Narrator: You're listening to the Humans of DevOps Podcast, a

podcast focused on advancing the humans of DevOps through skills,

knowledge, ideas and learning, or the SKIL framework.

Sheila Jagannathan: We had invested in the Open Learning

Campus many, many years before COVID and so we had the

infrastructure, we had the products, we had the services,

and we were already doing it. So it was very helpful for us to

pivot to 100% digital.

Eveline Oehrlich: Welcome to our Humans of DevOps podcast titled

Digital Learning and the Intersection of Technology Use

and Education in Emerging Countries. Today, we have with

us a very esteemed thought leader in the topic of Digital

Learning. Our special guest is Sheila Jagannathan and I hope

Sheila I said your last name correctly. Let me tell you a

little bit before we turn over to some questions about Sheila.

So Sheila is head of Open Learning Campus at the World

Bank in Washington, DC. She serves as the organization's

focal point on digital learning and issues at the intersection

of technology use and education in emerging countries. She is an

internationally recognized thought leader, advisor, author

and a forward thinking Senior Education leader with over 35

years of experience in leading capacity building, knowledge

management, social learning and transformation change across

public and private organizations. She has been

responsible for designing and implementing world class

solutions in challenging global environments, resulting in

performance and productivity improvements.

Sheila also provides policy advice and technical assistance

to World Bank country level capacity building programs in

East Asia, China, the Middle East, Africa and South East. Her

current areas of interest and activity include so many things,

but here are some of them, Skilling and the fourth

industrial revolution, corporate talent management,

organizational development, multimodal and social learning

environments, immersive learning, like a rvr use of AI

and learning big data analytics, learning experience platforms,

learning management systems and learning ecosystems. And I think

that's how we got she loves attention because we are at the

DevOps Institute, of course, very interested in her what she

has to say. She has written many articles on various peer

reviewed publications and learning publications, and

technology based learning, and on technology based learning and

many, many more articles. Again, welcome, Sheila, we're very

honored to have you here with us on our podcast. How are you

doing today?

Sheila Jagannathan: I'm doing simply great. Thank you,

Eveline, for inviting me to the session.

Eveline Oehrlich: Fantastic. Again, I'm glad I know you have

a very, very busy day. So let's get started on a few things, I

want to do a little bit of an introduction. Because learning

and upskilling. As you might not know, it's a central mission for

us at DevOps Institute and since the beginning, our vision has to

really been empowering the people who power IT, and a

little different from what you do. But again, at its core, it

is about upskilling and sharing, and learning and re skilling our

community. Now we do this through many offers practical

knowledge, we have a professional network, we have

certification programs, actionable research, which is my

part, we do virtual and in person events, again, glad we

can do in person event again. And we just recently launched a

very exciting program, which we call skill up learning, or skill

up it learning.We do know that our audience wants to learn

digitally, which is again why I was so interested in talking to

you. So let's get started on some questions. Before we go

into more depth in terms of learning, I know most listeners

will be familiar with a World Bank, but I'm not sure if I'll

know what the mission of the World Bank is. and most

importantly, what excites you about working there? Can you

share a little bit more about what the World Bank does and we

your excitement there?

