Feedbacks from my KM students

Here are feedbacks from my students in this Knowledge Management class at the Technology Management Center, University of the Philippines.

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On a personal level, I enjoyed the course since it was able to package the whole technology management thing in a comprehensive manner: management of technology is management of innovation — management of innovation is gearing up for change… your response to change will determine your success of failure. And the only way to manage change effectively is to manage what we already have, what we need to have and how.

It gave sense to TM in such a way explaining the rather peculiar way of technology. Why it will reinvent economic theories, theories of the firm and economic development.

The way Professor Talisayon handled the course was like YODA. He did not pretend to know everything, but instead facilitates an interactive learning process where students are free to contribute and stand by what they believed…without reproach.

Although I like the course being Internet-based, I had difficulty because I have no regular Internet connection. Students wanting to take the course therefore should be fully warned of the implication of not having an on-line, anytime access to the internet, at least 5 days a week.

I learned from the course, even though I get to read the materials and documents and submit the requirements on time. This is one course you will be using for the rest of your learning days.

— WM

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Knowledge Management is a great course — one course that I want to share with the HR department. In fact, I e-mail some of the emails that I think will help our organization. I also thought of writing the HR Dept head on giving importance to KM as part of the organization. I am amazed how KM values each individual that sometimes organizations overlook the circumstances when an employee leaves a company. And the e-groups/website is one tool that aids the course. Even if it has not been given the 100% attention during the semester, it will always be a reference material long after this semester is over. And for that I am giving myself an [excellent] grade for finishing the course amidst the rain and travel from TM to Muntinlupa. This I would not want to end without giving my hats off to you, Professor Talisayon, for a great KM course!

— LV

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Honestly speaking, I find your style of teaching very effective and flexible. It gives your students a lot of elbow room to adjust to the way they want to learn easily. The course website, I think is already okay. I just hope your future classes will find more time to participate more actively in the e-discussions (unlike us). Don’t worry Sir, I will surely continue to access it and share my views/thoughts on whatever topic or issue I may find interesting. I hope our communication and “team learning” would continue even after our class ends.

… In terms of learning, I believe the easiest and best way to really learn is to teach. I am now slowly trying to inject in my own organization some of the concepts learned in Systems Thinking, specially the Archetypes. I also plan to conduct a sort of Lessons-Learned Meeting in the near future.

… Thanks again, Sir for sharing with us your brilliance and I hope we can get together again sometime, soon. Good luck and God bless always.

— RM

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The website was definitely very helpful for me. Even while you were abroad during the first two weeks, it made me feel comfortable to know what the course was going to be like. That you hadn’t, in fact, forgotten that you were handling a TM 298 course back here in the Philippines this semester. That the site was not static reflects the active role which you have played in our education. And that is a reassuring thought that one who has spent many a year teaching is still keen on what goes on in THIS semester. Furthermore, seeing our work available for all our classmates told me that we would learn from one another. Of course, it was a most convenient way for us to find out what the dozen or so recommended books were all about. Plus, I can also imagine the “forced IT learning” some of us had to undergo: a healthy, manageable stretch toward a transferable skill, if I may say.

Downloading from the site was a bit slow, especially for the visual aids. In fact, much as I would have wanted to have all the material, I have not had the patience to download them all. I am not sure whether this was due to the connection, my computer, or maybe even the time of day or night I have been trying to access them. Or might that just be my impatience? Maybe having the PowerPoint and Word files uploaded in the k and p group site as an alternative way for us to retrieve these files would have made downloading faster or maybe emailing them directly to the group might have helped. Sir, I hope you don’t mind my saying so, but I prefer framed sites. Mapaghanap ba, sir? The only other thing I can find fault about the website is its not having a visual site map. The map relating the topics and presentations surely helped. And yes, it did look so much better on-line than on transparency. 🙂

With the pros far outweighing the cons of the course website, I do feel sorry for the students who were unable to access it as frequently as I was able to. And for the teachers who have not used this medium for their classes. It unquestionably enhanced our connectedness, teacher, students, and course. I hope that more teachers would be like you. Honestly! It is difficult to find teachers willing to learn with their students, to stick their necks out on new game plans where outcomes are unpredictable, and to be as interested and enthusiastic about a topic you know like the back of your hand and convey that to his students. That is the best K [karapatan] for teaching KM.

— DA

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It’s a first, at least as far as I’m concerned. Having a course website has its advantages and disadvantages, but I would think that the advantages far exceed the disadvantages.

