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Clark Quinn’s Learnings about Learning

Virtual Worlds Value Proposition

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In prepping for tomorrow nights #lrnchat, Marcia Conner was asking about the value proposition of virtual worlds. I ripped out a screed and lobbed it, but thought I’d share it here as well:

At core, I believe the essential affordances of the virtual world are 3D/spatial, and social.  There are lower-overhead social environments (but…which I’ll get back to).  However, many of our more challenging tasks are 3D visualization (e.g. work of Liz Tancred in medicine, Hollan & Hutchins on steamships). Also, contextualization can be really critical, and immersion may be better.  So, for formal learning in particular domains, virtual environments really make a lot of sense.  Now you still might not need a social one, so let’s get back to that.

The overhead is high with virtual worlds on the social issue, so ordinarily I’d not put much weight on value proposition for informal learning, but…  two things are swaying me.  One is the ability to represent yourself as you’d like to be perceived, not as nature has provided.  The other is the ephemeral ‘presence’ and the context.  Can we make a more ambient environment to meet virtually, and be fully present (in a sense). Somehow there’s less intermediation through a virtual world than through a social networking site (with practice).

And one more thing in the informal side:  collaborative 3D creation.  This is, to me, the real untapped opportunity, but it may require both better interfaces, and more people with more experience.

Now, there’s certainly a business case for learning in virtual worlds *where* there’s an environment that really  needs 3D or contextualization, but does it need to be massively social (versus a constrained environment just for education, built in something like ThinkingWorlds)?

And we know there’s a business case for social, but is the overhead of virtual worlds worth it?

However, when we put these two together, adding the power of social learning onto the formal 3D/spatial, and in the social adding the ephemeral ‘presence’ *and* then consider the possibility of 3D spatial collaboration (model building, not just diagram building), and amortize the overhead over a long term organizational uptake, I’m beginning to think that it may just have crossed the threshold.

That is, for formal learning, 3D and contextualization is really underestimated.  For social learning, presence and representation may be underrated.  And the combination may have emergent benefits.

In short, I think the social learning value of virtual worlds may have broader application than I’ve been giving credit for.  Which isn’t even to mention what could come from bridging the social network across virtual, desktop, and even mobile!  So, what say you?

Blurring boundaries

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I just downloaded a couple of new apps onto my iPhone. Okay, so one was a free trial of a game, but the other was a really interesting offering, and it led to some thoughts about organizational silos and new functionality.

The app was a new release by ATT called Mark the Spot, that lets you report the occurrence and location of a problem with your coverage.   This is a new way to interact with customers, allowing them to serve as a agent of “can you hear me now”-style coverage evaluation.   Given that they’ve just turned up as the lowest rated carrier of the major four here in the US, according to leading consumer champion Consumer Reports, it’s a step in the right direction.

Now this is an instance of considering a broader reach of engagement in our conversations tapping into collective intelligence. As I’ve been learning with my colleagues in the Internet Time Alliance, tapping into collective intelligence goes beyond conversations internally to include partners and customers.     It’s also a broader interpretation of learning, in the senses that I argue we need to consider, including problem-solving, innovation, etc.   And it’s mobile.

So here’s the question I pondered: is this tech support?   Marketing?   And what occurred to me is that it just isn’t really easy to categorize.   It’s a dialog with the customer, gathering data about coverage, which could be seen as market research.   They can also extend it via a call into a issue resolution exercise (ok, so the app doesn’t really make the call for you but could and should: “click to send the data and be connected to a representative”) .   You could even bake in some trouble-shooting support as a performance support exercise.

The approach, and the potential, crosses boundaries in terms of the benefits and how it must be supported organizationally.   We’re beginning to see a new notion of mashup that combines functionalities that might normally be seen in separate organizational areas, but from a customer perspective, they’re linked. And   we’re seeing a hybrid of communication capabilities, linking the data capabilities of an app with voice, and even media files (e.g. some trouble-shooting information).

Around 1999, the CEO of Cisco, John Chambers, opined that elearning was going to be so big that email would seem like a rounding error.   I think that it’s not just about education over the internet, but it’s really about the broader picture of learning including performance support, social learning, and it’s not just the desktop internet, but it’s mobile apps, and more.   The full performance ecosystem isn’t just within the organization, but it’s external as well. It’s what your company builds for you, what your ‘providers’ build for you (device, service, etc), and, ultimately, how you integrate that into your personal learning network.

The implications are huge.   How to organizations realign to make meaningful information environments for their employees, partners, and customers?   How do we skill up society to take advantage and shape this environment for the benefit of all?   And how do we develop ourselves to manage and optimize the environment to help us achieve our goals?

