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Clark Quinn’s Learnings about Learning

Less than words

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Yesterday, while I was posting on how words could be transcended by presentation, there was an ongoing twitfest on terms that have become overused and, consequently, meaningless.   It started when Jane Bozarth asked what ‘instructionally sound’ meant, then Cammy Bean chimed in with ‘rich’, Steve Sorden added ‘robust’, and it went downhill from there.

I responded to Jane’s initial query that instructionally sound cynically meant following the ID cookie cutter, but ideally meant following what’s known about how people learn.   I similarly tried to distinguish the hyped version of engaging (gratuitous media use) from a more principled one (challenging, contextualized, meaningful, etc).   (I had to do the latter, given I’ve got the word engaging in my book title.)

Other overused terms mentioned include: adaptive, brain-based. game-like, comprehensive, interactive, compelling, & robust.   Yet, behind most of these are important concepts (ok, game-like is hype, and Daniel Willingham’s put a bucket of cold water on brain-based).   I should’ve added ‘personalized’ when a demo of an elearning authoring suite I sat through yesterday could capture the learner’s name and use it to print a ‘personalized’ certificate at the end.

And that’s the problem: important concepts are co-opted for marketing by using the most trivially qualifying meaning of the term to justify touting it as an instance.   Similarly, clicking to move on is, apparently, interactive.   Ahem.   It’s like the marketers don’t want to give us any credit for having a brain. (Though, sadly, from what I see, there does seem to be some lack of awareness of the deeper principles behind learning.)   I invoke the Cluetrain, and ask elearning vendors to get on board.

So, before you listen to the next pitch from a vendor, get your Official eLearning Buzzword Bingoâ„¢ card, make sure you know what the terms mean, and challenge them to ensure that they a) really understand the concept, and b) really have the capability.   You win when you catch them out; a smarter market is a better market. Ok, let’s play!

More than words

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Monday was the US celebration of Martin Luther King’s birthday, and on Tuesday was the inauguration of the first African American president of the United States.   That’s an awesome juxtaposition; that’s change, baby!   I not only found it wonderful, but informative.

As background, I was highly trained to write in a very logical progression, choosing careful vocabulary, and in an objective manner. That’s a side-effect of graduate school and an academic career (one of my previous lives).   It mostly needs to be that way for scientific reasons, but for non-specialists, it’s way too dry.   I also read quite critically, serving on conference program and thesis committees, and on the editorial board for an academic journal. I have had some subsequent experience in writing more generally: for articles, for online learning, and even some marketing material.   And some formal training on speaking, for communicating.   I like to believe I’m not bad, but I always want to get better.

In that context, as I read the text of Martin Luther King’s speech as transcribed in my local newspaper, I was struck by what seemed outright florid prose: “seared in the flames of withering injustice”, “joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity”, etc.   If it was marketing, you’d pan it as over-the-top.   “This is a famous talk?”, I wondered.

Then yesterday I heard President Obama’s inauguration speech, and joined in on tweeting my favorite bits (“judge you on what you can build, not what you destroy”).   It was, quite simply, inspiring.   Afterward, a tweet pointed me to a blog comparing this inauguration speech with ex-President Bush’s farewell address.   This wasn’t a fair comparison (and he’s subsequently updated the post to compare the first inauguration speech of Bush with Obama’s, and it’s very interesting), but it caused me to go back and look at the talk transcript.

Once again, in print, we see what reads like slightly-purple prose: “rising tides of prosperity and the still waters of peace”, “gathering clouds and raging storms”.   It seems too much, when read, but when I pictured it as being spoken, it has a whole different effect.   That’s important.

Reading and listening are different, and we (should) write differently for each.   It’s difficult in elearning, when we are often required to have written transcripts of all audio.   We have to strike a balance in that instance. But we tend to overwrite; I can take pretty much any designer’s prose and hack 40% off (including my own first pass :).

So how can words that seem over the top on the page come across so sincere and important face-to-face?   It has to do with the delivery, the transparent sincerity and obvious passion.   And that’s the lesson.

For me, I have a personal passion for learning and technology to help individuals and organizations achieve their goals; it’s what I’m here to do.   I talk about putting emotion into learning, too, but I don’t practice it in my speaking as well as I could, and should.   I do use humor, but I need to put more passion into my speaking.   And, with the inspiration from yesterday, I will.

