Along the lines of the earlier post about social media tools, I thought it might be a ‘practice what your preach’ if I made my thinking explicit. We know that learning is facilitated when experts articulate not only their decisions, but the background rationale (ala Alan Schoenfeld, as I know it from Cognitive Apprenticeship).   To some extent I reckon I do this, amidst my tweets and blog posts.   However, I’m not sure if I show my underlying thinking enough, and I’m wondering if there is more I can do.

I try to show some of the thinking triggered by various projects I’m on, but of course on most of them I’m bound by confidentiality not to reveal the specifics, let alone the really neat new things we’re working on. I also capture some of my background principles in various papers/articles, like those available at the Quinnovation Resources page.   And I do try to capture my ongoing thinking though I wonder if I capture the contexts that generate the thoughts sufficiently.

It’s hard to be accurately self-reflective, and strike that balance between stating opinions, sharing personal reflections, and be reasonably concise.   I’d been thinking that I should, so now I reckon it’s time to ask: what would you like more of, less of, etc?   Here’s your chance to let me know what’s working, what’s not, what would make this more worthwhile for you.   Otherwise, I reckon I’ll just keep doing what I’m doing…

The other day, I wanted to read an article on the CLO site.   I went there, but I found the article too hard to read; there were bloody animated gifs everywhere!   Really, it’s only like 5 years since we realized that animated gifs make things hard to look at, and it’s based upon perceptual psychology way older than that.

Our eyes have cones at the center that pick up color and fine detail, and rods at the edge that kick in for low-light situations.   Those rods also detect motion, and we’re wired to move our attention to things that move in the periphery of our vision (survival, naturally :).   So, if we’re focused on reading something, and an ad is moving in the periphery, we can’t read it well. And CLO spread the article across four pages with moving ads all over the place.   I gave up, which I presume isn’t their intention.   Time to get a clue; you can’t process what you can’t attend to.

That’s a low level distraction, but we see this at multiple levels.   A higher-level one that’s going on around here is the kitchen demolition. It’s made it harder to blog, as I’ve had a hard time doing deep reflection when there’re continual interruptions (worse these next few days, I’ve got the kids while my wife is away visiting her mother; don’t expect there to be a lot of posts this week).   Interestingly, it hasn’t had a similar impact on my tweeting, which is an interesting outcome.   We intuitively know that tweeting is different than blogging (hence the sobriquet: micro-blogging), but it was brought home more vividly. It’s interesting to think about the cognitive differences we find, and their utility for learning.   As I previously mentioned, social networking could support virtual mentorships, and tweeting I think is more immediately tied to a person’s current state, while blogs are more closely tied to their longer-term thinking.   Both, of course, could/should be coupled together for a really rich picture.   How many of you are finding that watching a person’s tweets and blog posts together provide a rich picture?

There’s another level, of course, at the organizational level.   Doug Engelbart, one of our true visionaries, who’s guiding principle of augmenting human intelligence has led him to contributions in many places, has talked about a three-layer system for ongoing improvement.   He posits one layer reviewing our daily action for improvements, and his unique insight is a layer above, looking to improve our improvement processes, across organizations.   The ongoing review is sort of an institutionalized reflection, and the next layer is meta-learning at an societal level.

I still argue that one of the best investments that can be made is reflection, particularly for knowledge work and any individual or organization that needs to not just survive but thrive in the growing flow of information and chaos.   Systematize it, support it, promote it, reward it, and use it.

All morning, a crew has been systematically demolishing our kitchen (one learning: it’s hard to concentrate with regular sounds of destruction in close proximity).   This is as planned.   We’ve wanted a new kitchen since we had experience with the one that came with the house.   It was on our ‘todo’ list (heck, it was on my wife’s *can’t wait* list), but hadn’t risen to the top until the old refrigerator died.   The space in the cabinets for the old fridge wouldn’t fit any new model, so we were forced into kitchen renovation.   We got a new fridge standing elsewhere in the kitchen, and started planning the project.   By we, I mean my better half. She took this on with zeal, because she’s really wanted it.

One of the first things was finding a kitchen designer.   Now, when we were looking to buy our first house, we talked to lots of realtors.   They’d *listen*, and then show us something completely unlike what we had set as constraints.   It was aggravating!   When we moved back to the US and were looking for a new home, we were connected with a realtor who did listen, and were extremely grateful.   A match is everything. So she was thrilled when she found a designer who listened, looked, asked questions, and asked her/us to consider tradeoffs.   I’m learning that the match between customer and contractor is as important as the match between contractor and task.   Which applies to me and my business as well.

She did a lot of leg work (thankfully), but involved me in crucial decisions.     We’re both researchers, the type who subscribe to and read Consumer Reports, with complementary strengths in concept and detail.   She got the industrial-strength range she wanted by testing with paper cut-outs of her pans to find the smallest that would accommodate her cooking. I like to cook too, but not as elaborately (I’m a fan of ethnic one-pot meals, e.g. jambalaya), and would’ve been happier with less, but her work convinced me.   (I’m reminded of when Don Norman mocked up his new kitchen in cardboard and practiced workflow before settling on a design.)   I managed to secure a reddish wood stain and a dark green countertop, and a light tile that will complement both.   We spent quite a bit of time playing with dishwashers, range hoods, as well as ranges.

