Quinnovating

Content Models and Mobile Delivery

21 December 2009 by Clark 1 Comment

On Friday, I had the pleasure of a conversation of Kris Rockwell, CEO of Hybrid Learning for my in-process mobile learning book. I’d sought him out because of how he was developing mobile. Using content models to separate out the content from how it gets rendered for display, he’s creating more flexibility across devices. This combines two of my passions, and is part of a performance ecosystem strategy.

Hybrid uses DITA, a standard for wrapping definition around content, to develop their content. He presented powerful arguments to use this open source topic-based approach. For one, being open source, you’re not locked in to a proprietary format, yet backed by IBM it’s well supported. Second, it’s lightweight, compared to say S1000D (which I hadn’t heard of). And, of course, it’s portable across systems, meaning your solution doesn’t die even if your vendor does!

The use of a specification for such description around the content being developed is something I argue for regardless of mobile delivery or not. When you wrap more rigor, and more semantic granularity around your development process, you’re well on your way to an organized content governance process. For instance, if you design into a template even for the quick one-off requests that often come through the door in learning units, you are more likely to be able to reuse that content elsewhere, and, conversely, draw upon available content to shorten the development time. Done properly, the if you update the source one place, the changes should propagate throughout the relevant content! There are lots of cost efficiencies being found in documentation with this approach, and it should percolate into elearning as well.

What Kris is also finding, however, is a real advantage in content portability across mobile devices. Content so developed can easily be re-rendered for different devices, if they don’t already have the capability to hand. He argues convincingly that designing for a device is a bad approach, and designing for device-independent delivery gives you the power not only to hit more platforms but also more flexibility for new platforms that emerge. In short, your content development costs are amortized across more delivery options and ‘future-proofed’.

There was a lot more of interest in the conversation, including layered exploration (a “drill down” navigation style) and the potential for ordinary cell phones (dumbphones) to be viable delivers of instruction. But that’s a topic for another day. The take home for today, however, is think content models as well as mobile.

Virtual Worlds Value Proposition

17 December 2009 by Clark 3 Comments

In prepping for tomorrow nights #lrnchat, Marcia Conner was asking about the value proposition of virtual worlds. I ripped out a screed and lobbed it, but thought I’d share it here as well:

At core, I believe the essential affordances of the virtual world are 3D/spatial, and social. There are lower-overhead social environments (but…which I’ll get back to). However, many of our more challenging tasks are 3D visualization (e.g. work of Liz Tancred in medicine, Hollan & Hutchins on steamships). Also, contextualization can be really critical, and immersion may be better. So, for formal learning in particular domains, virtual environments really make a lot of sense. Now you still might not need a social one, so let’s get back to that.

The overhead is high with virtual worlds on the social issue, so ordinarily I’d not put much weight on value proposition for informal learning, but… two things are swaying me. One is the ability to represent yourself as you’d like to be perceived, not as nature has provided. The other is the ephemeral ‘presence’ and the context. Can we make a more ambient environment to meet virtually, and be fully present (in a sense). Somehow there’s less intermediation through a virtual world than through a social networking site (with practice).

And one more thing in the informal side: collaborative 3D creation. This is, to me, the real untapped opportunity, but it may require both better interfaces, and more people with more experience.

Now, there’s certainly a business case for learning in virtual worlds *where* there’s an environment that really needs 3D or contextualization, but does it need to be massively social (versus a constrained environment just for education, built in something like ThinkingWorlds)?

And we know there’s a business case for social, but is the overhead of virtual worlds worth it?

However, when we put these two together, adding the power of social learning onto the formal 3D/spatial, and in the social adding the ephemeral ‘presence’ *and* then consider the possibility of 3D spatial collaboration (model building, not just diagram building), and amortize the overhead over a long term organizational uptake, I’m beginning to think that it may just have crossed the threshold.

That is, for formal learning, 3D and contextualization is really underestimated. For social learning, presence and representation may be underrated. And the combination may have emergent benefits.

In short, I think the social learning value of virtual worlds may have broader application than I’ve been giving credit for. Which isn’t even to mention what could come from bridging the social network across virtual, desktop, and even mobile! So, what say you?