Sheila Jagannathan: Sure. Well, who are we? With 189 member

countries staffed from more than 170 countries and offices in 130

locations, the World Bank Group is a global unique partnership

of the World Bank, the International Finance

Corporation and other Institute's working for

sustainable solution that reduce poverty and build shared

prosperity in developing countries. So our mission can be

concise into goals to end poverty by reducing the share of

global population that lives in extreme poverty to just 3% and

to promote shared prosperity, which is increasing the incomes

of the poorest 40% of the people in the world. So the World Bank

Group is one of the largest sources of funding and knowledge

for developing countries. As I said, the World Bank Group

itself comprises of five institutions, one we call IBRD,

which is the main one where I work which is the International

Bank for Reconstruction and Development. And then we also

have the International Development Association, the

either the IFC, which is the International Finance

Corporation and the private sector when and then you have

the multilateral investment guarantee agency. And finally,

the Center for settlement of investment disputes. So together

these form, the World Bank, and the core values that are

embedded in this entire institution and our staff and

our client in working with our clients is impact integrity,

respect, teamwork, and innovation. So what excites me

about working in the World Bank, so it's been there for over 25

years. It's a huge opportunity it represents to transform lives

of individuals, moving away from poverty to embarking on a path

to prosperity, changing lives and actually destination of

individuals and society. We play a small role in this. Job

creation is an immense global challenge. Education is at the

center of building human capital. The latest World Bank

Eveline Oehrlich: Beautiful, I am actually a vivid World Bank

research, particularly after Xi COVID, shows that productivity

of 56% of the world's children will be less than half of what

it could have been if they enjoyed a complete education and

full health. So for me, what excites me is delivered well,

research reader. I followed many of the reports, because I found

education along with human capital, benefits individuals

and societies for individuals education, raises self esteem

and further furthers opportunity for employment and earnings. So

this is what I enjoy. I live in Washington, DC, the nation's

capitol, also the headquarters of the World Bank Group. But

there are several other influential actors and

organizations that work in international development here

those fascinating, so your guys's work is fantastic. I did

in DC, such as the USA ID, the International you know, the IDB,

which works on the Latin American international

development issues. You have the Brookings Institute, the

Carnegie Endowment for peace. So lots of interesting things

happening in the world of international development here

in DC.

do some research also on the World Bank Open Learning Campus

because that was which really intrigued me in this campus.

Sounds fantastic. And I know you know a lot about it as you're

heading that effort. Can you elaborate a bit on what does

that World Bank Open Learning Campus include? What is it?

Sheila Jagannathan: and infrastructure. But I'll take a

moment to say why did the World Bank create the Open Learning

Campus, and what is its mission? Knowledge. In particular

learning is key to development, solving development challenges,

and meeting the twin goals that I mentioned to you about

eradicating poverty and sharing prosperity. So whether it's

helping countries recover from COVID, dealing with climate

change rescaling youth to find jobs relevant for the fourth

industrial revolution, or even designing cost effective health

systems. These are often characterized by multiple

interdependent challenges and factors. mitigating this

requires change, including behavior change, that can only

be harnessed through continuous learning, not just any learning,

but learning continuously, by providing dynamic learning

opportunities by the diverse audiences I mentioned earlier.

So they can learn at their own pace, they can learn just in

time and flexibly. So the OCLC really we call it O. LC equips

development practitioners and individuals with the knowledge

and capital capabilities to tackle the tough development

challenges and health, climate change. And other things I

mentioned. Technology, as we all know, is changing the learning

landscape, and changing the way we learn teach measured

credentials, and so on. And so the ovlc really continue to stay

cutting edge on the technical ways of bringing learning to the

busy practitioner. So in a very short time that the agency has

been in existence seven or eight years. On the client learning

side, I think we have, I'm happy to say we flipped from doing 95%

of our training used in person to now almost during COVID,

100%. Digital, and maybe over the long run, it will become 95%

Digital with 5% blended, including in person. And

similarly for the staff who were a little bit slower and and

wanted the luxury of more in person COVID fix that, you know,

during COVID, we will have 100% in person. And we're slowly

coming back to a sorry 100% virtual only coming back to some

in person, but I don't think we will go back to two pre COVID

numbers. So in one sense, before I wrap up, this question, we'll

see has enabled us to move from the World Bank to move from

traditional ways of teaching and learning to more digital and

blended and stay cutting edge. We've moved from face to face.

As I said to digital and blended, we've moved from more

conceptual learning to a solution focus and embedded in

the flow of work. We've moved from a purely lecture style, to

interactive, participatory and experiential. And also in terms

of learning analytics, we've moved from purely anecdotal to

evidence based so. And the last point I want to make is while

the LLC is set up and managed by the World Bank, it thrives on

internal and external partnerships.

Sheila Jagannathan: So, you know, as I said before, we had

Eveline Oehrlich: I have taken very close notes on those four

things you mentioned, traditional to digital blended

solution focus lecture style, and evidence based that's kind

invested in the Open Learning Campus many, many years before

of a goal. While these these are the aspirations we have for our

COVID. And so we had the infrastructure, we had the

audience. Fabulous, but you mentioned two things I wanted to

dive into a little bit further. The first one is COVID. So yes,

products, we had the services and so and we were already doing

we have it has changed many things right. All of us have,

have had some learning. But in terms of the learning itself,

it, so it was very helpful for us to pivot to 100%.Digital,

how has it changed how people learn in post COVID? Tell me a

little bit more about what you have found there and what you're

doing.

