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Clark Quinn’s Learnings about Learning

When to LMS

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Dave Wilkins, who I admire, has taken up the argument for the LMS in a long post, after a suite of posts (including mine).   I know Dave ‘gets’ the value of social learning, but also wants folks to recognize the current state of the LMS, where major players have augmented the core LMS functions with social tools, tool repositories, and more. Without doing a point-by-point argument, since Dan Pontefract has eloquently done so, and also I agree with many of the points Dave makes. I want, however, to point to a whole perspective shift that characterizes where I come from.

I earlier made two points: one is that the LMS can be valuable if it has all the features.   And if you want an integrated suite.   Or if you need the LMS features as part of a larger federated suite. I made the analogy to the tradeoffs between a Swiss Army knife and a toolbox.   Here, you either have a tool that has all the features you need, or you pull together a suite of separate tools with some digital ‘glue’.   It may be that the glue is custom code from your IT department, or one tool that integrates one or more of the functions and can integrate other tools (e.g. SharePoint, as Harold Jarche points out on a comment to a subsequent Dave post).

The argument for the former is one tool, one payment, one support location, one integrated environment.   I think that may make sense for a lot of companies, particularly small ones. Realize that there are tradeoffs, however.   The main one, to me, is that you’re tied to the tools provided by the vendor. They may be great, or they may not. They may have only adequate, or truly superb capabilities.   And as new things are developed, you either have to integrate into their tool, or wait for them to develop that capability on their priority.

Which, again, may still be an acceptable solution if the price is right and the functionality is there.   However, only if it’s organized around tasks. If it’s organized around courses, all bets are off. Courses aren’t the answer any more!

However, if it’s not organized around courses, (and Dave has suggested that a modern LMS can be a portal-organized function around performance needs), then why the #$%^&* are you calling it an LMS?   Call it something else (Dan calls it a Learning, Content, & Collaboration system or LCC)!

Which raises the question of whether you can actually manage learning.   I think not. You can manage courses, but not learning.   And this is an important distinction, not semantics.   Part of my problem is the label.   It leads people to make the mistake of thinking that their function is about ‘learning’ with a small ‘l’, the formal learning.   Let me elaborate.

Jane Hart developed a model for organizational learning that really captures the richness of leraning. She talks about:

  • FSL – Formal Structured Learning
  • IOL – Intra-Organizational Learning
  • GDL – Group Directed Learning
  • PDL – Personal Directed Learning
  • ASL – Accidental & Serendipitous Learning

The point I want to make here is that FSL is the compliance and certification stuff that LMS’ handle well. And if that’s all you see as the role of the learning unit, you’ll see that an LMS meets your needs.   If you, instead, see the full picture, you’ll likely want to look at a richer suite of capabilities.   You’ll want to support performance support, and you’ll absolutely want to support communication, collaboration, and more.

The misnomer that you can manage learning becomes far more clear when you look at the broader picture!

So, my initial response to Dave is that you might want the core LMS capabilities as part of a federated solution, and you might even be willing to use what’s termed LMS software if it really is LCC or a performance ecosystem solution, and are happy with the tradeoffs.   However, you might also want to look at creating a more flexible environment with ‘glue’ (still with single sign-on, security, integration, etc, if your IT group or integration tool is less than half-braindead).

But I worry that unless people are clued in, selling them (particularly with LMS label) lulls them into a false confidence. I don’t accuse Dave of that, by the way, as he has demonstrably been carrying the ‘social’ banner, but it’s a concern for the industry.   And I haven’t even talked about how, if you’re still talking about ‘managing’ learning, you might not have addressed the issues of trust, value, and culture in the community you purport to support.

Performer-focused Integration

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On a recent night, I was part of a panel on the future of technical communication with the local chapter of the Society for Technical Communication, and there were several facets of the conversation that I found really interesting.   Our host had pulled together an XML architecture consultant who’s deep into content models (e.g. DITA) and tools, Yas Etassam, and another individual who started a very successful technical writing firm, Meryl Natchez.   And, of course, me.

