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Clark Quinn’s Learnings about Learning

Defying fracticality

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Ok, so I’m playing fast and loose; ‘fracticality’ isn’t a word. Yet, the world is fractal, in the sense that everything unpacks. We also have to make decisions about what to do, without having time, nor inclination, to go to depths that aren’t relevant. How do we strike that balance? How do we go about defying fracticality? Some reflections…

I’m naturally curious, and track what research tells us. And, research continues, and unpacks new depths. For instance, we:

  • know models are important, but then they need to be causal, and connected, and conceptual…
  • want ‘desirable difficulty’, but then it’s more than challenge, it’s also context varying, and spacing, and feedback fading, and…
  • need examples, but they have to explicitly include models, be interesting and relevant, have outcomes…
  • want to elaborate, but then learn that certain activities are generative and others aren’t effective…

The list goes on, and each of these expands! How do we cope?

For one, it occurs to me that we need at least a minimum viable level. We can adopt that notion of ‘minimum viable product’, and recognize that learning should, at least, have:

  • a clear objective
  • a rallying introduction
  • an appropriate model
  • several relevant examples
  • a suite of meaningful practice extended over time
  • a satisfying closing
  • some measurement beyond ‘enjoyment’ towards impact

If we have the basics down, we can budget and justify what we’re doing. And, likely, this can all be done within the existing constraints. We have to acknowledge the world we work in as well as the one we’re building, after all.

We elaborate from there. If we show improvement, and we should, we then lobby to do more that’ll yield even bigger impacts. We can and should space out the learning. We can consider where it’s complex and maybe start with a simple model, and then expand, with more examples. What is the minimum set of contexts to support transfer? We can consider expertise, and adjust our starting and pedagogy appropriately. We can also expand beyond courses and look for when performance support makes more sense, or a combination. Then there’s community and informal learning. And strategy, politics, …

Associated with this is expanding our own understanding. We need basics, and then we need to keep understanding more. We can’t stop at just meeting the basic needs, for a variety of reasons. These include what the competition is doing, but also our own professionalism. We shouldn’t allow ourselves to be complacent, but keep improving our own understanding and then our practice as well.

The world is fractal, and everything people do continues to unpack. The only path to defying fracticality is pick an initial level that’s minimally viable, achieve it, and then start expanding upon it. You’ll get pushback, but you’ll also find that as you get more capable, things get automated and you have more bandwidth. Tools get more capable as well. It’s an ongoing process, but it’s one worth indulging in. If this isn’t the field for you, find somewhere where you are interested in continuing to explore. Stay curious, my friends.

(The nuances of learning are part of our LDA Learning Science Conference. The stuff that’s not learning, but around it as part of our, that is L&D’s, ability to succeed is what we are covering in our L&D As Ecosystem conference. FYI)

My technology for performance

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I’ve talked in the past about my tools for learning, as Jane Hart’s survey prompts. Yet, Christy Tucker asks about software stacks (for consulting), and I realize there’s a different answer when I’m talking about doing versus learning. Yes, as Harold Jarche says, “work is learning and learning is the work”, but there are times I’m using tools to keep myself on track rather than to render my ongoing thinking. I augment my abilities with tech, and some is just about executive function rather than learning. So what is my technology for performance?

Personally, I use Apple’s Reminders to render ‘ToDos’. As I’ve said, if I’ve promised you something and it doesn’t get into my digital world, we never had the conversation. That also is true for Apple’s Calendar. I used to use them separately, but now I’m coordinating between them. I used to block out time to get things done, but I’ve now set up a cal.com to book time, and it looks at my calendar. So, I now use timing on reminders to get things done that are urgent, and save the calendar for time-specific things.

Financially, I use Quickbooks to send/receive invoices. I should switch, but haven’t yet. The problem is that you’re kind of locked in unless you change on your calendar boundary. I also use my bank’s app or website to dod things like send/receive payments. Occasionally I use PayPal, too.

