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Clark Quinn’s Learnings about Learning

New White Paper: Mobile Devices

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I’d started writing up mobile learning for either a book or a chapter. However, the part on mobile design got written into the eLearning Guild’s 360 Research Report on Mobile Learning (which I highly recommend, with great chapters by David Metcalf, Judy Brown, and more). With that out there, I was at a loss as to what to do with the rest.

Well, I first finished writing the part on the technologies, the devices and the networks, and figured I’d make it available while I decide whether I want to write more about tools than I already have. You can find this 10 page 3.1 MB PDF here. I welcome feedback on whether you like it, find it useful, what’s missing, etc.

Evaluating Serious Games (er, ILS)

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I’ve been working with a group creating the rubrics for evaluating submissions in a 2nd Life serious game competition. It’s an interesting issue, as there’re broad variances in what folks are thinking. As a reaction to a draft consensus of opinion, I rewrote the criteria to be evaluated as:

Learning
Comprehensiveness of alternatives to right answer
Match of game decisions to learning objectives
Appropriateness of feedback

Usability
Appropriate interface match to action
Interface navigation

Game
Naturalness of feedback mechanism
Continuity of experience
Seamlessness in embedding decisions into game world
Appropriateness of world to audience
Relevant to irrelevant action ratio
Appropriate challenge balancing
Level of replay (linear, branching, engine-driven)

I know this can be done better.     Your thoughts?

It’s an effort to combine my aligned elements from both education and engagement (the theoretical basis for my book on learning game design): clear goals, balanced challenge, thematic context, meaningfulness of action to story, meaningfulness of story to player, active choice, direct manipulation, integrated feedback, and novelty (see below), with the more standard elements necessary to make a successful online experience.

Alignment of Engagement and Game Elements

I find it useful to revisit principles from another angle, as it gives me a fresh chance to put a reality-check on my thinking. I think my older model holds up (and has continued to over the years), and the extras are not unique to learning games. Some elements cross boundaries, such as feedback having to components: one being the relation to the learning, and the other to the action.

The principles state that, done properly, the best practice (next to mentored real performance) ought to be games. Or, as I like to say: “Learning can, and should, be hard fun!”

Social Nutworking

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It’s not the well-meaning people who are nuts, it’s the proliferation of ways in which to network; it’s completely nuts! In recent weeks I’ve received invitations to join Pulse, FriendFeed, Naymz, Twitter, and now Diigo (and I’m probably forgetting a few). This is in addition to FaceBook, LinkedIn, and a few Ning sites, where I’m already on. And these are people I do want to link to, it’s just that I’m getting leery of joining too many sites. Which may not be a concern, but I just don’t know. So far, I’ve been shining them on or asking what’s up. I suspect that a number of them have just been read off of email lists…

I’m trialing differing philosophies: on LinkedIn, I try very much to only link to people I know (or, in a few cases, that I should). And I haven’t really tried taking advantage of LinkedIn, like asking questions. On FaceBook I’ve been more open and experimental, but with no real payoff. And I’ve joined a few relevant Ning sites.

The social web is supposed to be the killer app, and maybe I’m too much the introvert. I want to network, but I really want to invest where the payoff is (and minimize exposure to too much junk), and it seems like only a few people are on each, whereas most of the people I know seem to be on LinkedIn. I talk about eCommunity, because I believe in it, and use it in a variety of ways, but I’m still coming to grips with it in the bigger picture.

So this is a question about your advice and recommendations. Join all, and see what happens (thankfully, I use secure software to store all these #$*%! passwords)? Ignore the oddball sites until they get momentum? Run and hide? ?

Big Question: Learning Design for Digital Natives? Bugwash!

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This month’s Learning Circuit’s Blog Big Question of the Month is: Do we design learning different for digital natives? My short answer is no, but let me elaborate, as I’ve gone off on this in various places but not here (as far as I can see), and I think there’s something importantly wrong going on here

Let’s start with the hypothesis: that these digital ‘natives’ are fundamentally different than us – they’re immersed in a digital world, are better multi-taskers, and need more immersive and engaging learning environments.

My take is a twist on this. The old ways of learning are wrong for everyone; the instructivist model of tell & test doesn’t work for the new generation any more than it did for the old one! It was designed for industrial efficiency in delivery, and wasn’t worried about effectiveness as it was really a filter to higher-learning for those who *could* learn in this way.

So we do need to do new learning design, immersive and engaging, but for everyone, as it brings in the elements we’ve lost. We used to have apprenticeships, and we’ve gone away from this. We need to get back to contextualized task performance with learning layered on, for everyone! No wasted time, no dull and plodding content push, but instead meaningful action and appropriate information nuggets.

Look, the differences in this new generation are more attitudinal than mental skill set. Ask any mother about multi-tasking! It’s not about catering to them, it’s about the best learning for everyone.

eLearning Strategy

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I’ll be presenting on eLearning Strategy for the ASTD LA Chapter’s Special Division on eLearning on the 21st of May (virtually). I’ve also just presented to the Best Practices Institute (but you have to be a member to see the archived version). It’s similar to how I’ve presented it before, but I keep adding new thoughts.

