Learnlets

DevLearn 08 Keynote: Tim O’Reilly

12 November 2008 by Clark 8 Comments

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:

User-Centered System Design

8 November 2008 by Clark Leave a Comment

Back when I did my PhD, I was fortunate to be in Don Norman’s group when they were developing some of the primary design principles about designing for how people really think (“cognitive engineering”). It focused on designing for the way people work (my twist was designing for how people learn). I recently ranted about animated gifs, and I’ve got a similar catalyst here.

As background, people don’t do many things exactly the same way. We’re really bad at rote stuff, and instead are widely creative. If you want information from someone, it might come in many different ways: if you asked how to get somewhere, you might get a map, a set of instructions, a series of landmarks, directions to MapQuest or GoogleMaps, etc.

When you’re designing a web site (or application) that asks for information, you can do several things. The right thing to do is to have the backend processing be smart. Put the burden on the system to tolerate user preferences. For instance, I like that several different address book applications I’ve used accept phone numbers in several different ways: (925) 200-0881, 925.200.0881, 925-200-0881, etc, and remap it to their internal format. You put it in in a different way, and it comes back in their canonical format. That *might* drive you mad, but if you vary to widely, it’ll accept your variety just as you want. Same with dates in many applications. Great user experience.

Alternatively, if you want to put the burden on the human, provide guidance. Next to the field, put either instructions (“9 digit starting with area code, no separators”), or better yet, an example (“925-200-0881”) next to the field. This puts the burden on the interface designer to communicate, and the user to adapt so is slightly less elegant, but may be more likely to lead to valid data. However, it’s at least claer.

The worst case is not to tell the user (presumably not to spoil an elegant interface, cough cough), but to provide feedback if they get it wrong. The advice above comes after you don’t follow their preferred format. This is not proactive, but at least it’s helpful, at least if you think that there’s only a small chance they’ll choose any way but the way you expect.

So, of course, I just ran into a bad example where I was entering email addresses. They had to be separated in the one field, so I could use: spaces, commas, or put them on separate lines. I tried the latter, and was told it wasn’t in the right format, without telling me what the right format is! Bad designer, no twinkie!

I’m sorry, but these things were known 15 years ago when I was teaching interface design. And learning design typically includes some interface design. I mean, you want the learners to be acting, so you’ve got to design interactions, so you’re about usability design as well. I do believe learning designers need an understanding of usability, even if development really should have all the right skill sets for the necessary jobs: that is a writer for prose, a graphic designer for look and feel, usability expert for interactions, instructional designer for the learning, audio, video, etc. In the real world, however, you’re likely going to have to do some, or at least evaluate the toolset capabilities, so do get some exposure to basic usability. A great start is Don Norman’s Design of Everyday Things. Easy and fascinating read, and you’ll never look at the world in the same way again.

However you do it, be sensitive to aesthetics and usability. You’ll be a better designer, even if you will be a wee bit less tolerant of bad design. But I think that’s a good thing, or we’ll never move forward!

Upcoming events to be excited about

4 November 2008 by Clark Leave a Comment

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!

VOTE!

2 November 2008 by Clark Leave a Comment

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.”

Thinking Out Loud?

28 October 2008 by Clark Leave a Comment

Along the lines of the earlier post about social media tools, I thought it might be a ‘practice what your preach’ if I made my thinking explicit. We know that learning is facilitated when experts articulate not only their decisions, but the background rationale (ala Alan Schoenfeld, as I know it from Cognitive Apprenticeship). To some extent I reckon I do this, amidst my tweets and blog posts. However, I’m not sure if I show my underlying thinking enough, and I’m wondering if there is more I can do.

I try to show some of the thinking triggered by various projects I’m on, but of course on most of them I’m bound by confidentiality not to reveal the specifics, let alone the really neat new things we’re working on. I also capture some of my background principles in various papers/articles, like those available at the Quinnovation Resources page. And I do try to capture my ongoing thinking though I wonder if I capture the contexts that generate the thoughts sufficiently.

It’s hard to be accurately self-reflective, and strike that balance between stating opinions, sharing personal reflections, and be reasonably concise. I’d been thinking that I should, so now I reckon it’s time to ask: what would you like more of, less of, etc? Here’s your chance to let me know what’s working, what’s not, what would make this more worthwhile for you. Otherwise, I reckon I’ll just keep doing what I’m doing…

Mobile tools

27 October 2008 by Clark 3 Comments

Ok, I’ve had my iPhone a bit now, and some things are very useful, some things are cool, some are way fun, and some things are still irritating. Note that most of the apps I download are free; I’m cheap and there are great free apps (and games). I regularly go off to the iTunes store and check out what’s new (particularly the top free apps list).