Advantages of having a course website as I see it:

1. Students are “forced” to find time and try using the Internet, students who may not be familiar or exposed to using the Internet.
2. It allows us (students) access to reading and/or course material without having to be physically be in TMC
3. In a way, foster a “paperless” environment
4. Minimize problems as far as TMC admin is concerned in having to reproduce reading materials
5. Going forward, the site can always be used as a reference for future classes.

Disadvantages of having a course website as I see it:

1. Students will be forced to find ways to access the Internet. (expense)
2. Slow response/throughput for some of the ISPs

Many thanks Sir, it has been a very fruitful semester and hopefully, we would be able to apply the things we have learned in what we do in the workplace, and I guess this would be the greatest challenge.

— KD

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Allow me to take this opportunity to once more thank you for the lessons learned, as well as the sharing sessions which have enriched lessons and added invaluable insights to the various topics we have tackled during the semester.

Our course website is one of the best things I have had so far in my student life at TMC. I was expecting all TMC classes to be handled the way yours have been. The Center should really strive more to live up to its name of being a center for technology management!

Our website afforded us the flexibility in the conduct of the course, maximizing learning and contributions of each and every member of the class to the building up of the contents of the webpage. It has really meant a lot to me, as I guess I am one of the lucky ones who have ready access to the Internet and is therefore able to open the site every day.

The e-Group could have been exploited further by perhaps rotating the function of discussion manager among the members of the class. This way, each member could have gotten a feel of how it is to manage a discussion group (and therefore get a feel of how frustrating it can be if you fail to generate responses from the other members of the class! 🙂

Except for the missed chance of orally presenting my mini-research to the rest of the class (though I do hope that posting the report to the class website would make up for the oral report) I really thoroughly enjoyed my second semester under your tutelage. I did miss though having more practitioners from the industry as resource persons for some sessions (the way we had for our class in Information Technology). The session with Ms. Babes Afable was truly refreshing and a most welcome learning experience.

…as you have said in the class syllabus, what is important is just to “make sure that we learn as much as we can from the course and then the grade will take care of itself.” And I personally did learn a lot from the course, and many of these learnings and materials I am certain I will make use of in the course of my job…

Again, thank you for the learning experience and I wish you all the best!

— CR

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…I believe that the knowledge and new concepts that you have deeply inculcated in my mind (through this course) prompted me to form a learning team in my group. In fact, two weeks ago, I’ve shared with my staff and personnel of other sections the methodology for capturing; documenting, storing and retrieving/applying lessons learned meetings. Being the process caretaker of the re-engineered operations process of [the company I work for], I’m also planning to document best practices from among the different operations offices and to replicate/implement it corporate-wide. I’ve realized the importance of leveraging the values and culture of an organization in the implementation of knowledge management and business process reengineering.

— FB

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A candid evaluation of TM298 course and course website

• innovative
• unique
• practical, easily accessible
• highly applicable and helpful to students who are working, in a sense that students are able to access and be updated with what’s going on and happening in class anytime they wish to be updated
• although there are too many readings set, they are not forced; students are given freedom to read based on their capacity; thus pacing and level learning and understanding depends on the students
• flexible.

The idea of coming up with a course website was unique and innovative. The one who thought of coming up with such a useful tool must have carefully considered the students who’re interested to take that subject but are constrained by loads and demands of their own jobs/works or personal matters.

I’d like to commend you, Professor, for being so innovative and considerate to your students.

I can truly say that your desire to teach and impart knowledge on your given field/specialization is genuine enough that you want to make your student learn in whatever venue may be possible. You don’t want to pressure your student by forcing them to do things which are beyond their capacity considering that most of them are working.

I’ve also come to admire the style/methods and the substance of your teaching because they’re so practical and applicable to our everyday encounters, esp. at work.

… Thank you for the wonderful and very productive semester on Knowledge Management.

— RR

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First of all, thank you very much! I have learned a lot from you. Good luck and God bless!

— GB

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Sir, first of all, I would to thank you for many “new” things I learned in class. Actually, nothing is new as you have repeatedly mentioned in the class. These are just things or perspectives which most of us have overlooked or disregarded in these rapidly changing times.

About the website, I think it is well organized, easy to access, informative, as well as effective. I particularly was interested in the system where each and every student was given a reading to summarize and later share with the others once posted in the website. I have long wanted to do this in our own small group in my previous classes. Unfortunately, for many reasons (valid or otherwise), we were unsuccessful in implementing it.

The same goes true for the class regroups. I find it very informative as it allows me to know the viewpoints of other individuals on the KM field, which to be honest is something alien to me. But with the completion of this course, I was exposed to the more important aspect of businesses today — the human side. Oftentimes in solving problems, we tend to look into events, trends, and numerical figures. What we fail to see is that the root cause of a problem is in the workers’ attitudes, mindsets, and paradigms. These spell the difference between the accomplishment and failure of a given task or objective.

