Unworkshop4 Blog

The Unworkshop4 Learnscape

Objectives
Participants attend Unworkshops with intentions of:

• gaining comfort and proficiency in finding things on the web
• getting the big picture of bottom-up informal learning
• understanding the role of blogs, wikis, podcasts, tags, RSS in learning
• relating the best web-solution to a given learning need
• participate and learn from an online community

To be, rather than to seem

Personal coaches are available for one-on-one conversations, but you have to ask. No spoon-feeding here!

Unworkshops aren’t designed to show you the location of today’s hot websites or the current set of web tools. Those will all change in the next few months. Unworkshops address the underlying processes, not today’s products. You will learn to find things and solve problems for yourself. We’ll address when to use a wiki, not the mechanics of Socialtext 2.0. Our content emerges from the interaction between participants and subjects. Our goal is to help you spot informal learning opportunities and the confidence to suggest web technology to improve them.

Web Technology
Working with web technology enables you to build and implement solutions incrementally. It’s often simple and inexpensive to create a prototype application and test it as a proof of concept, reducing what once took thousands of dollars and months of time to something you can do in less than a day with free tools. However, you’re not going to learn how to do this without some practice and reflection.

This is why our Unworkshops use free software and systems. It’s simpler to learn and it’s readily available. Our expectation is that after our month together, you’ll be tinkering and experimenting with software you’ve seen us use here. You will have 12 months access to our resource center to help you recall how things work and when to apply them. Unworkshop4, for example, will be using Vyew, Skype, Google-Docs, QuickTopic, pbWiki, Del.icio.us, Flickr, Authenticity, WordPress, both as examples and to deliver the Unworkshop experience itself.

Structure
Unworkshops are participatory. Unworkshops have coaches, not instructors. Participants receive guidance, not assignments. Our subject matter is fluid, not fixed.

Over the course of a month, five-person learning teams meet several days before each weekly group session. These online meetings are participants’ primary means of hands-on exploration. Teams collaboratively explore techniques and solve group exercises. They share their findings with everyone in the Unworkshop by blogging their results.
Teams get together, generally by Skype conference call, to do weekly “Explorations.” Everyone in the Unworkshop takes part in four weekly meetings. A detailed Agenda is online. Surprise interviews and other events may occur unannounced.

• Our first group session deals with gaining confidence on the web. Participants tour our agenda, schedules, exercises, locations, definitions, research, communication, a pub, and an FAQ. They learn how to connect with others, search for information, and get help when they need it. They learn how to use the web for personal information management and are introduced to informal learning theory.
• Our next two sessions get to the heart of web tools, techniques, and conventions. Podcasts, communities, tags, subscriptions. We explore the functions and capabilities of web 2.0, all of the items in the Informal Learning Toolbox. These sessions marry the web toolset with learning requirements. Building learnscapes. Applications. The Informal Learning Toolbox is the backbone for these two sessions.
• Our final session deals with community. Alumni are invited to participate. We go over resources, how to’s. Perhaps interest groups form. Novices are welcomed to the club.

Participants are also encouraged to explore on their own. Our resources are plentiful.

To monitor quality, each team is pushed and completes a feedback form weekly.

Personal coaches are available for one-on-one conversations, but you will have to ask. The Unworkshop is based on Pull learning rather than having everything Pushed to you. Our hot line on Skype is available to individuals. Set up a clubroom or chat.

Job Aids provide structure for discussion and research:

1. “Your Personal Learning Environment” is a job aid to help participants frame their individual learning.
2. The “Informal Learning Toolbox” is a job aid to help participants assemble learnscape for organizational improvement.
3. The Informal Learning Poster is an overview of the topic.

The Informal Learning Corner is a collection of information and resources on informal learning. It includes areas for discussion. It is open to the public.