I think we are seeing an inflection point that will trump email, but it’s not about education, it’s about the broad intersection between people’s goals and our technology infrastructure.   And our role in that, as designers of learning experiences and performance ecosystems.   We have a fair bit of understanding of cognition and social interaction, and increasing experience with different technology capabilities.   Now it’s time to put that all to work to start creating meaningful new opportunities. Who’s game?

The Augmented Performer

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The post I did yesterday on Distributed Cognition also triggered another thought, about the augmented learner.   The cited post talked about how design doesn’t recognize the augmented performer, and this is a point I’ve made elsewhere, but I wanted to capture it in a richer representation.   Naturally, I made a diagram:

DistributedCognitionIf we look at our human capabilities, we’re very good pattern matchers, but pretty bad at exercising rote performance.   So we can identify problems, and strategize about solutions, but when it comes to executing rote tasks, like calculation, we’re slow and error prone.   From the point of the view of a problem we’re trying to solve, we’re not as effective as we could be.

However, when we augment our intellect, say with a networked device (read: mobile), we’re augmenting our problem-solving and executive capability with some really powerful calculations capability, and also some sensors we’re typically not equipped with (e.g. GPS, compass), as well as access to a ridiculously huge amount of potential information through the internet, as well as our colleagues.   From the point of view of the problem, we’re suddenly a much more awesome opponent.

And that is the real power of technology: wherever and whenever we are, and whatever we’re trying to do, there’s an app for that.   Or could be.   Are you empowering your performers to be awesome problem-solvers?

Distributed Thinking & Learning

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A post I was pointed to reviews a chapter distributed thinking, a topic I like from my days getting to work with Ed Hutchins and his work on Distributed Cognition.   It’s a topic I spoke about at DevLearn, and recently wrote about.   The chapter is by David Perkins, one of premier thinkers on thinking, and I like several things he says.

For one, he says: “typical psychological and educational practices treat the person in a way that is much closer to person-solo”.   I think that’s spot-on, we don’t tend to train for, and design for, the augmented human, and yet we know from situated cognition and distributed cognition that much of the problem solving we do is augmented in many ways, from pencil and paper, to calculators, references, and mobile devices.

I also like his separation of task solving from executive function, where executive function is the searching, sequencing, etc of the underlying domain-specific tasks, and how he notes that just because you create an environment that requires executive functioning, it doesn’t mean the learner will be able to develop those skills.   “In general, cognitive opportunities are not in themselves cognitive scaffolds.”   So treat all those so-called ‘edutainment’ games that claim to develop problem-solving skills with great care; they may require it, but there’s little effort I’ve seen that they actually develop it.

The implication is that having kids solve problems with executive support, but without scaffolding that executive support and the gradual release of those executive skills to the learner, we’re not really developing appropriate problem-solving skills.   We don’t talk explicitly about them, and consequently leave the acquisition of those skills to chance.   If we don’t put 21st century skills into our courses, K12, higher ed, and organizational, we’re not really developing our performers.

And that, at the end of the day, is what we need to be doing.   So, start thinking a bit broader, and deeper, about learning and the components thereof, and produce better learning, learners, and ultimately the outcome performance.

Convenience vs Context

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What are the real opportunities in mobile learning?

One of the several sessions I’m doing at DevLearn next week (in addition to a pre-conference workshop with Jay Cross, a mobile development session with Richard Clark, and another session on the future of orgnanizational learning) is a mobile learning design introduction.   In thinking through it, I reflected on a distinction I make between convenience and contextualization, and as usual I got into diagramming as a way to get a handle on it.

ContextConvenienceI’ve argued before that mobile is not really about learning, but about performance support.   That said, there are roles for mobile in courses, either as a learning augment or even microcourses (but not putting a whole elearning course on a mobile device).   In talking about mobile, I distinguish between convenience and context.

Convenience is when you access content at a time that’s not at work but you have free.   So, listening to a podcast while commuting, or viewing a video while waiting in the queue at the grocery store, both would qualify. So would doing a little quiz while waiting for your flight, or reading a document on that flight.

Contextualization, on the other hand, is much more specific.   Here, you’re doing something relevant to where you are. In performance support, this is a huge opportunity: providing location specific information (about this device, or this client), or event-based support (providing a quick reference sheet for a negotiation, having a reflection session afterward).

