Getting my Ducks in a Row

Just a moment ago I posts about herding the squirrels of my literature to support my gap analysis project. Whatever happened in that blog post helped me to more formally identify the gap and now I thought I’d share the results:

The problem is workplace training is not designed to engage members of the Millennial generation (Galagan, 2006). Training in U.S. workplaces is 49.5% instructor-led and considered least effective by learners in corporate settings today (Sparrow, 2004). The Millennial generation of workers are using computing technology in ways previous generations have not and require learning to be technologically enabled, non-sequential, collaborative, social, and exploratory in nature (Tapscott, 1999). Instructor-led training offers Millennial generation employees a traditional linear style modality of learning that is not adequate to meet the members’ preferences for learning (Tapscott, 1998).

The emergence of collaborative computing technologies like blogs, wikis, and podcasts, provide learners a social, non-sequential, and collaborative learning environment that corporations can use to engage members of the Millennial generation (Beldarrain, 2006). Current literature is limited to qualitative trend analysis focusing on K-12 schooling and higher education with no found examples of quantitative research supporting or denying the premises brought forth in the current literature. With companies adopting collaborative computing technologies as arenas for information and knowledge exchange (Gordon, 2006) quantitative research is required to determine the impacts of these interventions on corporate learning (French, 2006).

References

Beldarrain, Y. (2006). Distance education trends: Integrating new technologies to foster student interaction and collaboration. Distance Education, 27, 139-153. Retrieved February 24, 2008, from EBSCOhost

French, D. P. (2006). iPods: Informative or invasive?. Journal of College Science Teaching, 36, 58-59. Retrieved February 24, 2008, from EBSCOhost

Galagan, P. (2006, August). Engaging generation y: An interview with Marcus Buckingham. T+D, 60, 27-30. Retrieved May 31, 2007, from EBSCOhost

Gordon, S. (2006, March). Rise of the blog [journal-based website].. IEE Review, 52, 32-35. Retrieved February 23, 2008, from EBSCOhost

Sparrow, S. (2004, Nov). Blended is better. T+D, 58, 52-55. Retrieved November 16, 2006, from EBSCOhost

Tapscott, D. (1998). Growing up digital: The rise of the net generation. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Tapscott, D. (1999, Feb). Educating the net generation. Educational Leadership, 56, 6-10. Retrieved September 3, 2006, from EBSCOhost

There must be a form of writer’s block that ionvolves having too much information. It did help move the blockage to write a little here and I am hoping this will help a second time. The problem I am facing is that aside from the excerpt above, I am not sure what to write about.

I identified the gap, cited my sources and even managed to call for the research I want to conduct. Now what?

My mentor advises me that this is not a paper but a discussion. But I cannot help to feel that a discussion would be easier to have versus the paper assignment. I am left wondering about this assignment and the motives for including it in the DOC/722 instruction. Like others assignments in this course, it seems to be built for those that do not have a clear goal in mind for conducting specific research. With my work, the contrary is true, and I am left feeling that this assignment might be a waste of time if left to it’s original intent.

Perhaps looking at this from a different perspective will help. If I use it for a spring board into the full literature review, I could knock this assignment out of the way and be a large part of the way there for the final assignment, the drafted second chapter of my dissertation.

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