Next week is DevLearn, and as it’s run by the eLearning Guild, it’s always good.   I’ll be switching time between two pre-conference symposiums, one on games, and one on mobile.   Then I’ll be presenting on Deeper Instructional Design, doing Breakfast Bytes on (learning) games in the organization and one with Jay Cross on hot topics from the conference, and will be part of Jay Cross’ Learnscaping presentation.   Whew!

The learnscaping will resurrect for the Corporate Learning Trends conference.   Run by George Siemens, Tony Karrer, and Jay Cross, it’s got good content, and the price is right (free, as in beer).   The Learnscape co-conspirators here, Jay, Harold Jarche, Jane Hart, and myself will be talking about our thinking behind it.   We’ll also be running a learnscape environment alongside the conference.

I won’t be at TechKnowledge 2009 at the end of January, but it’s a good conference. I’ve been involved in the past, and can vouch that it’s well organized, and works hard to have a solid line up.

In February, there’s the Training 2009 conference in Atlanta, and I’ll be running a mobile certificate program beforehand (I’ve designed what I think are some really valuable activities), as well as talking on mobile and deeper ID.

I haven’t heard yet about the eLearning Guild’s Annual Gathering in Orlando next spring, but it’s worth keeping an eye out for.   They throw great events.

Finally, the last one on my schedule as of now is ASTD’s International Conference and Exposition.   I’ll be running a one day pre-conference workshop on eLearning Strategy, and I’m really excited about getting into the details of how you tie together the individual tactics of courses, portals, eCommunity and more into a coherent solution.

Remember, this is part of your professional development, and they’re a lot of fun usually, too.   If you attend one of these, do say hello!

Ok, this is currently for America, but hopefully it’s relevant to all who prefer and enjoy a democratic or representative government.   Participate!   No excuses.   Don’t take your candidate’s status for granted, please, regardless.   I’m a firm believer in civic duty (and was before I became a board member of the Center for Civic Education).   I liked what Hunter Thompson had to say; if you haven’t participated in the process, you’ve no right to complain.

While I’m talking politics, there’s one thing I fail to understand: the negative association of the phrase “tax and spend”.   To me, that’s just good practice. while the alternatives have some problems.

Let’s take for granted that there has to be some government spending.   On national defense, for example. Infrastructure, like freeways.   Heck, just to have a government, there has to be spending.   Now, I’ll certainly agree that there has been unnecessary spending, and absolutely want to cut the ‘pork’.   And we certainly should make sure that we’re being efficient in the services we spend for.   No bloated bureaucracies, please.   We need to ensure that our money’s being spent wisely, but we do need to spend.   So…

Not to tax and then to spend is fiscally irresponsible.   I mean, if it were a consumer, we’d cut up the credit cards!   To tax and not spend is just mean.   You’re taking money from people and not putting it to work.   Maybe a little budgeting is ok, for the future or tough times.   Finally, not taxing and not spending is fiscally responsible, but remember that base level of spending we need.   So, we can fight about how much to spend or on what, but it seems to me that ‘tax and spend’ isn’t really an insult.   And the best way to agree or disagree with me is, again, to vote.   Take advantage of your privilege!

De Tocqueville, 1840: “The American Republic will endure, until politicians realize they can bribe the people with their own money.”

Much of intelligent tutoring system (ITS) work focuses on creating deep domain models of a particular task, creating essentially an expert system, and then coaching students as they navigate that domain.   Valerie Shute and Jeffrey Bonar did something different a number of years ago, building a tutoring model/system that tutored your exploration and experimentation strategies and layered that same model on top of exploratory environments for optics, electric circuits, and economics.

I always thought you could do the same in a game environment.   That is, if you had a game framework that you built games in, with structured representations such as definable maps and actions that could be taken, you could similarly coach learning/research skills instead of the domain.   It’s about looking at how people explore and trial things.   I even tried to get funding to build it, but sadly wasn’t successful for whatever reason (probably several reasons).   We did build a coaching engine into Quest that followed the principles, checking your search, not your domain knowledge (as well as monitoring your levels to give hints), so I knew the approach was viable.

