsite-online e-learning/blended learning landscape.

“Does your staff use Twitter much?” I asked at one point, and that became a transformative moment for all of us (learners included) less than 24 hours before the highly interactive keynote address began.

Deciding upon a unique hashtag (major warning: always check those hashtags before you use them so you don’t have unexpected surprises on the day of the event), we added that information into the mix. The extended onsite-online conversations that resulted from that last-minute addition produced experiences and discussions that ended up taking the event to greater heights than any of us had been imagining, as a skim of the Storify compilation of those tweets suggests. And taking and using that “Discovery Zone” photograph (reproduced within this series of posts) onsite at Mount Prospect Public Library provided a familiar, iconic image that set a very sweet tone for our explorations during “From eLearning to Learning.”

Next: Facilitating a Transformative Onsite E-learning Experience

NB: This is the third of five articles documenting the process of helping to plan and facilitate a day-long exploration of how to effectively incorporate e-learning into our learning process. Companion components to “From eLearning to Learning” currently include a PowerPoint slide deck with extensive speaker notes, a facilitator’s guide, a lightly edited and annotated Storify document capturing that part of the conversation that occurred via Twitter, and online shared documents that contain content added by the learners during throughout the day of the main event. Some are shared here through those live links with the express approval of Mount Prospect Public Library training staff. For help in developing and facilitating a similar event tailored to your organization, please contact Paul at paul@paulsignorelli.com.

From eLearning to Learning (Pt. 2 of 5): A Case Study in Blended Learning

Setting the agenda (at multiple levels) is always part of a successful learning event/presentation. It’s no surprise, therefore, that my “co-conspirators” on the Mount Prospect Public Library 2016 Staff Inservice Day planning committee and I focused on this for “From eLearning to Learning,” a day-long onsite and online exploration of how staff at the Library can better define and incorporate e-learning into its work, throughout the planning phase (from January through early May 2015).

There was the obvious, simple question we all face at the beginning of the planning process for successful learning: what will we actually do with our co-conspirators (i.e., our learners) on the day we meet as co-conspirators in learning? It didn’t take us long, during our initial telephone conference call, to settle on a structure that included a highly-interactive keynote presentation that would set the tone for the entire day of learning by trying to recreate the high levels of interactivity inherent in any great onsite or online learning experience; my own agenda here was to help staff at the Library quickly move past the idea that online learning has to be formulaic, lacking in engagement, and something done to them rather than with them. We also took little time in reaching the decision to set up a series of breakout sessions so staff members could have meaningful, productive discussions in small groups to explore a variety of interrelated themes and then, at the end of the day, come back together so we could share the wisdom of the crowd in deciding what they would do in the days, weeks, months, and years after participating in “From eLearning to Learning.”

A more subtle, nuanced approach to setting the agenda was at the level of deciding how we, as co-conspirators in the planning and facilitation process, would work together; that’s how we settled on the approach briefly described in the first of these five “case study” postings. We followed an informal “how to run a meeting” process I’ve been successfully using for years: I very much see meetings as theater, with strong elements of improvisation thrown in for good measure. Each item on a meeting agenda is meant to be part of a carefully-crafted script from which we can deviate as needed (hence, the improvisational element), and each item should produce something concrete that leads to the next item on the agenda.

Circle of learning: breakout session in a lovely setting

When this approach to setting agendas and facilitating meetings works well, it produces results that are as engaging, entertaining, and transformational as a great piece of theater is. We walk away knowing we have been involved in something significant. Something that makes us see our world at least a bit differently than we saw it before we were together. And something that makes us want to transform a potentially ephemeral moment into a very long, extended moment of process that continues to grow as long as we take the time necessary to nurture it.

The Staff Inservice Day “From eLearning to Learning” planning process became tremendously engaging for all of us when we started, during the initial planning conference call, to shine a bright spotlight on a few questions we had already been thinking about before we joined that call:

• What could we do to be sure we provided the best possible learning environment for the co-conspirators who would be the participants in “From eLearning to Learning?”
• What could we do to be sure that everything we offered created a visceral sense of understanding the power of eLearning as a component of our overall approach to learning?
• What could we do to assure that everything that happened during “From eLearning to Learning” connected back to the Library’s strategic plan in terms of incorporating eLearning into its learning offerings?