I'll tell you a little example. The UN and the World Bank in

partnership was going to have a gender conference in April,

bringing 5000 People from all over the world. Remember the

World Bank and most offices closed around March 20 for COVID

and we didn't reopen in person work for two and a half years.

But so what do we do? 5000 people are coming they're

expecting blah, blah, blah, but we you know, so the decision was

to make this completely online. And so between March 20 and we

move the date from April to May, we were able to do the same

achieved a lot of the same thing. But the bigger point I

wanted to mention in your question, what have we learned

from COVID? I think COVID has given us an opportunity to pause

and reflect and think about how learning and development for all

sectors and I know I've learned you're more interested in it,

but we're more interested in solving development challenges,

but at the end of the day, it is learning and so yeah, just want

to tell you a few lessons. So I think the new normal when people

I mean, we're not already there with a blueprint for the next 25

years, I think we're emerging are the COVID slowly and some

lessons are emerging, then, and these are the lessons that these

imp the new normal is not just a question of virtual or in

person. It is a context where learning should be blended

because work is becoming blended, where both formal and

informal and social and on the job, and synchronous and

asynchronous, are all part of the diverse mix of curricular

delivery. It's not just about an algorithm. Now, we talked about

AI based learning and so on, which is important. But it's not

just about algorithm providing personalization at the expense

of the learners self direction, but rather personalization as a

consequence of understanding the importance of human capabilities

and skills. And finally, the new normal needs to be agile in the

face of any ambiguity, not just COVID. We need to balance best

practices while ensuring that learning happens in VUCA

settings. And so it's never just one thing. It has to be dynamic.

And I think just a couple more points, the factors shaping the

new normal or that the role of and l&d as definitely again,

we're always thinking about in person face to face, but that's

not the entire focus, the new normal reimagines l&d to move

beyond content delivery, to more participatory, interactive,

immersive social learning. And it needs to consider the whole

learner including the learning environment, and situate the

learning in applied context. And so the point I'm making here is

the l&d sector is needs to be transformed. And it is, in the

process of being that however, it's difficult because there are

fixed mindsets. And so we have to work now to pull out the key

lessons, as I mentioned a few just now to retain and get rid

of the ones that are no longer relevant. The point is COVID is

one factor that there were a whole lot of other factors that

were coming to play that was causing this transformation,

digital transformation of learning, including the Fourth

Industrial Revolution, the youth bulge in developing countries,

climate change, and so on. So I'll stop there.

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institute.com/certifications.

Eveline Oehrlich: I would absolutely agree with you saying

that. The bottom line is how our IT folks how our folks in IT

learn and the learnings you guys have had, we can really directly

apply that. So those are great lessons, I'll share with my co

partner for sure I'm maker, listen to your podcast. I also

actually ordered your book, and we'll get to that. But I want to

grab one more thing you said onto one more thing, AI learning

because we have IT people who are listening, they're probably

going to go Oh, ai ai learning. Tell me a little bit about that.

What is that?