I’d mention Notes, as a way to mull things, but that’s really learning. Though I do grab and store recipes there (and share with fam). Not that I make ’em all, but it’s where I can keep the ones I find online. Likewise I take notes on biz meetings with Notability, but again that’s not really performance, it falls more into the ‘learning category’. I do have some templates that I’ve created in Word, e.g. proposals, reports, and schedule of fees. Probably should migrate to a platform that’s more open. Libre? Open Office? There I go, standing up again…

Now, that’s for me, myself, and I, but I also do things with Elevator 9 and the Learning Development Accelerator (LDA). For both, I’m using Slack to talk to people. I have separate channels for both, but am glad they’re both using the one platform. Email too, of course. Teams was part of a a previous engagement, and am frankly glad to step away. I also use Zoom, a lot. Again, happy to not use Teams or Google Meet for that purpose.

Collaborative docs are different. They’re writing, but for others, so they begin to cross the chasm (really, it’s a continuum, but…). So, I’ve used Google Docs. I really haven’t collaborated using 360, because I don’t have that type of license. I also have used Apple’s Pages with the folks who do run Macs.

Usually, my browser’s for learning, but I also use it to get things done. That’s one of the reasons I recently made the switch from Safari to Vivaldi. For one, it’s a ‘Chrome’-equivalent browser, but doesn’t have the ownership probs that Brave suffers from. It also doesn’t have the ‘tracking’ problems Google introduces (it’s why my search engine is DuckDuckGo, too).  It’s problematic, in that it’s (too) customizable, for power users, but the defaults aren’t bad. Still learning about it, but I’ve mostly got it under control (e.g. I think I’ve a solution to the microphone issue that was bedeviling an LDA vid attempt). Though I’m reasonably tech savvy…

One other tool of note is Notion. I wouldn’t necessarily choose it myself, but it works. You can imagine I’m not keen on the strong pushes it (and everything else) are making towards AI, but it’s in use for LDA project and knowledge management, and it’s working. We’re a) probably not making full use, and b) could’ve used something simpler, but…we have someone familiar with it coaching us, so it’s all good.

So that’s my technology for performance. It’s not sophisticated, but it’s manageable, and affordable. Thoughts? Yours?

It’s no longer AI!

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There’s been a persistent belief in artificial intelligence (AI) practitioners that kind of explains the ongoing development. The mantra is “if we can understand it, it’s no longer AI”. This is relevant to what we’re seeing today, in important ways. So let’s unpack that.

The point of AI is that we’re trying to model intelligent behavior, usually human intelligence. It doesn’t have to be human, of course, we can be trying to model intelligent behavior that’s not human!  However, at least for much of AI, we’re trying to understand our own thinking. After all, the human brain is arguably the most complex thing in the known universe!  For instance, we really still don’t understand consciousness; why does it even exist? And, what is it really? We’re getting closer, but we’re not really there.

I’ve mentioned before that machine learning came about as a reaction to the failure of symbolic approaches to capture some of the nuances of human behavior. For instance, recognizing images in noisy environments is something we were better at than systems. Symbolic systems were ‘brittle’, in that they did what they did, but failed as soon as you tried to generalize. The neural net approach, where we trained systems, more closely mimicked how we ourselves perform. And, really, the general trend has been that as soon as we understand it, it’s no longer AI, it’s just good programming. Which is fine. We’ve advanced our understanding, and now we can build it.

What we encode in the weights of networks is essentially what’s known by the system. We don’t really know what we know, and we create models to explain how things work. We can get more complex with non-linear models (which our brains struggle with), but non-linearity itself is an understanding we’ve created to explain how the world works. Yet, what we actually capture in our networks isn’t available for scrutiny. Same with neural nets. Most networks were small, relatively speaking (massive, but small compared to our brain). They were also essentially limited. Trained on X, or Y, so check recognition or loan approval, but our brains can handle much more.

We’re seeing now that while the algorithms have made some modest improvements, we’ve vastly scaled the net size to achieve large language models (LLMs). However, we’re still running limited foci. So, for instance, language (training on the text of the internet), or images, or video, or music. Yes, there are systems that are integrating, but as far as I know (which might be wrong), they’re really grafted and not integrated completely. Most folks I know go to different tools for different things.