More broadly, however, is something I heard Lance Secretan say: “don’t just motivate, inspire”.   It’s something I try to bake into elearning introductions, inspiring interest in the coming materials. I don’t see it enough, and I think it can be ramped up more than we do.   The clients and the SMEs say that we can’t treat such material in this way, but I think the audiences prefer it.   It’s got to be authentic, but when it is, it’s amazing!

I find that people are most often in the learning field not by default, but by choice; they like creating a difference.   Despite the challenges to doing what you really believe is good work, you persevere, because it matters.   Tap into that passion, and let it show in your work.   Tap into the passions of others when you’re channeling a SME, and let that show.   To the SME, the topic is interesting, so find their passion and channel that, not just the knowledge.   It’s one of my tricks in learning design, and I hope it will become one of yours.   Here’s to better learning!

Usability and Learnability

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Palm has just announced the Palm PrÄ“ as a new smartphone, and it’s got a fair bit of things right.   Like the iPhone it’s got a touchscreen, but adds a keyboard.   And GPS, WiFi, etc.   However, that’s not what I’m on about, but instead key things, like usability.   And there’s a lesson here that I’ve talked about before but I want to generalize it a bit.

To start at the beginning, when Jeff Hawkins designed the first Palm, he cut a block of wood to the size he wanted as a form factor, and then took it with him wherever he went, asking himself “what would I do with this if I could have it make me more effective”.   He ended up with a core list of features that still defines Personal Information Management (PIM) today. Those were Contacts/Addresses, Calendar/DateBook, ToDos, & Memos/Notes.   He added a few essential elements to be ultimately satisfactory and keep from repeating the problems that had plagued earlier attempts at a PDA: synchronizing with your desktop computer, instant on,   rock-solid stability, and absolute simplicity.   The latter got codified into the Zen of Palm.

So what’s the PrÄ“ offering that are steps ahead?   Several things. For one, it’s integrated all the message you can get, SMS, IM, eMail into one place to respond.   And all email accounts into one inbox.   Multiple applications can run at one, and it’s easy to switch between them.   It syncs into the ‘cloud’, automatically.   It’s not out yet, so it’s hard to confirm all the facts (does it have a good phone?), but we can also assume it has memos and ToDos, as it has already been reported as having as cut/copy/paste.

There are two lessons here.   The first is about how to gather your requirements.   It was inspired to spend the time walking around with the brick.   And it’s not obvious how the design process led to the new interface, but they’ve made huge steps in terms of what people need.   It drives me nuts to have to switch apps on the iPhone and have lost the context when I return. It makes me crazy to have to use so many taps to get between my different mailboxes.

This analysis is critical.   I was talking yesterday in an online session about how to do information gathering, and it’s got to be more than SMEs; you’ve got to talk to managers of the people performing, you’ve got to talk to the ‘consumers’ of the learned behavior (not the learners, but those impacted by the learner’s skills after the training), you want to look at the context; ideally you watch them. In usability, we used to talk about anthropological methods or ethnography (real or ‘fake’), and contextual and partipatory inquiry.   You’ve got to really get to know the problem to get the right answer.

The second part is getting the right usability in place, and it’s not trivial.   Koreen Olbrish goes off on instructional design being dead, and I think the problem is really that people follow a cookie cutter approach instead of being critically aware (hence my Deeper ID presentations).   I think that is true for too much (e.g. I recently had the same <expletive deleted> experience with a stupid phone number field in another online form) of practices.   You might by chance get it right, but why do people skimp on any component of a project?   Get the right skills for all components!

Yes, I live in the real world too, and know we can’t always use all the resources we should, but then test the solution first.   I say that you have to test usability before you can test for any learning effect, because if it’s not working, how do you know if it’s problems with the interface design or the instructional design?

So, at a surface level, we have to make it possible for people to interact with our elearning solutions, easily mapping their goals to the available affordances at the interface. This goes further however.   It’s also the underlying architecture.   Portals go wrong not only because they’re so many of them that users can’t figure out where to go, but also because they often are organized according to one persons thoughts, and there are likely to be more than one way to think about the organization.   Good portals provide several different ways to browse, and an ability to search as well.