Yesterday, I saw that they were putting ads into video games, and was reminded that we now have the game environments (e.g. Unreal engine) with generic structure to not only to take live feeds into games, but sufficiently generic that a coaching engine could be added.   It’s doable.   It’s far more interesting than putting ads in games!   Who’s, ahem, game?

This month’s Big Question from the Learning Circuit’s blog is, basically, where do you begin?   Of course, that begs the question: what do you already know? Design, ID, a tool, ?

However, it appears that the question sort of assumes a preexisting master’s in ID/IT.   Which, if it’s done well, includes several different tools, lots of ID, a whiff of interface design, some experience prototyping different types of interactions (sync, games, etc), and one major project with project planning, prototyping, testing, and production.   Which, of course, is a dream.

Regardless, I’d recommend Clive Shepherd’s 30 60 minute Master’s (NB: you have to open an account), my own 7 Step Program (PDF) on the reading side.   Then I’d recommend taking a topic and storyboarding, testing, refining, prototyping, testing, and refining.   All before you actually start building.   I don’t really care how you prototype: it can be PPT, raw html, whatever.   Or a rapid elearning tool, but don’t put hands to a development tool ’til it’s mapped out on paper (you don’t want to prematurely converge on what the tool makes easy until you’ve figured out the best design).

For production, there are lots of tools out there. Apparently Udutu is free to author in, and there are lots of tools out there, SmartBuilder, Lectora, etc.   Whatever your org already has it’s mitts on.   Of course, if you’ve gone more creative in your design, you might need to actually work in, say, Flash.

But get the design right first; as I say, “if you get the design right, there are lots of ways to implement it, but if you don’t get the design right, it doesn’t matter how you implement it!”

This is worth touting.   Michelle Martin, and Harold Jarche of Work Literacy, assisted by Tony Karrer, in conjunction with the eLearning Guild, are hosting a free   Web 2.0 workshop.   Spread over six weeks leading up to DevLearn, there’s a topic a week, and tasks to accomplish depending on your bandwidth, and a community, etc.

The more I explore web 2.0 applications for organizational learning (and innovation, execution, etc), the more opportunities I see.   The technologies are really a core part of the performance ecosystem, and I am increasingly excited about the possibilities.

I haven’t met Michelle (hope to at DevLearn), but know enough of the Guild, Tony, Harold, and her writings to be able to highly recommend this.   The price is right, the topic is essential, the crew is top-notch, how can you go wrong?

Today I had a chance to visit with Western Governors University.   Set up a more than a decade ago, it’s gradually grown to an enrollment of more than 10K students.   It’s purely online, but supported by 20 states, which gives it some interesting opportunities (read: political clout).

At the core of their model is the fact that their curricula are entirely competency-based.   They build their programs around specific outcomes (developed from an industry-based advisory board, whether the industry be IT or education), align assessments, and design the course materials towards those assessments.   It’s a refreshing focus on meaningful outcomes, beyond that which many programs claim, and they’ve been able to get accreditation on that basis (not despite it).   It also allows flexibility in schedule, and testing-out.

They’re also working on developing the social learning around it, both supporting content discussions and learning discussions.   They’ve got a goal of helping learners succeed, and to this end are pretty up-front about what it takes to succeed in a largely self-directed learning environment, despite the mentors. Still, it’s an ongoing learning process (the law of unanticipated consequences).

Which is not to say that they don’t face challenges.   They want to keep costs down, and not become a development house, so they’ve focused on sourcing the learning resources, and have largely been tied to what’s available off the shelf.   The learner experience in terms of the prepared materials could be enhanced from a motivational standpoint.   Also, it’s hard to develop and maintain a focus on higher-level learning objectives.   Further, the technology environment is a moving target that demands continual improvement.   They’re taking systematic steps to address these issues.

Overall, it’s an impressive endeavor, on both principled and practical grounds.   Robert Mendenhall, the President, set out to change the model after many years experience, believing that competencies and technology could provide a viable alternative to existing practices, and WGU is a testimony to his vision and ability to sell and deliver it.   A worthy challenge to the status quo.