Learning Experience

J.C. Halverson
Special Topics INSYS 497B
Megan Fritz PhD
Fall 2009
Penn State Great Valley


Overview of Project
The project that I implemented web 2.0 tools into involves training individuals to become trainers for their respective organizations. The groups of “Train the Trainer” participants are from different areas of the Dallas Region of the Department of Labor’s Job Corps program. The participants are spread over eleven states at twenty two different residential training centers. For the purposes of this project the participants will be divided into two groups, those in the northern tier of states and those in the southern tier of states which will be the targeted group for this beta stage of the project. The overall objective is to have all of these staff become competent trainers in the “Normative Culture” training techniques which my training company provides as an independent training sub contractor. The web 2.0 tool which will be the focal point of this project will be wiggio, a free site designed to help working with groups easier.
Besides the logistics of having a group that is spread out over a wide geographic area, one of the challenges is that most of the staff involved are adult learners and they present specific challenges as adult learners and complicating the variables is that the project has the objective of the addition of implementing a new technology into that learning process. The Educause Quarterly identifies that adult students often have little experience working online and need help navigating content and performing learning tasks. There are groups striving to bridge the divide, the national Council of Adult Experiential Learners sponsors tools and seminars to assist in addressing the needs and realities of the adult learner. The wiggio tool was chosen as part of this project because of the simplicity of its design, the features included and it is free.
Implementation
As with any change project it is imperative to have authorization and support from the top management or administration and this project initiated a preliminary request on November 10, 2009 with the Program Supervisor of the Dallas Regional Office of Job Corps. I presented the overall concept of the online tool, my connection to the project as a student and as a businessman and answered questions about cost, copyright and hosting responsibilities. It was agreed that a follow up meeting would be held in Albuquerque during an upcoming training session with the targeted group of adult learners. A meeting was held with the Department of Labor Regional Director of Job Corps and the concept of the project and web 2.0 tool was presented. It was determined that permission from the National Office would not be necessary if my company would be hosting the site and therefore it would not have to fall under the Department of Labor’s Internet Acceptable Use policy which would have put undue restrictions and the possibility of a lengthy review process on the use of the web 2.0 tool.
I spoke with the training participants and told them of my plans to put together a web site that would help them organize the training material, provide supplemental training aides and provide a forum to share with others the trials and tribulations they were going through in performing training sessions. Speck has identified that “adults will commit to learning when the goals and objectives are considered realistic and important to them. Application in the 'real world' is important and relevant to the adult learner’s personal and professional needs”.
On December 9, 2009 an email was sent to the Train the Trainer group announcing the launch of the wiggio web 2.0 web site and inviting them to log in and begin to interact with the features of the site. Follow up invitation emails were sent as well emails announcing the addition of new material as a way to pique interest in those that have not logged on yet.
Evaluation
In order to evaluate the success of this project will require a long term perspective and tangible evaluative criteria. The evaluation will be divided into four main categories; involvement, active usage, training and participant self assessment. A rudimentary rubric was developed to have an ongoing base line of evaluation. It is the intention to complete the rubric at the end of each month for the first four months of the project as a means to give the Regional Office of Job Corps and the participant’s feedback about where the group stands in the use of the web 2.0 wiggio tool. The first measurement area is to look at participant involvement as measured by how many of the group log into the site. This is a simple numerical standard used but could identify if some participants might have issues logging on because of a lack of computer skills or access to a computer.
The second area evaluated will be the amount of active usage participants do. This will measure the degree to which the group uses the materials in a collaborative way to edit, comment and produce training material. Leib has written how adults have accumulated a foundation of life experiences and knowledge that may include work-related activities, family responsibilities, and previous education. They need to connect learning to this knowledge/experience base. (Leib) The scale will be determined by the degree to which participants are able to “personalize” the training material with references from their own lives.
The third area to be evaluated will be trainings the participants actually perform at their respective centers. This is an important component in that it represents an overall objective irrespective of the use of the web 2.0 tool but still is indicative of the tools ability to influence the behavior of the group members. The function of the wiggio site allows individuals to post their scheduled and completed training sessions.
The final evaluation area to be examined is a poll distributed to participants asking about their assessment of their development as a trainer. A Leikert scale will be used to gauge the progress of individuals over the four month evaluation period. Questions will be developed to ascertain knowledge of the training content, confidence in presenting the material, support of management and feedback from the participants in their training sessions.

Works Cited
Cordes, S. (2009). How IT Can Help Support Adult Learners. Retrieved 12 12, 2009, from Educause Quaterly: http://www.educause.edu/EDUCAUSE+Quarterly/EDUCAUSEQuarterlyMagazineVolum/AdultLearnersHowITCanSupportNe/163869
Council of Adult Experiential Learning. (n.d.). Retrieved 12 10, 2009, from http://www.cael.org/
Leib. (n.d.). Principles of Adult Education. Retrieved 12 14, 2009, from Adults as Learners: http://honolulu.hawaii.edu/intranet/committees/FacDevCom/guidebk/teachtip/adults-2.htm

Appendix
#1 Email sent to Train the Trainer participants/ December 9, 2009
I hope everyone is doing well. As I had mentioned during our last session in
Albuquerque I have put together a web site for all of the Train the Trainer
participants. Feel free to explore and try out some of the features. I have put
the files from the trainer’s manual under the "folder" tab, have put some video
clips under the "links" tab and we can message under the "message" tab. When you
open a file under the "folder" tab, you can edit it and save it and the original
version will remain and a new version will be created. What we can do is have
people make changes and create a group version of some of the material.
For now just play around, send me a message (that will help me out know that you
were able to log on) add material; add a link of your center.... just have some
fun exploring the site and we will see if this is worthwhile for us.
Take care and I hope everyone had a great holiday and survives the upcoming
holidays!
ps- on the calendar tab you can put in the dates you have worked out to do
training at your center (hopefully!!!), so put your center's name and what
portion of training you are doing... good luck and as always I am open to
feedback... oh the "view" feature does not seem to work with the documents, use
the "edit" and the document will open.

----------------------------------------
Reply in the Messages section of Normative Culture:
http://www.wiggio.com/seek.html?type=message&gid=188929&id=935463&email=ngtgroup@aol.com

Thank you for using Wiggio!

#2 Evaluation Rubric
**(sorry, but the formatting for the following did not carrying over when I pasted thsi from my paper and I don't know how to correct it, thanks)
Participant
Involvement Evaluation # Date: Comments:
0-6 participants log on to wiggio site within 30 days of invitation
Score 1
7-12 participants log on to wiggio site within 30 days of invitation
Score 2
8-18 participants log on to wiggio site within 30 days of invitation
Score 3
18-25 participants log on to wiggio site within 30 days of invitation
Score 4
Total
Active Usage
Participants do not view or edit any documents
Score 1
Participants view documents but do no editing or downloading
Score 2
Participants do editing of documents and download
Score 3
Participants collaborate with others in creating documents, add new material
Score 4
Total
Training
Participants do not perform any training session
Score 1
Participants schedule training sessions but they are not completed
Score 2
Participants schedule and perform one to two days of training
Score 3
Participants schedule and perform three to five days of training
Score 4
Total
Self Assessment
Participants do not return poll distributed
Score 1
Participants return poll with no comments
Score 2
Participants return poll with comments
Score 3
Participants return poll with comments and suggestions
Score 4
Total
Grand Total