The result is that, particularly in text, we now have the general experience that we can ask questions of LLMs, and get meaningful replies. And, make no mistake, this is useful. For general language tasks, such systems are great. They’re doing pretty great jobs of summarizing prose. This passes the so-called “Turing Test”. (Alan Turing posited that if you had a system and interacted with it so that you couldn’t discriminate between system and human, it passed the test.) An article now suggests that a reasonable assessment would say we’ve achieved artificial general intelligence (AGI).

Apparently, I’m not a reasonable person. They’ve addressed my complaint, they posit. The article (in the parts I could read before the paywall) say that such systems do, indeed, have a world model  I argue that such systems don”t really know what a ‘dog’ is, having never seen one, petted one, raised one, walked one. Read prose describing all, yes. Experienced it? No. To me, there’s a difference (and I’m channeling Stevan Harnad’s Symbol Grounding Problem).

I also believe that there’s an AI architecture that’s more likely to achieve AI. (Particularly if we give it sensors to experience the world; and imagine what progress if they got the same hype as LLMs!) LLMs are trained on the vast corpora of text (illegitimately, I’ll suggest), and so understand an average that’s greater than any one person. (They’re also trained on other data, like video or images, for other media.) But they’re not as good as an expert in the field. They can do impressive things in areas you aren’t an expert in, but an expert in those areas can point out flaws. Yes, they can solve unsolved problems in, for instance, math, and pass tests, but those are knowledge tests, not ‘do’.

Ultimately, I don’t have to agree with the consensus, and maybe I’m just a grumpy old man (and get off my lawn!). I would like the progress we’ve made and what we can do with LLMs, if it weren’t for the hype that’s distorting business and mindspace. AI is more than LLMs, despite the way folks are speaking, and the valuations aren’t real. Also, we now know what they’re doing, and how, so I can say “it’s no longer AI” and mean it ;).

Timing matters

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There are many phenomena associated with time. I know it was such a topic of my late friend Jay Cross that he named his vehicle for agency Internet Time. A few phenomena have arisen in my thinking, and it’s time to just review some of the reasons why timing matters.

So, for one, things seem to come in waves. It’ll be too quiet, and then too busy; too frenetic a rhythm. I might prefer a smoother rate, but…it’s not something we get to control. (At least, individually; societally we have chosen speed over quality, what with requirements for short-term returns.) Now, I do my best to cope, using the downtimes to work on background tasks. So that, of course, when it’s crunch time I feel like I can still function.

That was also true when I’ve struggled. For one, when I had back pain (before I got surgery), I had good days and bad. My solution was to get things done on the good days, so I was okay on the bad ones. That again is a coping strategy.

Overall, things are going faster than we’d like. We are dealing with increasing change, and increasing information. Things like Harold Jarche’s Personal Knowledge Mastery (PKM) are tools we increasingly need to use, to be able to adapt.

Timing matters in other ways, too. Some times the time has to be right for an idea to stick. I regularly tell the story about how I mentioned the concept of ‘explorable interfaces’ (from Jean-Marc Robert) to my PhD supervisor, to no avail. Which surprised me, because our lab was looking at usability! However, I brought the concept up a few years later, and suddenly it was a great idea! Same idea, but right time.

It’s true for learning as well. It’s not something we can rush! Yet we try to have an event and then move on, not recognizing learning takes time. We need repeated reactivation and feedback for learning to occur, yet that’s seldom the design of our organizational solutions. Yet, technology gives us the ability to address this, if only we have the will.

And, we may need to make sure it’s the right time. We need to understand why something’s relevant to us before we’re ready for the message. That’s something I think we don’t focus on enough, hence my most recent tome.

We live in interesting times, as the saying has it. There’s little reason to believe things will slow down, even if they should. So, we need to be able to deal with it. Personally, and for our learners. Timing matters, as does how we deal with it. What are your strategies?

