The old canard about data->information->knowledge->intelligence->wisdom resonates with me. Don Norman wrote a book called ‘Things That Make Us Smart’, and it was great at taking a richly informed look at how we can enhance how we think with tools. But I think we’re being way too smart and not being wise, the missing element being values.

It was Lance Secretan, talking about inspiring, not just motivating, that got me on this path. I’ve had trouble articulating what it is I do, but the closest I had come was ‘making people smarter’. I like what I do, but it’s not a vision, a mission, so I took it the next step, ‘making people wiser’. This is actually the culmination of a number of converging interests.

My interest in helping people learn led me beyond cognitive to the emotional side of learning, which impacts my interest in games, including myth and ritual as effective tools to align behavior with a set of values. I’ve also started exploring attitudinal change, and how that can be accomplished. Which is why I liked a quote Jay took from Malcolm Gladwell about how values give us criteria to make decisions. When I heard Dennis Meadows talk about systems-thinking, it’s clear our vision is not far enough ahead.

All these elements, but it’s hard to nail down how they pull together, what exactly wisdom is, except for manifesting itself as decisions that are, well, wise. It seems like pornography, “you know it when you see it”. Which of course isn’t good enough for me. So I looked further…

Robert Sternberg has a model of wisdom that talks about evaluating the consequences for the individual, for the community, and the broader society (for which I read: world). It also includes both short- and long-term effects, and in the context of a set of values. Which isn’t bad, if a wee bit obvious. He actually has an article recommending teaching wisdom in schools, and it’s not the worst proposal I’ve heard.

At core, I think a greater focus on value-driven decisions, wise decisions, is a missing element for business success, but since my personal mission is to use technology, I’m convincing myself that we might actually be able to help people make wiser decisions through technology. For instance, LifeBalance is one piece of software that helps you maintain your long-term priorities day-to-day, and I’ve a model for technology mentoring over time that could be developed.

The larger picture is relevant, however. In a talk I gave in Abu Dhabi, I talked about the need for new curricula (e.g. systems-thinking, design problem-solving, meta-learning, communication, values), new pedagogies (e.g. service learning, simulations), and new technology applications. I think that the need for wisdom grows, and currently our grasp exceeds our reach. The problems are organizational and social, not theory or technical. Any ideas how to step up to the challenge?

I was extremely fortunate to live in Australia from 1991-1998 (I’m now an official Aussie, as well as a Yank, as they call folks from the US). I came as a freshly minted post-doc, full of myself as a learning technology expert and knowing little more about Oz than that it had good surf (one of the attractions).

What I learned was that for a nation of such a small population, they were world-class not only in sports but in many technical areas, medicine and solar cells to name a couple, and distance learning, including technology-mediated distance learning.

It’s not really surprising, considering the vast distances of sparse population outside the city (just look at the School of the Air), but as a consequence necessity mothered many inventions beyond radio: they were early into the communication potential of audiographics, and early adopters of games for learning (e.g. Investigating Lake Iluka), the internet and mobile phones.
They’re a welcoming lot, and I was fortunate enough to spend time with many great minds including Shirley Alexander, Sandra Wills, and Ron Oliver. Along the way I learned much of great value.

I’m going back from the 13th to the 25th of February, and while it’s mostly a family vacation, I’ve already arranged a 3 hour workshop (on the 21st) at the University of Wollongong on learning game design (based upon the book). I’ll also be talking (on the 16th) at the University of Sydney’s CoCo Lab (Computing and Cognition) on new models for learning and technology.

I’d certainly welcome the opportunity to talk to others; feel free to give me a shout!

Judy Breck (of GoldenSwamp, a great blog) contacted me after Stephen Downes kindly (and graciously) mentioned the launch of Learnlets. In it, she related my concept of learnlets (small interactive applications that teach you anything you want to know; see the ‘about’ page) to learning objects. This prompted a bit of thinking which played out like this:

I like the notion of little interactive applications to learn, and it is related to learning objects. However, in the past I’ve pragmatically defined learning objects as the smallest thing you’d give one learner versus another. In a face-to-face tutorial, it might just be a chart or a quote, and I’d like to reserve the right to dream of an intelligent tutor that might do the same. So a learning objects doesn’t have to, as some would have it, provide a complete learning experience, but is an object that could be used as part of a learning experience. At which point my definition devolves to an information object…

So, perhaps, I might reserve the term learning object for something that’s a discrete part of the learning experience, say an introduction, or an example or a practice element, but I’m just not interested in whole courses as a learning object, not resuable/flexible enough.

Yesterday I attended the board meeting of the Center for Civic Education. I’m pleased to support this activity for a number of reasons, not least because they’re focused on developing an understanding of the principles of government and an associated set of values around the importance of civic engagement, goals I think are important. I’m pleased to see that they’re succeeding both nationally but also internationally.

However, what is great is how they do it. Two major initiatives are Project Citizen, and The Citizen & The Constitution. Both have rich approaches and stellar outcomes.

In The Citizen & The Constitution, the students create a team and learn about the Constitution and Bill of Rights, as preparation for simulated congressional hearings. Our first board meeting of the year is held in Sacramento, where the California State regional competitions are held (preliminaries at the hotel, finals at the Capitol building; the national finals are held in DC and have been held in actual congressional hearing rooms). And these kids are awesome: knowledgeable, poised, and articulate. Research shows they have much improved attitudes and civic participation (92% of graduates voted in the last election). Yes, it’s US centric, but the model is easily adoptable (some 30-40% of the Center’s activities are now international, and it’s not knee-jerk American flag-waving, but meaningful discussion on the principles of government and ways to accommodate it within current contexts).

