Learnlets

The Power of Role-based e-Learning

29 November 2010 by Clark Leave a Comment

The Power of Role-Based e-Learning: designing and moderating online role play is a new book out that talks about simple methods to get powerful learning outcomes from collaborative games. Written by Sandra Wills, Elyssebeth Leigh, and Albert Ip, esteemed Aussie colleagues all with lots of experience in this area, it’s a thoughtful presentation of why, and how, you should use these techniques to get valuable outcomes.

Here’s the publisher’s blurb:

Written for educators seeking to engage students in collaboration and communication about authentic scenarios, the power of role-based e- learning offers helpful, accessible advice on the practice and research needed to design online role play. Drawing on the experiences of world- leading practitioners and citing an array of worldwide examples, it is a readable, non-technical, and comprehensive guide to the design, implementation, and evaluation of this exciting teaching approach.
Issues discussed include:

designing effective online role plays

defining games, simulations and role plays

moderating engaging and authentic role-based e-learning activities

assessment and evaluation

The power of role-based e-learning offers a careful analysis of the strengths and learning opportunities of online role play, and is realistic about possible difficulties. Providing guidance for both newcomers and experienced professionals who are developing their online teaching repertoire, it is an invaluable resource for teachers, trainers, academics, and educational support staff involved in e-learning.

Also note that it’s designed for education, but the lessons are valuable for organizational application as well.

As I state in the foreword:

This book stakes out important ground for e-learning, demonstrating how clever design trumps the miracles of flashy technology in achieving just such a practical approach. While the power of gaming for learning has been the topic of a number of books, the particular, er, role of role-playing has been insufficiently explored and exploited. Yet, as this book makes manifestly clear, there are powerful outcomes available, using simple mechanisms but capitalizing on deep understanding of learning.

The book also looks forward, talking about virtual worlds and, yes, mobile learning. Alternate Reality Games are a really interesting opportunity here.

Allow me to strongly encourage you to check out this book, and see for yourself how thoughtful understanding of learning trumps technological finesse when it comes to creating meaningful experiences. We need more good learning design, and as much help as we can get.

Death by reorg

22 November 2010 by Clark 1 Comment

Even if you haven’t experienced it, you’ve heard about it, seen it, and now it’s a epidemic. The familiar reorganization: changing management structures, reporting relationships, moving units around. It can happen infrequently, but in many organizations it seems to be a regular occurrence: every 2 years, every year, or more frequently. The expression ‘drive-by reorgs’ isn’t hard to countenance.

The reasons for reorganizations can be several, both pragmatic and political. I remember reading a screed that suggests it’s inevitable: organizations will have to align to customers for a while, until efficiency falters, then they reorganize along operational lines until customer satisfaction drops. Of course, there are the typical new manager reorganizations as well; it’s easy to hypothesize that they have to be seen to be doing something. Even if, as Petronius Arbiter wrote about reorganization: “. . . a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress while producing confusion, inefficiency,and demoralization“.

However, it occurred to me to think that reorgs may be a symptom of an approach to management that’s seeing it’s last days. My ITA colleagues have been talking about how we need to moving in a new direction, away from hierarchy to Jon Husband’s wirearchy. Reorganizations restructure the top-down approach to guiding performance, where one person thinks for several. The alternative is network approaches, where everyone understands the goals and is empowered to achieve the goals.

Really, if an organization is restructuring regularly, it’s probably a sign that it’s trying to adapt structurally to an environment that is increasingly chaotic. And that approach just isn’t going to work anymore. Organizations have to become more flexible than rigid structures can accommodate, and more flexible management approaches are needed.

Seriously, Death by Reorganization (warning, PDF) is the potential endgame. What is the alternative? Creating a learning culture of trust and responsibility, empowered with resources, with leadership that embodies a clear vision and lives the sharing of learning. Reorganizations could be the sign of failing leadership, rather than innovative leadership. Where are you and your organization?