Standing up…

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…and I won’t back down. Ok, so this is a little off my usual thread, but it does have some learning in it. What I’m talking about is using your attention and your money as a way to express your values. It’s what I’m increasingly doing, and there’re lessons in it. So let’s talk about standing up for what you believe in.

It may be that I’ve stood too much on principle in the past, and paid the price. I left a (probably) secure position at a university to come back to the US to be closer to our aging parents. A job at what was positioned as a secure startup appeared to be a good choice..but I didn’t properly account for ego and greed. I even was a bit cheeky about a possible position, to my long-term shame. Consulting then, I joke, went from a euphemism for ‘unemployed’ to a way of life. I’m fortunate, that despite my lack of business nous, my curiosity and inclination to share learnings has proven to be moderately valuable. Somehow, this hasn’t been enough to dissuade me.

As I theoretically get wiser, I’m being more forthright. I’m relinquishing my accounts on platforms that have demonstrated a lack of accountability, for instance. I’ve left a few places in the past few years. I stay on LinkedIn, because it’s not awful (though getting worse), and it’s the place where folks connect for business. I’m on a few other social networks, one that is built to be able to stay independent, and one that, so far, is seeming to have good principles. That latter one I’m willing to abandon if that changes.

I’m also avoiding technologies with misrepresentation, and calling out such claims. Not always, of course, I want to educate, not punish. Still, I strive to let what science tells us to serve as a guide, not what folks want you to believe. Their intentions may be simply misguided, or worse, they may not care. It’s important to be careful, which is why we (Matt Richter and I, e.g. the LDA) wrote the research checklist, for instance. (May require membership, but it’s free!) I even avoiding indulging in an opportunity to watch an activity I enjoy, because it was part of a trend I think is harmful overall (e.g. supporting increasing compartmentalization).

I’m also shifting my purchasing. I’m trying to shop more local, and use sources that aren’t aligned with the most problematic providers. This isn’t always easy, as the ‘long tail’ means certain things are hard to come by. There are consequences, including paying more, and doing with less. Tradeoffs.

Similarly, I try to do business only with those who have approaches I favor. For instance, I’ve avoid positions where I receive compensation for promoting a product, because that would bias my recommendations. I (perhaps wrongly) believe that having that unbiased opinion (and stating when I have conflicts) is of value. I am now am working with Elevator 9, but that’s because they have demonstrated that they care about learning science.

None of this is perfect. For one, there are barriers to completely shifting. Some services you just can’t get without aligning with one platform or another. Certain products are basically just impossible to source any other way. Not everyone you know and care about will go along. You do what you can, and live with the results.

There’s learning from this. It’s harder than not. I’ve learned that trusting what people say, particularly those with vested interests, isn’t a good bet unless they’ve earned your trust in other ways first. Acquisitions, for one, rarely go the way that the acquirers promise! Also, it’s pretty obvious that this stance is an effort that not everyone can, or is willing to, make. There’s risk, for instance. On the other hand, it’s rewarding. You do feel better that you’re doing things to support what you believe.

Note that I’m being relatively opaque about my intentions. I think they’re pretty obvious, but still, the principles hold regardless; vote with your attention and your dollars. Align your actions with your values. Standing up for what you believe in is a way to show what you believe so others can see what others think. It’s a way of learning ‘out loud’ I suppose. Or maybe ‘living out loud’. Still, I won’t back down. What think you?

(And now, back to your regularly scheduled posts. BTW, my intent is to keep Tuesdays for my thoughts; if I’m touting something I think you should know about, I’ll try to keep to Thursdays. And rare. ;)

Ideas we could do without

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Saw a post on LinkedIn from a colleague, ranting about how we are regularly putting old wine in new bottles. I do believe we’re getting deeper into design and strategy, but I also agree. Similarly, I’ve seen a regular feature on a newsletter talking about terms we can do without. So, I’m combining the two here. Not surprisingly, I’m channeling previous complaints (as a commenter made mention of), but this is the first time combining them into ideas we could do without.

Microlearning. As I’ve said before, the problem here is that there are regularly two things meant here: either spaced learning or performance support. Both are good things, but lumping them under one label constitutes a problem. For one, they have different design processes and goals, so using the same term for two different things risks confusion. I like the idea of emphasizing conciseness, but…we can call it minimalism, eh?

