Bricolage

When I started an e-learning subject in an adult education masters, I hoped that the course would bring together the two aspects of what I believed e-learning is all about - content (from the Ad Ed subjects) and process (from the e-learning unit).

The effect has been quite unexpected. I have now discovered that to get the message out there is a presentation skills requirement - beyond use of the tools, and now I am coming to realise that the biggest concern is a psychological one.

Early in the course I was attracted to an on line discussion group, TR Dev at Yahoo groups. This is a closed group, but you can apply for membership through a button on the sidebar of this weblog.

The first discussion I encountered was about the mythical statistic that we recall 10% of what we hear, 20% of what we see, 30% of what we see and hear together, and an ever increasing proportion until you reach 90% for the type of communication medium that the salesman is trying to push. (more…)

Vilfredo Pareto  was a turn of the (19th to 20th) century mathematician and economist who postulated that 80% of the wealth in Italy was held by 20% of the population. His Pareto principle has been adopted by total quality management to suggest that 80% of problems arise from 20% of causes. Sales professionals have probably heard that 80% of sales come from 20% of customers. Marketers know that 80% of revenue comes from 20% of the available products.

While these latter numbers are rules of thumb rather than statistically accurate, the numbers have changed as social learning takes over in the current turn of the century.

Jacob Nielsen has done some counting and come to the conclusion that “in most online communities, 90% of users are lurkers who never contribute, 9% of users contribute a little, and 1% of users account for almost all the action” in Participation Inequality.

His raw data is even more interesting:
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