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Clark Quinn’s Learnings about Learning

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.

May Big Q: Workplace Learning Technology 2015

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The Learning Circuits Blog Big Question of the Month for May is “What will workplace learning technology look like in 2015?”   This is a tough question for me, because I tend to see what could be the workplace tech if we really took advantage of the opportunities. Consequently, my predictions tend to be optimistic, as the real world has a way of not moving near as fast as one could wish.   Still, I actually prefer to think on what could be the possibilities, as it’s more inspiring.   Maybe I’ll answer both.

The opportunities on the table are immense.   Mobile technologies are taking off, we’re getting real power in technology standards (and still some hiccups), and we’re crossing boundaries between reality and virtual worlds.

Smartphones are on the rise, and new portable devices (e.g. tablets) are expanding the possibilities.   It’s highly plausible that we’ll have expanded the performance ecosystem to be location independent, and be providing the 4C’s in ways that allow powerful access, sharing, and collaboration.

Virtual worlds provide a different approach, where instead of augmenting reality, we’re re-contextualized in an artificial but enhanced space where capabilities that don’t exist in the real world are available to us.   We can build 3D models, communicate in micro or macro spaces (within molecules or between galaxies), and open up the hidden components of real spaces.   Again, we can leverage the 4C’s to go beyond courses to a fuller definition of learning.

This can be facilitated by standards.   If HTML 5 coalesces as it should, we can and should be delivering rich interactivity, not just content delivery.   Similarly, if we can move beyond ebook standards to capture interactivity, we can make easy marketplaces to deliver capability that is available regardless of connectivity. Virtual world standards are emerging too, and hopefully some convergence will have happened by 2015!

Also, if our backend systems progress as they can (and should), we should be able to move to Web 3.0 where instead of producers or users, the systems generate content.   We can use semantic technologies to do customized delivery of information, pulling together what we know about the learner (e.g. from a competency map or learning path), about the content available (from a content model), and their tasks (from a job role) and their current context (their location and what’s on their calendar) to serve up just the right information.

This is all possible.   What’s probable?   We’ll have seen major progress in mobile tools, whether companies wake up or it’s just individual initiative to accessorize the brain.   Virtual worlds will also be more prevalent, though not ubiquitous.   Social media systems will be much more integrated into the workflow, and LMS will have become just a cog in the ecosystem, not the ecosystem. The social media will be available whether you’re in-world, in the world, or at your desk.

Semantics, however, are likely to still be nebulous. People are beginning to take advantage of powerful content systems leveraging tagging and flexible delivery, but it’s still embryonic.   There’ll be more pockets, but it won’t be a groundswell yet.

I’m probably still be optimistic, but a guy can hope, and of course strive to make it so.   This is what I do and where I like to play. I welcome more playmates in this great playground of opportunity.

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.

The (Initial) iPad Experience

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I’m usually a late adopter of new technology, largely because I’m frugal. I don’t like to spend money until I know just what the value is that I will be getting. So, when I heard about the iPad, I wasn’t one of those who signed up in advance. Which isn’t to say that I didn’t have a case of techno-lust; I am a geek, a boy who loves his toys. And, after all, I am on the stump about mobile learning.

So, I followed the developments closely. I looked at the specs, and I tracked the software app announcements. And I reflected a lot about the potential learning applications of this new platform.

The decision

What I didn’t expect was to get transfixed by a new possibility: that this device could provide a new capability to me, that of a laptop replacement. When I travel, I use my laptop to work; I write, I diagram, I create presentations, and catch up on email. The iPad, however, was announced as coming with (or having available) software for word processing (Pages), diagramming (OmniGraffle), presentations (Keynote), and email (Mail). It would also, when in range of WiFi, do standard web stuff like browse the web and use Twitter.

It began to look like maybe this device did have a justifiable case, such that m’lady was agreeable. There were some considerations: did I need the 3G version, which would come later, and how much memory (16, 32, or 64 GB)? Given that I already have an iPhone, which would meet immediate email, twitter, and/or web needs when not in WiFi range, I figured I could go with the first one coming out. However, my iPhone at 16 GB is already half full, and I’d likely be adding more apps and documents, so I thought I better go for 32 GB (I also figured with aggressive memory management, I could skip the 64 GB version). So my decision was made, with one problem.