Even for learning, however, there could be specific location information (“this is where X happened”, or “an application of Y is seen here, where…”).   That can be enacted by the device sensing location (GPS, RFID, etc), or by actively reading a location marker (cf QR code).   Similarly, event information could be provided (“for your review meeting, remember to focus on the behavior, not the individual”).

The point is that while convenience is a win, contextualized information is the big win.   It takes a bit more design, but by doing it systemically, the opportunities for really relevant learning are definitely worth considering.

Presenting in a networked age

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The Learning Circuit’s Big Question this month has to do with the increasing prevalence of internet access during presentations.   The context is that during presentations it’s certainly possible that your audience is multi-tasking, and the question is; what are the implications?   In live presentations, the increasing prevalence of wi-fi or phone data means laptops and/or smartphones can be online, and in virtual ones there’s typically a number of other applications available at the same time.

The audience can be doing things related to the presentation, like live-blogging it, tweeting it, or taking notes (I’ve been known to mindmap a keynote a time or two).   They could even be looking up words or phrases mentioned by the speaker, or the speaker’s bio, or related material.   Alternatively, they can be doing other things, like checking email, surfing the web, or other, unrelated, activities.   Particularly in online presentations, there could   actually be live chatting going on in a side-channel.

Are these activities valuable to the listener? Are they valuable to the presenter?   Certainly, note taking is (though it doesn’t take connectivity).   There’re results on this, particularly if you’re re-representing the material in different ways (mind maps, or paraphrasing).   Blogging is, effectively, note-taking so should be valuable too, and tweeting may also be valuable (any studies?   Research topic!).   Certainly looking up things you don’t know so you process the rest of the material could also be valuable if it doesn’t take too long.   And the reprocessing and seeing others’ thoughts from chat could be valuable.   Even playing solitaire can be an advantage to listening, if you’re taking up some extra cognitive cycles that might otherwise lead you off into related thoughts but away from the presentation (likely only true if it’s just audio).

On the other hand, it might also add an intrusive overhead. Multi-tasking has been shown to provide a performance decrement.   Related activities help, but unrelated activities will hinder the ability to process. It may be that you can get so caught up in the chat, or the search to comprehend a term, that you lose the thread of the discussion.   And if it’s complex, the cognitive overhead might prevent you from actually being unable to make the necessary links.   Certainly the tasks that aren’t content related are an intrusion.

So what’s to do?   There are possible actions on both the part of the presenter/organizer, and on the part of the audience. For the audience, it’s got to be a personal responsibility to know how you learn best, and take appropriate steps. If note-taking helps you focus and elaborate, do so.   If tweeting, blogging, or mind-mapping does so, rock on.   If you really need to focus: put away the laptop and phone and focus!   It’s for your benefit!   Really, the same is for students.   Now, individuals may not be as self-aware as we may desire, but that’s a separate topic that needs to be taken care of in the appropriate context.

For the presenters or organizers, as the most onerous step they could prevent wi-fi access.   However, increasingly others are benefitting from the tweets from conferences and the blogging as well.   I think that’s overly draconian, an implicit sign of distrust.   If the presentation doesn’t match the audience interests, they should be able to vote with their feet or their minds.   As I told a medical school faculty years ago, you can’t force them to attend, taking away the internet might make them resort to doodling or daydreaming but while you can lead a learner to learning you can’t make them think.   It’s up to the presenter to present relevant material in an engaging manner.

As a presenter, you can actually use these channels to your advantage.   As a webinar presenter, I like having a live chat tool.   I monitor it, and use it to ask questions. In the last presentation I gave, it was awkward when a moderator had to read me the questions from the audience, and I couldn’t ask a general question an just survey the stream.     I realize it’s difficult to both present and monitor a chat stream, and not all presenters can do it, so having a moderator can be a benefit. But stifling that flow of discussion could be a bane to those who learn better that way.

I haven’t had a tweet stream monitor in a live presentation yet, and it could be harder to pay attention to it, so again a moderator could help.   In smaller sessions you can have interaction with the audience, but in larger presentations, it might take someone to follow it and summarize, though having a monitor that the presenter could see easily could also work.

However, it seems to me that you can’t force people to pay attention with or without technology, providing a rich suite of ways for people to process the information is valuable, and it can be a valuable source of feedback during the presentation.

Which leads to the new skills: for audiences, to know how you best process presentations and take responsibility for getting the most out of it; for presenters to improve their presentation skills to ensure value to the audience and support richer forms of interaction with the audiences; for moderators to track and summarize audience feedback in various forms; and for organizers to support these new channels.