The notion is still the same performance ecosystem, but I made a point of searching out more on eCommunity at the eLearning Guild’s last conference to augment my knowledge. Can’t promise it’s improved the presentation yet (that’s the problem, they always want the deck weeks before the actual presentation, and my thinking isn’t static).

I’ve talked before about how Marc Rosenberg and I carve up the space differently, but agree on the main principles. The one thing I add is mobile, but I’m sure he’d rightly see that as a different channel for the underlying support. There is no one ‘right’ way to carve it up, but I still find my framework useful.

I’m seeing more interest in this from a corporate perspective. As I think I’ve mentioned, I’ve used this framework increasingly to help understand the context in which an elearning initiative sits. And using it to look at broader strategies for elearning for organizations. Harold Jarche also points to an initiative we did with an organization and the framework was very much in my mind as I tossed out answers. Maybe there’s one for you. Maybe we’ll see you at the ASTD LA chapter meeting?

Fantastic Gaming (long)

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In the Serious Games discussion list, Richard Wainess posted a thoughtful and eloquent reply to my request for research on the value (or not) of fantastic settings, in which he argued about the necessary learning design depth required in game design. I‘m primed for the discussion since I‘ve just been in the process of designing a learning game with a team. I thoroughly agree with him, and I’d highly recommend you find and read his response except for the fact that it appears there’s no archive. However, I had assumed the issues he‘s suggested, and penned this (slightly modified) response:

I think you’re missing the value of fantastic settings in effectively adding on top of what you say. We could set a task (e.g. negotiation) in several real-life environments, including with a car dealer, with the boss for a raise, with the kids about bed time (bad idea), etc. Or we could set it in space, for example, negotiating with suppliers for equipment, with civilizations for territory, with buyers for products, etc. Once we ensure we’ve put the necessary skills into the game, across differing contexts, and added the post-game reflection, is there a potential benefit for having a more compelling storyline? That trades off positively against the less direct transfer?

Yes, it takes different contexts to abstract and generalize, but let’s not neglect the value of motivation. So I agree it absolutely *has* to encompass the essential skills across contexts (broad enough to generalize to all relevant situations, and to no irrelevant ones). But there’s more than just that. My hypothesis is that embedding them into an exaggerated storyline may enhance the outcomes more than a real-world setting (and the more so the more general the skill).

If it’s not a storyline that the learner cares about, they’re not going to engage like they will when it really matters to them (e.g. the car *they* want to purchase). So we need that motivation, that emotional engagement as well. And that’s when we’re going to want to align the cognitive and game engagement. When people really have to perform, they have external motivation. Don’t we want to embed that in the experience as well?

I suggest that once we get the educational process down and vary the settings in context, that increasing the motivation through a compelling storyline that both is a meaningful application of the skill and is a storyline that the learners care about, will increase the outcome measure more than an more realistic, and dull, exercise. It’s testable, and I want the answer rather than just relying on my intuition (which will suffice for now; I too am trying to meet real needs, not just satisfy academic interests, but I’d feel far better knowing the answer one way or another).

My feeling is, rightly or wrongly, that not enough people get the depths he talks about, and on the other side, the argument I make above. I‘d like the answer, but in lieu of that, I‘m going to stick with my belief. (And later, Richard responded about how my response made him smile, as he’s starting just this research.)

A further claim from another respondent said that we just need to make the next Oregon Trail, which spurred this rejoinder:

If you don’t have the academic underpinning that Richard argues so eloquently for, all the cool window-dressing won’t lead to a thing. If you’ve infinite resources, you can iterate ’til you get the outcomes you suggest, but I’d prefer to draw upon principled bases and shorten the development process by systematically combining deep learning design with creative engagement design.

It almost appears that the few good edutainment titles were more a case of “even a blind pig finds a truffle once in a while” (a botched metaphor, to be sure, but personally relevant as how my friend described me finding my wife) than the result of a real understanding; there are too many bad titles out there. I don’t want to trust to chance that NASA’s MMO will be effective, nor burn through too much $$ to ensure it. I’d like to use what we know to help do it reliably, and repeatably. We owe it to ourselves and to society to demonstrate that serious games are a viable learning vehicle, not a hit or miss (or money sink) proposition.

Ok, so I‘m opinionated. What did you expect? I didn‘t spend, off and on, 25+ years doing learning game design to just throw up my hands. So, am I off my rocker?

Like riding a bike…

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(Sorry for the delay, I don’t like to wait this long between blogs, but as soon as I was back from the Guild conference, and catching up with the backlog, I was off to a gig.)

We’d gotten our kids bikes, but we don’t have an ideal situation for it. Our backyard is wood deck, pebbled concrete, steep driveway (cars have had trouble getting up), and (semi-) landscaped hill. Our neighborhood is similarly largely vertical, and even the cul-de-sac is small and still somewhat with a grade. My son got on top of riding while at his cousin’s, but my daughter never did.

