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Clark Quinn’s Learnings about Learning

A wee bit o’ experience…

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A personal reflection, read if you’d like a little insight into what I do, why and what I’ve done.

Reading an article in Game Developer about some of the Bay Area history of the video game industry has made me reflective.   As an undergrad (back before there really were programs in instructional technology) I saw the link between computers and learning, and it’s been my life ever since.   I designed my own major, and got to be part of a project where we used email to conduct classroom discussion, in 1978!

Having called all around the country to find a job doing computers and learning,   I arrived in the Bay Area as a ‘wet behind the ears’ uni graduate to design and program ‘educational’ computer games.   I liked it; I said my job was making computers sing and dance.   I was responsible for FaceMaker, Creature Creator, and Spellicopter (among others) back in 81-82.   (So, I’ve been designing ‘serious games’, though these were pretty un-serious, for getting close to 30 years!)

I watched the first Silicon Valley gold rush, as the success of the first few home computers and software had every snake oil salesman promising that they could do it too.   The crash inevitably happened, and while some good companies managed to emerge out of the ashes, some were trashed as well.   Still, it was an exciting time, with real innovation happening (and lots of it in games; in addition to the first ‘drag and drop’ showing up in Bill Budge’s Pinball Construction Set, I put windows into FaceMaker!).

I went back to grad school for a PhD in applied cog sci (with Don Norman), because I had questions about how best to design learning (and I’d always been an AI groupie :).   I did a relatively straightforward thesis, not technical but focused on training meta-cognitive skills, a persistent (and, I argue, important) interest.   I looked at all forms of learning; not just cognitive but behavioral, ID, constructivist, connectionist, social, even machine learning.   I was also getting steeped in applying cognitive science to the design of systems, and of course hanging around the latest/coolest tech.   On the side, I worked part-time at San Diego State University’s Center for Research on Mathematics and Science Education working with Kathy Fischer and her application SemNet.

My next stop was the University of Pittsburgh’s Learning Research & Development Center for a post-doctoral fellowship working on a project about mental models of science through manipulable systems, and on the side I designed a game that exercised my dissertation research on analogy (and published on it).   This was around 1990, so I’d put a pretty good stake in the ground about computer games for deep thinking.

In 1991 I headed to the Antipodes, taking up a faculty position at UNSW in the School of Computer Science, teaching interface design, but quickly getting into learning technology again.   I was asked, and I supervised a project designing a game to help kids (who grow up without parents) learn to live on their own. This was a very serious game (these kids can die because they don’t know how to be independent), around 1993.   As soon as I found out about CGIs (the first ‘state’-maintaining technology) we ported it to the web (circa 1995), where you can still play it (the tech’s old, but the design’s still relevant).

I did a couple other game-related projects, but also experimented in several other areas.   For one, as a result of looking at design processes,   I supervised the development of a web-based performance support system for usability, as well as meta-cognitive training and some adaptive learning stuff.

I joined a government-sponsored initiative on online learning, determining how to run an internet university, but the initiative lost out to politics.   I jumped to another, and got involved in developing an online course that was too far ahead of the market (this would be about 1996-1997).   The design was lean, engaging, and challenging, I believe (I shared responsibility), and they’re looking at resurrecting it now, more than 10 years later!   I returned to the US to lead an R&D project developing an intelligent learning system based on learning objects that adapted on learner characteristics (hence my strong opinions on learning styles), which we got up and running in 2001 before that gold rush went bust.   Since then, I’ve been an independent consultant.

It’s been interesting watching the excitement around serious games.   Starting with Prensky, and then Aldrich, Gee, and now a deluge, there’s been a growing awareness and interest; now there are multiple conferences on the topics, and new initiatives all the time.   The folks in it now bring new sensibilities, and it’s nice to see that the potential is finally being realized. While I’ve not been in the thick of it, I’ve quietly continued to work, think, and write on the issue (thanks to clients, my book, and the eLearning Guild‘s research reports).   Fortunately, I’ve kept from being pigeonholed, and have been allowed to explore and be active in other areas, like mobile, advanced design, performance support, content models, and strategy.

The nice thing about my background is that it generalizes to many relevant tasks: usability and user experience design and information design are just two, in addition to the work I cited, so I can play in many relevant places, and not only keep up with but also generate new ideas.   My early technology experience and geeky curiosity keeps me up on the capabilities of the new tools, and allows me to quickly determine their fundamental learning capabilities.   Working on real projects, meeting real needs, and ability to abstract to the larger picture has given me the ability to add value across a range of areas and needs.   I find that I’m able to quickly come in and identify opportunities for improvement, pretty much without exception, at levels from products, through processes, to strategy.   And I’m less liable to succumb to fads, perhaps because I’ve seen so many of them.

