Archives for May 2007

Microsoft’s just released Surface, a new product based upon a coffee-table size (and form factor) touchscreen which supports multiple finger gestures and will include placing devices on them (e.g. smartphones, music players) and having them become ‘available’ to share music, photos, and whatever you might imagine. At first I thought it looked cool but limited, but they showed some intriguing scenarios such as having the table be a menu and placing your cards down to pay at the end, dividing up the things ordered between the cards. It’s fairly high resolution and quite interactive.

While I’m a wee bit worried about bending over the table (with my back aching from a weekend which included carrying large landscaping bricks), I can see some interesting opportunities. They showed one person drawing, and it strikes me as a great surface for co-construction of representations. You know I like models, and having a multi-touch interface on top of an application like OmniGraffle would be great to sit over and talk with colleagues about. They talk about sharing files, but I wonder if you could bring in your own applications.

I can really easily see kids all ganging up around one, too, like they already do with the whiteboard, lego, whatever. With that device connectivity, they could take their devices out into the world, bring stuff back, share, and create projects in a more natural way. Or even share their creations (drawings, Spore creatures, genetically created pets, what have you). Then, of course, finding a way to have different surfaces in different places and have them linked, so that they could collaborate at a distance (with VoIP, and maybe their photo or something on the side for ‘telepresence’.

And board games could take on a whole new dimension. Wizard’s Chess, anyone?

Ok, I’m game to play.

Speaking of mistakes, there’s one I’ve made. Again. The old saying “fool me once, shame on your, fool me twice, shame on me” comes to mind. I had a conversation about my recent eLearning Guild presentation on elearning strategy, and got sucked into helping interpret it for this particular individual’s circumstance. I knew it was a corporate initiative, and was looking to see if they needed help, but instead there I was answering questions. It’s a bad habit.

I like talking ideas. And I like helping people. However, interpreting them to someone’s benefits is my business. Many years ago I derived a principle that I’ll talk ideas for free, I’ll help someone personally for drinks, dinner, etc, but if someone’s making money off of it, I want a cut. I think it’s still relevant.

I live by the ideas and experience I bring to the table and my ability to interpret them for a particular client. I love what I do, and if I were independently wealthy (and, as I joke, you’re welcome to make that happen) I’d still do this. But I’m not independently wealthy, and I work hard to feed family, mortgage, HMO (don’t get me started), etc. I also like to think that I’m very good at what I do, and believe my track record shows it. ( It’s not because of my marketing and sales skills.)

So, I’ll post my mistake here as support to not make it again. Fortuitously, the day after that call I had a chance to do it right, and did much better. That should be an upward path. Err less and less and less…

In a conversation today the topic of mistakes came up, and it’s one I think we could talk about more (and I’ve done so in the past, I discover). It’s clear that innovating and improving requires experimentation (again, he who fails fastest, wins). Yet, you can’t celebrate mistakes, as it can send the wrong message.

I was reminded of a story I heard at the Creating a Learning Culture conference Marcia Conner was kind enough to invite me to. To reiterate the earlier post, a company celebrated not when the mistake was made, but when the lesson was learned. That’s stuck with me as a great idea that allows mistakes as part of an overall culture that says it’s ok to experiment, and we know you’ll fail occasionally, but learn from it. Piet Hein is quotable here:   “The road to wisdom? Well it’s simple to express: err and err and err again, but less and less and less.” Just don’t make the same mistake!

My interlocutor recalled his approach, saying to teams: “I don’t mind small mistakes”, and that makes a lot of sense. I used to tell my team that I didn’t mind bad news, but I hated surprises. I like his approach better. Big mistakes are a problem, small mistakes are an investment in the future.

I mentioned corporate cultures I’d seen (in seemingly successful companies) where you couldn’t talk about mistakes. He recited his experience where when a mistake was made, they’d fire someone, and think they’d solved the problem!

So, another quote: “when you lose, don’t lose the lesson”. Find out why the mistake was made, how not to make it again, and make sure everyone learns from it.