The Great eLearning Garbage Vortex

15 December 2009 by Clark 2 Comments

Norbert Hockenberry here, reporting on a giant floating patch of elearning that has recently been discovered. Like the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, this has been created by discarded material being gathered by oceanic currents into a giant mess.

Unlike the Pacific patch, this isn’t an environmental disaster so much as a economic and social catastrophe. The waste of organizational resources, and learner time, is tragic. Seldom has so much been done, for so many, for so little gain.

What is the cause of this mess? Two main things: bad design, and mismanagement.

Bad Design

First, bad design means that the content has no actual impact on performance. Typically, it’s delivered too far away from the time of need, and not reinforced, so it’s liable to have been forgotten when needed.

Even if it is available, it probably won’t get activated. The content is usually developed as a knowledge dump and recitation, which is well-known to lead to ‘inert knowledge’. Truly, a pathetic misuse of resources.

Mismanagement

Good content development practices also imply content management and governance. Too often we see neither.

Content isn’t well articulated, starting from the objectives, and the development isn’t carefully articulated within a curriculum let alone across the curriculum, so consequently the content is limited in reuse and repurposing. Often, it can’t even be found for updating! So, when information changes, the content is tossed away.

The flip-side is similar: content that has reached it’s ‘use by’ date isn’t culled from the available contents, and hangs around, making it hard for more useful content to live a full life. Without content management and governance, content lies around in limbo, rather than be properly recycled or composted.

What can be done?

The clear implication is to start with proper content management up front, following good design principles, and establishing governance across the policy. Content shouldn’t be developed without a clear view of it’s lifecycle and planned processes for getting maximum advantage and then disposing of it in appropriate ways.

This is Norbert Hockenberry, asking you to help prevent such disasters, and invest wisely in content development. Start with a focus on meaningful impacts, have a development process that supports good design, and has a clear intention about how to develop, access, and make content available for the learner. Responsibly reuse, update, or appropriately dismiss content that is no longer functional in it’s current state. It’s just being responsible!

Future of the training department

12 December 2009 by Clark 7 Comments

Entreprise Collaborative, a cross-cultural endeavor bridging English and French to provide a jumping off point on organizational collective intelligence (and co-led by my Internet Time Alliance colleague Harold Jarche), is launching a blog carnival. The first topic is: the future of the training department in the Collaborative Enterprise.

I’ve written before about the changes I see coming for organizations (e.g. here), and they’re driven by the changes I am seeing in business and in society. Things are moving faster, and this has all sorts of consequences: it means that change is occurring more frequently, information is doubling, our competition is more aggressive, and more. Really, we’re unmasking the chaos that we’ve been able to cover with observed patterns, and explain away the excepti0ns. Well, now the patterns are changing fast enough that we can’t expect to be able to plan, prepare and execute to succeed. We have to be more nimble, more agile. In short, we have to move away from depending on formal learning to be able to cope, and we need a new solution.

The solution is to empower individuals so that they’re pulling together. No longer can a few do the thinking for everyone, as we see in a hierarchical organization. Instead, we need to make sure everyone understands what the overall goal is, and have them work together to achieve it. We need to tap into the collective intelligence of the entire organization. This is a redefinition of learning as performance, incorporating problem-solving, innovation, creativity, design, research, and more.

That means a number of things: we need to be explicit about goals, transparent about processes, supportive about collaborative skills, and proactive in creating a culture that fosters and nurtures the necessary approaches. This doesn’t come for free. Who is responsible for ensuring this works?

In some organizations it’s the information services group, or the knowledge management group. And they certainly should be on board; ideally you don’t want a hodgepodge of different systems to do the same thing, you want a coordinated environment that supports lessons learned in one area to be easily shareable elsewhere in the organization. At core, however, I believe that folks who understand learning have to be part of the picture. They may not own it, but they need to be actively facilitating across the organization.

And this, to me, defines the future of the training department. It can no longer be just about courses. It’s got to include performance support, and informal learning. It’s got to be about culture, and learning together skills, and facilitating productive information interchange and productive interactions. We have technologies now to empower user-generated content, collaboration and more, but the associated skills are being assumed, which is a mistake. The ability to use these tools will continually need updating and support.

