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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