In addition, I noticed that after being in class for the past months is that I use the terms “tacit” and “explicit” (knowledge) very frequently at home and at work. Somehow, the repeated mention of these terms and their importance has found its way deep into my system.

Another thing that struck me most was the story about Esbert and Isko — the importance and significance of being ‘reflective.’ While I find myself approximately in between these two characters, I am definite that there still is a lot of room for improvement. …

Again, thank you very much sir!

— AA

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My researches on KM have taken me to a new level of learning that has catalyzed my decision to pursue my PhD in Sociology. My researches have taken me from IQ tests in 3D animation and epistemological theories to heuristics and cybernetics. I have started reading works by Martin Ryder, Max More, Niklas Luhman, Karl-Erik Sveiby and continue to gain further insights in the various communities of practice in extropy, artificial intelligence and sociocybernetics. Perceptively, the range of knowledge interests will expand throughout the 65 different fields of study that interrelate with knowledge management. …

I would like to express my deep gratitude for providing the venue for expansive knowledge creation. Never has a single course or subject opened too many doors for my mind to explore. Thank you.

Critique of the Site

1. The KM map has no link from the main page. Or, at least, I can’t find one.
2. The basic formatting is effective in finding the information that is needed because it is a small site organized around the class structure. It would be a good idea to put a search-within-the-site function so that visitors can find pages that specifically address their information needs without having to go through the outline. This would be appropriate once the site grows with each semester.

— AB

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I wish to thank you for the learnings you have shared with the class. I enjoyed every session I have attended, however limited they may be, and have learned a lot of insights that I wish to apply at the office and share with my friends. I have actually forwarded some book reviews and chapter summaries to friends I know will relate to them (I’m sorry I didn’t ask your permission, I hope you don’t mind =). The class website had been very helpful even for some with limited internet access. I think it would help also to add a profile of the members of the KandP e-group so those participating in the discussion will have an idea on what one member’s (specifically those not from the class) field of expertise is, industry background, etc. The way the readings were assigned for summarization is a very effective way of sharing knowledge (it is always an impossibility for a student to read all those assigned readings! Students just end up buying all the xeroxed readings but do not read them at all). although I missed a lot of sessions, I believe I have learned a lot from your class. Thank you very much!

— CM

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We had a great experience in attending your classes. Thank you very much sir.

I would like to commend the class website. It is a good learning tool. It provides instant references to the class readings and everything about the course. I recommend that all TM Subjects (Even any other class subjects: in Elementary, High School, College, Post Graduate and others should have such websites. A Mentor’s touch on the website also adds a personal tone to it. Plus the e-groups — every class (in every level) should have an e-group. It is fertile ground good for cultivating classroom and individual ideas. The class website and the e-group really manifest our current knowledge-based culture. I hope that all TM Subjects and professors would adopt it.

— HS

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This is the first time that I have a subject with a “course website”. I find it unique and made me realized that we are now really in the “IT” era. The idea of having an updated course outline every time you access the website supports the lessons that are being thought by the Knowledge Management course. This is a direct application of process documentation and simply describes the logic of lessons learned. I must admit that I had a hard time keeping up with the course website during the first few weeks of the semester, because I am one of those “busy working mother” who can hardly find time to sit down with her internet. I then eventually coped with the idea for I find myself trapped because I lost my e-mail address. My e-mail address got clogged because of too many unopened messages. This made me learn how to manage my time and appreciate the practicality offered by the course website. Now I was able to read the most assignments I got during my entire years with the TM program, and I think we have to sell the idea of having a “course website” more and must encourage students to take advantage of the new modes of learning available to us.

Honestly speaking, Knowledge Management is the only TM subject that made me realize that the things I used to do and is currently doing are already forms of useful knowledge. I could easily relate KM to my everyday activities at work and at home. .. I made it a point to absorb and be able to share the knowledge imparted in my assigned topics. I also tried my best to attend classes regularly so as not to miss lessons which may be applicable to my field of work. I may not regularly participate in class discussions, but I make sure that I understand the things that were discussed.

During the course, I am surprised to find myself talking about tacit and explicit knowledge with my boss and colleagues at work. I also began to apply “lessons learned meetings”, not only at work but with my family and households as well. This then reflect the impact and depth of KM learning that I had. I would like to take this opportunity to commend you for handling the course very well. Your style is very apt to what you are teaching. Thank you for making me like the course.

— CR