Organizational Learning

"Organizational Learning refers to the capability of an organization to improve its effectiveness based upon its experience." Achieving organizational learning requires an enterprise-wide approach to knowledge management, distributed authorship, and ongoing documentation of protocol & procedure. There are various approaches to distributed authorship including content-management-systems, Microsoft SharePoint Server, and wikis. The bottom line is the "two heads are better than one" parable. As more and more people are involved in developing, publishing, and refining the organization's knowledge base, it becomes that much richer, up-to-date, and relevant. [The free encyclopedia wikipedia is a prime example of this phenomenon. Anyone on the net can contribute to it. Peers review the submissions. The wikipedia currently has 342,000 articles as compared to the Encyclopedia Britannica which has 85,000 articles.] In a school setting organizational learning relates to both administrative and instructional functions. Three areas worth examining are: curriculum mapping, student assessment, and web site authorship.

Contextualized Memory

Good news- the mystery of my forgotten list was solved today, and it turns out the list was only one week old. It was four items I wrote down during a meeting with a typing specialist. 1 - index finger: the importance of knowing which letters the index finger uses. 2 - keep rest of class occupied: the importance of good classroom management. 3 - sports articles: some students enjoy typing these for practice instead of more standard fare. 4 - January Saturday mornings: when this specialist will be offering classes.

The thing that intrigues me about this forgetful episode is the question of how the brain stores information/memory, and how you can access those memories. I struggled fruitlessly for an hour last night trying to remember the implication of those four items. Today in a meeting I had scheduled to discuss typing the memory came back when I was asked about my prior meeting with the specialist. Ten years ago this wouldn't have been a problem for me to remember; but now it's clear that I need context in order to access my memories.

FM, TV, and a Forgotten List

I don't understand why laptops/notebooks/tablets don't come with the built-in capability to pick up a radio or TV broadcast. I mean, it's a wireless device... right? Surely there's enough electronics in there to tune in a radio broadcast? And why can't I watch TV on the thing? I know I can get a USB device to do this, but c'mon,... it should be built in.

On a completely different topic... While tidying my desk this evening, I found a list of items in my handwriting on a small yellow pad that can't be more than a month old. The list has four items: index finger, keep rest of class occupied, sports articles, and January Saturday morning. I have no idea what any of these refer to. It's like some amnesic haiku. I'm most intrigued by the first and last items. What's going to happen in January? If I'd written this list on my tablet, I'd have the date it was created which might help me remember what it's about. {note to self: try to avoid writing on paper}

Digital Storage

Speaking of knowledge management, for me it's more than just the computer files I create at work; it's all of my communication, music, digital photos, portfolio, journal, notes I take in grad class, instructional materials, newspaper articles, recipes, web sites I manage, television and radio broadcasts, bookmarked web sites, bumper stickers, and wedding gifts. I'm definitely addicted to my computer. One of my colleagues has scanned into PDF and discarded all of the paper accumulated since high school in his filing cabinets.

Non-Linear Knowledge Management

Most of the world's computer users store electronic information in linear hierarchies - files stored in folders, folders within folders. To find something you take a linear path, usually starting out at "My Documents," and drilling down through folders to find a document you want. Network files, favorites, music files, etc. also follow this linear pattern. You can certainly create shortcuts to quickly jump from one location to another but it's still inside the overall linear system.

The World Wide Web has introduced us to non-linear information retrieval patterns. A company at www.thebrain.com would like to introduce us to the concept of of non-linear file storage. The field is only in its infancy, but it offers intriguing possibilities. In addition to a personal brain for individuals, thebrain.com is really targeting enterprise-level management of knowledge for institutions. It aims to bring the nonlinear nature of the web to the way information gets stored on an institution's intranet. If you've ever visited the visual thesaurus, thebrain is a similar interface. There are spheres of related items floating in space. When you select an item, it comes to the forefront, and links that relate to it float closer to you.

More on Knowledge Management

Yesterday I mentioned use of a web site for knowledge-management in the context of trying to remember things. Another element worth mentioning is the convergence of the function of fileserver computers and web site computers. It's a simple point really - when we save a document to a fileserver it's typically thought of as only accessible on that fileserver's intranet. Saving to a webserver makes a file globally accessible.

The convergence is happening because documents on Windows fileservers can easily be accessed through the use of webfolders. By enabling webfolders you give yourself access to your fileserver documents over the Internet. There are several differences between webfolders and webservers, notably that webfolders allow you to modify and save your files back onto the server. The advantage to a webserver is the ease with which you can create links between things and the public nature of the web. Because of this capability, I've started using my web site to store information I would previously have put on the fileserver. this lets me link documents not linearly, and makes them easily accessible.

Although I don't know much about it, it seems like Microsoft SharePoint is a technology which sort of brings these two server technologies together. If anyone reading this is a SharePoint user I would be interested to hear your feedback. Would you describe SharePoint in the same terms - as a bridge between fileserving and webserving?

Shallow Thoughts on Electronic Organizers

I'm intrigued by the decline in my memory as I age. It's interesting to be aware of it. It takes more effort to get most things to transfer from short-term to longer term memory. If I don't make an effort I definitely won't remember, and even if I do make an effort, I find myself forgetting things. I have reached the point that I just forgive myself and move on.

I wonder about the effect of electronic organizers. About four years ago I began using my electronic calendar (Outlook) exclusively, because I was scheduling dozens of meetings on the fly each week. Prior to this busy time in my work-life I had been able to maintain my schedule in my head, and very rarely would 'forget' an appointment; it wasn't worth it to take the time to enter appointments into an electronic device... but that changed. Now I rely fully on my Outlook calendar to know where I'm supposed to be when. I've recently made a similar transition with my to-do lists. if there's something I need to remember to do, I enter it into Outlook now. Depending on its level of importance I enter it either as a to-do or as a note.

I no longer make much of an effort to remember things except for the things I want to learn. Some things aren't worth trying to remember if you have an efficient knowledge-management system. Over the past year I have reached an epiphany of sorts regarding the web sites which I manage...it is this: the web site can be my knowledge-management platform. Eureka.!? Well, maybe not, but I think it does take a shift in thought-paradigm to embrace the capability of which I speak. Let me give a brief example... I was learning how to use Inspiration software efficiently for a paper last summer. In order to use it efficiently, like any program, it really helps to know the keyboard shortcuts. At first I tried to remember them from session to session without success. So instead, I made a quick web page on the help site that I manage. I can navigate to the web page from anywhere in the world in about eight seconds; a considerably shorter period of time that it would take me to remember, or figure out these shortcuts again.