My own meeting notes—which I edited and shared with other members of the planning committee to create the same sense of blended synchronous/asynchronous conversation I often try to foster in online learning environments—show that our initial conversation produced numerous substantial elements, including a set of learning goals that helped shape the event. Participants would be told that, by actively participating in “From eLearning  to Learning “, they would be able to more effectively define e-learning; put e-learning in the larger context of learning overall; be able to explain why e-learning is positive and why they should take advantage of it; identify what e-learning provides for them; identify what e-learning provides for those they serve; and, most importantly, what they would decide to do within the next two weeks to foster more effective e-learning opportunities for themselves, their colleagues, and/or those they serve. We also threw in the additional perk of assuring them they would become aware of at least three resources they could use to improve their e-learning efforts. (These are, after all, members of library staff; we love our “see also” references.)

Keeping our focus on the learning experience, we also built plenty of reflection time and shared debriefing time so the learners would be able to absorb what they would be experiencing. We scheduled 15-minute breaks between each of our proposed chunks of learning (keynote, the three break-out sessions, lunch, and the final “bringing it all back together/next steps” session).

Subsequent meetings focused on content for the break-out sessions; discussion about developing a facilitator’s guide—the bones of that simple two-page guide came out of a 15-minute discussion during one of our telephone conference calls; a series of questions the facilitators would ask to foster lively and productive discussions during the break-out sessions; and a final structure that brought everyone back together briefly at the end of each break-out session for additional brief wisdom of the crowd moments. In this way, we made sure there were the small, very fruitful opportunities for each voice to be heard, and the larger opportunities for everyone to stay on track in terms of understanding how these small-picture sessions would contribute to a large-scale transformation of the entire staff’s approach to e-learning as part of the overall learning landscape in which we operate.

A critically-important moment occurred late in the planning process, when we decided that those who wanted to be able to step back a bit over lunch could do so, and those who wanted to engage in a mini unconference to more deeply explore topics that had come out of the morning sessions would have that opportunity in a way that put them at the center of the learning process. We’ll look more at what came out of the unconference in Part 4 of this case study; Part 3 will focus on how and why we had a pre-event onsite meeting the day before “From eLearning to Learning” was held—and the important modifications that came out of that final, lively discussion.

Next: Onsite Fine-tuning

NB: This is the second of five articles documenting the process of helping to plan and facilitate a day-long exploration of how to effectively incorporate e-learning into our learning process. Companion components to “From eLearning to Learning” currently include a PowerPoint slide deck with extensive speaker notes, a facilitator’s guide, a lightly edited and annotated Storify document capturing that part of the conversation that occurred via Twitter, and online shared documents that contain content added by the learners during throughout the day of the main event. Some are shared here through those live links with the express approval of Mount Prospect Public Library training staff. For help in developing and facilitating a similar event tailored to your organization, please contact Paul at paul@paulsignorelli.com.

From eLearning to Learning (Pt. 1 of 5): A Case Study in Blended Learning

“Co-conspirators” is a term I’ve loved ever since I first heard it used by colleagues in the Educational Technology & Media massive open online course (#etmooc) in 2013. Within its training-teaching-learning-doing context, it implies a sense of richly nuanced and deeply rewarding collaboration between learning facilitators and learners unlike any other I’ve experienced in our onsite and online (blended) learning environments.

So, when I was invited in essence to become a co-conspirator (we, as a group, weren’t yet using that term) with Staff Inservice Day committee members at Mount Prospect Public Library eight months ago, I eagerly jumped at the opportunity. The result was that I became part of another magnificent community of learning that has just produced a stunningly beautiful and tremendously inspiring example of all that can go right in planning and facilitating an e-learning experience—even one very-much grounded within an onsite setting.