Sheila Jagannathan: So you know, in fact, I did my doctoral

dissertation on AI based learning about 35 years ago at

Boston University. But, you know, people somehow think that

AI just came on to us drop from the sky about five years ago

when I say that people are just a standard and think I made a

mistake. But the bottom line is, of course, you know, it didn't

come out of research institutions in the woodwork

till about five, six years earlier when there was a larger

recognition of AI for all sectors. But I'll talk

specifically about learning. I think AI is going to play a key

role. And we need to pay close attention to this. In fact, you

know, AI is being touted as the new UI the new user interface

because you can use it for all phases of the learning cycle

from creating learningto facilitating learning to

evaluating learning and so one of the areas that a couple of

I'll give you examples of a couple of areas we are

exploring. One is in the area of, you know, we run these large

MOOCs and facilitated courses on climate and other things, all

online. Remember, these are complex topics, and you cannot

have it in a completely self paced mode. So the virtual

experts, world class experts guiding coaching and mentoring

virtually behind the scenes. But here we have created AI based

chatbots, or expert systems, we'll help the experts and you

know, an integer, one who's, who used to be the head of edX at

MIT, and Harvard is a good friend. And remember, his he

first started this whole edX movement started with this

course on AI or electrical engineering, where he had 30,000

students and you know, how do you manage them. So in those

kinds of setups, the bots become very useful. Another example,

another small example is we use AI to create captions, and

indexing of videos and so on, because this is a very expensive

and a human. Plus, the final example, which which, which will

really change the shape of learning in the years to come,

is of course, adaptive learning, and the role AI plays. So this

right now, most of our learning is one size fits all. So Sheila

goes in there, whether she has any experience or not, everybody

gets the same content, the same exercises, the same test, the

same projects. So through AI, you can make a mental model of

where the learner is through a bunch of questions, their own

admission, or their own self assessment in the admission of,

of where they are, you know, do you feel confident? Or how, how

good do you think you are plus some subjective assessment, the

system understands and creates a mental model of the student. And

then on forward, the content that shared the projects that

are shared, the examples that are shared, are very relevant to

what the learner knows, and so on. We did a pilot did that. And

there are some interesting lessons. But the thing is that I

think, definitely AI is here today, we should start exploring

it. But you won't have the full potential till maybe two or

three years later. Because even in the example I mentioned, it

took a lot of effort to design this adaptive learning, you have

to, you can't think of just one path, you have to think of many,

many paths and so on.

Eveline Oehrlich: Fascinating, you gave us a great explanation

and I hope our listeners are excited about this just as much

as I am in AI 35 years ago, you are an expert in this have been

an expert, even at the time when I just started my IT career,

which is about 35 years ago. That's fantastic. Two more

questions. And I know you have to go to a meeting. So I want to

be sensitive to your day, because you are a very important

person. And I hate to stand in the way of your development to

more questions. My pleasure. Thank you so much. So you

mentioned a lot of things. Already, I'm gonna give you a

crystal ball. And you already talked about AI based learning

role of beyond the current content delivery, the whole

learner, I love the Agile best practices to personalization,

all of that, I'm gonna give you the crystal ball back and ask

you where do you think is the future of learning in some areas

where you have not mentioned, give me maybe two additional

things where you think, where you're saying we have to explore

that, or we are already exploring that, be it best

practices, learning labs, whatever.

Sheila Jagannathan: So just a couple of thoughts. You know,

I'm talking, I will address it both with tools and

technologies, but approaches and so on. One thing I want to throw

in there is I'm part of a group that we're looking in Harvard

is, is working on this thing called the 60 year curriculum. I

don't know if I have a chapter in my book on that. But

basically, the idea is that the old traditional model of working

for studying for 20 years school, college and working for

about 40 years and then retiring in your mid 60s, that's gone.

Today, people are living longer, but most importantly World

Economic Forum, as you know, says the shelf life of skills is

4.5 years. When I was a conference at Microsoft on a

panel recently, they were saying Silicon Valley folks are not

hiring because you know Java, you know this or that. They're

hiring for your learning agility. So the 60 year

curriculum that some forward thinking universities are

thinking about is that you you areYou learn for 60 years,

right? And but because the shelf life skills are so short, you

don't stop at your master's degree or whatever, you keep

coming in and out in and out in and out for short degree

specializations, badges, micro learning, micro credentials, and

so on. So that's one thing I thought I will share. The other

thing is that, you know, we have to acknowledge that blended

learning is here to stay. It's the new normal. And so earlier,

when we started planning curriculars, as learning heads

of learning, or curriculum developers, we would start with,

we do all this face to face, and then let's tack on a little bit

of online. Now that's going to be flipped on its head moving

forward, we start with everything online, and then see

where we blend face to face and so on. The other thing is

evidence based pedagogy, you know, this is going to be

critical, good design overcomes any digital or otherwise

learning fatigue, and gives you the motivation to learn. So we

need to learn from neuroscience principles, we need to learn

different techniques to support learning that's active and I

think connected learning is here to stay. If you study, look at

recent studies in Stanford, it's when you work and learn with

somebody else, you're 6% more effective. And so we need to

have opportunities to do that. And finally, I want to say that

data is the new currency of learning and development. And

given that as we go into blended and digital learning, there's a

digital footprint of everything. And it's too important to

ignore. So we have to move away in the in the evaluation sphere

from just completion metrics, which are not as relevant, you

know, but look, look at more impact and use learning and

analytics to collect, analyze and report on data about

learners while they're learning, not just when they have

completed and finally, I want to say that wellness is key to

productive work and we need to keep that in mind and provide

opportunities to address those challenges.