When we move beyond the elearning ‘course’, to portals, and eCommunity/social networking, we need to think about how these tie together not only conceptually, but also from a usability perspective.   What we don’t want, and likely can’t afford, is having our workers avoiding our technical support because we didn’t make it comprehensible and usable. It’s an extra burden to take this into account, but I reckon it’s as much a job of learning technology design as is project management, understanding how people learn, the communicative properties of media, and more.   This isn’t a place for amateurs, because learning is just too darned important!

The Quiver & The Gun

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(No, I’m not talking about weapons, or anthropological determination, sorry :).

Organizations have to be nimble; the environment we face is more like sitting in the ocean waiting to ride the ever-changing waves than it is striding down a concrete road.   Increasingly, in these chaotic times, changes are unpredictable.   There are changing tides, swells, weather, and the resulting waves.   You’d rather ride them than be tossed by them, but what do you do?   When it comes to waves, how do surfers cope, and what are the implications?

Beginning surfers typically have a board, a solution for riding waves.   And that’s ok, because there’re a limited number of wave conditions they should go out in.   Sometimes they get a good board for general small wave conditions, but sometimes for a variety of mistaken reasons they get something like a gun.   A gun is a board specifically for big fast waves.   It’s a board if you’re surfing on the North Shore of Oahu in winter. Not for beginners.

More experienced surfers start accumulating a quiver of boards for different conditions. Short boards, long boards, and a gun, etc.   Depending on their budget, storage space, and commitment to surfing, they could have two to as many as 8.   The pros have quivers in the teens, but they get them free and on-demand.   They’ll check the conditions, and then choose the appropriate board.

The analogy is that when you’re moving from just beginning to being able to adapt to a changing environment, you   need to have a suite of tools that provide the flexibility you need.   There isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution, just as there isn’t the perfect board.   There are boards that suit a wide variety of conditions, and if you’re small, cash-strapped, or whatever you may have to make do with one tool with most of the necessary capabilities, but when you’re serious, you need industrial-strength tools.

With my TogetherLearn colleagues, we’ve been evaluating tools for a while, and we’re not happy with any one. Consequently, we’ve a quiver of tools we use for different purposes, and we’re continually scanning for one that feature either better integration, or a more elegant delivery of capabilities.

There’s more, of course.   Experienced surfers sit and watch the waves for a while, choose a board, and then when they’re out they’re scanning the horizon for swells, and moving to get optimal position.   Once they’re riding, they’re watching how the wave changes and making spontaneous decisions.   Sometimes they come in and pick a different board before going back out.

And that’s before you figure out how to choose tools that suit your organization, proactively adapt your culture, and align with your business goals.   Surfers who want to get better get out in the water more, get more experience, and experiment.   Surfers who want to get better quickly get coaching.

I reckon the business environment is going to get more turbulent, and organizations are going to have to be more flexible, more nimble, be able to adapt and move faster.   That requires faster and more effective problem-solving.   We know that innovation isn’t the product of one person, but of collaboration and ongoing work, by people who are motivated and supported.   You need the right culture and the right infrastructure   to support that collaboration.   What’s your strategy?

eLearn Mag predictions

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eLearning Magazine’s 2009 predictions are now up, including those of yours truly.   It’s a fascinating look of optimism, pessimism, and viewpoints from a lot of different perspectives.   It’s also an impressive array of thinkers (myself excluded), many are folks I follow through blogs and/or tweets.   It’s a thought-provoking list and I recommend give it a look.

By my (informal) count, one of the major predictions is the rise of social networking. I think that’s a no brainer, as I’ve been going off on this quite a bit recently.   The reasons mimic what you might think: big benefits, but also because it’s low cost.   It’s also strategic: covering more of learners’ needs.   The economic climate is definitely a factor in many of the comments.

Consequently another common theme is an increase in online learning, as a cost effective method, although there is some differences of opinion on whether the quality will rise or fall.   Certainly we have more powerful tools, but I continue to be amazed at how little of good design seems to be known.

The predictions go off in more directions from there.   Some are focused on the cloud, some on open learning and open software.   There are recommendations as well, such as governments would do well to sponsor more elearning, and that universities need to focus more on what’s important.   There is also a heartening focus beyond corporate and higher ed, focusing into the developing world.