Big ‘L’ Learning

16 November 2010 by Clark 8 Comments

We’ve been wrestling for a while about how to deal with the labeling problem. The problem is that when you mention learning to anyone but the L&D team, they immediately hear ‘training’ (and, frankly, too often so to does the L&D team). And, of course, really the issue is performance, but too often that can mean machine throughput or semi-conductor yield or something other than the output of the human brain. This has continued to be a barrier for having meaningful conversations.

I also want to address the broader suite of human brain outcomes: research, creativity, design, etc., as you’ll have read here before. The answers aren’t known, and this is likely to be the important work. Other than creating a portmanteau, or making up a new word entirely, however, I’ve been at a loss for a label.

Recently, I’ve started talking about “big L learning”. ‘Inspired’ by the fact that the Liberal party in Australia is really the conservative party (leave it to the Aussies :), so they have to distinguish between big L and little l liberal, I’ve decided that perhaps we can distinguish between little ‘l’ learning and big ‘L’ learning. If nothing else, it might get someone to ask what I mean and provide an opportunity to open up the discussion.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m more than open to an alternate suggestion, but in the interim, I’m going to keep playing with this. I’ve been wrestling with this for years, and haven’t come up with anything better. I welcome your feedback.

Higher^2 Education

15 November 2010 by Clark 3 Comments

I have just been at my first WCET conference, which is focused on higher ed distance eLearning. Mostly, it’s focused on those in the trenches, that is those who are charged with making it happen. This is not a bad thing, as these are good folks trying to do good work. What is missing, however, is a way to address the next level, and the one above that, in a systematic and effective way. And, yet, we must.

Let’s start with President Obama’s recent call to raise the level of US higher education. And, frankly, there are more countries that need to heed the call of reforming post-secondary education. I’ve talked before about the needed changes in higher ed, but even the short term changes are hard to see happening.

There were some inspiring talks, including Mark Milliron of the Gates Foundation, and a ‘debate’ between Peter Smith of Kaplan (and author of a new book on the topic of higher education) and David Longanecker of WICHE (WCET’s ‘parent’). What became clear to me is that the goal of seriously raising the number of higher education graduates – whether associate, baccalaureate, or higher degrees – isn’t going to happen through incremental change. The problem is multi-faceted: the degrees available increasingly have little appeal, the pedagogies aren’t aligned to success, and the approaches don’t scale.

While the for-profit schools are providing competition to drive more market-focused courses, the time taken to get a program approved, and an institution accredited, provide barriers to being truly market-driven. That is of course, not the only goal, but things are moving faster than programs can be expected to cope.

I have to admit that I was also somewhat dismayed by a lack of pedagogical focus that mirrors the problems we see in corporate settings. There seemed to be little leeway to challenge faculty members to raise quality levels of learning experience beyond just the traditional content model.

Finally, the resources dispersed across institutions are not well-aligned with a goal of pervasive quality that can be replicated across the curriculum. Most institutions, even the big for-profits, seem to have approaches aligned for efficiency at the sake of effectiveness.

I admit big change is hard, but the stated goals are big, the need is big, and the opportunities are likewise. It would take a massive infusion of resources, however, to make a big change within the system. Which led me, naturally, to think of a big change outside the system.

I started thinking about curricula as a separate thing from the learning activities (content and more), from the products of learning generated, and from the mentoring. In particular, the varied mentoring that would go into vetting the curricula, the choice of learning activities, and the feedback on the products. The quick question is whether these could be disentangled from the academy.

Could we, in fact, either crowd source curricula or support self-definition and approval? Could the choice of resources and activities be scrutinized separately, both for quality and as an opportunity for lessons in becoming a self-capable learner in a discipline? Even system-selected? And could the feedback on products come from an appropriate suite of stakeholders?

That’s a relatively radical proposition, I recognize, but when you need transformative outcomes, you may need transformative approaches…

More prosaically, I remain dismayed by the continuing lack of strategic thinking in higher education, particularly the public sector. Small elements, like recognizing that the overall quality of teaching impacts an institution’s reputation, that devolving responsibility to domains will undermine a unified effort, that a systemic consideration of learning technology provides efficiencies as well as opportunities for effectiveness, etc. remain as missed opportunities.