In Project Citizen, a class investigates problems in their neighborhood, figures out where a legislative solution will help, and then works to get that legislative solution enacted. It’s a real service learning approach and nicely integrates awareness of how government operates with an understanding of how citizen activity is a crucial component. And they’ve created significant changes! Again, research supports great outcomes.

While I think this is a great organization and encourage your investigation, the point here is the great pedagogy, aligned with my thoughts on making learning meaningful (read: engaging). Using an authentic activity, in particular the latter case where it also contributes to society, as a way to connect learning to the broader context, integrates the elements that really cement learning. Sometimes we’ll have to simulate it (and exaggerate the story to hook in the emotions we lose with the lack of authenticity, making it a game), but it’s the right way to practice.

We’ve been hearing heaps about podcasting, and new applications keep appearing. A natural mix is iPods and universities, such as Duke’s abortive experiment (they gave every first year student one, but the next year they abandoned it except for those courses that were actually using it, not allowing the necessary percolation). Now Apple itself is getting into the act with iTunes U.

My colleague, Professor John Ittelson of Cal State Monterey, was hyping Stanford’s pilot during the final weekend get together of the course we co-taught last semester, and the notion of having every lecture captured and available for automatic download into your iPod is extremely compelling. With the regular iPod you can capture ‘audiographics’ (e.g. narrated powerpoints, using the ability to insert albumcovers), and of course with the video iPod you could actually capture the full lecture.

The one thing I’m still waiting to see are actual quizzes or, better yet, interactive scenarios (you just have to read the book to see why I’m so excited about them :) presenting situations with images and dialog/narration, and then the learner having to use the jog dial to navigate menus to make decisions (pre-touch screen). They can already present games, so we just need learning games. And if the rumors are true about wireless iPods coming soon. An interactive iPod, programmable in Flash…

Yes, I, too, am on the Web 2.0 bandwagon. Have been for quite a while actually: SOAP, OWL, and heaps of other things are giving us some powerful learning opportunities. And there’s still stuff for me to learn (e.g. the ‘long tail’). It’s the next wave of empowerment through the web, and think what’s happened already! I could go on, but there’s a better way…

Tim O’Reilly, *the* O’Reilly (definitive software books, Safari U, etc), has a somewhat long but very thorough and compelling article outlining what Web 2.0 is.

My wise brother, who teaches information technology at community college for the security and free time to pursue his entrepeneurial activity, as well as to contribute to the next generation (and he’s good at it), has a sabbatical to stay abreast of what’s happening. He’s looking at conferences, and I pointed him to the (apparently expensive) Semantic Web conference and and to this article as the rationale, which reminded me to recommend it to you.

I was talking about learning games a year or so ago, and mentioned a concept that’s slowly been percolating since. The idea was based upon the notion that we don’t design content, we design experiences, and therefore it could be useful to think of a learner’s emotional trajectory through the experience.

In words I described it as “wry recognition (of the necessity), followed by some slightly apprehensive anticipation, which would segue to growing confidence and finally a feeling of growth and then closure.

I’ve take my first stab at capturing it:

The notion is that, as you progress, your confidence should increase and your anxiety decrease, while motivation develops for the learning from the beginning, and then is maintained until the end. Your feedback solicited.

I had lunch the other day with Jay Cross and we talked, among other things, about our mutual interest in his current campaign for informal learning (he’s got a forthcoming book on the subject). On my subsequent drive from Berkeley to Cal State Monterey Bay (I’ve been teaching a course there), I had a chance to think about the implications.

I wondered what would be covered at the Informal University; not a place where you learn informally (an oxymoron), but where you learn to learn informally. It fits nicely with my thoughts about what the new, wise, curriculum needs to be to cope with the increasing rate of change (where the half-life of information is much less than the length of a career). Just what do we need to know to be good informal (read: self-) learner?

Of course, we need to take a richer view of learning, so in addition to covering learning and meta-learning (learning to learn), we’d cover problem-solving and design, research, sources of data. We’d look at models, and systems-thinking. We’d also discuss tools, when, and how to effectively use them. And we’d talk about values, and wisdom.

I think, moving forward, that the type of curricula I want my kids seeing in school, and at university, will be to provide ways of thinking and attitudes, with less emphasis on core knowledge that will increasingly rapidly be out of date.

I was on a call yesterday with a team that had developed a stunning engine-driven scenario. It had rich complexity, good visual and interaction design, appropriate challenge, etc. This was something I’d be proud to show.

However, they’d had a focus group testing which had soundly rejected it. I was helping them try to understand was how could this happen.

What became clear was that a couple of simple, and avoidable, mistakes doomed the result. Mistakes that had little to do with the monumental task of creating the underlying model, and all to do with user perceptions.

First, the system threw you out the first mistake you made. And with no feedback about why! There were people who played it systematically to figure it out (your typical gamers), but the average audience was frustrated. This is easy to fix, by the way.

The second mistake was that they hadn’t set expectations for the focus group. The younger folks were unhappy it didn’t have the polish of a commercial game, and the older folks complained that the simulation didn’t have the depth of the real experience. Both of these could be addresssed by setting expectations up front (and the beginning information was typically dull and dry, not matching the dynamic music and going on way too long).

I suggested that with minimal work that focus group result could be turned around. A review before bringing it to the focus group would’ve caught this.

The end result was that the business decision was made to pull the plug on the project, and would regroup to think about whether to try again. It’s a shame, since they’d spent a reasonable amount of money (actually quite little for what they’d gotten), had a great core, and only needed to do a little window dressing. It’s also a lesson on just how important it is to sweat all the details.