My inclusion shouldn’t be that much of a surprise. The convener had heard me speak on the performance ecosystem (via Enterprise 2.0, with a nod to my ITA colleagues), and I’d included mention of content models, learning experience design, etc.   My background in interface design (e.g. studying under Don Norman, as a consequence teaching interface design at UNSW), and work with publishers and adaptive systems using content models, means I’ve been touching a lot of their work and gave a different perspective.

It was a lively session, with us disagreeing and then finding the resolution, both to our edification as well as the audiences. We covered new devices, tools, and movements in corporate approaches to supporting performance, as well as shifts in skill sets.

The first topic that I think is of interest was the perspective they took on their role.   They talk about ‘content’ and include learning content as well.   I queried that, asking whether they saw their area of responsibility covering formal learning as well, and was surprised to hear them answer in the affirmative. After all, it’s all content.   I countered with the expected: “it’s about the experience” stance, to which Meryl replied to the effect of “if I’m working, I just want the information, not an experience”.   We reconciled that formal learning, when learners need support for motivation and context, needed the sort of experience I was talking about, but even her situation required the information coming in a way that wasn’t disruptive: we needed to think about the performer experience.

The other facet to this was the organizational structure in this regard. Given the view that it’s all content, I asked whether they thought they covered formal learning, and they agreed that they didn’t deliver training, but often technical writers create training materials: manuals, even online courses.   Yet they also agreed, when pushed, that most organizations weren’t so structured, and documentation was separate from training.   And we all agreed that, going forward, this was a problem. I pushed the point that knowledge was changing faster than their processes could cope, and they agreed.   We also agreed that breaking down those silos and integrating performance support, documentation, learning, eCommunity, and   more was increasingly necessary.

This raised the question of what to do about user generated content: I was curious what they saw as their role in this regard.   They took on a content management stance, for one, suggesting that it’s content and needed to be stored and made searchable.   Yas talked about the powerful systems that folks are using to develop and manage content.   We also discussed the analogy to learning in that the move is from content production to content production facilitation.

One of the most interesting revelations for me actually came before the panel in the networking and dinner section, where I learned about Topic-Based Authoring. I’ve been a fan of content models for over a decade now, from back when I was talking about granularity of learning objects.   The concept I was promoting was to write tightly around definitions for introduction components, concept presentations, examples, practice items, etc. It takes more discipline, but the upside is much more powerful opportunities to start doing the type of smart delivery that we’re now capable of and even seeing.   Topic-based is currently applied for technical needs (e.g. performance support) which is enough reason, but there can and should be educational applications as wellThe technical publications area is a bit ahead on this front.   Topic-based authoring is a discipline around this approach that provides the rigor needed to make it work.

Meryl pointed out how the skill set shift needn’t be unitary: there were a lot of areas that are related in their world: executive communications, content management, information architecture, even instructional design is a potential path.   The basics of writing were still necessary, but like in our field, facilitation skills for user-generated content may still play a role. The rate of change means that the technical writers, just like instructional designers, won’t be able to produce all the needed information, and that a way for individuals to develop materials would be needed. As mentioned above, Yas just cared that they did the necessary tagging!   Which gets into interest system areas about how can we make that process as automatic as possible and minimize the onerous part of the work.

The integration we need is for all those who are performer-focused to not be working in ignorance of (let alone opposition to) each other.   Formal learning should be developed in awareness of the job aids that will be used, and vice-versa.   The flow from marketing to engineering has to stop forking as the same content gets re-purposed for documentation, customer training, sales training, and customer service, but instead have a coherent path that populates each systematically.

Better design doesn’t take longer!

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I wrote a screed on this topic over at eLearn Mag, which I highly recommend.   In short:

Better design takes no more time* and yields better outcomes
(*after an initial transition period).

I look forward to your thoughts!

Why bash the LMS?

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In response to a query about why someone would question the concept of the LMS, I penned the (slightly altered, for clarity) response that follows:

What seems to me to be the need is to have a unified performer-facing environment.   It should provide access to courses when those are relevant, resources/job aids, and eCommunity tools too.   That’s what a full technology support environment should contain.   And it should be performer- and performance-centric, so I come in and find my tools ‘to hand’.   And I ‘get’ the need for compliance, and the role of courses.

