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How to be a world-class educational technologist

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On LinkedIn, I was asked: “I would like to ask sir, how can I be a world-class educational technologist?” And I thought that was a very interesting question. (Of course, my immediate response should be “how should I know?” ;) But I thought I’d do a bit better. So here’s a recast of my response.

First, I get requests about how to get started as an instructional designer (particularly offers to come work for me). And, well, I’m an independent consultant, and just haven’t been a business builder. But I want to respond helpfully, and it’s one of those things that happen enough that I have this canned response:

If you want a bootstrap, working volunteer for a not-for-profit (NFP) foundation is a good step if you can.  Areas of specialization? Depends on what you like: kids – K12 or NFP, higher ed, adult – organizational L&D. They differ. As to skills, make sure you know the major authoring tools, e.g. Lectora, Captivate, and/or Storyline. And of course have some background in instructional design/learning science.  If you haven’t covered performance consulting, look into it so you don’t design a course when there’s a better/simpler solution. Make sure you have a portfolio of work. Good luck!

In this case, I also pointed him to a previous post, where I’d outlined some roles for learning experience design.

Then, thinking at the bigger scale of not just getting going as a new ID, but persisting, I added this:

Overall, you have to have the passion, it’s a long road. Have a good understanding of learning science, a fundamental grasp of technology, a mind for both design and process, and then put it to work doing real projects! Continue to read, reflect, and then as you start getting your mind around it, start sharing your thinking and get feedback (and listen to it!). Start local, work outward to sharing regionally, nationally, and internationally. If you learn, adapt and improve, and persist, you can get there.

I think that’s the path to improvement, regardless. In short. There’s more: I have just finished reading Eric Barker’s Barking Up the Wrong Tree (affiliate link); thanks to an ATD Sacramento event attendee, and found it having very interesting recommendations. Things like setting goals, giving, getting mentored, and more.

I think aiming to be a world-class educational technologist is a noble goal. Even if you don’t succeed, you’re liable to be better than if you just go through the motions. Now, I’m sure you’ve found things I’ve missed, so have at it!

An ATD TK2020 retrospective #ATDTK

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This past week, I spent two days at ATD’s Techknowledge conference. I gave a talk on ‘transforming learning’, and another (largely) on myths. And I participated in a couple other things, including helping out a colleague for her session. But I want to reflect on the rest of the event. So here’s an ATD TK2020 retrospective.

First, I should note, I did not mindmap the keynotes (in case you missed them). I used to do it all the time. However, the app that I used to do it has a new edition out, and it’s pricey. And, I don’t have enough other use for it. I can sketch out ideas in my note-taking app. So…guess that’s gone by the wayside. We’ll see if I find out an alternative.

I did try to take notes. And, because I’d read recently that drawing was a better note-taking technique (don’t recall the exact link, but this suggests the benefit), I tried to draw. Old habits…I mostly wrote. And they weren’t worth publishing.

The conference itself was interesting because they were experimenting. For instance, there was no expo. Vendors had suites, and several tried to get me to meet with them. But didn’t have a viable business case for me to care (I’m not a candidate for your LMS, for instance ;). And they were set up to have several simultaneous speakers at the same time. Even on the same stage!

What I’m talking about here is that there was this little audio device you hung around your neck. It had 6 channels, and a plug for earphones (also provided). So, right after the opening keynote, there was the first of what they called ‘supersessions’. Here, three people were up on different parts of the same stage, and gave three different talks. You set the channel to the one you wanted to hear (or the two you wanted to switch between ;). And, it worked. Largely. One of the presenters for one of the sessions kept running around and interacting (interrupting) the others.

And there were six stages in one room, and you could jump between them, or sit and listen to one. Without, note, being distracted by the others. On the other hand, it was hard to have audience interaction. They couldn’t hear one another, and for instance the one I did I really could’ve benefited from a flip chart (which I asked for but didn’t get).  Still, it largely worked.

There were some more traditional talks in another room (I did one of those, too). And they were, well, familiar. Not that that’s a bad thing.