There’s no point in trying to stifle technology affordances, the real key is to take advantage of them. If we have to learn, adjust, and accommodate, it’d be awful boring otherwise!   :)

Mobile Learning

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In addition to speaking on mobile design with David Metcal at the Mobile Learning Jam at DevLearn, and with Richard Clark on pragmatic mobile development, I’ve got a contract with Pfeiffer for a mobile learning book.   Yep, I’m writing another book.   Flat learning curve, eh?

Seriously, I’m excited about the opportunity, because I’ve been on the stump for mobile for years, and think the market is right for mobile to finally contribute to organizational performance like I’ve believed since I wrote an article on the topic back in 2001.   Consequently, I’m glad that Pfeiffer thinks the time is right for a practical book on the subject.

To make it a practical book, however, I need input. I hope to talk to some of the experts in the field, but I also want to hear from you. What do you think should be covered? What are your concerns?   What are your hot-button issues?   In short, what would be required to make the mlearning book for those of you charged with designing learning solutions?   I don’t want to write a book for the sake of writing a book, I want to provide a useful guide.   Please, let me know.   Comments here are welcome, or other forms of contact, are welcome as well.   Thanks!

Standards and success

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Apparently, Google has recently opined that the future of mobile is web standards.   While this is wonderfully vindicating, I think there’s something more important going on here, as it plays out for a broader spectrum than just mobile.

I’ve been reflecting on the benefits that standards have provided.   What worked for networks was the standardization on TCP/IP as a protocol for packet transmission.   What worked for email was standardization on the SMTP protocol.   HTTP standardization has been good for the web, where it’s been implemented properly! What’s been a barrier are inconsistent implementations of web standards, like Microsoft’s non-standard versions of HTML for browsers and Java.

The source of the standard may be by committee, or by the originator.   Microsoft’s done well for itself with the Office suite of applications, and by opening up the XML version, they’re benefiting while not doing harm.   They own the space, and everyone has to at least read and write their format to have any credibility. While IMS & IEEE held meetings to get learning content standards nailed down, ADL just put their foot down with SCORM (and US Defense is a big foot), and it pretty much got everyone’s attention.   But it’s having standards that matters.   The fact that Blu-ray finally won the battle has really opened up the market for high definition video!

On the other hand, keeping proprietary standards has hindered development.   At the recent VW talks hosted by SRI, one of the topics was the inability to transfer a character between platforms.   That’s good for the providers, but bad for the development of the field.   Eventually, one format will emerge, but it may take committees, or it may be that someone like Linden Labs will own the space sufficiently that everyone will lock into a format they provide. Until then, any investment has trouble being leveraged in a longer term picture, as the companies you go with may not survive!   There’s an old saying about how wonderful standards are because there are so many of them.   The problem is when they’re around the same thing!   I was regaling a colleague with the time I smoked (er, caused to burn up, not lighting up!) an interface card by trying to connect two computers to exchange data. One manufacturer had, contrary to the standard, decided to put 12 volts on a particular pin!

And, unfortunately, in the mobile space, the major providers here in the US want to lock you into their walled garden, as opposed to, say, Europe, where all the phones have pretty much the same abilities to access data.   This has been a barrier to development of services.   The web is increasingly powerful, with HTML5, and so while some things won’t work, web-based applications are defaulting to the lingua franca for not just content exchange but interactive activities.   The US is embarrassingly behind, despite the leading platforms (iPhone, Pre, etc).

In one sense this is sad that we can’t do better, but at least it’s good to have the web as a fallback now.   We can make progress when it doesn’t matter what device, or OS, you’re using, as long as you can connect.   The real news is that there is a lingua franca for mobile that you can use, so really there aren’t any reasons to hold off any longer.   Ellen Wagner sees a tipping point, and I’m pleased to agree.   There may be barriers for enterprise adoption, but as I frequently say: it’s   not the technology, the barriers are between our ears (and maybe our pocketbooks :).

Update: forgot my own punchline.   Standards need to be, or at least become, open and extensible for real progress to be made.   When others can leverage, the greatest innovations can occur.

Standards are hard work, but the benefits for progress are huge.   This holds true in your organization, as well.   Are you paying attention to standards you should be using, and what you should standardize yourself?

Artifacts of reflection

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The other day  John Ittelson stopped by for a visit.  I think of him as the guru of video usage in elearning, not least because of the recording studio he built in his house!  He mentioned his use of Flip camcorders, and finally a piece clicked into place that had been floating around in my thoughts.

Media PropertiesI’ve had a slight blindspot for photos and video because I peg the ‘conceptual’ meter. I recognize the value, though I don’t play with the files enough (tho’ I took a digital audio/video editing course more than a decade ago, and recently edited home videos for my wife’s birthday).  Photos and videos are really good for contextualizing, and that’s particularly valuable for examples (and practice).