What all of us (Library Staff Inservice Day planning committee members, as planners-learners-participants; I, as the consultant-presenter helping them shape an event that supported learning goals contained in the Library strategic plan; the learners themselves; and a few people offsite who occasionally joined us on the day of the event through a very active Twitter feed) produced looks as if it will have exactly the long-term positive impact all of us were hoping to produce for and with the library, its staff, and the members of the community it serves.

Everything about “From eLearning to Learning,” a day-long onsite and online exploration of how staff at the Library can better define and incorporate e-learning into its work, ultimately was drawn from and became an example of the extensive e-learning environment we currently inhabit—far more, as I reminded them, than the usual module-out-of-a-box and final multiple-choice exam to mark the conclusion of a learning experience.

In our setting, there is no beginning and there is no discernible end. “From eLearning to Learning” continues a process begun long before I became involved, and the day-long “event” simply prepares them to continue their learning/e-learning process well into the foreseeable future.

This Mount Prospect Public Library “Discovery Zone” sign became an iconic image for “From eLearning to Learning”

Even the initial steps for this onsite-online exploration were grounded in e-learning. I was, for example, initially contacted by a member of the Staff Inservice Day committee who had initially met me through her participation as a learner in a four-week online “Rethinking Social Media” course I have designed and that I continue to facilitate for the American Library Association. Without that shared experience in an innovative online learning environment, my Mount Prospect colleague and I might not have made this particular connection and I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to be part of one of the most innovative and rewarding learning experiences I have ever helped design and facilitate.

Because the obvious distance between San Francisco and Mount Prospect (which is approximately 20 miles northwest of Chicago) is so great, all of us quickly agreed that the planning process itself would take place within a blended environment comprised of conference calls by phone and asynchronous interactions that ultimately produced our planning document and a facilitator’s guide to be used by the staff members who would foster discussion during break-out sessions we arranged throughout the day.

In a significant way, we were, as trainer-teacher-learner-doers, adapting a Flipped Classroom model approach to our meetings: at almost every stage of the process, we completed initial work on our own, had information to review before meeting by phone, and productively used our “classroom” time (the conference calls) to produce something concrete, and then repeated the process up to the day of the actual event.

What was clear from the beginning of our “conspiratating” was that we were committed to producing something that was far more than a one-day diversion that would soon be forgotten. Drawing upon the principles from the book The Six Disciplines of Breakthrough Learning: How to Turn Training and Development into Business Results and remaining committed to producing something that was in alignment with the Library’s current strategic plan, we worked together to shape something that would be as much a process as an event. The learners/co-conspirators within the library knew well in advance what we were planning; they even provided tremendously useful information via a SurveyMonkey survey to be sure that we would be providing them what they needed (and, in that part of the process, probably became aware of how SurveyMonkey itself could be part of their efforts to effectively shape their overall e-learning landscape).

Participants in the mini unconference, held during the lunch break

Those of us on the planning committee initially created a broad subject-specific agenda. We fine-tuned it over the course of several months to be sure it would lead to fruitful discussions and positive transformation for everyone involved. We continually looked for ways to innovatively provide experiential learning opportunities the learners could immediately adapt and apply within their own workspaces. One idea, for example (a mini unconference during the lunch hour) came relatively late within the planning process; it ultimately produced ideas (including a proposal for a library-wide e-learning think tank) that participants seem eager to explore and create. And a final, unexpectedly rewarding idea—to incorporate Twitter into the event so our co-conspirators in the learning process would viscerally understand how Twitter has become an effective and dynamic part of our learning landscape—was added to the picture during the onsite meeting less than a day before “From eLearning to Learning” took place.

Next: Planning for Success

NB: This is the first of five articles documenting the process of helping to plan and facilitate a day-long exploration of how to effectively incorporate e-learning into our learning process. Companion components to “From eLearning to Learning” currently include a PowerPoint slide deck with extensive speaker notes, a facilitator’s guide, a lightly edited and annotated Storify document capturing that part of the conversation that occurred via Twitter, and online shared documents that contain content added by the learners during throughout the day of the main event. Some are shared here through those live links with the express approval of Mount Prospect Public Library training staff. For help in developing and facilitating a similar event tailored to your organization, please contact Paul at paul@paulsignorelli.com.

