This week is Work Out Loud or #WOLweek and the purpose is to be more open and share what you’re working on. So, in the spirit of the week I went to my notebook where I write down ideas and thoughts about what I see and read from the world around me. They’re raw, not fully formed and some not fully thought through (sometimes I was just venting) but they are things that at some stage I thought were important enough to write down. The idea is that they might become posts of their own eventually.

Here they are in no particular order:

• Too much time and effort is spent hypothesising about the future. No-one knows what’s its going to be like but geez, there’s a lot of people making money from painting a picture of the ‘ideal’ learning and development future.

• There’s also way too much pontificating about what learning and development folks should be doing and not enough practical advice from the more experienced that will actually help others to get to this ‘ideal’ future. Models are fine but give me something that will help me right now. Give me something that I can use to start bringing about change.

• Is working out loud really for everyone or is it just for people who work in offices and have access to a computer? When I look around me I see the person who collects my rubbish and the checkout person at the supermarket and the person working in a coal mine. Is WOL for them?

• I know that debate is healthy but dividing a profession isn’t. I wonder if other professions have the same problem.

• People need to take control of their own learning and the majority don’t. Too many rely on courses or someone doing it for them. How about figuring something out for yourself.

• I love using social media tools to connect and learn from others but the reality is the majority of people working in the learning field aren’t connected, don’t use them and therefore won’t introduce them into their workplaces. This doesn’t mean we should give up on using them and spreading the word but the reality is that for many organisations this is a long, long way off.

• I’m thinking about adding a ‘Downloads’ page for my blog site and creating some interactions the people can look at but also use in their own projects or learn more about how to use Storyline 2. I’ll need to get a few together first.

• Poor quality eLearning is not due to authoring tools themselves but due to the users of them not constantly wanting to improve, try new ideas and experiment. However, the fact that anyone can get their hands on one does mean that people think they can use them.

Well, that’s it. This is the first time I’ve written a post in one sitting and haven’t put it aside to work on later and it’s uncomfortable but it’s done now 🙂