So, what’re my concerns?

On principle, I want the best tool for each task.   The analogy is to the tradeoffs between a Swiss Army knife and a tool kit.   There will be orgs for which an all-singing all-dancing system make sense, as they can manage it, they can budget for it.   In general, however, I’d want the best tool for each job and a way to knit them together.   So I’d be inclined to couple an LMS with other tools, not assume I can get one that’s best in all it’s capabilities.   I’m sure you’ve seen the companies that put in some version of a capability to be able to tick it off on a feature list, but it’s a brain-dead implementation.

Also, I do worry about the DNA of the all-singing, all-dancing.   I was asked whether a social system and an LMS, each with the same features, would be equivalent. Yes, but.   It depends on the learner experience, and that could be different.   The feature list could be identical, and all the features accessible, but I’d rather have it organized around the learner’s communities and tasks rather than courses.   But even that’s not the big worry.

My big worry, both at the individual and org level: is that focusing on an LMS, and talking about an LMS, focuses on formal learning.   And history, tradition, and a bunch of other things already have made that too much the emphasis.   Yes, I’m on a crusade, not to replace formal learning, but to put it in balance with the rest.   And given all the weight tilting towards formal, I think the pressure has to be to push much harder on non-formal before we’ll get a balance.

As an aside, my take on Snake Oil is that it’s actually about the social space, not LMSs.   Everyone who can program a DB is suddenly a social media vendor.   And lots of folks who’ve used twitter and blogged a few times are suddenly social media experts. That’s the snake oil; and it’s SoMe, not LMS (it happened there, too, but that’s past).

I don’t want my colleagues who work for LMS companies to take the bashing personally; I’ve great respect for their integrity and intellect, but I want them to understand that it’s a mission.   I’m not anti-LMS, or anti-LMS vendor; I’m anti-‘courses are the one true learning’, and I’m afraid that leading with the LMS is a slippery slope to that place.

LMSs are a tool, social networks are a tool.   I’m perfectly willing to believe that “the remaining LMS vendors are adding Web 2.0 / Social / Collaborative functionality into their offerings in a robust way”, but then don’t call it an LMS!   LMSs are about ‘managing’ learning, and that’s not what we want to do (nor, really, can do), nor do we want organizations thinking like that.   We want to facilitate learning.   Call them learning infrastructure platforms (you wanna give me some LIP?), or something else.

But if someone keeps leading with ‘learning management‘, I’m going to keep suggesting a different path.

User-generated curriculum & competencies?

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I like jogging (ok, more like plodding), as it’s a time I can queue up some questions to think about and then take them on the road to get some insights.   In addition to some great thoughts on my presentation for the Innovations in eLearning Symposium, and my workshop at the mLearn Conference, I thought about LMS and social media.

I was reflecting on what I liked about Q2Learning’s model for system support, where a variety of things can be aggregated to achieve a competency: a course, a meeting, a project, etc.   It occurred to me to think that if someone can decide what goes together to create a course, why shouldn’t the community itself decide?

It goes further: I got to design my own undergraduate major. I took a bunch of things I’d done, and some things I thought augmented those activities to create a coherent body of study on what was then termed Computer-Based Education (UCSD didn’t have a program in it back then), and submitted it as a proposal.   The Provost vetted it, and I was on my way. Isn’t that a model that could be replicated?   Can’t we have folks propose their course of study?

I started thinking about having networks start moving to becoming communities by defining component skills and proposed paths for achieving those skills, and also supporting proposals for other paths.   Really, it’s about the community deciding how to help individuals move to the center, but with some explicit steps rather than implicit.

The learning organization role would be then one of facilitating this process of developing roles, competencies and curricula. It would certainly   be a way of addressing the decreasing half-life of knowledge, by having it continually updated by the community in which those roles and skills made sense.

In this way, a community would co-create it’s learning paths in a dynamic interchange between the goals and tasks.   And an LMS would then be a networking tool with the ability to manage the discussions, resources, and paths to competency as well as a learner’s record.   It would be more organic and coupled in a robust feedback loop, not externalized, abstracted, filtered, and returned in ways that may diminish the value.

