Today, Roger Schank keynoted the Learning Technologies UK conference, talking about cognitive science and learning. Obviously, I was in large agreement. And, as usual, I mid mapped it:
Coming to a webinar near you!
Well, there’s a whole lotta webinar action going around around here. Let me fill you in and hope to see you online:
Rethinking eLearning
First, I’ll be talking next week as the closing speaker at the eLearning Guild’s January Online Forum on Instructional Design next week (I’m speaking at noon PT on Friday the 21st).
I’ll be talking on Beyond ID: Augmenting Performance, which caps a fabulous series of talks on Instructional Design (launched by the eminent Ruth Clark). The Guild always does a good job, so it’s a no brainer if you’re a Guild Member and looking to upgrade your ID thinking.
Mobile
Then I’ll be doing talks on mobile learning (naturally, promoting my forthcoming book) for several different groups . I’ll be covering why and how. You should pick the one that matches your group affiliation (and schedule):
I’ll be doing a mobile webinar for ASTD (free to members, I believe) on the 20th (next week) on Thursday the 2oth at 11 AM PT.
Training Industry Quarterly also is hosting one (free) on the 24th of February at 10 AM PT.
Finally, on March 8th 10:30 AM PT I’ll be doing an eLearning Guild Thought Leader webinar on mobile.
Hope to see you at one of them!
My path to ITA
As my colleagues Harold and Jane have done, I thought I’d capture my learning journey that led me to the Internet Time Alliance. I started out seeing the connection between computers and learning as an undergraduate, and designed my own degree. My first job out of college was designing and programming educational computer games, which led me back to graduate school and a Ph.D. in applied cognitive science to find out how to design learning solutions better.
That has been a recurrent theme across academic endeavors, some government-sponsored initiatives, and an internet startup: designing solutions that are innovative and yet pragmatic. It was really brought home to me when we were recently discussing a new initiative, and while my colleagues were looking at the business opportunities, my mind was racing off figuring out how to design it.
This continued in my consulting, where I moved from designing the individual solutions to designing the processes and structures to reliably deliver quality learning experience design, what I’ve called learning experience design strategy. However, as I’ve worked with organizations looking to move to the ‘next level’, as happened with and through some of my clients, I regularly found a recurrent pattern, that integrated formal learning with performance support and eCommunity (and some other steps).
So I was focusing on trying to help organizations look at the bigger picture. And what I recognized is that most organizations were neglecting eCommunity the most, yet as I learned more about this from my colleague Jay Cross, the social and informal learning were the big and missed opportunity. When Jay started talked about grouping together to address this part of the space, it made perfect sense to me. The opportunities to have large impacts with challenging but not costly investments is a natural. So here I am. Based upon my previous work on games and now mobile, there are some design strategy opportunities that fall to Quinnovation, but I’m eager to help organizations through ITA as well. Hope to talk to you in the new year about whatever is relevant for you from here.
Working Smarter Cracker Barrel
My Internet Time Alliance colleague Harold Jarche is a clever guy. In preparation for an event, he makes a blog post to organize his thoughts. I like his thinking, so I’ll let him introduce my post:
Next week, at our Working Smarter event hosted by Tulser in Maastricht, NL, we will have a series of short sessions on selected topics. Each Principal of the Internet Time Alliance has three topics of 20 minutes to be discussed in small groups. My topics are listed below and include links to relevant posts as well as a short description of the core ideas behind each topic.
These are mine:
Mobile
Mobile ‘accessorizes‘ your brain. It is about complementing what your brain does well by providing the capabilities that it does not do well (rote computation, distance communication, and exact detail), but wherever and whenever you are. Given that our performers are increasingly mobile, it makes sense to deliver the capabilities where needed, not just at their desk. The 4 C’s of mobile give us a guide to the capabilities we have on tap.
Working smarter is not just mobile capabilities, however, but also combining them to do even more interesting things. The real win is when we capture the current situation, via GPS and clock/calendar, so we know where you are and what you are doing, to do things that are relevant in the context.