One other thing that was interesting was a ‘hackathon’. Here, a worthwhile not-for-profit posed a challenge and volunteers were divided up into teams to address it. Unfortunately, it seemed to be more focused on visual design. I tend to think that infusing learning science is more likely to be a problem in their elearning.  (So, of course, I made that my own challenge.) Still, it helped the org, and provided an opportunity to interact.

I ran into my friends and colleagues more, and the discussions were perhaps a little easier to engage in. I liked the more intimate feel. Though I confess to having missed the expo (perhaps because I couldn’t find as much to criticize!). And the food was quite good (the Wed lunch in particular).

I did note that there were still some zombies running around. There was a dialog between two folks who were supposedly talking about the future of work, but played a lot of the ‘millennial’ card. Bad speaker, no Twinkie!

Overall, I laud their willingness to experiment. I know the Guild does a fair bit of it as well, but this was more unusual from a large (and often inflexible) organization. As a fan of ‘learning out loud’, I hope it’s useful to provide an ATD TK2020 retrospective, and if you were there, I welcome your thoughts!

Death to Zombies!

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Last week, I ranted about a myth that seems inextinguishable. And I ran across another one in a place I shouldn’t have. And I keep seeing others, spotting them roaming around loose. Like zombies, they seem to rise from the dead. We need death to zombies. Particularly learning myth zombies!

There are several that seem overly prolific. I’ve already ranted about learning styles, but it’s pernicious. And others keep cropping up. In addition to the ‘images 60K faster than text’, I saw the Millennials and Generations twice this week!  And…the list goes on.

And this is despite a continued effort to debunk these deathwalkers!  There’re mythbusters who continually call out the false claims. There’s the Debunker Club. Amongst the publications by Jane Bozarth for the research library of the eLearning Guild, there are several myths-related compendiums.

Myths book coverAnd, immodestly, I wrote a whole book about myths!  Trying to point out why it’s appealing, showing why they’re wrong, and providing alternative approaches that are sounder. And I was asked to do it, so there’s a clear need. I’m not asking you to buy it, unless it helps, but you need to be aware of the myths.

What to do? Well, first, please help. If you see a myth, call it out. You don’t have to do it publicly, you can always talk to the person quietly afterward. But don’t let it slide. (Some of those at the event will read this blog; long story but thanks, Paul. ;)

So, I’m calling you all to be zombie hunters. Please!  Death to zombies, for the sake of our industry, our professionalism, and our learners.

Update: In fact, after I’d queued up this post for publication, I went to an event where people were sharing. While most were very useful and thoughtful, three of the shares violated what’s known!  One was so-called ‘brain training’, in this case activating right-left brain simultaneously. That also violates the right/left brain myth! Another was on Strengths, which I haven’t addressed, but the one cited was the one that doesn’t have peer reviewed research (ie not the VIA strengths). Finally, one was on ‘color’ personality, which is based upon Meyers-Briggs, which is flawed both theoretically and psychometrically. Yikes, they’re everywhere!

Update 2: I was pointed to a post on LinkedIn about building a VR demo…on the MBTI!  Ouch. The MBTI is flawed theoretically (it’s based on Jungian archetypes, which he just made up) and psychometrically. It’s pretty horrific to think of VR being used to present information (like attending a PowerPoint presentation in 2nd Life, which happened); to do it on such a flawed concept is doubly scary.

What’s in an image?

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My post earlier this week on the images processed 60K faster prompted some discussion (over on LinkedIn ;). And there appears to be some debate about the topic. I think it revolves around the issue of just what’s in an image. So let’s unpack that.

So, the claim is that ‘images’ are processed 60K faster than text. And, of course, trying to find the actual citation has been an exercise in futility. But can we address it on principle? I’ll suggest we can.

Let’s take it apart. What’s in an image?  Is it a photo? A diagram? An infographic? Even a video?  I think we need to nail it down. So let’s talk about the presumed cognitive processing that goes on.

Let’s start with photos. They capture context. If it’s a familiar context, processing likely happens almost immediately. But others? Not so fast. Unless a context has already been established, a picture isn’t going to make much sense. That is, we probably should account for the context processing as part of the story.