The learning organization would be dispersed as members of the constituent communities, helping develop the components of the competency path in concert with the members, adding in their value and nurturing development.

The thinking hasn’t yet gone far beyond this yet, but I have to say that it seems to approach an appropriate blend between the value of bringing in a real understanding of knowledge (the role of a learning organization) with the dynamic co-development of understanding that characterizes a community.   Does this make sense to you?

A case for the LMS?

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My Internet Time Alliance colleagues Harold Jarche and Jane Hart have been (rightly) eviscerating the LMS.   Harold put up a post that the “LMS is no longer the centre of the universe“,   while Jane asked “what is the future of the LMS“.   Both of them are recognizing the point I make about the scope of learning in thinking about performance: it’s more than just courses, it’s the whole ecosystem.

I think that, before we completely abandon the LMS (and that’s not necessarily what they advocate), we should examine the key capabilities an LMS provides and determine whether that role can be taken up elsewhere or how it can manifest in the broader system.   I see two key functions an LMS provides.

The first role is to provide access to courses: there’s one place where learners can go to sign up for face-to-face courses, or access online courses (whether to signup and then attend a synchronous event or to complete an asynchronous one).   Providing access to courses is a good thing, as there are situations where formal learning is the appropriate approach.

A second role is to track learner usage and completion of courses. Again, ascertaining an individual’s capabilities is valuable, whether it be by programmed assessment, 360 evaluation or otherwise.   Linking these interventions back to organizational outcomes is also valuable to determine whether the original objectives were appropriate and whether the intervention needs modification.   (BTW, I’m definitely assuming for the sake of the argument that there’s an enlightened analysis focusing on meaningful workplace objectives and an enlightened design combining cognitive and emotional design into a minimal and engaging experience).

Other capabilities – authoring, communications, etc – are secondary, really.   There are other ways to get those functions, so focusing on the core affordances is the appropriate perspective.

How do you provide learners with the ability to access courses?   The LMS model is that the learner comes to the LMS.   That’s a course-centric model. In a performance ecosystem model, we should have a learner performance-centric view, where courses, communities, resources (e.g. job aids, media files), etc are aligned to their interests, roles, and tasks.   Really, performers should have custom portals!

Similarly, tracking performance should cross courses, use of resources, and community actions to look for opportunities to facilitate.   We want to find ways to assist people in using the environment successfully, to augment the elements of the ecosystem, and to align it to the performance needs.   This is a bigger problem, but an LMS isn’t going to solve it.

All this argues, as Jane suggests in a followup post on A Transition Path to the Future, that “It may be that you want to retain it in some cut-down form, or it may be that it is providing no real value at all, and it is a barrier to ‘learning'”.     Harold similarly says in his followup post on Identifying a Collaboration Platform, that you “minimize use of the LMS”.

You could make access to formal learning available through a portal, but I think there’s an argument to have a tool for those responsible for formal learning to manage it. However, it probably should not be a performer-facing interface.

The big problem I see is that it’s too easy for the learning function in an organization to take the easy path and focus on the formal learning, and an LMS may be an enabler.   If you take the Pareto rule Jay Cross (another ITA colleague) touts where we spend 80% of our money on the 20% of value people obtain in the workplace from formal learning, you may have misplaced priorities.

It is likely that the first tool you should buy is a collaboration platform, as Harold’s suggesting, and LMS capability is an afterthought or addition, rather than the core need.   Truly, once people are up and performing, they need tools for accessing resources and each other. That infrastructure, like plumbing or electricity or air, is probably the most important (and potentially the best value) investment you can make.

Yes, you need to prepare the ground to seed, feed, weed, and breed the outcome, but the benefits are not only in the output, but also the demonstrable investment in employee value and success.   Let an LMS be a functional tool, not an enabler of mis-focused energy, and certainly not the core of your learning technology investment.   Look at the bigger picture, and budget accordingly.

Reflections on Web 2.0 Expo

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Last October I toured the expo associated with O’Reilly’s Web 2.0 Conference, and had the chance again this week. Somehow, it didn’t feel as vibrant. Still, there were some interesting developments.