Let’s get the negative stuff out of the way quickly. Naturally, my pet peeves haven’t changed (because they haven’t fixed them, ahem): no cut/copy/paste drives me nuts. For example, I put an address in my calendar, and then can’t cut and paste it into Google Maps to look it up when I’m on the go. It’s there, but I can’t just carry it across!?! Frustrating. Similar with notes and todos. As I’ve mentioned, if I promise something and it doesn’t get into my phone, we never had the conversation. However, that’s much harder to do on the iPhone, because I have to email a message to myself! Frustrating. Similarly with memos. There already have been times I wanted to put things into a memo to take with me (e.g. a meeting agenda), and I can’t. Sure, I could use EverNote, but then I’d have to have connectivity, and thanks to ATT’s coverage and hotel policies on wireless, that’s not always the case.

OK, the useful: Google Maps, Yelp, and now UrbanSpoon (finally covers Walnut Creek, my corporate headquarters) are very useful when I’m out and about and need to find some location, or a restaurant, or store, or… I use them quite a lot, actually. UrbanSpoon’s interface method of choosing at random is fun enought that it’s almost a ‘cool’. Weather has been useful when travelling, as is Clock (not least for timing my tea :). Also, I’m all over references. I use the Wikipanion and the Google App. Occasionally, the various unit converters, calculators, and the like are handy. I expect to use the translator on occasion as well. Hey, that’s why we have digital devices, to offload those things our brain’s aren’t great at, like remembering arbitrary data, and leave us to do the strategic and pattern-matching stuff. The camera’s handy as well. I haven’t used the voice recorder, though I’m ready. And a secure password storage app, SplashID. And I got a first-aid reference, a Bart schedule, even the constitution (relevant in several ways).

The fun are the games I’m playing. I used to play a lot of Risk in college, and then Lux on the computer. Now there’s a somewhat abbreviated version of Lux on the iPhone. That, along with Solitaire and Mahjonng are fun. And of course, the LightSaber app. Great for entertaining the kids when we’ve got to wait. I play games for research reasons, er yeah, that’s it…. Oh, and books. I’ve read a couple including James Fenimore Cooper’s “Pathfinder”, Edgar Rice Burrough’s “Tarzan” (I read as a kid, was re-reading to see if my lad’s ready), and Rudyard Kipling’s “Jungle Book” (hadn’t ever read, amazingly). Lots of free classics available and worth reading.

Finally, the cool. I just got Google Earth, and that’s way cool. Just amazing to have it running in the palm of your hand! Went over and looked at our old house in Australia; they’ve put a tree in the front yard, it appears. Twittelator lets me tweet and keep up with others’. I have LinkedIn and FaceBook, though I haven’t used them much. Midomi will let me hear a song, capture 10 seconds of it, and tell me what it is. Amazing.

By the way, many of these were available on the Palm, and some version of the above may be available on Windows Mobile, RIM’s Blackberry, or forthcoming on Android. Anyway, it’s about extending your brain, and these apps do it in various ways. So, what are you finding useful, and what am I missing?

Distractions and reflections

20 October 2008 by Clark 3 Comments

The other day, I wanted to read an article on the CLO site. I went there, but I found the article too hard to read; there were bloody animated gifs everywhere! Really, it’s only like 5 years since we realized that animated gifs make things hard to look at, and it’s based upon perceptual psychology way older than that.

Our eyes have cones at the center that pick up color and fine detail, and rods at the edge that kick in for low-light situations. Those rods also detect motion, and we’re wired to move our attention to things that move in the periphery of our vision (survival, naturally :). So, if we’re focused on reading something, and an ad is moving in the periphery, we can’t read it well. And CLO spread the article across four pages with moving ads all over the place. I gave up, which I presume isn’t their intention. Time to get a clue; you can’t process what you can’t attend to.

That’s a low level distraction, but we see this at multiple levels. A higher-level one that’s going on around here is the kitchen demolition. It’s made it harder to blog, as I’ve had a hard time doing deep reflection when there’re continual interruptions (worse these next few days, I’ve got the kids while my wife is away visiting her mother; don’t expect there to be a lot of posts this week). Interestingly, it hasn’t had a similar impact on my tweeting, which is an interesting outcome. We intuitively know that tweeting is different than blogging (hence the sobriquet: micro-blogging), but it was brought home more vividly. It’s interesting to think about the cognitive differences we find, and their utility for learning. As I previously mentioned, social networking could support virtual mentorships, and tweeting I think is more immediately tied to a person’s current state, while blogs are more closely tied to their longer-term thinking. Both, of course, could/should be coupled together for a really rich picture. How many of you are finding that watching a person’s tweets and blog posts together provide a rich picture?

There’s another level, of course, at the organizational level. Doug Engelbart, one of our true visionaries, who’s guiding principle of augmenting human intelligence has led him to contributions in many places, has talked about a three-layer system for ongoing improvement. He posits one layer reviewing our daily action for improvements, and his unique insight is a layer above, looking to improve our improvement processes, across organizations. The ongoing review is sort of an institutionalized reflection, and the next layer is meta-learning at an societal level.

I still argue that one of the best investments that can be made is reflection, particularly for knowledge work and any individual or organization that needs to not just survive but thrive in the growing flow of information and chaos. Systematize it, support it, promote it, reward it, and use it.

Coaching in games

15 October 2008 by Clark Leave a Comment

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?

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