As soon as we get to diagrams, the story gets more complex. Ok, Jill Larkin and Herb Simon once opined on Why a Diagram is worth 10000 words, but it’s about mapping conceptual relationships to spatial relationships. And I’ll still argue you need to process the elements, and the relationships, before you understand it. So it’s not instantaneous.

And, yes, there’s the lovely example in Don Norman’s The Design of Everyday Things, where he showed how a relationship was more quickly processed than the equivalent text description (he kindly didn’t mention it was from my Ph.D. thesis ;). Yet not all text can be replaced by images.  What would convey Nike’s Just Do It slogan more concisely than that text? You’d have to establish the relationship first. E.g. their ‘swoop’. As I mentioned, familiar words are processed essentially as images, as whole words, not being processed by individual characters.

The same holds true for infographics, by the way. They’re not ‘grokked’ immediately. They need to be parsed in terms of message, and flow, and information. They’re a mashup of text and info, but that doesn’t make it any faster. Though they may support retention, but we should use diagrams and images appropriately with text.

Video’s even more complex. It’s a linear medium, as is text. And it’s powerful, but is it processed more efficiently? Again, I think it depends on what you’re saying. A video can be a narrated slide show. Is that faster than reading the text? I read faster than folks speak.

Which brings me to my take-home conclusion. A simple statement like “images processed 60K faster than text) is misleading. What image? It all hinges on what’s in an image. Be vary wary of such claims. In the previous article, I provided some questions to ask yourself. And I may have to rant again about myths in general!

Images processed 60K faster? No! And more…

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Recently, I’ve run into the claim that images are processed 60K times faster than text. And, folks, it’s a myth. More over, it’s exemplary of bad practices in business. And so it’s worth pointing out what the situation is, why it’s happening, and why you should be on guard.

It’s easy to find the myth. Just search on “images processed 60K times faster than text”. You’ll get lots of citations, and a few debunkings. Most of the references are from marketing hype, selling you visual support.

The origin is suspicious. It’s always cited as coming from 3M, Polishing Your Presentation. Which is problematic, because when you go to that paper, you find the quote, but not a legitimate citation. Instead, there’s a vague statement about “findings from behavioral research” with no citation!  Bad form.

A study done jointly between 3M and the University of Minnesota about presentations also is potentially a source. With only one small catch: it doesn’t mention 60K at all!  Instead, it does conclude that “Presentations using visual aids were found to be 43% MORE PERSUASIVE than unaided presentations.” Which is hardly controversial.

Yet this is another zombie, like learning styles, that won’t die!  It’s been researched by several folks, including Alan Levine and Jonathan Schwabish. No one seems to be able to identify a real piece of evidence. And it just doesn’t make sense!

In use, words are practiced enough to be recognized as a whole, serving as icons; they’re not repeatedly processed from letters into words. Second, images need parsing, too, and contextualization between the image and the current semantics.

Sure, we have many more neurons devoted to image processing than auditory, but that’s not only due to a sensory primacy (e.g. distance capability), but also the richness of the visual field. And more doesn’t equal ‘faster’. Yes, we’re processing in parallel, but nerve firing rates change based upon activation, not modality.

And this means that we have to have our ‘hype’ shields up. We need to evaluate any claims by several methods. Who else is saying this? Not pointing to the same (bad) data, but what convergent evidence is there? And what vested interest do the promoters have? And, importantly, does it make causal sense? Is there a plausible scenario when you dig beneath the surface features?

And, if you don’t want to read research published in the original academese, find those who you can trust. Those who’ve demonstrated a consistent ability to cut through the hype and the research, and bring good interpretations and debunk the myths. You can see my list of mythbusters here.

So, please, practice professionalism, avoid the hype, and use good principles in design and practice.

 

Signifying change

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I have a persistent interest in the potential for myth and ritual for learning. In the past I sought a synthesis of what’s known as good practice  (as always ;) in an area I don’t have good resources in. When I looked over 10 years ago, there wasn’t much. That’s no longer the case. There is now quite a bit available about signifying change with ritual.