Workflow learning. This is problematic because it implies learning, yet, as I’ve repeated, you can’t learn ‘in the workflow’. My argument rests on the fact that learning is really action and reflection, and reflection breaks the workflow. I reckon this could be definitional, as some folks might argue that such reflection is part of the workflow, but like with microlearning, they’re also many times talking about performance support. So, it’s another term with wrong usage, or at least ambiguous provenance. Let’s talk performance support or learning from the workflow.

Mobile. This may seem odd, given that I’ve been talking and writing about mobile at least since my first book on the topic, more than a decade ago! (Notably, both books are now out of print. Indicative?) Yet, I still receive requests from developers to make my mobile apps (not what I do). Also, Google declared they were going ‘mobile first’ also over a decade ago. Really, mobile has kind of just merged into digital solutions, I would suggest. Sure, we get folks asking us to use the app, but that to me is frustrating. It shouldn’t matter whether I’m using the app or a website, I have the same goals, largely. Yes, there are some location-specific things, and we (still) aren’t taking advantage well of the contextual capabilities of mobile devices, but mobile is really moot. It’s about augmenting our thinking. And, separately, taking advantage of context.

Unlearning. I’m adding this after originally writing this, because it just emerged again, and literally two days after a really nice ‘takedown‘ by Tom McDowell, who’s developed a real capability for research translation. In short, our brains can’t unlearn. That is, we don’t forget things, so we need to really build a new, alternative response to a previously learned approach. Which means that solutions designed for ‘unlearning’ won’t achieve the necessary outcome. Thus, this isn’t just a nice shortcut, but instead creates impressions that can lead folks astray. Let’s dump the phrase completely. Please?

I’ll add a new one: AI. What?

AI. As I’ve mentioned, I’ve been a big fan of artificial intelligence (AI) for literally decades. So, why am I struggling? I admit I’m getting overwhelmed when people say “AI” and mean generative AI. Generative AI is, conceptually, a small subset of AI. Sure, it’s huge right now, but that’s largely hype driven by money. It’s not real in a meaningful sense. I wish people could and would be clear, like “I’m going to call it AI, but I’m talking about generative AI and large language models (LLMs) in particular.” Which kind of undermines the hype, but what’s wrong with that? (Except for the purveyors, of course.) Sure, we should be treating all our digital endeavors similarly in strategy, e.g. as Lori Niles Hoffman’s new book points out, but AI is just one of the tools we should be tapping into.

Do I think my rant will change anything? Of course not! There’s money to be made, after all. Also, no one pays much attention to my rants here anyway ;). Still, a chance to get this off my metaphorical chest. So those are my ‘ideas we could do without’. What are yours?

A celebration of the tablet

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OK, so I’ve been around for a few turns around the sun. And, I’ve seen a fair bit of change, in technology in particular. My first job out of college was programming these new-fangled ‘personal computers’. This came after holding down jobs programming mainframes (Algol/Burroughs 7600) and mini-computers (Pascal/PDP-11s). As such, I’ve watched as the computers have shrunk to pocket and wrist-size (and more, but that’s not in common use), while increasing in capability. But there’s one device that I forget to marvel at, and so here’s a celebration of the tablet.

Why tablets, why not smartphones? There’re overlaps; they’re both much more intimate than a desktop; they”re held and controlled by touch. Yet, there’s a difference. Ok, for me. For many around the world, the phone is their only internet connection. And we are seeing larger and larger phones. But while I carry my phone with me almost all the time*, a tablet is my preferred relaxation device. I use my laptop (as a desktop, it’s usually plugged into a monitor/keyboard/mouse unless I’m traveling) for work, and my phone goes with me everywhere. But, when I’m mostly looking to be mentally engaged, my tablet is the preferred option. So, why?