This should not be threatening or anxiety-inducing! Training used to be important, as skilled workers were critical. As we’ve automated more work and started developing training for more knowledge work without adapting our methods (and, consequently, making generally dreadful learning experiences), the training role is less and less seen as worthwhile. The opportunity to reestablish a strategic role in the organization should be viewed with excitement, and taken up as the gift it is!

So, I see the future of the training department being as learning facilitators, and the path there to be to take on more and more of that role. In the future, I reckon, learning facilitators will be partners with the technology infrastructure units in providing an innovation infrastructure, a performance ecosystem. These facilitators will be (virtually) distributed across the enterprise just as the technology infrastructure is. Yes, there’s likely some re-skilling involved, but it beats irrelevancy, or worse. Here’s to redefinition!

Creating meaningful experiences

8 December 2009 by Clark 7 Comments

What if the learner’s experience was ‘hard fun’: challenging, but engaging, yielding a desirable experience, not just an event to be tolerated, OR what is learning experience design?

Can you imagine creating a ‘course’ that wins raving fans? It’s about designing learning that is not only effective but seriously engaging. I believe that this is not only doable, but doable under real world constraints.

Let me start with this bit of the wikipedia definition of experience design:

the practice of designing…with a focus placed on the quality of the user experience…, with less emphasis placed on increasing and improving functionality

That is, experience design is about creating a user experience, not just focusing on their goals, but thinking about the process as well. And that’s, to me, what is largely ignored in creating elearning is thinking about process from the learner’s perspective. There are really two components: what we need to accomplish, and what we’d like the learner to experience.

Our first goal still has to look at the learning need, and identify an objective that we’d like learners to meet, but even that we need to rethink. We may have constraints on delivery environment, resources, and more that we have to address as well, but that’s not the barrier. The barrier is the mistake of focusing on knowledge-level objectives, not on meaningful skill change. Let me be very clear: one of the real components of creating a learning experience is ensuring that we develop, and communicate, a learning objective that the learner will ‘get’ is important and meaningful to them. And we have to take on the responsibility for making that happen.

Then, we need to design an experience that accomplishes that goal, but in a way that yields a worthwhile experience. I’ve talked before about the emotional trajectory we might want the learner to go through. It should start with a (potentially wry) recognition that this is needed, some initial anxiety but a cautious optimism, etc. We want the learner to gradually develop confidence in their ability, and even some excitement about the experience and the outcome. We’d like them to leave with no anxiety about the learning, and a sense of accomplishment. There are a lot of components I’ve talked about along the way, but at core it’s about addressing motivation, expectations, and concerns.

Actually, we might even shoot for more: a transformative experience, where the learner leaves with an awareness of a fundamental shift in their understanding of the world, with new perspectives and attitudes to accompany their changed vocabulary and capabilities. People look for those in many ways in their life; we should deliver.

This does not come from applying traditional instructional design to an interview with a SME (or even a Subject Matter Network, as I’m increasingly hearing and inclined to agree). As I defined it before, learning design is the intersection of learning, information, and experience design. It takes a broad awareness of how we learn, incorporating viewpoints behavior, cognitive, constructive, connective, and more. It takes an awareness of how we experience: media effects on cognition and emotion, and of the dramatic arts. And most of all, it takes creativity and vision.

However, that does not mean it can’t be developed reliably and repeatably, on a pragmatic basis. It just means you have to approach it anew. It take expertise, and a team with the requisite complementary skill sets, and organizational support. And commitment. What will work will depend on the context and goals (best principles, not best practices), but I will suggest that with good content development processes, a sound design approach, and a will to achieve more than the ordinary. This is doable on a scalable basis, but we have to be willing to take the necessary steps. Are you ready to take your learning to the next level, and create experiences?

Blurring boundaries

7 December 2009 by Clark Leave a Comment

I just downloaded a couple of new apps onto my iPhone. Okay, so one was a free trial of a game, but the other was a really interesting offering, and it led to some thoughts about organizational silos and new functionality.

The app was a new release by ATT called Mark the Spot, that lets you report the occurrence and location of a problem with your coverage. This is a new way to interact with customers, allowing them to serve as a agent of “can you hear me now”-style coverage evaluation. Given that they’ve just turned up as the lowest rated carrier of the major four here in the US, according to leading consumer champion Consumer Reports, it’s a step in the right direction.