Presentations/Courses/Activities

Current & Upcoming Presentations/Courses/Activities

Author, Change the World Using Social Media, from Rowman & Littlefield; publication date: January 2021; for 30% discount, order through Rowman & Littlefield and use this code: RLFANDF30.

For workshops/webinars on effectively using social media for activism, collaboration, and/or positive change, please contact Paul at paul@paulsignorelli.com.

 

 

 

Community Strategist/Storyteller in Residence for the ShapingEDU community, under the auspices of Arizona State University’s University Technology Office; writing for the ShapingEDU blog, facilitating conference sessions, and co-facilitating initiatives including the “Connecting for Work and Learning” universal broadband project and the “Are We There Yet? (Capturing the Evolving New Now in Learning)” project documenting and disseminating stories showing how organizations are adapting to pandemic-era learning environments.

 

Serving as Library Advocacy Training Project Manager for the California Library Association; also, facilitating “Storytelling for Library Advocacy” workshop online (July 13, 2022, 10 am PT),and organizing other online sessions in a continuing monthly series (second Wednesday of each month, starting at 10 am). 

Started in December 2020

 

 

Facilitating highly-interactive one-hour online employee-assistance program through Claremont EAP
Started in June 2020

 

Helping organize and manage a mentoring program for the UCLA Daily Bruin Alumni Association (DBAN) and develop/facilitate workshops designed to support the professional development of students currently working on the campus newspaper.
Started in July 2020

 

 

Participating in biweekly T is for Training podcast recordings (alternate Thursdays, 9 pm ET/6 pm PT) hosted by Maurice Coleman.
Ongoing

 

Podcasts/Interviews/Webinars/Readings (Selected)

Biweekly “Collaborations in Learning” segment on Stephen Hurley’s “Hurley in the Morning” program on VoicEd Radio (alternate Mondays, 9:15 am ET/6:15 am PT; currently on hiatus).  

“How to Light Up a Learning Environment,” June 7, 2021

“Learners as Co-Conspirators,” May 24, 2021

“Comparing Learning to Political Campaigns,” May 10, 2021

“The Parodox of Pandemic Education,” April 26, 2021

“The Power of Story,” April 12, 2021

“Blogging for Social Change,” March 29, 2021

“Keeping the Learning Going After the Event,” March 15, 2021

“Gathering, Broadband, and ATD  South Florida Champions of Learning,” March 1, 2021

“The Act and Art of Gathering,” February 15, 2021

“ShapingEDU and Community,” February 1, 2021

“Change the World Using Social Media,” January 18, 2021

“Community, Collaboration, and Building Creative Bridges,” 2018 (earlier conversation on VoicEd Radio)

Interview about Change the World Using Social Media, avoiding negativity in the use of social media, librarians as activists, and more with Steve Thomas for his Circulating Ideas podcast
October 19, 2021

Virtual author event, Change the World Using Social Media, San Francisco Public Library, with Maurice Coleman and Jill-Hurst Wahl; please use this access code when viewing the archived recording: mr!cn+T8
March 12, 2021

Interview about Change the World Using Social Media, civility, and writing with Evan Karp for his Litseen “The Write Stuff” series; includes four-minute video of reading from the book
January 31, 2021

Discussing Change the World Using Social Media
T is for Training podcast, Episode #279, January 28, 2021

“Shaping the Future(s) of Libraries”
Organized and moderated this lively panel discussion with Maurice Coleman, R. David Lankes, and Crystal Miles for ShapingEDU’s Summer 2022 online conference for this global audience of teacher-trainer-learners helping reshape learning in the digital era. 2022 Conference— June 2, 2022 (archived recording available)

“California Library Advocacy Landscape: Issues in Advocacy”
Co-facilitated (with Hillary Theyer and Yolande Wilburn) this highly-interactive California Library Association session- December 8, 2021

“Leadership, Learning, and Activism: Creating and Telling Our Stories”
ATD (Association for Talent Development) 2021 International Conference & Exposition — August 29, 2021
Salt Lake City, UT

 

Panelist on LinkedIn Learning Higher Education Leaders “Promoting Broadband Access: Educators as Dreamers and Activists” session 
March 18, 2021