A couple of companies were there who I talked about last time, including Blue Kiwi (who I didn’t visit this time) and Vignette (who I did visit, unintentionally). I was talking to OpenText for quite awhile before it came up that they’d acquired Vignette! Naturally, their DNA is content management, but user- generated content is content, after all. I also talked to Social Text, seeing if they supported user-generation of video (no).

Also, I’d been pinged by the CEO of MangoSpring via the social software for the conference (which didn’t obviously give me a way of pinging back!?!?), so I stopped by the booth for their product, Engage. Which has the predictable mix of capabilities and is (at least initially) totally internally focused.

The internal focus was refreshing, because much of the expo felt marketing focused, without much focus on the ClueTrain of a two-way authentic discussion.

I also was intrigued to see Microsoft showing the Fuse team rather then SharePoint. Fuse seemed to be largely developing internal social media capabilities (enhancing Outlook) and some developer interfaces, but apparently also do some customer work. They were also touting a beta of accessing Microsoft Office docs collaboratively through FaceBook. Trying to counter Google Docs, I reckon, but will FaceBook appeal to the biz crowd?

One of the questions I was asking was about tracking the potential benefits of social media in the enterprise, particularly the outcomes of informal learning: rate of problem solving, products and services generated, etc. Engage has, like Spigit, an idea tool, but no one had a clear answer. Likely it will have to be developed for the group being supported (tho’ I’d like a more generic one if I could).

Nothing earth-shattering, some maturation, still a bit of hype but some more reasoned approaches overall.

Reflections on ISPI 2010

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Early in the year, I gave a presentation online to the Massachusetts chapter of ISPI (the international society for performance improvement), and they rewarded me with a membership. A nice gesture, I figured, but little more (only a continent away). To my benefit, I was very wrong. The ISPI organization gave each chapter a free registration to their international conference, which happens to be in San Francisco this year (just a Bart trip away), and I won! (While the fact that my proximity may have been a factor, I’m not going to do aught but be very grateful and feel that the Mass chapter can call on me anytime.). Given that I just won a copy of GPS software for my iPhone (after seemingly never winning anything), I reckon I should buy a lottery ticket!

Now, it probably helps to explain that I’ve been eager to attend an ISPI conference for quite a while. I’m quite attracted to the HPT (Human Performance Technology) framework, and I’m ever curious. I even considered submitting to the conference to get a chance to attend, but their submission processes seemed so onerous that I gave up. So, I was thrilled to get a chance to finally visit.

Having completed the experience, I have a few   reflections. I think there’s a lot to like about what they do, I have some very serious concerns, and I wish we could somehow reconcile the too-many organizations covering the same spaces.

I mentioned I’m a fan of the HPT approach. There are a couple of things to like, including that they start by analyzing the performance gaps and causes, and are willing to consider approaches other than courses. They also emphasize a systems approach, which I can really get behind. There were some worrying signs, however.

For instance, I attended a talk on Communities of Practice, but was dismayed to hear discussion of monitoring, managing, and controlling instead of nurturing and facilitation. While there may need to be management buy-in, it comes from emergent value, not exec-dictated outcomes the group should achieve!

Another presentation talked about the Control System Model of Management. Maybe my mistake to come to OD presentations at ISPI, but it’s this area I’m interested via my involvement in the Internet Time Alliance. There did end up being transparency and contribution, but it was almost brought in by stealth, as opposed to being the explicit declarations of culture.

On the other hand, there were some positive signs.   They had enlightened keynotes, e.g. one talking about Appreciative Inquiry and positive psychology that I found inspiring, and I attended another on improv focusing on accepting the ‘offer’ in a conversation.   And, of course, Thiagi and others talked about story and games.

One surprise was that the technology awareness seems low for a group with technology in their prized approach. Some noticed the lack of tweets from the conference, and there wasn’t much of a overall technology presence (I saw no other iPads, for instance). I challenged one of the editors of their handbook, Volume 1 (which I previously complained didn’t have enough on informal learning and engagement) about the lack of coverage of mobile learning, and he opined that mobile was just a “delivery channel”. To be fair, he’s a very smart and engaging character, and when I mentioned context-sensitivity, he was quite open to the idea.