Now this is an instance of considering a broader reach of engagement in our conversations tapping into collective intelligence. As I’ve been learning with my colleagues in the Internet Time Alliance, tapping into collective intelligence goes beyond conversations internally to include partners and customers. It’s also a broader interpretation of learning, in the senses that I argue we need to consider, including problem-solving, innovation, etc. And it’s mobile.

So here’s the question I pondered: is this tech support? Marketing? And what occurred to me is that it just isn’t really easy to categorize. It’s a dialog with the customer, gathering data about coverage, which could be seen as market research. They can also extend it via a call into a issue resolution exercise (ok, so the app doesn’t really make the call for you but could and should: “click to send the data and be connected to a representative”) . You could even bake in some trouble-shooting support as a performance support exercise.

The approach, and the potential, crosses boundaries in terms of the benefits and how it must be supported organizationally. We’re beginning to see a new notion of mashup that combines functionalities that might normally be seen in separate organizational areas, but from a customer perspective, they’re linked. And we’re seeing a hybrid of communication capabilities, linking the data capabilities of an app with voice, and even media files (e.g. some trouble-shooting information).

Around 1999, the CEO of Cisco, John Chambers, opined that elearning was going to be so big that email would seem like a rounding error. I think that it’s not just about education over the internet, but it’s really about the broader picture of learning including performance support, social learning, and it’s not just the desktop internet, but it’s mobile apps, and more. The full performance ecosystem isn’t just within the organization, but it’s external as well. It’s what your company builds for you, what your ‘providers’ build for you (device, service, etc), and, ultimately, how you integrate that into your personal learning network.

The implications are huge. How to organizations realign to make meaningful information environments for their employees, partners, and customers? How do we skill up society to take advantage and shape this environment for the benefit of all? And how do we develop ourselves to manage and optimize the environment to help us achieve our goals?

I think we are seeing an inflection point that will trump email, but it’s not about education, it’s about the broad intersection between people’s goals and our technology infrastructure. And our role in that, as designers of learning experiences and performance ecosystems. We have a fair bit of understanding of cognition and social interaction, and increasing experience with different technology capabilities. Now it’s time to put that all to work to start creating meaningful new opportunities. Who’s game?

The Augmented Performer

2 December 2009 by Clark 4 Comments

The post I did yesterday on Distributed Cognition also triggered another thought, about the augmented learner. The cited post talked about how design doesn’t recognize the augmented performer, and this is a point I’ve made elsewhere, but I wanted to capture it in a richer representation. Naturally, I made a diagram:

DistributedCognition If we look at our human capabilities, we’re very good pattern matchers, but pretty bad at exercising rote performance. So we can identify problems, and strategize about solutions, but when it comes to executing rote tasks, like calculation, we’re slow and error prone. From the point of the view of a problem we’re trying to solve, we’re not as effective as we could be.

However, when we augment our intellect, say with a networked device (read: mobile), we’re augmenting our problem-solving and executive capability with some really powerful calculations capability, and also some sensors we’re typically not equipped with (e.g. GPS, compass), as well as access to a ridiculously huge amount of potential information through the internet, as well as our colleagues. From the point of view of the problem, we’re suddenly a much more awesome opponent.

And that is the real power of technology: wherever and whenever we are, and whatever we’re trying to do, there’s an app for that. Or could be. Are you empowering your performers to be awesome problem-solvers?

Distributed Thinking & Learning

1 December 2009 by Clark 2 Comments

A post I was pointed to reviews a chapter distributed thinking, a topic I like from my days getting to work with Ed Hutchins and his work on Distributed Cognition. It’s a topic I spoke about at DevLearn, and recently wrote about. The chapter is by David Perkins, one of premier thinkers on thinking, and I like several things he says.

For one, he says: “typical psychological and educational practices treat the person in a way that is much closer to person-soloâ€. I think that’s spot-on, we don’t tend to train for, and design for, the augmented human, and yet we know from situated cognition and distributed cognition that much of the problem solving we do is augmented in many ways, from pencil and paper, to calculators, references, and mobile devices.