Even without that, however, there are big offerings on the table for informal learning, via access to resources and networks.
Social Formal Learning
Social learning is one of the big opportunities we are talking about in ‘working smarter’. Most people tend to think of social learning in terms of the informal opportunities, which are potentially huge. However, there are a couple of reasons to also think about the benefits of social learning from the formal learning perspective.
The first is the processing. When you are asked to engage with others on a topic, and you have designed the topic well, you get tight cycles of negotiating understand, which elaborates the associations to make them persist better and longer. You can have learners reflect and share those reflections, which is one meaningful form of processing, and then you can ask them to extend the relevant concepts by reviewing them in another situation together, asking them to come to a shared response. The best, of course, is when learners work together to discern how the concepts get applied in a particular context, by asking them to solve a problem together.
The additional benefit is the connection between formal and informal. You must use social learning tools, and by doing so you are developing the facility with the environment your performers should use in the workplace. You also have the opportunity to use the formal social learning as a way to introduce the learners into the communities of practice you can and should be building.
Performance Ecosystem (Workscape) Strategy
Looking at the individual components – performance support, formal learning, and informal learning – is valuable, but looking at them together is important as well, to consider the best path from where you are to where you want or need to go. Across a number of engagements, a pattern emerged that I’ve found helpful in thinking about what we term workscapes (what I’ve also called performance ecosystems, PDF) in a systemic way.
You want to end up where you have a seamless performance environment oriented around the tasks that need to be accomplished, and having the necessary layers and components. You don’t want to approach the steps individually, but with the bigger picture in mind, so everything you do is part of the path towards the end game. Realizing, of course, that it will be dynamic, and you’ll want to find ways to empower your performers to take ownership.
Cross Conference Cogitations
In the course of the past month, I‘ve attended (and spoken at) 4 conferences: DevLearn, WCET, VSS, and Online Educa. Each was from a different area: DevLearn is mostly corporate, WCET is largely higher ed, VSS is mostly K12, and Online Educa is more academic (and European). As a consequence, I‘ve had a somewhat biased (mostly US) but reasonably broad exposure to the state of the industry.
The news is mixed. There are some bright spots of innovation and excitement. There is also a lot of ordinary (or worse) design tarted up by high production values, a lot of hype without substance. Overall, I‘m afraid we‘re not seeing the level of design awareness we should and need to be.
When I perused the vendors, so many were selling tools that are about taking rote knowledge content and making it available online, or shoved into tarted-up drill and kill templates. It‘s not that these tools can‘t have a role, but until you know what that role is, they‘re overused. Also the shelfware was surprisingly ordinary, that is well-produced but under-designed. This was across all of the exhibitions. Similarly, vendors would tout buzzwords that, when pressed, couldn‘t actually articulate what it was. One particularly egregious example was ‘adaptive tracking‘. I‘m sorry, but “wait to talk to the other guy, who can explain it†just doesn‘t cut it. If you‘re promoting it, own it.
And, too often, the practitioner presentations also had some flaws. I saw way too many “well, we‘re doing this too†presentations. It may help to see other folks replicating a slightly more advanced design than they were at, but the steps being taken are still a ways behind the curve.
Ok, so what were the bright spots? I‘m pleased to see that mobile and social are taking off. There were good presentations on both at DevLearn; the eLearning Guild is pretty good about tracking what‘s out there. At WCET, the notion of data-driven decisions was really taken off (driven, of course, by visionary Ellen Wagner). At VSS, the presentations on scenario-based, problem-based, and case-based sessions were well-attended, providing hope for more and better design. Finally, at Online Educa, there was a company that was actually driving adaptive learning. It required some serious backend work to get it running, but it is possible to do.
