TikTok As A Collaboration Tool? Why Not? - Workshop Tip #228

Collaboration is a powerful concept that has long been present in different workplaces. Unfortunately, many experts and consultants in the L&D world only talk about it in theory. There have been too many discussions on how to open more collaboration at work, but implementation always falls short.

But I'd like to have a different take on this. As I see it happening today, collaboration now comes from a series of conversations and entails a continuous bouncing off of ideas. It is the fruition of hours of working together, establishing relationships, and building trust. For us humans, collaboration is not a foreign concept. We possess this as an innate behavior.

In the L&D space, we often fall into thinking that instilling a culture of collaboration can happen overnight. In a perfect world, maybe. However, in reality, it takes work and support from management down to the rank and file. Our job in learning and development is to kickstart the initiative. We need to have activities and solutions to promote it.

Just recently, I’ve come across a Josh Bersin article about TikTok. I find it thought-provoking how he suggested that this seemingly for-entertainment-only app can actually be used for collaborative learning. Here are my impressions and takeaways from understanding TikTok and learning.

1. Collaboration happens whenever it is practical for people to get results. Whether it is by sharing or uploading a video and people begin to relate to it and spark an exchange of comments or by rating someone else’s video, that's collaboration. It doesn’t need to have all the elements of collaboration. The important thing is that it serves the instant need to work with others to achieve a specific goal or result.

2. When technology is micro-sized, it becomes spontaneous. When technology enables multiplicity of tasks, and yet in a very simple form like in TikTok, we are more able to get the results quickly. It is mimicking or allowing us to behave in the way we wanted to in the real world. This is really how technology prevails upon us.

3. It is now shaping our relationships, language, communication, and thinking. I remember a book talking about which came first: is it our thoughts or language? Now it could be either or both. But in the case of TikTok,  what I see going on is that it’s reconstructing our language and it helps develop our thinking. Some people might disagree and find TikTok to be terrible, synaptic, and too cryptic for learning. However, the key point to emphasize here is that we're communicating, although in a very different form. This language  developed by TikTok is something that we need to consider in what we do in L&D.

4. Lastly, as L&D specialists, I think that we can benefit a lot by looking at this technology to see what kind of enhancement, endowment, and functionality we can encourage our learners and our workers to investigate and test.  Because only then will we see how this impacts the way they do work.

So, watch out for TikTok. It may just be in your learning before you know it.

Ray Jimenez, PhD

Vignettes Learning

"Helping Learners Learn Their Way"

Microsoft Teams and Workflow Learning - Workshop Tip #226

Just a few weeks ago, my good friend Jonathan Workman of COG Industries shared with me a video link about Microsoft Teams. Click here to watch the video.

It is fascinating, and in fact, exciting to see that Microsoft Teams (MS Teams) has now incorporated some of the critical principles of workflow learning and microlearning.

I am so enthralled and completely captivated by these two methods of learning that I wrote books about them: Workflow Learning (2019) and 3-Minute E-Learning (2006). I strongly find these methods as the modern-day representation of the much-needed refinements, adjustments, and fine-tuning in learning design.

My impressions

Having used these methods for quite awhile, I have listed down my impressions of MS Teams adopting workflow learning and microlearning in its design. Let’s discuss them in detail.

1. MS Teams recognizes and supports the thought process that learning and work are intertwined. When problems and issues confront workers at work, a workflow learning-based design helps facilitate more straightforward access and usage of needed information. They can quickly refer to resources or they can simply go and check with managers and leaders.
   
   
2. It found a way to separate the process of learning from the world of instructions, which makes for a smooth and coherent design. Instructions are integrated to reference learning tools through Microsoft Learn and LinkedIn Learning (the next generation of Lynda).
   
   
3. MS Teams referred to the fluidness of workflow learning and the simplicity of microlearning. Learners need not be interrupted on what they do, while they learn every bit of information and apply them to solving work issues.
   
   
4. When technologies like Microsoft initially started to commoditize, the process and design were arduous and hard to navigate. There were very high-level hurdles for learners when they used the old concepts of learning management systems or other heavy learning platforms. But today, Microsoft has succeeded in making it seamless, lightweight, and natural through MS Teams.

Culture of Collaboration

It is noteworthy to add that a new culture of learning is evolving. Workers are collaborating, exchanging ideas, communicating, and learning at the same time in the right places. We have finally brought the importance of collaboration to the forefront.

The bottom line for me is this: it is easier to commoditize the process when technologies are beginning to keep up with new ideas in learning. Likewise, when they try to mimic and implement some of the significant innovations of thinking (i.e., using workflow learning and microlearning in their software). For me, the most potent implication is, we are learning. We are developing a learning behavior that is focused on work and away from just instruction. Even without being formally taught, people learn through the principles of workflow learning and microlearning.

Doing it, is far more important than being educated on what workflow learning or microlearning is. When you come across Microsoft Teams or any other learning app that allows you to do more, take advantage of it. The journey has been long BUT but we finally made it.

Ray Jimenez, PhD
Vignettes Learning
"Helping Learners Learn Their Way"

Importance of Collaboration in the Workplace - Tip #215

In a recent article by Josh Bersin, he acknowledged that we are indeed living in a skills-based community in which people, especially workers, want to learn everything quickly. The volume of online content is huge, and companies are spending more than $200 billion on different types of workplace training programs, including workflow learning. Most of the content is targeted towards the workplace to allow employees to learn new things whenever they get time.

But we need to understand that the most effective and memorable learning happens through communication and collaboration while in the workplace. In Jane Hart’s 2018 survey, a glaring 94% of the respondents think that learning from daily work experiences is very important, followed by knowledge sharing with the team. Learning in the workplace has moved away from the traditional methods.

Collaborative Learning

The best way to study collaboration among employees is to examine how they behave and what they say while at work. We can easily evaluate the type and depth of collaboration by listening to conversations of employees while they are working on a task. Employees commonly collaborate to complete tasks and improve their work situations. They don’t necessarily formally attend meetings to collaborate. Just as work is not a natural place where we “do” learning. People don’t go to work to learn. We simply do work, but work is a transformative process. According to Joseph Raelin, its purpose is to transform activities and resources into some form of result. It is when workers are faced with work problems to fix, solve or improve, small actions or “nudges” present themselves that lead to peer to peer actions and formation of teams within the company.

These are examples of conversations in the workplace in which collaboration happens:

Design new training programs for workplace

No doubt that technology has helped us in various forms, but at the same time, we need to pay attention to the collaborative learning process. It is essential to understand that training programs for employees should be based on collaborative learning, whether they are available online or organized in the meeting room. Group learning activities can also be designed for employees because they help to generate fast and effective results in limited time. It does not mean that traditional learning strategies should be ignored. It is better to maintain a healthy balance between instructional and collaborative learning process for better results.

Conclusion

The challenge in learning through collaboration is that we set a very tall order and tell people how to best collaborate. Instead of recognizing that collaboration already exists, we don’t, and as a result it becomes a foreign concept in the workplace. We must foster the culture of collaboration and make it a native practice by acknowledging that workers, whether shallow or deep, do collaborate in their own ways. How we harness them and actively promote the process is the key.

References

Ray Jimenez, Workflow Learning

Josh Bersin, The Power of Collaborative Learning: More Important Than Ever

Jane Hart. (2018). 7th Annual Learning in the Workplace Survey results.

Joseph Raelin

Thaler, R. H. & Sunstein, C. R. (2009). Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness.

Ray Jimenez, PhD
Vignettes Learning
"Helping Learners Learn Their Way"