What’s missing from what I see is a unified quality approach. What if Steve Job’s took on higher education? My take is that we’d see something like:

â€¢ We will deliver a totally killer learning experience

â€¢ We will not only develop your knowledge and skills, but you as a learner and performer

â€¢ We will be a partner in your success

That, to me, is the value proposition that we can, and should, deliver. If we are not aligned with that, we are not really offering the services that an education provider should be shooting for. Or an organization, for that matter.

So, are you aiming high enough? The time is now.

Engineering both the front- and back-end

11 November 2010 by Clark Leave a Comment

I had the pleasure of meeting Bob Glushko a couple of weeks ago, and finally had a chance to dig into a couple of papers if his (as well as scan his book Document Engineering). He’s definitely one that you would call ‘wicked’ smart, having built several companies and now having sold one, he’s only hanging around doing cutting edge information science because he wants to.

The core of what he’s on about is structuring data, as documents, to facilitate transactions that for the basis of services. He focuses on the term ‘document’ rather than data to help emphasize the variety of forms in which they manifest, the human component, and most of all the nature of combining data to facilitate business interactions. At the heart is something I’ve been excited about, what I call content models, but he takes much further to support a more generic and comprehensive capability.

He makes a useful distinction between ‘front-end’ and ‘back-end’ services to help highlight the need to take the total service-delivery system into account. The front end provides the customer-facing experience, while the back end ensures efficiency and scalability. It can be difficult to reconcile these two, and yet both are necessary.

This is important in learning experience design as well. Having served on either side, both, and as the mediator between, I know the tension that can result from the caring designer crossing swords with the focused developer.

I have talked before about the potential of web 3.0, system-generated content, and that’s what this approach really enables. Yes, there are necessary efficiencies and effectiveness enough to justify this approach in your learning experience system design, but the potential for smart adaptive experiences is the new opportunity.

If you’re building more than just content, but also delivery systems and business engines, you owe it to yourself to get into Document Engineering. If you’re going further (and you should), you really need to get into the whole services and information science area.

There are exciting advancements in technologies, going beyond just XML to learning focused structures on top, and solid concept engineering behind these that are the key to the next generation of learning systems (and, of course, more).

Review: Gary Woodill’s The Mobile Learning Edge

31 October 2010 by Clark 4 Comments

In the context of having my own book on mobile learning in press, I’m well-primed to review Gary Woodill’s The Mobile Learning Edge: Tools and Technologies for Developing Your Teams. It could be awkward as well, as I could be considered to be a competitor, with no vested interest in helping. So, accept the potential for bias, but I feel, fortunately, this is not a problem.

For context, the time is clearly right for mobile learning, what with the increasing prevalence of mobile devices, particularly smartphones, the increasing availability of tools, and an increasingly mobile workforce. As a consequence, there is a clear opportunity to provide guidance.

Gary Woodill’s book, as you might imagine for a senior analyst (his title at Brandon Hall Research), is exhaustively researched. The book is full of quotes about mobile learning, has a variety of examples, and points to a suite of sources of information. It is also, not surprisingly, well-written, with a business focus.

Which raises the question of the audience. This book is clearly written for managers and executives who either are considering a mobile strategy for their employees or as a business. While covering more prosaic issues like development tools and design approaches, with guest chapters on business and content strategy, this is clearly aimed higher in the organization.

And this brings up the differences between our two books. When Gary found out we were both doing mobile books (for different publishers), he astutely reached out, and we discussed our approaches and recognized we were shooting for different audiences. Compared to Gary’s focus, I am instead mostly addressing those who will be charged with executing the actual design. Yes, his book addresses design, and yes, mine addresses strategy, but they have relatively different emphases. For example, his book has a much greater span of the history of mobile devices, while I’ve tried to focus on the relevant recent past. He also has a current snapshot of tools, while I’ve tried to write in a way that isn’t constrained by changes in the environment.