The revelation was about the value of having learners capture information in situ, and sharing this for a variety of reflective opportunities.  The information captured can be performances, products, whatever.  It could also be interviews, or thoughts.

A colleague’s wife used to take an iPod with a microphone to conduct interviews.  Gina Schreck discussed giving groups of employees Flips to make videos of what their business unit does for the org, to share.  John mentioned capturing samples of teaching to share.  Having captures of actual practice is a valuable tool around which to scaffold discussion, and a powerful tool for reflection.  You can capture someone’s stories of best practices, or your own performance to review.

Note that making both other’s and personal captures available opens up the opportunity to learn more with and from others than your own reflective observations will provide, if you can be that open.  As a learning facilitator, you should provide ways for individuals and groups to capture and share thoughts, actions, events, and more.

One of the powerful things in digital performance environments (read: games, er, immersive learning simulations, and virtual worlds as was part of the discussion the other day) is the ability to capture records of action for review, too.  So look at ways to digitally track activity in learning environments (another reason to make the alternative to the right choice to be a reliable misconception!).

Reflection is powerful, and digital tools give us ways to truly leverage that power.  Reflect on that!

Mythconceptions

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Several things got up my nose yesterday (and I don’t mean literally :).   I listened in on the Corporate Learning Trends event in the morning, and in the evening participated in #lrnchat.   Don’t get me wrong, both events were great: great presentations organized by Tony Karrer, with examples coordinated by Judy Brown on mobile, Bob Mosher on performance support, Karl Kapp on games & simulations, and Tony on asynchronous elearning (all folks I know and respect); and a great lrnchat session as always with Marcia Conner coordinating fantastic participation by a whole host of great folks.   It’s just that several continuing beliefs surfaced that we’ve really got to address.

The first one was the notion that games and simulations are about tarted up quiz shows.   Let me be clear, these are a last resort!   When you’ve addressed the important decisions, and there’s still some knowledge that absolutely has to be memorized, not looked up, they’re ok.   But they’re not your starting point!   Games should be first thought of as your best practice environment for skills, not knowledge recitation.   What’s going to make a difference in learner (and organizational) performance is not rote knowledge, but meaningful decisions.   That is where games shine.

Ok, as Treena Grevatt pointed out, these ‘frame games’ may serve as the easiest entry point for organizational acceptance, but only if you ‘get it’ really, and are only using them as an entry point to do meaningful stuff.   Otherwise, it’s still lipstick on a pig.

The problem is, we already have a problem with our formal learning being too knowledge focused, and not skill focused, and a tool to make drill and kill easy isn’t going to help us remedy the problem.   So, please: first get that games are really deeply contextualized, immersive, challenging skill practice.   Then, when your analysis has addressed that and there still are knowledge components, bring in the quiz show games.   If you ‘get’ that, then you might use a stealth policy, but only then.

The second problem had to do with mobile learning.   There were still notions that mobile learning could be about courses on a phone   and that there’s not really an audience.   Look, depending on what metrics you pay attention to, the mobile workforce can be anywhere from 20-40% of your workforce.   Sales reps, telecommuters, field engineers, execs, the list goes on. And that doesn’t even tap into the folks who want access for convenience!

And it’s not about courses.   It has been, and can be done, but that’s not the real win.   As an adjunct to a course, absolutely.   Reactivate knowledge (developing learners), update it with podcasts (Chris von Koschembahr had a nice way to interview yourself, controlling the outcome :), review stories, solve problems, review with mentors, etc.

The real win, however (as Judy and Bob both pointed out), is performance support. This can include references, job aids, how to videos, connections to experts, and more.   This is huge, yet people don’t seem to be seeing this opportunity yet.

Mobile is ready for primetime. There are ways to deal with screen sizes, security, and cross-platform differences.   Next to social learning, I reckon it’s the greatest missed opportunity going.

Speaking of performance support, I do have to admit how surprised I was that people were thinking that single sourcing content to populate help systems, manuals, and training was a new idea.   This really isn’t a misconception, it’s just surprising.   I led a project developing such an approach years ago now, and it’s another big opportunity.   Still ahead of the curve, though, more so than the other two.

The point being, the more you tie these together, the greater the synergy: the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. And having been out saying these things for years, it continues to surprise me that the meme hasn’t propagated any further than it has.   And that’s my learning, that changing minds is a tough job.   But still an important one.   Evangelism, anyone?