As I continue to post my notes and observations from the ASTD 2013 conference, this one is about curating resources by Dr. Catherine Lombardozzi, Learning 4 Learning Professionals. In a presentation called Learning Environments by Design: Curating Resources for Complex Learning Needs, Lombardozzi explores the use of curation for supporting organizational learning needs.
Lombardozzi began by looking at the learning challenges. On one hand, you have learners with a well-defined role and specific things to learn, and on the other hand, you have learners with multi-faceted roles and skill sets. Add to that the need for mobile learning because of a dispersed group of learners.
Designing a Learning Environment
When setting up a learning environment, she begins by answering two important questions: Who are the learners who need robust environments? What resources do they need?
Lombardozzi explained that a learning environment consists of a collection of resources and activities for learning, and designers deliberately curate a well-designed environment with a specific need in mind. There are also different types of learning environments:
- Personal Learning Networks (personally curated)
- Communities of practice (group-curated)
- Designed environment (created by a curator for a specific learning need.)
What components does a supportive learning environment for an organization include? Lombardozzi answered this question with a model she had developed. You can see the model on slide 8 of her slide presentation. The foundation of the model is the inspiration and motivation to learn. How motivated are individuals to learn? Five areas support this:
- Resources: Anything people can pull to learn from
- People: Individuals who can help others learn.
- Training and Education: Courses
- Development Practices: Things companies and organizations do to help with learning.
- Learning by Doing: People still learn by doing.
This model can provide ideas to be used in a locally developed curated learning environment. There are lots of resources to include in this learning environment.
The Curator’s Role
Lombardozzi also discussed the role of the curator. She indicated the curator should be able to do the following:
- Seeks fresh material
- Filters material for relevance and value
- Categorizes and tags to make it easy to find.
- Contextualizes and adds commentary to enrich the impact of the collection
- Highlights trends
- Makes connections between related materials.
- Generates discussion
She pointed out that filtering is tough to accomplish. The curator is always looking for materials that are accurate, credible, current, relevant, easy to use, and diverse. Curators will often use people they respect and who can help guide them along the way. A curator also trims what is no longer relevant. Resources used such as server space must be justified along the way; therefore, you must continuously trim obsolete materials.
Lombardozzi pointed out that she typically curates around a specific skill set or knowledge base. Curators must continuously ensure resources are useful to help people do their job. Learning environments should be stretching people’s abilities.
Additional Resources