Myth, here, is not about mistaken beliefs, but instead are stories that tie us to our place in the universe. Every culture has had its origin story, and typically stories that explain the earth, the sky, and more. Ritual is a series of repeated behaviors that signify your belief in those stories. And when you look at prayer, and transition ceremonies, you see how powerful these behaviors are in shaping behavior. Can we leverage this power for learning?

Barbara Myerhoff opined that ritual worked because your body bought into it before your mind did. Thus, the repeated behaviors build a ‘muscle memory’ that supports your purpose. And agreeing to perform the ritual at all is an implicit complicity in the story behind the ritual. Finally, having others also performing or having performed the ritual builds a social commitment.

There’s clear power, but can we do it systematically? The sources at the bottom suggest we can. My synthesis says the answer is yes. There are two important distinctions. One is whether it’s individual or collective. Are we having a single person commit, or having a group commit? In the former, they may be becoming a member of the community, but it’s about changing personal behavior regardless. In the latter, it’s about someone becoming a member of a group of practitioners. (And, to be clear, here I’m talking secular change.)

The other distinction is the scope of the change. Is this a small personal change, or is this a switch to an entire system of belief? Are we helping someone be more productive, or asking them to buy into our organizational culture? If we want to transform people, signifying the change seems important.

Wwhat makes effective ritual is having a behavior that indicates allegiance to a system of belief. It’s essential that the behavior signifies the change in some way.  It might be a part of the actions that the new desired change incorporate. So you mimic rolling out dough to cement your understanding of baking. Or it might be an iconic representation of some aspect of the belief, so drinking something specific as preparation.

The actual structure is suggested to be some initiating occurrence, like another instance (new client), or a particular time of day. Then there’s a process to be followed, typically with a preparation, a behavior, and a closing.

As usual, the process includes identifying the necessary elements, prototyping, testing, and iterating. Does it work with the audience, does it feel authentic, is it easy to do, are some of the questions to ask.

The materials I’ve found suggest ritual can be helpful. Two obvious roles are to successfully acknowledge their new status and/or sustain necessary mindsets and practices. When people have transformed, we want to acknowledge the change. And we want to help them continue to maintain and develop the new ability. Signifying change is an important component. We should be intentional about making that happen.

Three pointers:

How to design team rituals to accelerate change

Crafting effective ritual

Introducing Ritual Design (and more from the Ritual Design Lab here)

 

Making transformation manifest

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I’ve been on a ‘transformation‘ kick. And it occurs to me to think that it may be more marketing than meaning. One aspect is that we need to be making transformation manifest to our learners.

The transformation I’m talking about is our learning experiences. That is, while we need to transform our practices and ourselves, here I’m talking about the outcomes of our design. I want the experience to be more than just mundane, I want it to be transformative.

And, I realize, learning inherently is transformative. You’re coming away with new understandings, skills, and/or perspectives. If it’s effective, you’ve changed. That’s what learning is about! It does need to be effective, but if it is, you’re newly capable.

So it’s not about helping folks transform. That’s happening. Instead, it’s about helping people realize that they’re transformed. Which is more about marketing, really.

What’s involved in making transformation manifest? To make it work it takes steps at the beginning and the end of the experience. At the beginning, it’s helping learners realize two things:

  • That they do want to learn this
  • That they don’t know it now

There are a variety of ways these can be done. We can make it humorously or dramatically clear why this is important. And we can let them actually try, or convince them that their knowledge isn’t up to the necessary level.

Ultimately, we need to make it clear that they now have a new ability. They may also need to have the confidence to try when the situation arises. Again, I’ll suggest two steps:

  • They need to know that they now have a new capability
  • Introduce them, directly or indirectly, to the community of folks who also have this ability

To demonstrate their new ability, they need to actually perform and succeed. And we should acknowledge, even celebrate, their new capability. We should be explicit, and even consider a ritual that signifies their accomplishment.  Badges could make sense here.