I haven’t pondered that except just before going to bed, but then I’m amazed as I contemplate it. Here’s a screen big enough to engage with, on a device that’s amazingly thin. On it, I have books I can read, and games I can play. I don’t watch movies on it usually, but I have when I’ve traveled. And of course there are the information resources: web, weather, & time, and ways to generate info: notes, a way to comment on PDFs. In short, it’s intimate but pretty much fully capable.

That’s not what my phone or desktop sport as abilities. My phone (I err on the side of a smaller one, to fit easily in my pocket) is intimate, but it’s not fully capable given its limited screen. On the other hand, m laptop is powerful, but not intimate. My tablet is both. Now, I’m not going down the road of a super powerful tablet that substitutes for a laptop, that’s a bridge too far. I like having a desktop to do full work. It’s just that for many things, e.g. pondering and querying, the tablet is better. I think it’s about time frames for task, and maybe the cognitive complexity.

Still, while I like all my devices, the laptop to me is akin to the computer as I know it. The phone is a useful devices for usage on a short time frame. It’s the device in-between that, for me, is the sweet spot. A place to escape, a place to do preliminary thinking, a place to reflect. I write this on my laptop, because writing long screeds is easier with a keyboard (I eschew the keyboard cases for my tablet, as I have a laptop), but the preliminary thinking came from my intermediate device. So here’s a celebration of the tablet, the device that wasn’t going to be. I’m glad it exists.

* Recently my phone had 1% charge, I’d not completely plugged it in. Thus, for my walk I went phone-less (m’lady had hers). It was mostly ok, just a few moments of reaching for it and realizing it wasn’t there!

If it’s Thursday…

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…it must be Belgium. Ok, so there’re two things here. First, on Thursday, Feb 26, in Brussels specifically, I’ll be there. Why? I’ll be spending a full day workshopping practical learning science. In conjunction, I should note with my LDA Co-Director, Matthew Richter. And, hopefully, you!  So, what, and why, and…? For the other, yes, I know the original movie said Tuesday. And, no, I haven’t seen it.

The premise of the workshop is Designing Learning That Actually Works. This is something we both not only care about (heck, basically the whole focus of this blog!), but believe is the essential ingredient to successful L&D initiatives. Matt’s knowledge complements mine. He’s deeper into face-to-face learning and the business side, while I’m more into asynchronous learning and the cognitive side. Though, of course, we’re continually learning from each other. We also are both focused on essential practice, not theoretical background (though the latter is essential).

We’re starting with the core of how our brains work, largely at a cognitive level (not neural; despite the claims it’s largely irrelevant). We’ll cover how we process information, with a focus on learning. Then we’ll look at the emergent elements that research has identified, with a clear focus on the implications for design. There’ll be a focus on what most learning is missing, as there’s little reason to rehash what’s not going wrong!

The advantage of the location is, we feel, that it’s central. I’ve always admired how easy it is to get around Europe (I love train travel!), and thus we’re expecting that the catchment is relatively broad. I haven’t been to Europe for a number of years (thanks, Covid), so this will be a happy reunion. Also, I’ve met Matt once face-to-face, and this will be an extended chance to interact. Still, I’ve been working with him for a number of years online now and continue to be impressed with his knowledge (and jealous of his superior social skills).

So, if it’s Thursday (Feb 26) and you’re nearby, or can arrange to be there, I think this is going to be valuable. Also fun, as Matt’s possibly even more irreverent than I am, and certainly less staid ;). We hope to see you there!

By the way, I’ll be there M-F, so if you’ve some ideas for the other days, let me know!

Looking into 2026

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First, of course, happy new year! Relatively arbitrary deadline, but signification matters, and marking a new year is also a new chance. So, what’s happening? Here are some of the things I’m thinking about, looking into 2026!

So, first, a brief look back to set the stage. This was a year without any sustained engagements for Quinnovation, so that meant being a bit more agile. Not a problem, I was on lots of podcasts about a variety of things, and of course engaged with clients. I did spend considerable time and effort, however, in my side gigs.