I’m incredibly lucky and grateful to be able to work in the field that is my passion, and still getting to work on cool and cutting edge projects, adding value.   You’ll keep seeing me do so, and if you’ve an appetite for pushing the boundaries, give me a holler!

Whither the library?

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I go to libraries, and check out books.   I admit it, when there’s a lot I want to read, I’d rather read it on paper (at 1200 dpi) versus on the screen.   And some recent debates have got me thinking about libraries in general, public and university.   There’re some issues that are unresolved, but leave me curious.

As the editor on one for-profit journal (British Journal of Education Technology), and now on one ‘open access’ (Impact: Journal of Applied Research in Workplace E-learning), I’ve been thinking more about the role of the journal, and the library.   There’s certainly been a lively discussion going on about the internet and the role of for-profit publishers.

The model for decades has been that books, magazine, journals, and newspapers had material that was submitted, reviewed, edited, and published by publishers, and available for a fee.   Yes, there have been some free newspapers, paid for by advertising (e.g. San Diego’s weekly Reader was an eagerly sought resource while I was a student), but in general the costs of paper, publishing, distribution, and more meant that information had an associated overhead.

Libraries democratized access, by aggregating purchasing power.   People could come in and find material on particular subjects, read popular books, and more recently, also other materials like albums, tapes, CDs, DVDs, etc.   Public libraries provided places to read as well, and librarians were resources to find or ask about particular topics.   University libraries purchased journals, copies of textbooks, and of course the obvious reference materials, while providing places to study.

Now, of course, the internet has thrown all that on it’s head.   With some notable exceptions, people have the capability to put up information (e.g. this blog), to access information (Google becoming a verb), and the distribution is covered in the cost of internet access.   Consequently, the publishers have struggled to come to grips with this.   As have researchers and learners.   On one side, those who say what’s on the internet isn’t vetted, while others say that the proprietary information is irrelevant and the wisdom of the crowds reigns supreme.

One of the consequences has been the call for open access publishing, essentially   that articles are submitted, reviewed, and published online, with anyone being able to view the outcomes.   This is a threat to publishers, who’ve argued strongly that their processes are time-tested.   And universities (particularly for promotion and tenure) have been slow to accept online publication as an equivalent, due to the uncertainty of the rigor of the publication (clearly, it depends on the particular journal).

This isn’t restricted to journals, of course, textbooks are also under threat.   And publishers are similarly scrambling.   I’ve been advising publishers and working on projects to get them online, and more.   The ‘and more’ part is because I’ve been trying to tell them it’s not “it’s not about the book, it’s about the content:, but instead “it’s not about the content, it’s about the experience”.   Whether academic publishing will continue is an interesting issue.   Publisher’s who’ve depended on this have serious issues.   So do libraries.

Which brings me back to my library. It’s a vibrant place, by   no means dying.   While the book shelves are relatively quiet (though there are dedicated readers browsing the stacks), there are kids in the young book section, people grazing the videos and music, and a queue for access to the internet.   They’re tightly couple with other library networks, and so when a book I wanted wasn’t in our library system, they got it on loan from another library system in the state.   Easily!     They also have ways to make recommendations, even in areas they don’t read in themselves.

How about university libraries? They’re the ones I was curious about, and where I had some thoughts.   University libraries are more about research.   Popular culture will be distributed across media, and public libraries can have a role as a media access center, but university libraries are situated on internet rich campuses, where the demand for other popular media probably isn’t as strong.   Do they have a role?

I’ve argued before that the role of the university is shifting to developing 21st century skills (unfortunately in lieu of our public education systems).   The library is well-placed to accommodate this need. They may not be the technology gurus, but they are (or can be) the information gurus.     It’s a hub of information searching, evaluation, and sense-making.   The librarians may need a mind-set change to not be about finding resources, but teaching their information science skills, but no one’s untouched (teachers need to move to being learning mentors, etc).

I considered, but didn’t title this post “Wither the library”, because I think libraries have a role.   They may need to become shift their focus (and it occurs to me that we need to think about how they become more visual), but they still have a role.

Tools and tradeoffs

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originalquinnovationsite1
Old Site

I’ve been busy updating my website.   The previous version was done by hand in an old version of Adobe’s DreamWeaver, and while it was very light and minimal, it wasn’t very ‘elegant’.   For instance, I’d had one problem that really bugged me, hadn’t been able to fix (though recently I managed to beat it into submission).   I had several options: continue to maintain it, pay someone to do a better job, or find some tool that makes it easy to make reasonable sites.   I got my mitts on a copy of RealMac’s RapidWeaver, and started to play around.