My son’s baseball season is over, and it was a lesson to me about the value of good coaching. There’re lots of things that go into coaching, it became clear. For example, I began to believe that if you first don’t instill an understanding of what it means to be a team, you don’t have a chance. And then you’ve got to build not only the individual skills, but also the strategy. Also, you’ve got to have support. I saw teams with really active assistant coaches, and the effect on the team performance was obvious.

I recall from previous years’ soccer coaching that the association’s approach was to drill skills first, and then introduce strategy (not even in the first year). This is apparently something that helps build to a national capacity, though it only works if all coaches observe it. That wasn’t the case, unfortunately, but we still supported our coach in that perspective and were glad he focused on the kids development, not the parent’s desire for their kids to win (and my son’s team did win some). And at this stage baseball strategy would be appropriate.

It occurred to me that a great technique would be to ask the kids what is necessary, and tease it out of them, and even do some experiments to help them learn the tradeoffs and why to do it a particular way. There’s a role for instruction, typically for expediency, but I think a blend could be achieved. I heard other coaches telling their players, before each batter, where the play was. I’d be inclined to think that a better approach might be to ask them where the play is. Making them self-coaching would be a good outcome.

I admit I find the prospect a little daunting, but I still regret that my unpredictable schedule means I can’t commit to coaching. I’d like to think that a chance to practice what I preach in that specific instance would be of benefit not only to me but also to the kids.

Harold Jarche has a post in which he points out that good education and civics are necessary but not sufficient, citing Al Gore. The necessary additional component is dialog around ideas. I have to agree, we can’t advance if we aren’t collaboratively creating our future in an open and informed way.

It reminded me of this quote from Al Gore (excerpted from his comments at Sierra‘s Climate Forum) that I’ve been meaning to blog, which mimics my feelings about current US politics (and, to some extent Australian, my other home):

With regard to our political system, it now devalues knowledge and facts. It didn’t used to. What was special about the America we were born into was that it still embodied the highest values of the Enlightenment We grew up in a world where truth mattered, and when new ideas came … the merit of those ideas was judged against the rule of reason. … The political system doesn’t act that way anymore. As in the feudal era, wealth and power regularly trump knowledge, facts, and reason.

We don’t value reason any more. We deride scholars as eggheads or wonks, and laud those who have acquired money or celebrity through questionable means or for no notable contribution at all. This does not bode well for governments based upon the collective will of the people.

I’m an optimist, and I think that technologies like the internet give us hope, but we can’t be distracted by rote testing when our nations needs critical thinking and reasoning. You can’t care about the world and not be passionate about education.

I’m on the board for the Center for Civic Education, a role I got for my expertise in learning technology, but a group I’ve become proud to be affiliated with. Their programs have incredible benefits for the students as well as society, as has been demonstrated internationally, and I think an understanding of civics is a necessary part of a wise curriculum. Imagine my dismay to read that the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) Civics Report Card shows that “the vast majority of our young people are either not taught civics and government at all, or they are taught too little, too late, and inadequately” to quote Chuck Quigley, Executive Director of the Center.

The site for the report of course cites the improvements, but looking at the scores, they’re at about 50%, at best, across the board. Lower in certain demographics, as you’d expect. The standards actually come from the Center, and I’ve seen the diligence with which they develop them, (they’re publically available, too) so I have some idea just what’s at stake. (And, of course, the Center has solutions for addressing the problem, so I’m well aware of their vested interest in drawing attention to the gap, but the problem remains.)

I’ve seen how civics education can increase participation in society, reduce violence, and increase mutual self-respect. I also care that people understand government so they can vote from an informed perspective (which seems to be something severely lacking). So the lack of civics education is a concern.

I’m not a fan of No Child Left Untested, er, Behind, for a host of reasons (and fortunately, far more knowledge people than me have made the point, including Jim Pellegrino in a commissioned paper on behalf of the New Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce). Moreover, our funding situation strangling school budgets and tying so much to rote skills is eliminating civics, science, and more.

I care about our society, and that’s why I’m in education as I think it’s the best way to ensure a positive future, so it continues to dismay me that we can’t seem to solve the problems in schools. When you have a chance to make a choice, do think about education and the future. Please?