There are only a few comments on mobile, interestingly, and a few on the semantic web.   Which isn’t surprising, really, as they’re still a bit out of the mainstream, and in tough times the fringes tend to get neglected.   (Speaking of mobile, BTW, the Palm Pre’ is truly exciting if only for seeming to get almost everything right.)

Whether or not any of the predictions come to pass, it’s a broad view of what could be, and particularly the optimistic views provide some insight into what’s coming sooner or later.   It’s some great thinking, and we all can use that as a spark from time to time. Check it out!

learning inside ™?

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I was just reading the posts on the MacWorld Keynote by Phil Shiller, and saw some interesting themes in comments: empowering users, and learning as a key selling item.   These are certainly worth expl0ring.

On the TUAW coverage, they made the comment “Y’know, it seems like iMovie and iPhoto are now designed to repair human failings.”   They were referring to how iMovie could remove any handheld jitters in your movies, and how iPhoto could do some autotagging both geographically and based upon face recognition.   That really struck me as a fantastic product advantage: it makes you better.   It doesn’t improve your skillset, but it allows you to create better outcomes: it’s performance support.

Which is a different solution, but one that is often a more apt one than providing a training course.   People sometimes want to learn how to do it themselves, and other times they are just as happy to have a smart system partner with them to reduce their cognitive load and still produce superior results.   Hence the ‘performance focus’ stage in my strategic approach. It’s part of an overall approach, and also of a performance ecosystem.   I hope it’s in your repertoire.

The other interesting announcement came from their music application: GarageBand.   In it, they now have tutorials on guitar and keyboards; introductory videos built in to teach you instrument basics.   In addition to being able to edit music tracks to create songs, you can learn how to play two versatile instruments.   (For a fee, you can go on and get popular stars to teach you about one of their favorite songs.).   As one of the commenters noted on the iPhone Blog livecast: “Garage Band Instructor beats Guitar Hero”.   And my lad has become an avid Guitar Hero player since he got it for Christmas, yet this may grab his attention.

The deeper meaning harkens back to something I’ve talked about before, the Transformation Economy.   Beyond wanting to have ‘experiences’, we can have experiences that transform us (in ways we value).   Now, I can’t say how compelling the experience with these tutorials will be (yet; I am strongly compelled to get the upgrade); despite Apple’s typically superior comprehension of user experience, there’s no reason to believe they get interactive learning experience yet (e.g they didn’t consult me :).

It’s a real opportunity, however, to have the new “intel inside ™” be “learning inside ™“.   Wouldn’t that be cool?   Too many products in my experience decouple learning, and consequently risk consumer dissatisfaction.   But a second step up from learning the product is learning new skills in the environment.

Sure, there were some other thrills for me: an iPhone app that allows you to control your Keynote preso (unfortunately, only by WiFi apparently), and having outlines in Pages (I write in outlines). I reckon I’ll be forking over for upgrades.   But the big ones were those performance support features, and the learning built into a consumer app.   I think the former is an interesting perspective on consumer value, and the latter could be a major market shift.   What do you think?

Rethinking Learning Styles

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I’ve pointed out the problems with learning styles in the past, but I want to rethink them with you, as we took quite a positive out of them in a unique way.   This was back in 99-2000, when I led a project developing an intelligently adaptive learning system (Intellectricity ™; inspired by Joe Miller‘s vision of a system that respected who you were as a learner).   The system took a unique approach, adapting on the basis of who you were as a learner instead of your demonstrated domain knowledge (though it did that, too, though not like an intelligent tutoring system).

To do this, I looked long and hard at learning styles, including Jonassen & Grabowksi’s uncritical compendium, and (the other) John Carroll’s Cognitive Factor Analysis research.   I decided then what I still do now, that essentially all of the learning style instruments are garbage.   It’s not just me saying this, but so does a commissioned study by the Learning and Skills Research Centre.   And, as I previously reported, psychologist Daniel Willingham says we shouldn’t adapt learning to styles. So, is there anything to salvage?

I want to say yes.   The obvious reason is to recognize that learners do differ, and help learning designers be mindful of that.   And there are some insights.   For example, take Howard Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences.   When I was investigating learning styles, I didn’t like having bimodal dimensions, say where you’re either an introvert or an extrovert. The problem is, those are so context-dependent that you could be an introvert in the classroom, and an extrovert in the lunchroom.   Or even topic by topic.   I liked that Gardner assesses how social (interpersonal) you are separate from how independent (intrapersonal) you are. That became one of our principles when I challenged our psychometrician and our senior cognitive scientist to argue contrary, and they agreed with me.

