Leading Links 2021 – Issue 7

The August heat and humidity are at full tilt here in North Carolina and school is back in session. We’re back, too, with another round of Leading Links to help you grow and improve your learning business. First, a couple of current and upcoming initiatives to highlight:

• How have virtual events evolved since the pandemic started? Please help us find out by having the right person at your organization participate in this survey. We’ll share the results, and respondents get a shot at one of five randomly drawn Better World Books certificates. 
  
• Learning Science for Learning Businesses: We just wrapped up our 7-episode series on this topic and we’ll host a capstone Webinar on September 9.  (Many thanks to SelfStudy for sponsoring the series and the webinar.)

• If a new learning platform is in your future join us for Live Review, our annual learning platform demo even on September 14 and 15. It’s a highly convenient – and free – way to get an up close look at platforms that are a good fit for learning businesses. 

Now, on to our August links. 

[Strategy] Alternative and Micro Credentials
One of our aims with Leading Links is to provide connected sets of resources to inform your thinking about important topics in the market for lifelong learning and serve as a point of reference for team and cross-functional discussions (applicable in any learning business larger than one person!) Alternative credentials and microcredentials are arguably one of the most important topics for any organization serving the adult learning sector these days. This article from EdSurgelays out some of the key reasons why (many of which we have also articulated over the years). 

Strada Education Network adds to the conversation with Things To Know Now About the Future of Nondegree Credentials and Examining the Value of Nondegree Credentials. 

Finally, The Evolllution weighs in with The Growing Trend of Microcredentials.

We suspect that most readers won’t find a lot in these pieces that they haven’t heard before (or at least suspected), but again, they serve as a good source of data and perspective for this incredibly important strategic opportunity. And, of course, they prompt the question what is your learning business doing about it?

[Portfolio] Combating Neuro and Learning Myths
Myths about how our brains work and how we learn are pervasive and stubbornly persistent. They are also pernicious: to the extent that we, our instructors, our learners, and our broader base of stakeholders (board members, for example!) buy into them, we may end up offering flawed and ineffective learning experiences, undermining the entire purpose of our learning businesses.

So, it’s definitely worth being aware of learning myths like the ones Eva Keiffenheim highlights in this article  or that the Debunker Club has been exposing for years. Just as importantly is unlearning and help others unlearn these myths, as suggested in this article on The Learning Scientists. 

[Capacity] Collaborating and Curating to Learn
We noted the ever increasing importance of collaborative learning in the last round of Leading Links. This time around, we’ll note that much of that learning happens in environments that we tend to associate with “productivity” – and we therefore tend to overlook or under appreciate the role they play in learning. We use Monday.com, for example, for project management, and a lot of learning happens there. 

Here’s a run down of 11 tools and platforms where productivity and learning can and should connect.

Curation – a topic we’ve written and spoken about extensively – also plays a role. Another tool we’ll highlight from the list of eleven above is Notion.so. This can be a great tool for teams, but is also very powerful for your personal curation and sharing efforts – as illustrated by this great Access Guide – “a friendly introduction to digital accessibility” curated by Alex Chen using Notion. 

That’s it for this edition. If you find Leading Links valuable, please share it with a colleague who may also find it valuable. (And, of course, they can get their own subscription here.)