I attended Guy Wallace‘s   presentation on Enterprise Process Performance Improvement, and liked the structure, but reckon that it might be harder to follow in more knowledge-oriented industries. It was a pleasure to finally meet Guy, and we had a delightful conversation on these issues and more, with some concurrence on the thoughts above. As a multiple honoree at the conference, there is clearly hope for the organization to broaden their focus.

Overall, I had mixed feelings. While I like their rigor and research base, and they are incorporating some of the newer positive approaches, it appears to me that they’re still very much mired in the old hierarchical style of management.     Given the small sample, I reckon you should determine for yourself. I can clearly say I was grateful for the experience, and had some great conversations, heard some good presentations, and learned. What more can you ask for?

Designing for an uncertain world

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My problem with the formal models of instructional design (e.g. ADDIE for process), is that most are based upon a flawed premise.   The premise is that the world is predictable and understandable, so that we can capture the ‘right’ behavior and train it.   Which, I think, is a naive assumption, at least in this day and age.   So why do I think so, and what do I think we can (and should) do about it?   (Note: I let my argument lead where it must, and find I go quite beyond my intended suggestion of a broader learning design.   Fair warning!)

The world is inherently chaotic. At a finite granularity, it is reasonably predictable, but overall it’s chaotic. Dave Snowden’s Cynefin model, recommending various approaches depending on the relative complexity of the situation, provides a top-level strategy for action, but doesn’t provide predictions about how to support learning, and I think we need more.   However, most of our design models are predicated on knowing what we need people to do, and developing learning to deliver that capability.   Which is wrong; if we can define it at that fine a granularity, we bloody well ought to automate it.   Why have people do rote things?

It’s a bad idea to have people do rote things, because they don’t, can’t do them well.   It’s in the nature of our cognitive architecture to have some randomness.   And it’s beneath us to be trained to do something repetitive, to do something that doesn’t respect and take advantage of the great capacity of our brains.   Instead, we should be doing pattern-matching and decision-making.   Now, there are levels of this, and we should match the performer to the task, but as I heard Barry Schwartz eloquently say recently, even the most mundane seeming jobs require some real decision making, and in many cases that’s not within the purview of   training.

And, top-down rigid structures with one person doing the thinking for many will no longer work.   Businesses increasingly complexify things but that eventually fails, as Clay Shirky has noted, and   adaptive approaches are likely to be more fruitful, as Harold Jarche has pointed out.   People are going to be far better equipped to deal with unpredictable change if they have internalized a set of organizational values and a powerful set of models to apply than by any possible amount of rote training.

Now think about learning design.   Starting with the objectives, the notion of Mager, where you define the context and performance, is getting more difficult.   Increasingly you have more complicated nuances that you can’t anticipate.   Our products and services are more complex, and yet we need a more seamless execution.   For example trying to debug problems between hardware device and network service provider, and if you’re trying to provide a total customer experience, the old “it’s the other guy’s fault” just isn’t going to cut it.   Yes, we could make our objectives higher and higher, e.g. “recognize and solve the customer’s problem in a contextually appropriate way”, but I think we’re getting out of the realms of training.

We are seeing richer design models. Van Merrienboer’s 4 Component ID, for instance, breaks learning up into the knowledge we need, and the complex problems we need to apply that knowledge to.   David Metcalf talks about learning theory mashups as ways to incorporate new technologies, which is, at least, a good interim step and possibly the necessary approach. Still, I’m looking for something deeper.   I want to find a curriculum that focuses on dealing with ambiguity, helping us bring models and an iterative and collaborative approach.   A pedagogy that looks at slow development over time and rich and engaging experience.   And a design process that recognizes how we use tools and work with others in the world as a part of a larger vision of cognition, problem-solving, and design.

We have to look at the entire performance ecosystem as the context, including the technology affordances, learning culture, organizational goals, and the immediate context.   We have to look at the learner, not stopping at their knowledge and experience, but also including their passions, who they can connect to, their current context (including technology, location, current activity), and goals.   And then we need to find a way to suggest, as Wayne Hodgins would have it, the right stuff, e.g. the right content or capability, at the right time, in the right way, …

An appropriate approach has to integrate theories as disparate as distributed cognition, the appropriateness of spaced practice, minimalism, and more.   We probably need to start iteratively, with the long term development of learning, and similarly opportunistic performance support, and then see how we intermingle those together.

