I've just finished teaching my first online course - my first course as part of Cal State Northridge's Masters Degree in Knowledge Management (KM).  This has prompted me to start blogging on the topics of Distance Learning (DL) and KM.

The purpose of this blog is to discuss what I and my students are learning about both KM and online learning.

As you can see from the title of the Blog I am a firm believer in the notion that both KM and Distance Learning (DL) are contact sports.  By this I mean that for either KM or Distance Learning to be effective you must do more than install a technology and put up some content – it requires personal involvement.

What really struck me now that I am teaching in an online program are the similarities between DL and KM.  In both the participants are often not in the same location and in many cases don’t know each other very well.  They have a need to learn – but they aren’t sure who knows what (except of course the “professor is suppose to be the Subject Matter Expert - SME), both typically have access to some codified knowledge (the text, articles, white papers, lessons learned) – but much of what they “want” is tacit.  It’s the tacit knowledge that’s in the mind of the professor (or in the CoP it may be the SME), or – what they often don’t recognize is that what’s really valuable is the tacit knowledge that’s in the heads of the other students in the class – or in the minds of the participants in the Community of Practice. 

The key to success in both is engagement with the community

What I have found most interesting is that what it takes to make both KM or DL successful – is engagement with the Community (which is how I think of my students - a learning community).  In this light I believe that are several lessons that DL can learn from successful KM efforts and vice versa.

Let me start with a few of the parallels that I’ve drawn from working in the arenas of both KM and DL.

·         KM and DL are not self study.  KM is not about reading a book – or reading lessons learned.  And likewise DL is not about listening to some “expert” lecture.  They are both about engagement with a group that has a need and a desire to learn. They are about and exchange of both tacit and explicit knowledge.

·         A DL class is much like a Community of Practice (CoP).  In a DL program, especially one composed largely of mid career professionals, just as in CoP’s, much of the most powerful learning comes from the knowledge that the participants (students) share with each other.  This is knowledge that is based on their personal experience outside of the course setting.  But as in a CoP, for the DL students to share their knowledge there needs to be a clear “ what’s in it for me” (WIIFM).  If the participants don’t perceive they are getting value from their involvement they will quickly drop out of the conversation.  As in a CoP this value can come in a variety of forms.  Peer recognition, instructor (the boss) recognition or rewards (the grade) – and a sense that they are learning something in return.   

·         Content quickly becomes stale: A big issue is DL is the cost of developing online content and outside of education it’s developing and maintaining knowledge assets and lessons learned.  There is an attitude (and an economic driver) that says “I’ve developed this, I’ve produced it…and I’m going to reuse it…even if it isn’t current.”  But today’s lecture on KM – is tomorrow’s old newspaper.  A year ago – who had heard of Twitter?  How many had looked at how social media could (or would) influence a Presidential election?  How many were thinking about the power of conversation. 

And this same thing applies in the world of KM.  We are learning rapidly, the tools are changing quickly – our capabilities to engage, share, build on what we know and create new knowledge are constantly changing.  As a consequence – we in KM and in DL have to keep up with these changes if we want to be as effective as possible.

·         The tools for engagement:  The number of “collaborative tools” that are available today to activity engage people is incredible – and these tools are applicable for KM and for DL. 

In the past in DL it was recorded lectures and the students using something called Blackboard.  In industry it was the attempt to turn tacit knowledge into explicit knowledge by creating a “lessons learned database”(that few ever used).

But today we have tools that can keep content fresh – and very current – and that keep people engaged in conversation and in sharing what they know in order to learn and create something new and better.  Want to know the latest in KM check out Twitter and use the hashtag #KM.  Want to hear from some of the gurus in KM or DL – check out their blogs.  Want to create something that is a living asset – put together a wiki and give it to people that have a compelling reason to create content that they can reuse and get value from.  Want to get a message out to your community – or your students, use twitter.  Want to share your latest thoughts with your community or your students on a current topic – blog and ask for their response.  Or you don’t like to write, but prefer to talk (ah you must be a professor) use a pod cast.  Want them to engage…get them to blog.  Want to reach beyond the “class room” use tools that can be accessed by people outside of your class – or your community. 

·         The need for engagement: This takes me full circle to my first point – KM and DL are not self study – they are contact sports.  What we have found is that if you just put a tool out there for the community to use – or for your students to use - chances are you will not be very successful.  In some cases we have had faculty that thought they could be effective by providing the lectures and limited engagement with the students.  Or corporations have said – we will build a lessons learned data base – and you will use it. The students called these faculty “plug and play.”  Corporations call these “lessons recorded.” As you can guess the students quickly became disengaged as do the people that are supposed to capture the lessons.  In the case of the students they did enough for the grade – but little more.  In corporations the data bases quickly became stale. 

In contrast instructors that participated in discussions, asked students to share their experience…and asked why this is important and relevant and finally brought closure to discussions (this is what stood out, this is what we learned, this is why it was important) got students engaged and took the learning beyond “let me tell you what you need to know” to a rich learning exchange.  In my experience the same is true in KM – by engaging the community and asking – what would you like to know in order to make your job go better or what do you know that others should know?  And then providing vehicles for people to connect to share what they know.

In the next few blog posts I’ll talk a little more about these parallels and what the two practices can learn from each other.