Progress is being made at the frontiers, but the necessary core areas of learning and consequent design is still lagging in breadth of awareness and depth of understanding. I guess the saddest thing is that I could have said the same thing 5 years ago. For instance, I didn‘t intend to develop the Deeper ID presentation, but I saw that it was needed. Still is.
On the other hand, I‘m getting lots of opportunities to speak and write to try and raise the game, so I‘ll take that as a positive :). Hope to see you around.
And sorry that my posts are so intermittent of late, but it‘s just hard to find time to write when you‘re running around catching planes, trains, and automobiles, (and there’s some serious writing pending; more soon). Right now, however, it seems like things might slow down around March!
The Power of Role-based e-Learning
The Power of Role-Based e-Learning: designing and moderating online role play is a new book out that talks about simple methods to get powerful learning outcomes from collaborative games. Written by Sandra Wills, Elyssebeth Leigh, and Albert Ip, esteemed Aussie colleagues all with lots of experience in this area, it’s a thoughtful presentation of why, and how, you should use these techniques to get valuable outcomes.
Here’s the publisher’s blurb:
Written for educators seeking to engage students in collaboration and communication about authentic scenarios, the power of role-based e- learning offers helpful, accessible advice on the practice and research needed to design online role play. Drawing on the experiences of world- leading practitioners and citing an array of worldwide examples, it is a readable, non-technical, and comprehensive guide to the design, implementation, and evaluation of this exciting teaching approach.
Issues discussed include:
- designing effective online role plays
- defining games, simulations and role plays
- moderating engaging and authentic role-based e-learning activities
- assessment and evaluation
The power of role-based e-learning offers a careful analysis of the strengths and learning opportunities of online role play, and is realistic about possible difficulties. Providing guidance for both newcomers and experienced professionals who are developing their online teaching repertoire, it is an invaluable resource for teachers, trainers, academics, and educational support staff involved in e-learning.
Also note that it’s designed for education, but the lessons are valuable for organizational application as well.
As I state in the foreword:
This book stakes out important ground for e-learning, demonstrating how clever design trumps the miracles of flashy technology in achieving just such a practical approach. While the power of gaming for learning has been the topic of a number of books, the particular, er, role of role-playing has been insufficiently explored and exploited. Yet, as this book makes manifestly clear, there are powerful outcomes available, using simple mechanisms but capitalizing on deep understanding of learning.
The book also looks forward, talking about virtual worlds and, yes, mobile learning. Alternate Reality Games are a really interesting opportunity here.
Allow me to strongly encourage you to check out this book, and see for yourself how thoughtful understanding of learning trumps technological finesse when it comes to creating meaningful experiences. We need more good learning design, and as much help as we can get.
The role of the university?
Unhappy in many ways with the current status of education, particularly here in the US, I’ve been thinking a lot about what would make sense. What’s the role of K12, and then what’s the role of a university? Some thoughts recently coalesced that I thought I’d put out and see what reaction I get.
The issue, to me, covers several things. Now, I talked some time ago about my ongoing search for wisdom, and the notion of a wise curriculum coupled with a wise pedagogy very much permeate my thinking. However, I’m probably going to be a bit more mundane here. I just want to think what we might want to cover, and how.
Let me start with the premise that what needs to be learned to be a productive member of society needs to be learned before university, as not everyone goes further. If we truly believe (and we should) that 21st Century skills of learning, research, communication, leadership, etc, are skills everyone needs, then those are K12 goals. Naturally, of course, we also include literacy of many sorts (not just reading and writing), and ideally, thinking like a mathematician and scientist (not science and math).
However, if those are accomplished in K12 (when I’ve previously argued learning how to think might be the role of the university, and now think it’s got to be before then), then what is the role of university? Given that the half-life of knowledge is less than four years, focusing on preparing for a lifetime of performance is out of the question. Similarly, pursuing one fixed course of study won’t make sense anymore, as the fields are beginning to change, and the arbitrary categorizations won’t make sense. So what then?