The point is that learners are changing. If we’ve done our job right, they’re looking at the world in a somewhat different way. We should help them recognize that, for their sake and ours. They should know their new capability, and they should acknowledge, even respect, our contribution. I’m suggesting we should explicitly be making transformation manifest. What do you think?

Upcoming TK2020’s new approach

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Amongst the conferences I go to (frequently the eLearning Guild events, others as invited or doing something) is ATD’s Techknowledge. And I’ll be there again this coming year (get 10% with this code: 30TK2020). And while I think both offerings are of interest, one is more problematic. So I’m asking your help in dealing with the upcoming TK2020’s new approach.

It’s in San Jose, which is always nice since it means I don’t have to get on a plane. (I don’t object, but I’d prefer to train or drive.). It’s at the beginning of February (5-7), which can be a quiet time. Also, Downtown San Jose has some really nice dining options (e.g. the mega food court at San Pedro Square Market). And the weather’s unlikely to be icy or snowy. Maybe some rain, but tolerable temperatures. So it’s convenient all around.

One session I’m doing is a traditional one hour presentation. This is one I trialed on my local chapter, and I enjoyed it and it seemed they did too. It’s about how learning science suggests changes to curriculum and pedagogy. (Officially it’s “Transforming Learning: A Learning Science-Based Curriculum and Pedagogy.”) It’s very LXD, and I think there are some interesting and challenging observations in it. In particular, I’ll be bringing in the Free Energy principle and it’s implications about why learning can and should be transformative. And more.

The other session is something new in format. They’re being adventurous, and kudos to them. They’re creating a suite of stages doing a variety of different themes (in their words):

  • In the Build area, you’ll engage in hands-on learning and experimentation with the latest learning technologies.
  • The Disrupt area will feature ten hyper-focused facilitator-led conversations about industry issues.
  • At the Spark area you’ll find your next big idea through mini-sessions and discussions on emerging trends.
  • At the Connect area, you’ll participate in structured topic or industry-focused networking with your peers.
  • The Advance area will allow you to hone your skills in specific areas by participating in accelerated, mini-sessions and discussions.
  • At the Explore area you’ll examine case studies of named organizations for new ideas and inspiration. Play sparks creativity, and what you do here will ignite your potential.

My session is in the Disrupt area, and not surprisingly the topic is myths. Well, the official title is “Professionalism in Practice: Resisting Hype, Myths, Superstitions, and Misconceptions.” The issue is what to do!

I have 30 minutes. And I can see several things to do. The question is, which one is most appealing/interesting, and effective? So I’m hoping you’ll help determine what I should be doing for the upcoming TK2020’s new approach.

Some options:

Make it just a Question and Answer session. I could open it up to whatever people would like to hear about myths and how to be prepared to withstand them.

Another option would be to do it as a slightly game show event; I did this with Jay Cross one time. I’d pick nine topics, put them up on the screen in a 3 x 3 grid, and address them in the order people choose.

In the spirit of the description, I’m not going to just give a presentation, but “hyper-focused” means what? Maybe wrap a format around several top myths? (How many can I do in 30 minutes?) Asking attendees “what makes this appealing”? Then a brief explanation of why it’s wrong. Then “what might you do instead?” And, finally “how can you prevent this?”

Or, focusing on the ‘resist’, I could crowd-source ideas around a general model of resistance. Asking, in some order: “Where do myths come from?” “Who can you trust?” “What’s good evidence?” “How would you do it yourself?” “What’s a practical process we can use?”

Or something else?

Obviously, I’m not short of ideas, but converging is challenging, I can see pluses and minuses on each. So, I thought I’d ask you all what you think about how I should adapt to the upcoming TK2020’s new approach. Feedback not just welcome, but eagerly solicited!

So, c’mon, give me a gift here! (Obligatory season imprecation; or of course an interesting project for your organization ;).  And happy holidays to you and yours, and all the best for the coming year.

Content systems not content packages

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In a conversation last week (ok, an engagement), the topic of content systems came up. Now this is something I’ve argued for before, in several ways. For one, separate content from how it’s delivered. And, pull content together by rules, not hardwired. And it’s also about the right level of granularity. It’s time to revisit the message, because I thought it was too early, but I think the time is fast coming when we can look at this.