Overall, I think the books complement each other well. I think if you’re contemplating a mobile business plan, his is the way to go. If you’re looking for guidance in how to take advantage of mobile to empower your employees, I’ve designed mine to be the one you should choose. Mine is for people who are thinking about, want to, or have to do mobile. Gary’s is for those who have to decide about it. To put it another way, Gary’s is the one that should be in the research library and on the executive shelf, and hopefully mine is the one that should be on the shelf of the designer and manager.

This is a very good book; readable, valuable, and interesting. If you’re interested in mobile, you should definitely give it a look.

The role of the university?

27 October 2010 by Clark 7 Comments

Unhappy in many ways with the current status of education, particularly here in the US, I’ve been thinking a lot about what would make sense. What’s the role of K12, and then what’s the role of a university? Some thoughts recently coalesced that I thought I’d put out and see what reaction I get.

The issue, to me, covers several things. Now, I talked some time ago about my ongoing search for wisdom, and the notion of a wise curriculum coupled with a wise pedagogy very much permeate my thinking. However, I’m probably going to be a bit more mundane here. I just want to think what we might want to cover, and how.

Let me start with the premise that what needs to be learned to be a productive member of society needs to be learned before university, as not everyone goes further. If we truly believe (and we should) that 21st Century skills of learning, research, communication, leadership, etc, are skills everyone needs, then those are K12 goals. Naturally, of course, we also include literacy of many sorts (not just reading and writing), and ideally, thinking like a mathematician and scientist (not science and math).

However, if those are accomplished in K12 (when I’ve previously argued learning how to think might be the role of the university, and now think it’s got to be before then), then what is the role of university? Given that the half-life of knowledge is less than four years, focusing on preparing for a lifetime of performance is out of the question. Similarly, pursuing one fixed course of study won’t make sense anymore, as the fields are beginning to change, and the arbitrary categorizations won’t make sense. So what then?

I’m thinking of going back to the original Oxbridge model. In the old days, you were assigned a tutor (and advisor), and you met with that person regularly. They’d have a discussion with you, recommend some activities (read X, solve Y), and send you on your way. It was a customized solution. Since then, for a variety of reasons (scale, mostly), the model’s turned into a mass-production model. However, we now have the power of technology.

What if we moved to a system where individuals could spend some time exploring particular areas (like the first two years or so of college), and then put together a proposal of what they wanted to do, and how they’d pursue it, and the proposal would be vetted. Once approved, there’d be regular updates. Sure, there’d likely be some templates around for learning, but it’d be more self-directed, customizable, and put the appropriate responsibility on the learner.

I may be biased, as I designed my own major (UCSD’s Muir campus had a mechanism to design your own degree, and as they didn’t have a learning technology program…) as an undergraduate, and again you propose your research as a PhD candidate, but I think there’s a lot to recommend a learner taking responsibility for what they’re going to study and why. Granted, universities don’t do a good enough job of articulating why a program sequence has particular courses in it, but I think it’s even better if a learner at least has to review and defend it, if not choose it themselves.

Naturally, some domain-specific learning skills would emerge, but this would provide a more flexible system to match how specializations are changing so dynamically, serve as a model for life, and put the responsibility of faculty members more to mentorship and less to lecture. It would necessitate a change in pedagogy as well.

I think, in the long term, this sort of model has to be adopted. In the short term, it will wreak havoc with things like accreditation, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing, given the flaws we’re beginning to see in the existing system, both non- and for-profit. I reckon the for-profits might be able to move quicker, but there will be battles. And, of course, changing faculty minds reminds me of the old joke: “How many academics does it take to change a lightbulb?” “Change?” (And I *was* one!)

Naturally, this has implications for K12 too, as many have articulately argued that the pedagogy needs to change there as well, following the learners’ interests. Likewise the notion of educational publishing (where is that iPad replacement for my kid’s texts?). Those are topics for another day.

So, does this make sense? What am I missing?

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