The purchase

I hadn’t signed up for delivery, and now that deadline was being pushed out. And, I had a trip planned before the next shipping date. Now that I’d decided I could use it as a laptop substitute, I already wanted it. I wasn’t frantic, and I hate to wait in lines, so I wasn’t going to queue up at the Apple store. However, I did discover that other Apple retailers would have them, particularly BestBuy, which has a nearby store. So my plan was made: I would swing by there just around opening time, and if there wasn’t a huge queue, I’d see if they had any left. I wasn’t particularly optimistic.

So, after breakfast on the 3rd, I headed out in time to get there 5 minutes before they opened, and while there was a small queue, it wasn’t too bad. I checked it out, and a guy told me that they’d been handing out tickets for the iPad, and they seemed to have plenty. They didn’t come out again before the doors opened, but I knew I’d have my answer, one way or another, in a few minutes. And lo and behold, they had stacks of iPads. My transaction was complete within 7 minutes of the door opening, and I had my new device! And once I tweeted this outcome, I very shortly thereafter had several requests for this blog post! (The Apple lady in the BestBuy said the same thing happened with the iPhone releases: queues at the Apple store, and walkin service at the BestBuy; now you, good reader, are in on the secret.)

I also had to accessorize. BestBuy didn’t have the case, but I got a neoprene one with a pocket. Then Apple did have the case when I called, so I swung by late in the day. The place was packed but they also had iPads left! I also got the display adapter so I can present from it, and AppleCare.

The experience

Now it was time to play. I got it home, connected it to my Mac, and started setting it up. One almost immediate surprise was that it wasn’t charging. Turns out that is not uncommon, you need to have a relatively powerful USB port to both power and synch, and I guess my old laptop isn’t up to the job. However, it was fully charged and I got 2 days of intermittent use before it got close to needing a charge. Still, a bit of a pain to swap the cable between synching and charging… However, it was recognized right away and synched just fine. I made a mistake and synched everything (all photos, music, etc) when I really just wanted the limited set I had on the iPhone, but I was able to rectify that.

And then it was time for software. I’m as frugal with software as with hardware, so while I took some interesting free new IPad apps (solitaire, I confess , as well as weather and news, a calculator, etc), I was more picky with paid software. I did get Pages and Keynote (not Numbers, as I’m not a spreadsheet jockey, tho’ I may well get it if I start getting a lot of Excel sheets). I also got a PDF reader, GoodReader, as I had an immediate need. So far I’ve held off of OmniGraffle (which I *love* on the Mac), as it’s surprisingly expensive and the first reviews suggested it may have speed and interface problems. I’ll keep tracking the reviews, as I have faith in the company. I’m looking for a good note taking option, that will handle both text and sketches and/or quick diagrams, but the one or two examples I’ve found have had mixed reviews.

Finally, the ultimate question is how does it work. And the answer is, very very well. The battery life is almost phenomenal. The display is superb. The overall user experience is compelling. Tweetdeck (Twitter), Safari (browser), and Mail look great and work effectively. And it’s pretty functional; I’m touch-typing this with the onscreen keyboard in Pages on the plane, with the case folded to hold the iPad in landscape, tilted so I can use the onscreen keyboard and still see the screen.

There’s still some software to come (diagramming, note-taking with sketches), and accessories (maybe bluetooth keyboard), but it’s working well for me already. (Update: it was a battle to get this posted!) I’m on a short 3 day trip with just the iPad and iPhone, laptop-less, and we’ll see how it goes. (I do have a pad of paper and a pen. :) Stay tuned!

Learning Tools

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Owing to sins in my past, I not only am speaking on mobile learning at the eLearning Guild’s Learning Solutions conference e-Learning Foundations Intensive session, but also introduced the tools section.   The tools will be covered by smart folks like Patti Shank, Harry Mellon, Steve Foreman, and Karen Hyder, but I was supposed to set the context.

Now, I talked about a number of things, including vendors, total cost of ownership, tradeoffs, and the development process, but I also included the following diagram attempting to capture the layers of systems that support tools, and both formal and informal. In some ways the distinctions I make are arbitrary (not to say abstract :), but still, I intended this to be a useful characterization of the space:

The point here is that on top of the hardware and systems are applications. There are assets (with media tools) you create that can (and should) be managed, and then they’re aggregated into content whether courses or resources, that are accessible through synchronous or asynchronous courses or games, portals or feeds, and managed whether through an LMS or a Social Networking System.