 

Exploration of how George Couros used Instagram as a teaching-training-learning tool in the form of a book-study group centered on “Innovatve Inside the Box”
T is for Training podcast, Episode #261, February 14, 2020

 

“Community, Creativity, Story, and Future Literacies”
Future-U Edunauts podcast
January 19, 2018

“Dealing With Unexpected Changes in Our Training Set-up ”
T is for Training podcast, Episode #216, December 8, 2017

 

Previous Presentations/Courses (Can Be Tailored to Meet Your Needs)

“Blend It 2015: Using Technology to Create Onsite/Online Learning Spaces”
American Library Association Annual Conference Presentation for LITA
June 2015; San Francisco, CA
(PowerPoint Presentation)

“Collaboration, Technology, Social Media, and Learning: The 2012 Horizon Report–Higher Ed”
ASTD Mount Diablo Chapter
June 2012; Danville, CA
(PowerPoint Presentation)

“Community and Collaboration: Nature in the City, Hidden Garden Steps, and the Green Hairstreak Butterfly”
Joint presentation at the Randall Museum with Liam O’Brien, for the San Francisco Naturalist Society, on how Nature in the City and Hidden Garden Steps have been drawn to collaborate through a mutual interest in preserving habitats for an endangered butterfly.
April 2012; San Francisco, CA

“Community Partnerships: How to Get It Done”
ALA Editions Webinar — April 2013
(PowerPoint Presentation)

“Conflict Resolution/Difficult People:
Why Am I So Angry
(And What Are You Going to Do About It?)”
WebJunction Webinar, with Maurice Coleman
October 2010
(PowerPoint Presentation)

“Connected Learning for Library Staff and Users”
PCI Webinars — November 2015
(PowerPoint Presentation)

“Cover to Cover: Redefining Books and Library Collections in Learning”
PCI Webinar — June 2014
(PowerPoint Presentation)

“Creating Online Tutorials Easily and Effectively”
ALA Editions asynchronous ecourse May 2021

 

“Critical Thinking and Assumptions in Decision-making”
Workshop for Contra Costa Community College District
April 2011; Martinez, CA
(PDF)

“The Digital Playing Field : How Racially Equitable Is It?”
One of four panelists for this Diversity Leadership Alliance webinar
April 2021 (archived recording)

“Ed-Tech Trends: Identifying and Incorporating Them into Your Workplace”
ATD (Association for Talent Development) 2016 International Conference & Exposition — May 25, 2016, 10 am
Denver, CO [Session #W214]
(PowerPoint Presentation and Resource Sheet With Online Links)

“E-learning: Basics and Best Practices”
Updated July 1, 2010
(PDF)

“Flipped Classrooms: Playing With the Flipped Classroom Model”
PCI Webinars — May 2016
(PowerPoint Presentation)

“From eLearning to Learning: A Daylong Highly-interactive Exploration”
Mount Prospect Public Library — May 2016
Mount Prospect, IL
(PowerPoint Presentation)

“From eLearning to Learning: A Daylong Highly-interactive Exploration”
Mount Prospect Public Library — May 2016
Mount Prospect, IL
(Storify Document Capturing Participants’ Tweets)

“From eLearning to Learning: A Daylong Highly-interactive Exploration”
Mount Prospect Public Library — May 2016
Mount Prospect, IL
(Five-part Case Study Posted on Building Creative Bridges Blog)

“From Words to Pictures: Imagery in PowerPoint Presentations”
Infopeople/California Library Association
November 2008; Long Beach, CA
(PowerPoint Presentation)

“Hidden Garden Steps: Community,Collaboration, and $10K in Two Hours”
Presentation during San Francisco Department of Public Works Street Parks Project workshop
January 2012; San Francisco, CA

“How to Help Promote Your Book and Build Your Brand”
ALA Editions Webinar –June 2013

“How to Teach Online: A Beginner’s Guide”
ALA TechSource Webinar — January 2014
with Dan Freeman
(PowerPoint Presentation)