However, there are lots of bike paths in the flats down the hill, and my wife really wanted us to do some bike rides together. In the past couple of weeks we bought some new bikes for the kids that suited their current sizes, didn’t put training wheels on for the daughter, and tried to get them both used to the new bikes.

In the cul-de-sac, my daughter did a couple of shots of riding with us running along behind holding her up, and managed some, but never got very comfortable nor skilled. So, this past Saturday, we went down to their school playground and had them ride around.

My wife started with my daughter, and next thing I know, my daughter’s riding around on her own! Her story is that Mom let go without telling her so she thought she was ok. My wife’s story is that daughter yelled out “let go” so she did. Regardless, suddenly she was peddling on her own, turning, everything. And with a huge grin on her face; she was so thrilled! As were we.

So Sunday the family took that bike path. And I was the one with a grin on my face.

The lesson was that with the right tools, motivation, support, and environment, learning is magic. Are you making your learning experiences like that?

Guild Keynote: Stefan Sagmeister

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Stefan Sagmeister’s a renowned designer, and gave us a talk about what he’s learned and how it’s influenced his design. Or rather, more how what he’s learned has driven a number of design projects. He started with the type of stuff his studio does: music business design (a music building flexible logo approach), socially responsible design (helping TrueMajority.org demonstrate Pentagon spending in context, with creative approaches including the pig car train and the topsy-turvy bus), and corporate design (an embossed organic hierarchy, e.g. flowers, as a vehicle for different lighting treatments to illustrate a lighting company corporate report).

The second part of his talk started with talking about how creative organizations use reflection to maintain innovation. This was an interesting contrast to a discussion in the first day of the Learning Management Colloquium where Lance was arguing with a audience member about whether reflection was necessary (!?!). Obviously, I’m all for it; in times of increasing change, execution of established patterns won’t help, and you’ll need to innovate, and reflection is a component of that.

From his reflections, he had a list of statements or mantras that he then had used as the basis for a number of commissioned works with a wide variety of representations, from words created out of a variety of materials to huge manifestations of the prose. There was quite a variety, some of them seeming to overlap a bit in the content of the phrases, and sometimes in the approach taken. Some were very clever plays, however, on the concepts. A billboard that faded illustrated letting go of issues, and a visual web that you got ‘tangled in’ as you passed by reflected the problems of lying.

Not specifically about learning, the issues of creativity and reflection were valuable and inspirational. My last mind map, at least for this conference:

Sagmeister Guild Keynote MindMap

Learning Management Colloquium: Bob Dean

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In addition to the Q&A with Patrick (and Steve Wexler on the Guild research), the other thing I wasn’t involved in was Lance’s thought-provoking interview with Bob Dean (who I’ve blogged about before). He came in as a representative of the CLO role, and threw out more TLA‘s than you can shake a stick at.

In talking about what he was looking for in his role, he said “universities are one of the least innovative solutions” in reference to many corporate approaches. What he wanted was a Talent Development System (TDS), which is much more than an LMS. I didn’t get a chance (but I’ve pinged him) whether the performance ecosystem was close to what he had in mind. It would include competency modeling, online performance review, yellow pages, profiles, and career development history. Talent’s the new way to view the learning role, it appeared, and he suggested their needs to be a Chief Talent Officer (CTO, which is why I’d suggest it might be Chief Performance Officer, CPO, not to step on the toes of IT).

I did get to ask him, in light of the increasing change, whether competency models would be out of date too fast, and whether he was thinking it would be closer to 21st century skills (learning to learn, etc, the type of curriculum I think we need). He basically agreed, indicating there might be core skills and new skills. Interestingly, talking about their (recruiting firm) 19 C-suite competencies, he thought that they weren’t needing to change, but the 5 or so priorities that they ask their clients for are!

As before, he was still enthused with learning experiences, and as before I fully agree. He talked about Continuous Development Experiences (or CDEs), and it’s not a bad notion: viewing learning as an ongoing process instead of a punctate series of events. Now that’s a role for mobile learning to augment.

He was not focused on ROI, but on Return on Visibility (ROV), where how the efforts were perceived were what carried weight. He reckoned that by the time the numbers were available they were on to other things, and getting programs done was what was important. In contrast, I remember Ellen Wagner once saying that “if you aren’t measuring it, why bother”. Still, it appeared to be the context that they aren’t looking to him for measurable results.

I note that, given Marc’s talk yesterday and Bob’s today, it’s clear the new strategic concept is ‘alignment’. The notion is that learning (or talent) initiatives need to be geared towards organizational goals. I think it’s obvious, but clearly to be buzzword-compliant I’ll have to get better at tossing the word around ;).

Overall, Lance did a good job handling the interviews , the colloquium seemed valuable to the audience, and fun for me. Well done!