I’m thinking of going back to the original Oxbridge model. In the old days, you were assigned a tutor (and advisor), and you met with that person regularly. They’d have a discussion with you, recommend some activities (read X, solve Y), and send you on your way. It was a customized solution. Since then, for a variety of reasons (scale, mostly), the model’s turned into a mass-production model. However, we now have the power of technology.
What if we moved to a system where individuals could spend some time exploring particular areas (like the first two years or so of college), and then put together a proposal of what they wanted to do, and how they’d pursue it, and the proposal would be vetted. Once approved, there’d be regular updates. Sure, there’d likely be some templates around for learning, but it’d be more self-directed, customizable, and put the appropriate responsibility on the learner.
I may be biased, as I designed my own major (UCSD’s Muir campus had a mechanism to design your own degree, and as they didn’t have a learning technology program…) as an undergraduate, and again you propose your research as a PhD candidate, but I think there’s a lot to recommend a learner taking responsibility for what they’re going to study and why. Granted, universities don’t do a good enough job of articulating why a program sequence has particular courses in it, but I think it’s even better if a learner at least has to review and defend it, if not choose it themselves.
Naturally, some domain-specific learning skills would emerge, but this would provide a more flexible system to match how specializations are changing so dynamically, serve as a model for life, and put the responsibility of faculty members more to mentorship and less to lecture. It would necessitate a change in pedagogy as well.
I think, in the long term, this sort of model has to be adopted. In the short term, it will wreak havoc with things like accreditation, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing, given the flaws we’re beginning to see in the existing system, both non- and for-profit. I reckon the for-profits might be able to move quicker, but there will be battles. And, of course, changing faculty minds reminds me of the old joke: “How many academics does it take to change a lightbulb?” “Change?” (And I *was* one!)
Naturally, this has implications for K12 too, as many have articulately argued that the pedagogy needs to change there as well, following the learners’ interests. Likewise the notion of educational publishing (where is that iPad replacement for my kid’s texts?). Those are topics for another day.
So, does this make sense? What am I missing?
Co-Curation
In a presentation yesterday by Dr. Deborah Everhart, talking about Web 2.0 and the future of teaching and learning at Berkeley’s new Center of Next Generation of Teaching and Learning, she used the familiar mechanism of transitions from Web 1.0 to Web 2.0. One of the transitions she described, from Buying to Self-Publishing sparked a thought. This was very much in the context of higher education, but it extends further.
For context, realize that we’re being inundated with knowledge. One of the roles of our personal learning networks is to follow people who sort through the memes coming along and reframe them into new ideas, posts and more. People like my ITA colleagues and many others (e.g. #lrnchat instigators) are worth following (virtual mentorships) because they are essentially serving as curators for knowledge.
So these people are self-publishing. In higher education, we think of authors of textbooks, although in a sense they’re curating knowledge as well. And we’re seeing movements where teams are beginning to author texts, not just for publishers but in open access contexts as well. If we extend this, communities are, increasingly, similarly curating information.
And, really, they’re co-curating. Wikipedia ends up being the ultimate co-curated body of knowledge. It’s co-creation, but because it’s pulling together bits of knowledge from other places. In the case of innovation, where experts are solving new problems, that’s co-creation, but capturing resources around topics and combining them is a combination of curation and creation, co-curation.
I note that this is not a new term, as librarians have been apparently using it for a while, but I think it’s an important concept in the overall context of learning together; co-creating libraries (have you ever received a request for the books you think are most critical for X :) of resources and references. It’s a part of the larger picture of creating personal learning environments, personal learning networks, and personal knowledge management.
When I reflect on the fabulous learning that comes from my networks (such as those listed above and ITFORUM), I am really really grateful to those who contribute so that we all learn together. Thanks!
Experience Rules
The cry used to be “content is king”. Then it became “well then, context must be emperor”. Well, I want to tell you that Experience Rules.