Overall, however, this is how we go beyond intervention to augmentation.   Clive Thompson, in a recent Wired column, draws from a recent “man+computer” chess competition to conclude “serious cognitive advantages accrue to those who are best at thinking alongside machines”.   We can accessorize our brains, but I’m wanting to look at the other side, how can we systematically support people to be effectively supported by machines?   That’s a different twist on technology support for performance, and one that requires thinking about what the technology can do, but also how we develop people to be able to take advantage.   A mutual accommodation will happen, but just as with learning to learn, we shouldn’t assume ‘ability to perform with technology augmentation’.   We need to design the technology/human system to work together, and develop both so that the overall system is equipped to work in an uncertain world.

I realize I’ve gone quite beyond just instructional design.   At this point, I don’t even have a label for what I’m talking about, but I do think that the argument that has emerged (admittedly, flowing out from somewhere that wasn’t consciously accessible until it appeared on the page!) is food for thought.   I welcome your reactions, as I contemplate mine.

Some accumulated thoughts…

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I have had my head down cranking out the manuscript for my mobile learning book. The deadline for the first draft is breathing down my neck, and I’ve been quite busy with some client work as well.   The proverbial one-armed paper hanger comes to mind.

However, that does not mean my mind has been idle.   Far from, actually.   It’s just not been possible   to find the time to do the thoughts justice.   I’m not really going to here, either, but I do want to toss out some recent thoughts and see what resonates with you, so these are mini-blogs (not microblogging):

A level above

I have long argued that we don’t use mental models enough in our learning, and also that we focus too much on knowledge and not enough on skills.   As I   think about developing learning, I want to equip learners to be able to regenerate the approach they should be using if they forget some part of it, and can if they have been given a conceptual model as relationships that guide the application to a problem.

I realize I want to go further, however.   Given the rate of change of things these days, and the need to empower learners to go beyond just what is presented (moving from training to education, in a sense), I think we need to go further to facilitate the transition from ‘dependent’ learning to independent and interdependent learning, as my colleague Harold Jarche so nicely puts it.

To do that, I think we need to take our presentation of the model a little bit further.   I think we need to look at, as a goal, having presented the learning in such a way that our learners understand the concept not only to regenerate, but maintain, extend, and self-improve.   Yes, it is some extra work, but I think that is going to be critical. It will not only be the role of the university (despite Father Guido), but also the workplace. It’s not quite clear what that means practically, but I definitely want to put this stake into the ground to start thinking about it.   What are your thoughts?

More on the iPad and the Publishing marketplace

I’ve already posted on the iPad, but I want to go on a little longer.   First, the good news: OmniGroup has announced that they’ll be porting OmniGraffle (and their other apps) to the iPad.   Yay!   I *really* like their diagramming tool (where do you think I come up with all those graphics?).

On the other hand, I had lunch the other day with Joe Miller, who is the VP of Tech for Linden Labs.   He recently was talking about the iPad and really sees it as a game changer in ways that are subtle and insightful.   As we talked, he really feels that the whole Flash thing is a big mistake: that one of the things you would use the iPad for is surfing the web, and that more than 75% of the web runs Flash.   It does seem like a relatively small thing to let hang up a major play.

Further, as I said earlier, I think interactivity is the   major opportunity for publishers to go beyond the textbook on eReaders, and the iPad could lead the way.   But right now, Flash is the lingua franca of interactivity on the web, and without it, there’s not an obvious fallback that won’t require rewriting across platforms instead of write-once, run anywhere.

Joe did point me to an interesting new eReader proposal, by Ray Kurzweil of all people.   Oddly, it’s Windows-only, so not quite sure the relevance to the Mac (tho’ you’d think they’d port it over with alacrity), but a free, more powerful eReader platform could have a big impact.

Lots of more interesting things on the way, after I get this draft off to the publisher and get back into the regular blogging swing. ‘Til then, take care,   and keep up the dialog!