For one, the Learning Development Accelerator (LDA) had a variety of things going on: conferences, books, webinars, podcasts, and more. Plus, they’re great people to work with! I think it’s a worthwhile investment of my time, focusing on helping people get more exposed to evidence-informed design.There are signs that we’re moving more that way (though it is a small case of two steps forward, one step back; learning styles and other myths still haunt our industry; there’s a continuing need!). I’ve also done some ‘free’ consulting to our platinum members, and that seems to be valuable for them, and I find it really rewarding!

I also continued to spend time with the Elevator 9 (E9) folks. They’re now ready for prime time (check ’em out!), but there’s been lots of work along the way. That includes developing a real platform, and I’m continuing to learn heaps about what goes into a startup. And why I haven’t been the one to do it! It’s been great, however, to be in association with folks who really do want to care about learning science; all too rare in the learning technology space (sadly).

Of course, my association with both continues.

With LDA, we’re already planning this coming year. We’re deep into thinking about what to do with the spring conference, and potential series for blog posts, and more. We already have our first Meet the Author on the schedule, and more are in the works.  There are some changes afoot, so stay tuned!

With E9, I will be using them again for my next mini-scenario workshop (with LDA) as a followon. Did it last year, as a trial, and it worked. Always room to improve, of course. Still, if you’re running a live event, and not following it up to extend the learning, why? There are other solutions – e.g. coaching – but please be doing something! There are worse solutions than E9, including nothing.

Of course, I’ll be doing more. I’ve been working on a couple of short books, likely eBooks (too short for print). I don’t want to go live yet about them, as they’re still in process. Of course they’d be with LDA Press. Besides online, I may be running a workshop or two live, too. As to conferences, well, I never say ‘never’, but right now there’s nothing I’m particularly excited about. We’ll see. And, of course, I’m always keen to help organizations, so do reach out if there are any ways I can be of assistance.

As you might expect, ideas continue to percolate. I’m always exploring more about technology, design, engagement, and more, and of course about learning. As always, you’ll probably hear about them here first, as this is where I learn ‘out loud’. There’re breadcrumbs from the past pointing forward, so it’s time to be looking into 2026. What are you seeing? In the meantime, stay curious my friends.

Aphasia analogy for LLMs?

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Something triggered, for me, an analogy. I was thinking of aphasias, and thought one might be a good analogy for LLMs. Both to understand, and to use as guidance for using. So here are some initial thoughts on an aphasia analogy for LLMs.

First, while aphasia is complex, two types reliably correlate with damage to specific areas of the brain: Broca’s, and Wernicke’s. Interestingly, they’re partners, as both deal with knowledge and language. That is: what we know, and how we’re able to communicate. Both come from damage to a specific part of the brain, but have opposite effects.

Broca’s aphasia is reasonably clear. The evidence suggests that folks retain their knowledge, but struggle to communicate. That is, what comes out is broken and ungrammatical, but meaningful. People generally have no trouble thinking, just talking about it. There of course is a region of the brain for Broca.

The companion is Wernicke’s aphasia. Here, the language is eloquent, but essentially nonsensical. People may have thoughts, but what they say has no internal cohesion. There can even be made-up words! There’s also a region of the brain known for Wernicke.

You can probably figure out where this is going: LLMs learn from large corpora of text to produce accurate language. Not accurate answers, but accurate language, an important distinction! They’re not damaged, so if most of the training set is accurate, what they say will be accurate. However, if not, they may say other things. And, of course, they can just say things that sound right that aren’t, such as making up books, court cases, and more. They’re essentially Wernicke systems!

What does this mean? It means you probably can have a good idea generation sessions with an LLM, or give it a language task like summarizing or generating language. What it also means is that there’s no way that you should trust what comes out to be accurate, and you need an expert in the loop. Given that they’ve demonstrably been corruptible, besides not always being correct, however, they shouldn’t be trusted to act on your behalf. I worry a wee bit about them being good enough that most of the time what comes out is ok. This could, of course. lull you into a sense of complacency! Hopefully folks will always feel the professional obligation to ensure that what comes out is correct.

So, understand what LLMs do, if not how they do it. Then, act accordingly. (Feel free to also investigate issues like IP, environment, biz model, and more.) Caveat emptor!