Here’s the deal. Content is important, but of any by itself, it doesn’t lead to learning. You can show someone content, but if they’re not prepared (mentally and emotionally), it won’t stick. You can design content to help prepare them but…
They have to apply it. And abstract application doesn’t transfer, you need to apply it in context. If it’s the right context, then the content could be valuable. But context alone isn’t enough, you’ve got to combine the content delivery with the right context. And now, we’re talking experience design.
Experience design is really about setting up the emotional expectations, and then delivering a series of content-resourced contexts to achieve the desired outcome. This typically is formal learning, but can be delivering performance support tools in the workflow as well as creating access to social media in ways that match the way the learner is thinking about it. It combines play/gaming, usability, and learning design into a coherent whole.
Of course, at another level, it’s designing the org unit to make the above an integrated component of achieving the organizational goals. Which likely means a more distributed, wirearchical structure. And culture is certainly a part of it, because an experience where you contribute, for example, happens better when it’s safe and rewarding to contribute!
(And while I don’t mean this in the sense of “old age and treachery, er experience, trumps youth and energy”, though it does, there is also the recognition that it takes years of experience to be considered an expert and that’s part of it too.)
Really, combining context and content to achieve engagement and effective learning outcomes is experience design, and that’s what really needs to rule. So, do you, er, measure up?
Learning Experience Design in Action
I was working with one of my clients/partners on an opportunity to develop classroom learning on a tablet. The first push is to get something to show teachers and trial in a classroom. It’s not yet going to be socially enabled, nor particularly mobile, nor yet augmented with resources; the point now is to demonstrate capability to develop compelling interactives (pretty much regardless of whether it’s a tablet or not).
As context, they’d sent me some storyboards that I’d responded to with some comments. They actually started from a good point, but there were nuances that needed to be teased out. Their questions led me to think through some principles that underpinned my recommendations. In the course of their questions, I talked about these perspectives:
Start with visceral experience: I want to ground the learning in their world. I want to start with phenomena that they understand, and have them do a little free exploration followed by some focused tasks, but at a qualitative, experiential level. Drill down from the bigger picture in the world, to intermediate issues, to why this in particular is important, and have them actively explore the relationships.
Connect conceptual to formal: after the learner has an experiential basis, then link it to formal representations. Help the learners connect their actions to the tools used to structure our understanding. At the end of the day, at least in this domain, we want them to be able to use the formal representations to solve problems that their capabilities can’t solve with their bodies (e.g. applying forces in microjoules or gigajoules). As a guide, the point is not to teach science, say, but instead to teach them to be scientists, using tools to solve problems. Finally, they should be taking measurements, transforming to manipulable representations, transforming the representations to a solution, and then applying that back to the world.
Focus on action, not content: rather than require learners to view this video or that document, make them available. Ideally, the only required elements would be the series of activities, and the information resources surround the activities as options. The challenge of the activities, and quality of the content, would ideally drive the learner to the resources, but there might be required quick overviews that point to deeper resources, and individuals who struggle might be pointed to the content.
Launch with a meaningful context: I suggested an overall task that would ultimately need to be performed, using a recognized problem as the motivation for learning this content, though there are other ways. However, you do want to harness learners hearts as well as their brains in the endeavor. In this case it was about saving people’s lives that motivated going through the course to be prepared to come back and provide the knowledge of what force to apply, in what direction.
And in one I didn’t convey, but is implicit in the learning situation but could and should be implicit in the development of the learning experience:
Scaffold the learning process: don’t assume that the learner is equipped for learning this way, provide support. Pedagogical support can be through an agent, and there has to be feedback involved both addressing the content and the process. If only requiring the activities, the evaluation, inadequate performance might trigger a requirement to view content, for example. A pedagogical avatar could be useful.
All of this is based upon a research base in learning theory, even the emotional side. There could be more involved, as I had ides for options in being social, and actually being mobile, which are currently beyond the scope of their engagement, but the point is to start with a visceral and active base upon which to drive motivation for content, formalisms, and ultimate mastery.