“Ignite, Interact, & Engage: Maximizing the Learning Outcome”
ALA Annual Conference Presentation — Learning Round Table
with Sharon Morris
June 2012; Anaheim, CA
(PowerPoint Presentation)

“In the Conversation (podcast)”
This episode (#113) of Maurice Coleman’s T is for Training biweekly one-hour podcast focuses on the newly-released New Media Consortium 2013 Horizon Report (Higher Education), MOOCs, and trends in learning and technology overall.
Recorded live in February 2013
(Archived audio-recording; download, save, then listen)

“Instant Professional Development (podcast)”
Episode 101 of Maurice Coleman’s T is for Training biweekly one-hour podcast; focuses on the use of Twitter backchannels as learning tools in conferences and expands into an exploration of how we all play the role of trainer-teacher-learner in many different parts of our lives; additional thoughts posted on Building Creative Bridges blog
June 2012
(Archived 45-minute audio-recording)

“Leadership: Trainers as Leaders–Introduction/Resource Sheet”
Updated July 1, 2010
(PDF)

“Leadership: Trainers as Leaders (Overview)”
American Library Association Annual Conference Presentation/Panel Discussion for Learning Round Table
June 2010; Washington, DC
(PowerPoint Presentation)

“Levels of Engagement: Rethinking How Social Media Connects Communities and Libraries”
Multidistrict Keynote Presentation and Workshops — May 2017
King of Prussia, PA
(Annotated Storify Document Capturing Participants’ Tweets)

“Libraries as Partners in Lifelong Learning”
PCI Webinar — July 2014
(PowerPoint Presentation)

“Lifelong Learning and Personal Learning Networks”
Episode 145 of Maurice Coleman’s T is for Training hour-long podcasts for trainer-teacher-learners engaged several colleagues in a conversation about lifelong learning, personal learning networks, and Barbara Fister’s Library Journal article on the topic.
August 8, 2014
(Archived Audiorecording)

“Lifelong Learning (Learning for the Future: Habits of Mind and Teaching Life Skills)”
Saint Mary’s College of California Faculty Workshop– November 2015
Moraga, CA
(PowerPoint Presentation)

“Making Space: Exploring Innovations in Onsite and Online Learning Spaces”
This “invited talk” for the KIPA (Knowledge & Information Professional Association) 2015 Conference in Denton, TX continues explorations of one of the key ed-tech trends discussed in the New Media Consortium 2015 Horizon Report > Higher Education Edition.

“Marketing 101: Creating the Voice of a Successful Organization”
ASTD Chapter Leader Webinar — June 2011
(PowerPoint Presentation and archived audio-recording of this one-hour live webinar)

“Mastering Online Facilitation (Part 1 of 4): Leading Engaging Meetings and Webinars”
SEFLIN Webinar — July 2014
(PowerPoint Presentation)

“Mentoring: Creating and Managing Mentoring Programs”
Tips, Sample Applications, and Resources — Updated July 2009
(PDF)

“Mentoring: Mentoring Program Basics”
American Library Association Annual Conference Presentation for Learning Round Table
July 2009; Chicago, IL
(PowerPoint Presentation)

“Mentoring Onsite and Online”
PCI Webinars
May 2014
(PowerPoint Presentation with Speaker Notes)

“Nonprofit Basics: Riding the Waves”
ASTD National Chapter Leader Conference Presentation
October 2009 (repeated October 2010); Arlington, VA
(PowerPoint Presentation)

“Nonprofit Survival Tips: Keeping Your Boat Afloat”
ASTD National Chapter Leader Conference Presentation
October 2009; Arlington, VA
(PowerPoint Presentation)

“PowerPoint Best Practices for Onsite and Online Presentations”
ALA CLENE Training Showcase
June 2008; Anaheim, CA
(PDF)

“Rethinking Digital Literacy to Service Library Staff and Library Users”
ALA Editions asynchronous ecourse July – August 2015
Course reflections posted on my Building Creative Bridges blog

“Rethinking Library Instruction:
Libraries as Social Learning Centers”
ALA Editions asynchronous ecourse May 16 – June 10, 2011
Introductory article posted May 3, 2011

