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First of all, I consider myself a real trainer. And I have a Twitter account.
But most real trainers do not do Twitter. There are a lot of people interested in e-learning that Twitter, some of whom are real trainers but most are folks into the software or the buzz. There are a lot of people into “social learning” with active Twitter accounts. Well, of course. Unfortunately, many of those “social learning” advocates (should I say zealots in some cases) are not real trainers.
A real trainer I define as someone who uses sound theory to determine the best path to human performance improvement. Sound theory has been detailed by individuals like Tom Gilbert (Human Competence, 1978), Bob Mager & Peter Pipe (Analyzing Performance Problems, 1983 and other books in the Mager “6-Pack”), Ruth Clark (Building Expertise, 1998 - and other Clark books), Allison Rossett (Training Needs Assessment, 1987), and others. What others? Check out the bios in Performance Improvement Pathfinders by Dean and Ripley for starters.
In addition, a real trainer cares about research. I am the first to admit that I often find my actions as a trainer at odds with the research. However, I make serious attempts to bring myself into line with what the research shows, when I learn about it. When looking at change in his field, a real trainer gives greater credence to what the research proves than what is popular at conventions, especially convention exhibit halls.
A real trainer knows that there are many kinds of media, and that media is always changing rapidly. Media should not dictate learning theory. Learning and performance theory however serves as a guide to best media selection for specific performance challenges. A real trainer knows that collaboration can be powerful in the right situation, but not all situations. A real trainer knows that training is often the wrong solution to a performance challenge (gap) and is not afraid to say so.
The title of this post is deliberately provocative. It can be taken in two ways. I do not in any way suggest that real trainers should or should not tweet. The meaning of the title is simply that, apparently, not many real trainers do tweet. There are many training and performance gurus that I admire - few seem to have Twitter accounts. Those that do, do not tweet often; or gave up after one month. On the other hand, many “social learning” advocates are very active of Twitter.
This is not unusual, by the way. There are many social and professional groups that are only lightly represented on Twitter. The problem is that “social learning” advocates dominate the training world in the Twitterverse. They talk to one another readily enough, indeed, they reinforce each others’ thinking. (Note a recent comment on that social reality.) Real trainers are less likely to contradict them there than in more academic or professional environments. [Still, the impact on mainline professional associations like ASTD is fairly powerful. See a critique here.] So many on the fringes of the performance world are highly influenced - there are many HR people on Twitter, for example.
So why am I using Twitter? Marketing. I am a training consultant and have other “home based businesses” for which I have been looking into Twitter as part of a marketing tool. To meet others, and spread the word. But few of the “corporate equipment trainers” that are my customers have that need. So they are not present for the discourse, the party, the collaboration, … or whatever you might want to call the Twitterverse.
I follow many training and performance bloggers. Only some are on Twitter. I will highlight some of these useful resources in some other posts.
As for “social learning” - well, I’ll save that for another discussion!
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Agree with your premise that twitter is more or less a marketing vehicle. Can one have any real discussion of substance broken into 140 characters? But there are so many spam twitter accounts out there that I’m not sure how much marketing value there is in twitter anymore. Add to the spam accounts the fact that twitter has adopted the “rel=nofollow” tag for links and I am negative on twitter for business purposes.
Hi Richard
Perhaps you just haven’t come across trainers that use Twitter? I would have described myself as a trainer 2-3 years ago, today I work 50/50 delivering workshops and designing learning tools/strategies for business. I assume you mean by your use of the term ‘trainer’ a person who runs educational workshops in face-to-face settings with learners. In this case I agree with you, not many (any?) of the ‘trainers’ I know use Twitter. I originally set up my blog to address exactly this issue, people who work in adult learning environments do not always look after their own development and I use Twitter so that I can keep up with new ideas myself. And the links and people I exchange tweets with really have given me ideas that can very positively impact upon face-to-face training environments.
Also do you restrict the term ‘trainer’ to mean only those who deliver face-to-face training? Isn’t it just as reasonable to include people who support learners in distance learning programs as trainers, they provide direction, support, additional learning activities, and so forth. The only difference is that they’re not face-to-face. If we do include these people then I do know people who Twitter, they use it to form learning groups - as a way of sharing knowledge, relevant links, asking questions and the like. Groups may be formed using other tools such as Ping, it just depends on what the group may prefer. I’d imagine that GoogleWave will be used quite a lot in this context, allowing as it does online collaboration through wiki-like tools and live chat.
Personally I think that ‘trainers’ who are closed to the idea of trying Twitter and other ’social’ sites are simply denying themselves another tool to add to their learning programs. It doesn’t matter if you label a tool ’social’, ‘informal’, or whatever, real trainers are most interested in using tools that help learners to learn.
Hi Michael,
Thanks for taking the time to leave a thoughtful comment here. I enjoyed looking at your website and noted that Melbourne is your base - I was there once over the Christmas holidays visiting with close friends - this was in the late 80s. In those days, I was manager for the customer training group of a semiconductor equipment company. From 1994 I have been traveling around to many spots teaching semiconductor service engineers how to train their customers in the operation and maintenance of their factory equipment. It is very difficult for these trainers to provide distance learning because of the need to allow time for (hands-on) practice in the adjustment, calibration, maintenance, and troubleshooting of these large machines.
But to address your comments a bit - although the people I work with do not typically have the opportunity to use distance learning, I do not limit the term trainer to those that deliver face to face training. Not at all. Indeed, a real “trainer” -being a performance improvement consultant- knows when training (whether face to face, online, or any other format) is inappropriate and creates an alternate performance solution to training. Or at least calls in the proper specialists that can do it. In the case of distance learning, where groups are effective, sure Twitter is one optional tool. In my world (equipment training that has specific required performances), groups are typically not effective, and if they had a place, twitter would be my last choice because of the 140 char limitation.
But honestly, none of that is what I meant anyway. I wasn’t referring to trainers who use Twitter as a training tool. What I meant is that those who are sharing “training” or “learning” ideas back and forth through the Twitterverse are typically not real trainers. My post defined real trainers as those who put performance improvement front and center. For clarity I cited certain leaders that these trainers try to emulate. From what I see, the vast majority of those who claim to be learning professionals that are chatting across the Twitterverse are completely caught up in “collaborative” learning and hence the importance of social media tools. In reality, much of this hoopla is led by individuals who are owners or employees of Web 2.0 software companies, many of whom have no real understanding of the performance improvement model (again, see leaders cited in my post).
It is not a case of being closed to social sites and tools, although I agree that some people are. Social sites and tools have their place once the learning objectives (outcomes, whatever) have been clarified and the resources for performance improvement have been identified. I have found that collaboration is not typically the best learning activity in equipment training but I can see how it would apply in teaching skills involved in selling or leadership (for example). And, outside of the learning world, certainly collaboration is an important problem-solving and creative tool for companies to use.
But those who are closed-minded to the use of social learning tools are not alone in their closed-mindedness. What I see across the Twitterverse are so-called learning professionals on the other extreme. These folks have essentially pronounced the death of “formal” learning (whether online or face to face) in favor of “social” learning. Such terminology is, in itself, nonsense (see link in my post). It is a closed mindedness at the other end of the continuum, but one that is easy to sell to the masses that frankly know little about HPT (human performance technology) and are so easily enamored by trends both social and technological. I use the word masses because it has been my experience that there are many influences on business decision-making, not all of them informed. I best stop here before I get into rambling war stories. ; - )
I hope this clarified my thoughts a bit more. Even so, I may have stirred up even more issues!