So we took a different approach.   Starting from a premise of how learners differ in regards to learning, we made it more a competency than a characteristic: “how good are you at learning socially” (and I’d now add Marcia Conner‘s distinction of small group versus large group) separate from “how good are you at learning on your own”.

We ended up developing 31 different characteristics to evaluate, and chose the 9 we expected to have the most leverage into the first version of the system (which we got up and running).   These were across cognitive, affective (read: personality, e.g. the big 5 psychological traits), and conative (motivation, anxiety or ‘safety’, etc).   We had the system adapt on the basis of these competencies, not in changing the media to accommodate styles, but looking at different sequencing between (what I argue are the important characteristics) of example, concept, practice, etc.

We also believed that many if not all of these learning competencies could be improved, and designed strategies to develop skills over time. The premise did require a long-term relationship with the system, but that was our goal anyway.

The point here being that if, instead of fixed characteristics, we think of a suite of malleable learning competencies as a way in which our learners can differ, we gain two things.   First, we find ways we can support learners who have weaknesses in particular learning competencies (dealing with visual data representations, for example), and second, we can develop them in those competencies as well (which goes hand in hand with Michelle Martin & Tony Karrer’s Work Literacy).

It’s also a tangible investment in organizational competency, and potentially the only real leverage an organization can have, going forward.   Think: learning skills instead of learning styles, and develop your learners accordingly!

Predictions for 2009

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Over at eLearn Magazine, Lisa Neal Gualtieri gets elearning predictions for 2009, and they’re reliably interesting. Here’re mine:

The ordinary: Mobile will emerge, not as a major upheaval, but quietly infiltrating our learning experiences. We‘ll see more use of games (er, Immersive Learning Simulations) as a powerful learning opportunity, and tools to make it easier to develop. Social networking will become the ‘go to‘ option to drive performance improvements.

The extraordinary: Semantics will arise; we‘ll start realizing the power of consistent tagging, and start being able to meta-process content to do smart things on our behalf.   And we‘ll start seeing cloud-hosting as a new vehicle for learning services.

I’ve been over-optimistic in the past, for example continuing to believe mobile will make it’s appearance (and it is, but not in the big leap I hoped).   It’s quietly appearing, but interest isn’t matching the potential I’ve described in various places.   I’m not sure if that’s due to a lack of awareness of the potential, or perceptions of the barriers: too many platforms, insufficient tools.

I continue to see interest in games, and naturally I’m excited.   There is still a sadly-persistent view that it’s about making it ‘fun’ (e.g. tarted up drill and kill), while the real issue is attaching the features that drive games (challenge, contextualization, focus on important decisions) and lead to better learning.   Still, the awareness is growing, and that’s a good thing.

And I’ve been riffing quite a lot recently about social networking (e.g. here), as my own awareness of the potential has grown (better late than never :).   The whole issues of enabling organizational learning is powerful.   And I’ve also previously opined about elearning 3.0, the semantic web, so I’ll point you there rather than reiterating.

So there you have it, my optimistic predictions. I welcome your thoughts.

Shopping and thinking and the holidays

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The season is well and truly kicking in.   The kids are out of school this week, and while I’ve got a little bit of work on an interesting client project, we’re also taking time to address the holiday perogatives, and to respond to the affordances of the new kitchen.   That latter is an interesting situation.

We’ve had a very good set of cookware, but it isn’t dishwasher safe. That was OK, as for 13 of the past 22 years, I haven’t had a dishwasher (well, except for yours truly).   Now we do, and I’m beginning to resonate with my Mom’s recent perspective: if it doesn’t go in the dishwasher, it goes!   So, having a new, and effective dishwasher, it’s time to consider whether we need new cookware.