RapidWeaver uses templates: there are quite a few included, and you can pay for more.   I wasn’t completely happy with any, but by systematic exploration (aka messing around), I managed to make one I was happy with. (Recognize that the small size of the screenshots can make the old one look plausible, but it was a bit space-wasting; e.g. it’s still readable at 50%!)   I haven’t dived into the actual design behind the themes, as that takes me somewhere I don’t want to go.   Still, when I’d find things I thought it couldn’t do, I’d look deeper and find it.   It took quite a few attempts to get things the way I liked them, but it’s mostly quite clean.     Yes, I could delve into CSS and PHP and really get a handle on it, but that’s not the best investment of my time, and I could’ve stuck with DreamWeaver.   It’s enough that I understand what they do, without getting into the syntax of a specific site.

newquinnovationsite
New Site

The interesting thing to consider here, however, are the tradeoffs.   I wanted a decent starting point, and the application handling all the background work when I changed things around (like maintaining the navigation bar, adding the cookie crumbs, etc).   I didn’t want to have to tweak everything myself. If I were a professional web designer, I’d want power tools; if I were an amateur I’d want hand-holding.   As it is, I want something in-between.   RapidWeaver does a relatively elegant job of providing simplicity upfront but letting you open up the hood and mess about inside.   I had to get deep into the program to get done some things I wanted to get done, but it’s output is better than I was getting on my own.   Note that if you use it’s built-in ‘text and image’ pages, I don’t like how it looks.   I went to HTML pages (which I can handle).

The more general lesson is that there are no right answers, only tradeoffs.   Ideally, you get more power as you take on more learning.   Andrea diSessa termed this ‘incremental advantage’, where well-designed tool environments give you more power as a direct outcome of your willingness to explore.   HyperCard had this, as you could start with just draw tools, but then explore fields, buttons, and backgrounds (before you hit the ‘HyperTalk’ programming language wall).

There’s been notable progress in providing power tools (though too many people don’t even know about the concept of ‘styles’), but there’s still a pretty linear relationship between learning and power.   For example, as I have mentioned before, everyone wants the full game development tool that doesn’t require programming, though I argue it can’t exist.   It’s nice (and all too rare) when you get an elegant segue from templates through to being able to open up the underpinnings.

Understanding the tradeoff between ease of use and power is important in bringing knowledge, information, and tools to your learners, as well as your own learning tools.   You’ll want good defaults, and then the ability to customize.   Some of our tools are still not doing a good job of that, and the tutorials still tend to be focused on either product features or rote procedures, instead of helping you understand the software model underneath.   We could do a lot better!

Back to your user goals: you’ve got to know what you’re trying to do, how much you’re willing to learn about it, and live within what that gives you.   And I’d like feedback on the new website.     Put on your ‘potential customer’ goggles, prepared with what you’d want to know, and have a look; I welcome feedback to improve it!

DevLearn 08 Keynote: Tim O’Reilly

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Tim O’Reilly, Web 2.0 guru, talked to us about what web 2.0 is and led us to his implications for what we do.   He started off talking about tracking the ‘alpha geek’.   These are the folks who manage to thrive and innovate despite us, rather than because of us.   He’s essentially built O’Reilly on watching what these folks do, analyzing the underlying patterns, and figuring out what’s key.

He talked about the stories that Web 2.0 is about open source, or social, were surface   takes, and by looking at leading companies, e.g. Google, there was something else going on. It’s not just user-generated content, but mining user-generated data for value, and then adding value on top of it.   “Data is the intel inside.”

This led him to key competencies going forward being machine learning, statistics, and design.   It isn’t about well-structured data, but about finding the nuggets in messy data.   And it is about design as an “architecture of participation” that gets users to act in the ways you’d like.

His take home message was six points that boil down to watching your alpha geeks, and use them to help guide what you should be doing, to help others achieve their potential.   An inspiring message in a very geek-cred way :).

I concept-mapped it:

eLearning 3.0

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In preparing a presentation for an organization on the learning value of Web 2.0, I realized that the development I’m looking forward to is web 3.0 and the learning possibilities.   Don’t get me wrong, I’m very enthusiastic over the 2.0 learning opportunities, as I’ve gotten to know them.   It’s just that the work I was doing years ago now has the technology infrastructure to be brought to life in a viable and ubiquitous way.   What it means is personalized learning wrapped around your life, instead of leaving your day-to-day life to attend an ‘event’ or self-directed searching.

