I keep hearing queries and statements about learning styles, so here’s a slightly edited (but still not particularly diplomatic :) response to a recent query about learning styles (as I also posted to ITFORUM, a great discussion list if you like academic discussions on learning technology like I do):

Rubbish. Yes, mix types of media and experiences to match learning tasks and maintain motivation, but not for ‘styles’.

I have very strong thoughts on personality type and learning: I spent 2+ years leading a team developing a system that adapted learning on the basis of individual differences.

I’m not a psychometrician, but I have a PhD in psych, and I studied the learning styles literature (including Jonassen & Grabowski’s non-critical compendium “Handbook of Individual Differences in Learning & Instruction” or somesuch) for several months to create the plan for that systems, and I then got to hire a psychometrician and a senior cognitive scientist (Valerie Shute, who’s work with Patrick Kyllonen at Brooks AFB is probably still the best cognitive psychometrics stuff going, she did her PhD at UCSB with Dick Mayer) to back me up.

Essentially the existing learning styles stuff is not sound, and that’s not just my reasonably-well informed opinion, but the result of a research study (warning, PDF) done in the UK.

And apparently another one as well, check out Wikipedia’s entry, which is pretty good, too.

Great way to raise awareness of differences, don’t get me wrong, but most instruments (that is, assessments) are flawed, and misused. There’s good stuff you can do, but few limit themselves to that. Go to an ASTD conference expo, and you’ll see a veritable plethora of ‘learning styles’ assessments available to ‘improve’ your organization.

My take-home is as with multi-cultural learning: do the best job for the content, and if that’s counter to a person’s learning style, help them learn to process or cope with different modalities.   Your thoughts?

Tony Karrer started a topic on improving conferences at his blog, and Mark Oehlert follows up citing an experience someone had with WiFi at a conference. In the quote, the experience described is attendees locked into their laptops and virtual communities, not joining in the live conference community. The concern is whether having WiFi at a conference is a bane or a boon. My perspective is rooted in an anecdote.

A number of years ago, I talked to some folks at a med school that had totally wired labs: there were power points (er, you know, plugs) and internet connections at every seat, cameras, monitors, etc. The faculty were concerned that the students could be sending email, or day-trading, or all sorts of heinous activities instead of listening. I made the seemingly-obvious comment that if the lectures weren’t perceived as valuable by the audience, they wouldn’t attend (whether mentally or physically).

This did not go over well. They didn’t seem to get that if you took away the internet, they could still play solitaire, and if you took away the computers they could still doodle. To paraphrase Dorothy Parker on horticulture, you can lead learners to learning, but you can’t make them think.

You’ve got to be presenting value! If you are, there’re great reasons to have WiFi: first of all they can ignore the WiFi, or they can look up things you cite that they’re not familiar with, they can share notes, they can blog the comments, etc. I recall Jay Cross blogging someone else blogging a conference (or vice-versa). For that matter, if a small slice of their attention helps them solve a work problem quietly, they may gain more than if they had to leave the room to take/make a call. If you aren’t presenting valuable content, then there’s another good reason for WiFi: to give them something to do besides listen.

So I guess I’m fully on the side of WiFi at venues . If someone can’t wean themselves from their virtual world at a conference, they’re wasting their own money and time, if you’re not wasting it for them.

I just read that Claude Ostyn has passed away. I met Claude through the Learning Object standards work that IMS and IEEE were doing when I led a team building an intelligently adaptive learning system. While I had a couple of my team serve regularly, I did attend a couple of meetings or so, and met Claude at one, and continued to see him here and there at conferences.

Claude was opinionated and detailed and I found him a little bit difficult to work with as I’m also opinionated but more conceptual (it was definitely my problem, not his). He was also brilliant, thoughtful, and committed, and I respected him. He helped refine our understanding of what we were trying (and needed) to do, and his work contributed to better elearning solutions for all of us. His voice will be missed, but his legacy will live on. Rest In Peace.

I must be missing something. I‘m staying in a hotel, one of the major business chains (the one with the S, not the M or the H this time) , and I‘m wanting to connect to the internet. They have a policy (and it‘s not unique to them) that wireless access (well, intermittent) in the lobby and restaurant is free, but you‘ll pay to get access in your room. And that‘s just seems incredibly dumb.

Anyone can just come in, hop on their network, and start surfing, but customers, in their paid-for rooms, must pay again to get access? Isn‘t this backward?

OK, sure, I can see a case where you might want to argue that having business people congregate meet might be seen as a benefit, but they‘re not talking, their glued to their laptops! They‘re occupying seats in the lobby (already crowded each night with either two busloads of teenagers or a busload of overseas tourists, respectively). You‘d do better with happy hour (and some places do that).

So, OK, I‘ll stomp down there in the morning before my shower, in slept-in Tshirt and jeans with bedhead hair, to get my connection and download my new email, littering their lobby, because I decide not to pay the extortionate fee. And I‘ll make it a point to seek out those chains that do ‘get it‘ and offer free internet in the rooms. (And even better if they have happy hour.)

But I‘m still curious about the business decision that makes it free to hang around the lobby occupying seats and glued to a laptop, providing an opportunity for net criminals to be either spamming or snarfing data, but looks to further gouge already paying customers.

Jay Cross asks whether we should consider school separate from work (at least, rhetorically). I say no!

I remember a case where a professional school (Vet? Dental? Darn, I hate aging) developed a tool to support their learners. They were (pleasantly) surprised when their learners asked (demanded) access to the tool for their professional life post-school. That seems to me a good example of when you’ve successfully bridged the chasm between schooling and life.

Would that we could do that with college kids, or even children! Ask David Jonassen: we don’t provide kids with problems in schools like they’ll face in the real world. We should, and then provide them with the tools they’ll find useful. Open book test, open Google test, absolutely!

So, what tools should we be thinking learners should use? I’ll suggest diagramming & dynamic modelling as two.

A colleague’s question about the need for ecommunity caused me to react thusly:

The success factor going forward will be new ideas: to innovate, design, problem-solve, and learn from mistakes in ways that are more effective and actionable. It will also require efficiency in execution, but the advantages will be to the knowledge creators. It’s about experimenting more effectively: creating new understandings, testing them, refining them, and documenting the outcomes for others to avoid replication.

First and foremost it’s about smart sharing, both in who and how. Tools for sharing are critical.

Secondarily, it’s about developing learners who can play like this. You need to make the tools natural extensions. It takes a culture.

It’s about creating an environment for knowledge worker success, and that’s scaffolding both the resources we develop and provide, and access to the resources of others. It’s about the development of novices, support of practitioners, and collaboration of experts negotiating new understandings.

United we learn or divided we fail.

Thoughts? My own reaction is to be smart in sharing: who, how, and what.