Eveline Oehrlich: Excellent, fantastic. Now, I just ordered

your book technologies for sustainable development, how

upskilling data analysis and digital innovations foster

lifelong learning. I hope it will come through the wonderful

provider to me this weekend, because I'm really excited about

learning about what you have in there. Now, is there. I think

you have something about upskilling in there, because I

read the I wouldn't say the cliff notes, but tell our

listeners, because that's the message I would like to leave

folks in terms of the importance of upskilling. Can you share a

little bit about your message on importance of upskilling with

us?

Sheila Jagannathan: Absolutely. The entire book is about

upskilling, reskilling skilling and I start the book with a

quote by Alvin Toffler, which summarizes what I'm trying to

say is that the illiterate of the 21st century is not someone

who cannot read or write, but it's someone who cannot learn,

unlearn, and relearn. So this book really is targeted because

my work has to do with emerging countries. This book, and I

frequently as part of my job in the bank for 25 years would get

questions like even before COVID How do I move from a purely face

to face brick and mortar to a Civil Service Training Institute

are an Agricultural Training Institute and IT Training

Institute? How do we move from digital and blended so it is for

that audience. And so as as I said, it's Skills Development

Council and so on. So the book is really how to get started to

navigate the choppy waters of market driven digitization, and

how to incorporate what we know about some of the 21st century

technology, pedagogy, the future of work need and how to

transform learning how to evaluate learning how to use

partnerships to build your online academy, and so on. So I

have about 27 chapters, five of them written by me, but also

through influential thinkers and leaders in the space. So it's, I

think, skills is going to be the currency of the future and how

quickly an unlearning is also very important because that can

some times blocks barriers to if somebody is working in a purely

traditional automotive industry, they need to really unlearn

those skills to be prepared for self driving cars and so that's

the kind of analogy that we need to look at to how to prepare all

people to take advantage of the new jobs.I read I love that

skills is the currency of the future that every CIO, every

leader in it, who is listening here, needs to put that right on

top of their desk to fund in short as happening. She likes

been a absolute pleasure listening to you getting some

insights, some great guidance, some great, some great things.

This has been fantastic. Thank you so much for taking the time

out of your day. I have one little question, what's your

favorite weekend activity in DC or wherever you go on the

weekend? Well, you know, now, the weather is so nice. But most

importantly, we have the color change, you know, we have almost

every color in the rainbow. Of course, all around us. It's a

special time of the year. So we like to, you know, do that. But

also, you know, I like to read catch up on reading, working on

Eveline Oehrlich: Fantastic. I'll look for that. I still will

another book that's on AI in education. And lastly, I have

look for it because I am a vegetarian, not all the time. I

this dream of writing a vegetarian cookbook. But the

difference unique of this cookbook is it's often

sometimes step aside, but I look for that. Fantastic. Thank you.

international flavor from all the very unique and not very far

up countries in the world which I have visited through work or

We have been with Sheila Jaganathan and head of the Open

otherwise and have made friends and so it this book would be a

compilation of cooking from their homes. But it'll have a

Learning Campus at the World Bank in Washington, DC. Sheila,

veggie it'll purely have vegetarian focus, which is who I

thank you again so much for joining me today on the Humans

am

Narrator: Thanks for listening to this episode of the Humans of

of DevOps. Humans of DevOps is produced by the DevOps

Institute. Our audio production team includes Julia Papp and

Brendan Lay. I am Human of DevOps executive producer

Eveline Oehrlich. If you would like to join us on a podcast,

please contact us at podcast at DevOps institute.com. I'm

DevOps Podcast. Don't forget to join our global community to get

Eveline Oehrlich. Talk to you soon.

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