The planning is paying off, but there are always more details.   Last night we worked late (we worked all day, and she worked harder than me) clearing out our stuff from the kitchen, as it was more work than we’d expected.   We also were getting things organized for six weeks of eating microwaved meals on disposable tableware. It’s just too hard to figure out how to do dishes in bathroom sinks, bathtub, and toilet.   At least I got paper and not foam. There’s more, as we’re losing two rooms of the house (not only the kitchen, but another to accommodate appliances/cabinets as they wait for installation), so it’s relocating things (putting up new shelves, for instance), moving computers around, etc.   It doesn’t help that we’re both pack rats (every home needs one thrower-outer) and the house doesn’t have enough storage space.   My office is quite, er, cosy right now!

Still, we weren’t quite prepared for the interruption in our lives. It’s only day one, so this first heavy demolition is promised to pass, but there’ve been some adapation on both parts.   They’ve found out that my wife’s a wee bit protective of the front yard landscaping she’s spent weeks on installing, and shouldn’t leave torn out windows on plants, while I’ve discovered that you can put zippers on plastic sheeting!

It’ll be a learning experience for the whole family (the kids left this morning for school before things really got going), and will require some adaptation and flexibility.   We’re looking forward to cooking our first Thanksgiving (US, happy holidays to my Canadian compatriots!) in our new kitchen (fingers crossed).   However, it’s also fascinating, and hopefully we won’t come up with too many surprises (tho’ some are also expected).   It’s a catalyst for lots of changes (new sofa, entry way lighting will be precipitated as well).   I’ll try not to bore you with any but the important learnings, but it will be occupying a bit of my mindspace for the next six weeks or so.   With planning, flexibility, and teamwork, we expect to get through this.   Fingers crossed!

I got turned on to Common Craft‘s videos a while ago, and they’re excellent.   I follow Lee LeFever on Twitter, and he tweeted about the question of addressing politics in his blog, and there’s quite an interesting response.

I’d wondered if I should discuss politics in my blog.   I’ve decided for the same reasons Lee cited that I wouldn’t, though some issues that do touch my work or I think could get more widely known may get mentioned (health care, electoral reform, etc).   Fortunately, Lee’s resounding feedback was that he was right (at least in comments, he said his emailed feedback was different), so I’ll stick to my policy.

Twitter tends to lure me into more personal exposure, I note (since it’s easier to toss off a twitter comment, it can be more spontaneous and coming from emotion as well as cognition.   Some of my colleagues are quite open on Twitter, and while I’ve tried to keep it mostly balanced, who knows?

I of course talk to my colleagues in person (likewise with you too), but the blog is a place for my professional learning reflections.   I may occasionally stray when I think it’s common sense (though of course common sense is noteworthy by how uncommon it is).

So, I’ll keep Learnlets professional, and save my personal comments for when we’re talking in person.   Fair enough?

One of the pervasive myths is that the new ‘digital natives’ are computer fluent.   However, I’m working on a project to address digital literacy skills where the expert says experience shows that students are rather naive; they have some skills, but maybe not efficient and effective ones, and are missing others.   It’s anecdotal, but fortunately, we’re beginning to get evidence that this isn’t the case.

Michele Martin points us to this announcement from the UK that documents robust problems in youth use of computers.   The study shows that students are not using tools effectively, and also are not evaluating information appropriately. Which shouldn’t be a surprise.   They’re not getting well-structured instruction about it, and trusting to their own self-learning skills is known to not be effective, whether it’s the fact that pure exploratory environments don’t work (except for the small fraction of folks who are self-effective learners), or that people ineffectively self-evaluate.

As you might infer, this is true of individuals in the workplace as well, and Michele also points us to this (rather self-serving) piece by a company that trains on search skills, documenting the inefficiencies. Which makes the point that trusting to effective skills isn’t a fair expectation.

All of which, it occurs to me, makes the case yet again for the benefit of not just teaching work literacy skills, which I support, but also for learning to learn skills.   And the context of that, creating a learning culture.

Ok, I’m outraged. No kids in our elementary school have qualified for GATE (Gifted & Talented), including my own.   That’s surprising, since we’ve some extremely smart kids.   There are several in each classroom who are selected for special recognition at the end of the year and everything.   The evaluation for GATE is the Otis-Lennon test, a reasonably well-regarded assessment of abstract thinking and reasoning ability.

So what do I find out?   That we’re not teaching the skills that are evaluated by this test!   We’re teaching a bunch of rote things, and not the skills that will be the differentiators in the coming years.   Thanks, NCLU   (No Child Left Untested).

Now, I realize that schools are hurting for money, and it’s a dire mess, politically and practically.   The responsibility goes right on up to the decision makers in DC.   So the school district is forced into playing funny games; apparently, the GATE money is going to teacher training, with the belief that this will help them inculcate these skills in the children.   However, that’s not working.

I don’t know how close my son came (my daughter was only tested yesterday for the first time), as they oddly don’t let us know the results (except not/qualify).   However, teachers are not able to take the time for teaching these skills, and they ought to be. Yes, kids need to learn to read and write and do mathematical reasoning, but they’re only getting science since a group duns money from the parents to add it in, and they’re not getting the early exposure to the reasoning skills in a systematic way.

I’m afraid to think that the school district doesn’t want any kids to pass, because then they’d have to do things for them.   Our curriculum’s broken in serious ways, and our politicians aren’t making it better.   We need to be teaching reasoning skills and abstract problem-solving (even practice for these tests).   Now, I need an action plan.