What’s instructive is how we (and, in particular, m’lady) are going about it. Naturally, we checked out the Consumer Reports recommendations (hey, you’re not going to get better offerings if you don’t optimize your information and select accordingly).   It’s one source of digital data I pay for (as I paid for the print, before).   After looking at what’s on sale, asking questions in the store, doing research, we came up with a question over whether the heat transfer needs to go up the sides (3 ply cookware) versus just an even spread across the bottom (bottom inserts: whether aluminum or copper).   M’lady didn’t just take the received information, she went and boiled water for pasta in an existing stainless steel with aluminum insert pan we had, along with an anodized aluminum pan from our existing set.

There are stakes here, as one answer is essentially 300% more costly than the other.   And it’s not just about money, it’s about value for money.   There’s an old saying that you get what you pay for, but it’s also true that you can pay too much for a name.

The larger point I want to make is that there are easy ways to make decisions (what the sales person tells you, what’s cheapest), and more difficult paths (inform yourself about the alternatives). How deep you should dig depends on what matters to you, and how much it costs relative to your resources.   However, unless you do spend some time balancing investment for value, you’ll continue to get product that is the triumph of marketing over matter.

The lesson I’ve learned is pay attention to what you care for.   I don’t care whether it’s Coke ™, Pepsi ™, or generic diet cola.   Give me the cheapest non-calorific caffeine that combines with rum for my evening cuba libre.   On the other hand, I’m mighty particular about my kosher pickles: if it isn’t fully brined & garlic (e.g. Strubs, Bubbies), you’re wasting my time (your mileage is likely to vary :).

The broader point is the matching learning investment with cost and benefit. It’s a prioritization issue that scales from personal spending up to organizational investment. I reckon the principles scale as does the need.   It’s   about being smart about how to gather information, and consequently it’s about learning to learn.   And you should know how I feel about that!

And, as the holidays   are intruding into my mindspace, I reckon I’ll have fewer posts until I get back into a working mindset sometime in the new year.   Until then, in case I don’t have another chance (as I tell my kids when I travel): Be Good, Stay Safe, & Have Fun!   Have great holidays, and here’s hoping the new year is our best yet.

Thinking & Learning

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Today I stumbled across two interesting articles.   Both talk about some relevant research on learning, and coincidentally, both are by folks I know.

An alumni bulletin mentioned research done by Hal Pashler (who was a new professor while I was a grad student; I was a teaching assistant for him, and he let me give my first lecture in his class), and talks about the intervals necessary for successful learning.   Will Thalheimer has done a great job publicizing how we need to space learning out, and this research was interesting for the the length of time recommended.

The study provided obscure information (true but unusual), with an initial study, subsequent re-study, and then a test, with varying intervals between the study periods, and between the second study and the test (up to a year).   The article implied the results for studying (no new news: cramming doesn’t work), but the implications for organizational learning.   The interesting result is the potential length of time between studying and performance.

“If you want to remember information for just a week, it is probably best if study sessions are spaced out over a day or two.   On the other hand, if you want to remember information for a year, it is best for learning to be spaced out over about a month.”

Extrapolating from the results, he added, “it seems plausible that whenever the goal is for someone to remember information over a lifetime, it is probably best for them to be re-exposed to it over a number of years.”

“The results imply,” said Pashler, “that instruction that packs a lot of learning into a short period is likely to be extremely inefficient, at least for remembering factual information.”

This latter isn’t new information, but does fly in the face of much formal training conducted on behalf of organizations.   We’ve got to stop massing our information in single event workshops, and starting preparing, reactivating, and reactivating again for anything that isn’t performed daily.

Moving from learning to thinking and doing (it’s not about learning after all), the second one concerns research done by Jonathan Schooler (who was a new faculty member where I was doing my post-doc; we published some work we did together with one of his PhD students).   Schooler’s work has been looking at day-dreaming, and found that it’s not a unitary thing, but actually has a couple of different modes, which differ in whether you’re not aware you’re daydreaming or are, instead, mindful of it.   The latter is to be preferred.

In the one where you’re aware you are daydreaming, you can mentally simulate situations and plan what might happen and how to respond, or review what did happen and consider alternatives.   This works for social situations as well as other forms of interactions.   And the results are beneficial: “people who engage in more daydreaming score higher on experimental measures of creativity, which require people to make a set of unusual connections.”

This is what I mean when I talk about reflection, and in the coming times of increasing change and decreasing knowledge half-life, the ability to be creative will increasingly be a competitive advantage.   So, as I’ve said before, do try to make time for reflection.   It works!