injenuity

Posted by Jennifer on June 16th, 2008 in VPD , VPD

A lot has happened since I composed my original VPD post, and it’s time for an overhaul! I have learned so much from my organization, blog comments and the SCoPE seminar, that I think it’s time to work on the basics again. This post will describe my current understanding of VPD according to my own observations, comments on my blog, email messages, other blogs, the SCoPE seminar and informal discussions with colleagues. Again, I invite you to participate in the discussion and help refine the concept so others can adopt it. I write from the perspective of someone working to change organizational culture, specifically around eLearning in higher education. This concept of VPD may or may not translate to other organizations.

Viral Professional Development (VPD) is a strategy to stimulate and nurture informal learning as it spreads through an organization. It isn’t a theory or a concept. It isn’t a new idea or a new way to phrase some form of social cognition. It is acknowledgment that learning is happening without organizational control and we should harness it and help build the momentum. It does not have to involve learning about technology, but it is a great strategy for those who are responsible for integrating technology.

Examples of VPD include:

• Hosting open lab sessions, Play to Learn, Show and Tell, Kick the Tires, or other scheduled, yet unstructured events where participants are free to explore, discuss, share and learn.
• Inviting people outside your organization to contribute to and participate in learning events.
• Encouraging members to share their learning with colleagues using social media tools, lunch and coffee meetings, phone calls, email and whatever makes them most comfortable!
• Opening lines of communication between staff, faculty and administrators so everyone can celebrate success.
• Stimulating learning through Object-centered Sociality by providing objects from which conversation can begin.

My concept of VPD describes an organizational strategy, rather than an individual personal learning environment or network. While the two can be related, I don’t directly correlate them here. While personal networks can have spontaneous learning events that lead to transfer of knowledge, my goal in working with VPD is to make a cultural change within a specific organization, rather than develop a personal learning network. For example, a few weeks ago, Corrie Bergeron posted on Twitter that he was testing video streaming tools and playing guitar. I pointed him to Stickam and several other people joined in. He began to give a guitar lesson and we all tested the tool. We learned, played, had fun and some kept using the tool and sharing the knowledge. While this was a great personal learning experience, I don’t believe it fits under the umbrella of VPD, because it did not affect members of an organization.

I’ve removed most of the technology components of my original VPD post as I’ve observed so much of the learning on my campus happening via face to face meetings, phone conversations, chat rooms, and low-tech forwarded email messages. My Ning site was a nice start to get the ball rolling, but I no longer see it as a permanent home for learning about eLearning on my campus. Today I received access to publish to our intranet, where I will host internal support documentation. Our IT department also registered a domain and will be setting up a WPMU server I hope to use for instructors to find their own place to publish.

I welcome all comments, feedback, suggestions, revisions, stories, etc.!