The graphic was hard to see on the screen (mea culpa), so I’ve reproduced it here.   Does this make sense?

The GPS and EPSS

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It’s not unknown for me to enter my name into a drawing for something, if I don’t mind what they’re doing with it.   It’s almost unknown, however, for me to actually win, but that’s actually the case a month or so ago when I put a comment on a blog prior to the MacWorld show, and won a copy of Navigon turn-by-turn navigation software for my iPhone.   I’d thought a dedicated one might be better, though I’d have to carry two devices, but if I moved from an iPhone to Droid or Pre I’d suffer. But for free…

When I used to travel more (and that’s starting again), I’ve usually managed to get by with Google Maps: put in my desired location (so glad they finally put copy/paste in, such a no-brainer rather than have to write it elsewhere and type it on, or remember, usually imperfectly).   In general, maps are a great cognitive augment, a tool we’ve developed to be very useful.   And I’m pretty good with directions (thankfully), so when a trip went awry it wasn’t too bad.   (Though upper New Jersey…well, it can get scary.)   Still, I’d been thinking seriously about getting a GPS, and then I won one!

And I’m happy to report that Navigon is pretty darn cool.   At first the audio was too faint, but then I found out that upping the iPod volume (?) worked.   (And then it didn’t the last time, at all, with no explanation I can find.   Wish it used the darn volume buttons. We’ll see next time. ) However, it does a fabulous job of displaying where you are, what’s coming up, and recalculating if you’ve made a mistake.   It’s a battery hog, keeping the device on all the time, but that’s why we have charging holders (which I’d already acquired for long trips and music).   It also takes up memory, keeping the maps onboard the device (handy if you’re in an area with bad network coverage), but that’s not a problem for me.

However, my point here is not to extol the virtues of a GPS, but instead to use them as a model for some optimum performance support, as an EPSS (Electronic Performance Support System).   There’s a problem with maps in a real-time performance situation. This goes back to my contention that the major role of mlearning is accessorizing our brain.   Memorizing a map of a strange place is not something our brains do well.   We can point to the right address, and in familiar places choose between good roads, but the cognitive overhead is too high for a path of many turns in unfamiliar territories.   To augment the challenge, the task is ‘real time’, in that you’re driving and have to make decisions within a limited window of recognition.   Also, your attention has to be largely outside the vehicle, directed towards the environment. And to cap it all of, the conditions can be dark, and visibility obscured by inclement weather.   All told, navigation can be challenging.

While the optimal solution is a map-equipped partner sitting ‘shot-gun’, a GPS has been designed to be the next best thing (and in some ways superior).   It has the maps, knows the goal, and often more about certain peculiarities of the environment than a map-equipped but similarly novice partner.   A GPS also typically does not get it’s attention distracted when it should be navigating.   It can provide voice assistance while you’re driving, so you don’t need to look at the device when your attention needs to be on the road, but at safe moments it can display useful guidance about lanes to be in (and avoid) visually, without requiring much screen real estate.

And that’s a powerful model to generalize from: what is the task, what are our strengths and limitations, and what is the right distribution of task between device and individual?   What information can a device glean from the immediate and networked environment, from the user, and then provide the user, either onboard or networked?   How can it adapt to a changing state, and continue to guide performance?

Many years ago, Don Norman talked about how you could sit in pretty much any car and know how to drive it, since the interface had time to evolve to a standard.   The GPS has similarly evolved in capabilities to a useful standard.   However, the more we know about how our brains work, the more we can predetermine what sort of support is likely to be useful.   Which isn’t to say that we still won’t need to trial and refine, and use good principles of design across the board, interface, information architecture, minimalism, and more.   We can, and should, be thinking about meeting organizational performance, not just learning needs.   Memorizing maps isn’t necessarily going to be as useful as having a map, and knowing how to read it.   What is the right breakdown between human and tool in your world, for the individuals you want to perform to their best?   What’s their EPSS?

And on a personal note, it’s nice to have the mobile learning manuscript draft put to bed, and be able to get back into blogging and more. A touch of the flu has delayed my ability to think again, but now I’m ready to go.   And off I go to the Learning Solutions conference in Orlando, to talk mobile, deeper learning, and more.   The conference will both interfere with blogging and provide fodder as well.   If you’re there, please do say hello.

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!