I also like his separation of task solving from executive function, where executive function is the searching, sequencing, etc of the underlying domain-specific tasks, and how he notes that just because you create an environment that requires executive functioning, it doesn’t mean the learner will be able to develop those skills. “In general, cognitive opportunities are not in themselves cognitive scaffolds.” So treat all those so-called ‘edutainment’ games that claim to develop problem-solving skills with great care; they may require it, but there’s little effort I’ve seen that they actually develop it.

The implication is that having kids solve problems with executive support, but without scaffolding that executive support and the gradual release of those executive skills to the learner, we’re not really developing appropriate problem-solving skills. We don’t talk explicitly about them, and consequently leave the acquisition of those skills to chance. If we don’t put 21st century skills into our courses, K12, higher ed, and organizational, we’re not really developing our performers.

And that, at the end of the day, is what we need to be doing. So, start thinking a bit broader, and deeper, about learning and the components thereof, and produce better learning, learners, and ultimately the outcome performance.

Who authorizes the authority?

28 November 2009 by Clark 2 Comments

As a reaction to my eLearnMag editorial on the changing nature of the educational publishing market, Publish or Perish, a colleague said: “There is a tremendous opportunity in the higher ed publishing market for a company that understands what it means to design and deliver engaging, valuable, and authentic customer experiences–from content to services to customer service and training.”

I agree, but it triggered a further thought. When we go beyond delivering content as a component of a learning experience, and start delivering learning experiences, are we moving from publisher to education provider? And if so, what are the certification processes?

Currently, institutions are accredited by accrediting bodies. Different bodies accredit different things. There are special accrediting bodies (a.g. AACSB or ACBSP for business[2?], ABET for applied science). In some cases, there are just regional accreditation bodies (e.g. WASC). There’s overlap, in that a computer science school might want to align with ABET, and yet the institution has to be accredited by, say, WASC.

And I think this is good, in that having groups working to oversee specific domains can be responsive to changing demands, and general accreditation to oversee ongoing process. I recall in the past, this latter was largely about ensuring that there were regular reviews and specific improvement processes, almost an ISO 9001 approach. However, are they really able to keep up? Are they in touch with new directions? The recent scandals around business school curricula seem to indicate some flaws.

On the other hand, who needs accreditation? We still have corporate universities, they don’t seem to need to be accredited except by their organization, though sometimes they partner with institutions to deliver accredited programs. And many people provide coaching services, and workshops. There are even certificates for workshops which presumably depend on the quality of the presenter, and sometimes some rigor around the process to ensure that there’s feedback going on so that continuing education credits can be earned.

My point is, the standards vary considerably, but when do you cross the line? Presumably, you can’t claim outcomes that aren’t legitimate (“we’ll raise your IQ 30 points” or somesuch), but otherwise, you can sell whatever the market will bear. And you can arrange to be vetted by an independent body, but that’s problematic from a cost and scale perspective.

Several issues arise from this for me. Say you wanted to develop some content (e.g. deeper instructional design, if you’re concerned like me about the lack of quality in elearning). You could just put it out there, and make it available for free, if you’ve the resources. Otherwise, you could try to attach a pricetag, and see if anyone would pay. However, what if you really felt it was a definitive suite of content, the equivalent of a Master’s course in Instructional Technology? You could sell it, but you couldn’t award a degree even if you had the background and expertise to make a strong claim that it’s a more rigorous degree than some of those offered by accredited institutions, and more worthwhile.

The broader question, to me, is what is the ongoing role of accreditation? I’ve argued that the role of universities, going forward, will likely be to develop learning to learn skills. So, post your higher ed experience (which really should be accomplished K12, but that’s another rant), you should be capable of developing your own skills. If you’ve developed your own learning abilities, and believe you’ve mastered an area, I guess you really only need to satisfy your current or prospective employer.

On the other hand, an external validation certainly makes it easier to evaluate someone rather than the time-intensive process of evaluation by yourself. Maybe there’s a market for much more focused evaluations, and associated content?

So, will we see broader diversity of acceptable evaluations, more evaluation of the authorial voice of any particular learning experience, a lifting of the game by educational institutions, or a growing market of diverse accreditation (“get credit for your life experience” from the Fly By Night School of Chicanery)?

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