Web 3.0 and beyond

The key here starts with the next generation of the web, the semantic Web.   What this is about, to me, is the use of tags and meta-data to start adding meaning to the information out there.   To date, we’ve separated form from content, but the machine can’t operate on the data independently.   If we had semantics, meaning, through tags and meta-data, the system can start trolling for content. And, of course, we can start auto-tagging based upon content and generation as well as making it part of our habits (e.g. as I try to remember to categorize my blog posts).   The point is, with this information, we can start connecting things.   This isn’t just about search, but about pro-active and opportunistic information delivery, and moving to the distributed learning model I’ve talked about before.

A second opportunity is Web 3.0’s service-oriented architectures (SOA), or rather web-oriented architectures (WOA).   This is where capabilities are separated out into separate network-delivered services with API’s that anyone can tap if they have the proper codes (and authority).   What this does is let you build applications in a light-weight way, cobbling together the capabilities you need into the services you want.

What does this mean for learning?   It means that you can tag learning content and make it available.   Then you can have a system that looks at your learning goals, and your current activity (through a variety of context-sensitive mechanisms), and pull in a small tidbit opportunistically, or connect you with just the right person afterward.   The point is to move from macro courses to micro-learns, where you might be prepped right before an important task, supported in the middle of it, and provided reflection afterwards.   So your performance situations become learning situations.

To do this effectively means linking the meaning of your current activity with the status of your learning goals, and putting together an effective delivery mechanism depending on your technology infrastructure, preferences, etc.   The goal is to make a system that’s like having a personal mentor, but much more affordably.

Now, don’t get me wrong. While this is doable, it’s quite far off, and won’t be easy.   It depends on several developments, such some reasonable work on standardizing on terminology (or a successful implementation of folksonomies) for both content and tasks (and/or a very good mapping process).   It’ll also require some business model that makes it viable for participation on all parties.   Finally, it’ll require some tuning to make a user experience that’s effective without being intrusive.   Still, I think it’s a great future, and would love to have a well-implemented version coaching me!   How about you?

Top 10 Tools

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Jane Hart’s Top Tools list is a great resource, and she reminded me that my list might need updating.   Fortunately, Jay blogged about his list, which reminded me (some mail didn’t make the transition to the new environment, hence the need for a new list, as well as updating).   My list has some changes:

3. Firefox – my Web tool for searching, browsing, surfing: with the new engine, it’s fast, and has great plugins
4. Twitter – I’m using TwitterFox on Firefox, and Twittelator on my iPhone.   A whole new world…
5. Google – their search engine, their maps, their website tracking,…
7. iTunes – how I connect my iPhone to my Mac, download mobile apps, and more.
8. Mail – part of my move to centralize on Mac apps (iCal, Address Book) to accommodate iPhone; I use email a lot (e.g. RSS feeds from Feedblitz), but Mail’s missing some things I liked in Entourage

You’ll see a few changes precipitated by the iPhone (and some ways of rearranging).   Interestingly my top 10 mobile tools list was just pointed to, and I realize it’s out of date too!   I’m still playing with the iPhone, but the tools I use are:

Mail – email on the go

Twittelator – twittering about

Google Maps – location, location, location

Safari – mobile web browsing at it’s best (which still is only so-so :)

Contacts – who’s who?

Photos – easily loaded all my diagrams and portfolio pictures

I’m anticipating using Flashlight (literally), EccoNote (voice memo), AIM (one IM tool, maybe to get around SMS charges), UrbanSpoon (fun way to find restaurants, tho’ not yet here in WC/East Bay SF), Yelp (reviewed places), SplashID (all those passwords, protected), and FaceBook.

I’m cheap, so I’m mostly downloading free apps.   Recommendations?

Hard to cross a chasm with baby steps

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As I indicated, I’m experimenting with Twitter (@Quinnovator).   I’m following a number of people who point to interesting things or make interesting observations.   The benefits I’m finding with Twitter, I note, are random interesting thoughts that juxtapose with my own thinking, in addition to quick answers to questions.   It reminds me of Dave Owens’ long ago system DYK, that randomly gave you some unix tidbits.   It seemed to work, as many times it was irrelevant but every once in a while it was just the right thing.   Same concept as the later ‘tool tips’ you could get on starting up PowerPoint.

This particular reflection was triggered by George Siemens tweeting a response to his presentation: “we’re taking small steps” problem is, small steps=falling behind. need that big leap :).   Mark Oehlert responded with the title of this post.   And it triggered the thought that I’ve heard Jay Cross articulate, that evolution isn’t going to keep pace with the rapid rate of change. (And yes, I’m name dropping, because you too can follow thought leaders through blogs and twitter!)