This is in opposition to the notion of pre-packaged content. MOOCs showed that folks want to drill in to what they need. Yet we still pull everything together and launch it as a final total solution. We are moving to smaller chunks (all for the better; even if it is burdened with a misleading label). But there’s more.

The first point is about content models. That we should start designing our content into smaller chunks. My heuristic is the smallest thing you’d give one person or another. My more general principle is that resolves to breaking content down by it’s learning role: a concept model is different than an example is different than a practice.

This approach emerged from an initiative on an adaptive learning system I led. It now has played out as a mechanism to support several initiatives delivering content appropriately. For one, it was supporting different business products from the same content repository. For another it was about delivering the right thing at the right time.

Which leads to the second point, about being able to pick and deliver the right thing for the context. This includes adaptive systems for learning, but also context-based performance support. With a model of the learner, the context, and the content, you can write rules that put these together to optimally identify the right thing to push.

You can go further. Think of two different representatives from the same company visiting a client. A sales person and a field engineer are going to want different things in the same location. So you can add a model of ‘role’ (though that can also be tied to the learner model).

There’s more, of course. To do this well requires content strategy, engineering, and management. Someone put it this way: strategy is what you want to deliver, engineering is how, and management is overseeing the content lifecycle.

Ultimately, it’s about moving from hardwired content to flexible delivery. And that’s possible and desirable. Moreover, it’s the future. As we see the movement from LMS to LXP, we realize that it’s about delivering just what’s needed when useful. Recognizing that LXPs are portals, not about creating experiences, we see the need for federated search.

There’s more: semantics means we can identify what things are (and are not), so we can respond to queries. With chatbot interfaces, we can make it easier to automate the search and offering to deliver the right thing to the right person at the right time.

The future is here; we see it in web interfaces all over the place. Why aren’t we seeing it yet in learning? There are strong cognitive reasons (performance support, workflow learning, self-directed and self-regulated learning).  And the technology is no longer the limitation. So let’s get on it. It’s time to think content systems, not content packages.

 

Unpacking some nuances

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In my book Engaging Learning, I had a suite of elements for both effective education practice and engaging experiences. Of course, the point was that they perfectly aligned. However, I’m unpacking a couple of them, and I thought it’d be helpful to ensure that I am clear about them, and so that you are too. So I’m unpacking some nuances in two different groups of elements.

For one, I talk about contextualized, anchored, and relevant.  These three are related, but each plays a different role, and it’s important to be concerned about each separately.

Contextualized isn’t difficult. Research (e.g. Jonassen’s work) has shown that we perform better working from problems that are concrete rather than abstract. (Which is why those abstract problems kids are assigned in schools are so wrong!). We work better with concrete problems with facilitation to support abstraction and transfer. Otherwise we get ‘inert knowledge’, knowledge that we can pass a test on, but will never even activate in a relevant problem situation.

Anchored, here, means that it’s a real use of the knowledge. Instead of using problems about fractions of a crayon, for instance, it might be about serving food (pies, pizza). Similarly, engineering equations about curves could be used for a roller coaster instead of a abstract pattern. The activity using the knowledge should be the way it’d be used in the world.

That’s related to, but different from, being relevant. Not relevant to the learning, but to the learner. That is, the problem they’re solving is one that the learner cares about. So, for maritime enthusiasts, we might use geometry to figure out sail angles to the wind. While for gamers, we might use it to calculate graphics.

The second dichotomy is about active versus exploratory. They’re related, but each has an independent component.

For exploratory, I’m talking about learners having choices. That is, there are alternate choices of action. They can choose one or the other. The alternatives to the right answer, by the way, isn’t obvious or silly, but instead represents reliable ways learners get it wrong.

For active, I mean they must commit. It’s not enough to roll over the options and see the feedback, they have to choose one, and then see if it was right or not. And give consequences of their choices before feedback!

Unpacking some nuances helps, I hope, to ensure you address each separately, and consequently appropriately.  Here’s to nuanced design!