“Rethinking Social Media to Organize Information and Communities”
ALA Editions asynchronous ecourse November 2 – December 6, 2015

“Social Learning Centers: The New Fourth Place”
Computers in Libraries 2011 Conference Presentation (via Skype)
with Maurice Coleman and Jill Hurst-Wahl
March 2011
(PowerPoint Presentation)

“Social Learning Centers and Libraries”
American Library Association Annual Conference Presentation/Panel Discussion for Learning Round Table
with Maurice Coleman and Buffy Hamilton
June 2011; New Orleans, LA
(PowerPoint Presentation)

“Social Media Basics”
ALA Editions asynchronous ecourse May 21 – June 17, 2012
Introductory article posted May 15, 2012

“Social Media, Library Partnerships, and Collaboration: More Than a Tweet”
PCI Webinar — February 2014
(PowerPoint Presentation)

“Strategic Planning 101: Working in the Construction Zone”
ASTD Chapter Leader Webinar
March 2011
(PowerPoint Presentation)

“Technology in Face-to-Face Training”
ALA TechSource Webinar
September 2010
(PowerPoint Presentation)

“Technology in Online Training”
ALA TechSource Webinar
September 2010
(PowerPoint Presentation)

“That Was Great! Now What? (Providing Learning That Is Used)”
American Library Association Annual Conference Presentation (Learning Round Table) — June 2014
Las Vegas, NV
(PowerPoint Presentation)

“Training, Teaching, and Learning 2012: State of the Industry Reports”
ASTD Sacramento Chapter Meeting Presentation
January 2012; Sacramento, CA
(repeated in Danville, CA in February 2012 for ASTD Mount Diablo Chapter)
(PowerPoint Presentation)

 

“Training-Teaching-Learning 2015: State of the Industry”
PCI Webinar — July 2015
(PowerPoint Presentation)

“Train the Trainers (six-part online series)”
California Library Association “CLA Leadership” Program
May-June 2021
Training-teaching-learning is at the heart of what contemporary libraries do formally and informally every day. This highly-interactive, results-driven series of workshops was designed to participants hone their own training-teaching-learning skills while learning how to help others develop those same skills

Session 1: Exploring Our Train-the-Trainer Learning Landscape in a Blended World”
Recorded May 18th, 2021 – Train the Trainer – Session 1

Session 2: Determining What Learning Gap We Want to Fill
Recorded May 20th, 2021 –
Part 1: Train the Trainer – Session 2 Part 1
Part 2: Train the Trainer – Session 2 Part 2

Session 3: Delivering and Evaluating Facilitating Engaging Learning Opportunities
Recorded May 25th, 2021- Train the Trainer – Session 3

Session 4: Transferring Our Training-Teaching Learning Skills to Other Trainers
Recorded May 27th, 2021 – Train the Trainer – Session 4

Session 5: Adapting DLCL Material into Your Own Train-the-Trainer Session Part 1
Recorded June 1st, 2021 – Train the Trainer – Session 5

Session 6: Adapting DLCL Material into Your Own Train-the-Trainer Session Part 2
Recorded June 3rd, 2021 – Train the Trainer – Session 6

“Using Technology in Library Training”
ALA TechSource Webinar Overviews
September 2010

“Volunteers: Creating/Managing Successful Volunteer Programs”
Tips and Basic Template — Updated May 2009
(PDF)

“Volunteer Retention 101: Thanking and Rewarding Our Supporters”
PowerPoint Presentation for Webinar Co-presented with Rick Kerner for ASTD Chapter Leaders — December 5, 2012
Link to archived audio recording coming soon

““Web Conferencing: Presentation Skills for Meetings and Trainings”
Updated January 23, 2010
(PDF)

“What Trainers Need to Know about Libraries”
ASTD Mount Diablo Chapter
February 2009; Danville, CA
(PowerPoint Presentation)

“Why Study Science?”
Two presentations for George Washington High School science classes; each session helped students see how a knowledge of science and nature has been essential in developing the Hidden Garden Steps project in San Francisco’s Inner Sunset District
April 2012; San Francisco, CA