On the other hand, change is hard, big change exponentially so.   What’s an organization to do?   Yet change is coming faster. One of the ways we’ve thought to address this is an opportunity we’re offering through the Cafe’, getting some high-value external input on major issues in a lightweight way, a jumpstart to out-of-the-box thinking.

What I’ve been assisting organizations to do, and this is definitely a good thing, is to start with setting a long term vision (e.g. performance ecosystem), and making organization-specific short, medium, and long term plans to get there.   However, I’m thinking that, in parallel, what’s needed is doing some ‘out of the box’ exercises where some more disruptive stuff is trialed.   Maybe a ‘tiger team‘ for communication & innovation (and yes, I’m aware of the abuse of the phrase, but in lieu of another quick way to communicate the concept…).

The point is that you can’t just daydream crossing the chasm, and you can’t rethink in increments.   Sometimes you’ve got to take a major rethink, and put it in place and learn from it.   The best advice I recall on this is that you’ve got to have some experiments going on.   A few well-thought out gambles that you’re willing to have fail.   However, it’s not random mutation, but also not intelligent design; rather a hybrid.   Taking a calculated risk.

Like trying out new technologies: the current experimental space is social networking for me, as well as the iPhone.     But you’ve got to keep pushing your personal boundaries to have the awareness for pushing the organizational ones.   So take risks and experiment yourself, and get your organization doing the same.

Game Development Tools

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The last topics in our 2 day game design workshop for the Guild (great group of attendees, great experience) were evaluation, production, and organizational issues.   On the production issue, the perennial topic of tools came up.   In thinking about it, I realized that we needed a map, so I started coming up with one (a diagram, of course :) ).   I ran it past Jeff (Johannigman, my co-conspirator on the workshop) in our taxi to the airport, to his general approval.

gametoolspace

The two dimensions are complexity of the scenario (only covering branching and model-driven), and the power (e.g. complexity) of the tool.   It’s a pretty linear map, and realize that small distances aren’t significant (so the clusters are roughly equivalent).

The impossible dream is that tool that everyone wants that makes it easy to develop model-driven interactions.   Sorry, I’m convinced it can’t exist, because to be flexible enough to cover all the different models that we’d want to represent, it’s got to be so general as to be essentially just a programming language.   QED (Quinn Ephemeral Decision).

This is a first stab, so feedback welcome.   If desired, I can create it in Gliffy and we can collaboratively develop it (though my first effort with that was underwhelming in participation…).   Thoughts?

DevLearn ’08

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Up in the mountains, there’s lots to reflect on, little time to capture it. However, I do want to note that DevLearn is again on the horizon (November), which will include keynote, preconference sessions, concurrent sessions, and more.

I’m really looking forward to Tim O’Reilly’s keynote, as his description of Web 2.0 is fairly definitive.   I reckon I’ll again be part of the pre-conference sessions on Serious Games, er, Immersive Learning Simulations, and Mobile Learning as well.   I have a concurrent session on deeper instructional design which is stuff I really believe is fundamental yet seemingly not widespread, and fortunately has been well received in a few prior instances.

The real excitement for me is having a chance to catch up with some of the brightest folks in the business, like Tony Karrer, Will Thalheimer, Ruth Clark, Judy Brown, David Metcalf, Mark Oehlert, Brent Schenkler, Frank Nguyen, Lance Dublin, Karen Hyder, Michelle Lentz, and more, as well as the new folks I’ll meet.

The Guild’s conferences have always been a highlight of the year for me, so I hope I’ll see you there!

Future of Publishing?

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Based on a strange twist of circumstance, Jay Cross and I will be leading a discussion on the future of publishing in an online era here in the Bay Area next Monday (July 28).   He and I prepared some days ago, and came up with several issues, including who owns IP, new business models, moving from content to experience, increasing rates of change, and more.

The fact of the matter is that the day of the (non-fiction) book is at an inflection point.   That’s not to say we won’t still want to read books from time to time, at least those of us ‘of an age’ ;).   But what, where, when, and how will be our primary sources of information, moving forward?   My book cover

Certainly there are some interesting experiments going on.   On ITFORUM, Bev Ferrell and others have been citing a number of initiatives of self-publishing and open textbooks.   Certainly fodder for thought (particularly when I’m working with publishers on several projects, and have had a book published!).

We aren’t providing answers, but we’ll be with a very knowledgeable cohort and hope to work through to some interesting ideas.   If you’re in the area, and are interested, let me know and I’ll lob coordinates at you.