Search Results for: quip

Some accumulated thoughts…

5 March 2010 by Clark 5 Comments

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!

iLust? Changing the game

29 January 2010 by Clark 5 Comments

Yesterday, in case you’ve been living under a rock, Apple released their take on the tablet computer, the iPad. Steve Jobs has been quoted as saying it’s “the most important thing I’ve ever done.” And that’s saying a lot. Like him or not, he’s changed the face of our digital lives several times: popularizing the GUI interface with the Macintosh, changing the music market with the iPod, and upending the mobile market with the iPhone.

Briefly, it’s a network-enabled thin touchscreen midway in size between the iPhone and a laptop (e.g. netbook in size). It’s been equipped with a bookstore to complement the iPhone Store (media and apps), will play movies, music, and apps. It’s got a moderate suite of PIM, including contacts, calendar, and notes (no ToDos, ahem), and a microphone. No camera, no phone, but does have a soft keyboard and an optional hard keyboard (would that the iPhone had one!). It’s really just a big iTouch. The device itself isn’t a game-changer. Which isn’t to say it isn’t quite cool in it’s way with some mlearning opportunities.

I have several reflections on the device, from different perspectives. The overall question is whether the iPad, too, is a game-changer. Personally, the obvious question is: “do I have to have one?” Which naturally leads to the performance support perspective of the device (or vice versa). And, given my predilictions, there’s also the mlearning question.

Bill Brandon of the eLearning Guild has already opined about the mlearning potential of the iPad. He notes that it’s oriented towards content delivery, and could be a replacement for textbooks. That, alone, is a big win, though not unique to the iPad (cf Amazon’s Kindle). Without a camera, he notes, it’s only usable for voice or text chatting. The form factor is nice, but it’s kind of large to slip in a pocket, and it’s really too large for elementary kids’ hands. I still think a camera-equipped iTouch is a better form-factor for K-6.

From there, we start looking beyond content delivery to more interactive apps. Here’s where we start seeing some real opportunity: we can start putting simulations on the device, not just content. Interactivity is key, to me, and that’s what the iPad has over the Kindle or the Nook (tho’ Amazon has now opened up the Kindle’s Software Developers Kit, it’s still lacking color). the possibility of running meaningful learning games is a real opportunity. With network connectivity, it can be social as well; in addition to the internet browser there are also already dedicated FaceBook and LinkedIn apps for the iPhone.

Of course, a second opportunity is to start using the device as a way to take notes and share thinking. With email and web access, you can collaborate with others. Can you use it to create representations to share? Apple is coming out with iPad versions of Numbers, Pages, and Keynote (spreadsheet, word processing, and presentation software, respectively). This is, to me, a major win (with a caveat).

The ability to use the device not just for consumption, but for creation, is where we start turning this from an entertainment & learning platform into a productivity platform. If you want to not carry a laptop (or even a MacBook Air or a netbook if you’re a Windows person, both seriously worth considering), this has to have certain characteristics. I, personally, wouldn’t need the 3G connection (meaning you have connectivity wherever you can get a cell-phone signal, not just a wi-fi hotpot), as I’m fine using my iPhone for the always-on connection. However, I need to write. The additional keyboard is extra weight, but the capability would be worth it (nice if it folded for travel, however). The ability to create presentations is also a big win.

One thing is missing, however. I diagram. A lot (as I illustrate here). Keynote has shapes, but it’s not a diagramming tool as yet (I checked, there’s no palette of shapes I can keep open). I don’t know if that will be remedied in the iPad specific version (with a multi-touch interface), but what would really be nice is an OmniGraffle (or Visio, for you Windows folks) for the iPad. Short of that, I’m not sure it’ll meet my needs. Which answers the question about whether I’d get one. Not without diagramming (and Brushes seems more a paint app than a diagramming, that’s not what I need). I don’t consume a lot of music and movies. I do outline, write, and diagram.

Still, this is a significant move, for none of the above reasons. I’ve written before about the new dynamics for the publishing industry (specifically, educational publishers). The story is similar for other forms of publication: magazines, newspapers, and books. eBook readers are changing that market, but only the mechanics, not the inherent nature of the experience. It’s still about ‘reading’, not about information. Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and now Apple, are creating a new market for the old product. However, Apple has changed the market for a new version of the product. They’re creating the opportunity for those providers to elaborate their content with dynamic media such as video and audio, and interactive media: modifiable graphs, and of course simulations and games.

Now it’s not only possible for a publisher to create a richer, more fully information, even educational experience, but there is also a new direct channel for that endeavor. It doesn’t have to be based on individual subscriptions to a site, but it can be arranged through a single broadly available channel. It will, however, require the concomitant components I suggested were necessary: an understanding of user experience and content models.

I think the iPad is flawed in several ways: lack of camera & multi-tasking (and the form-factor limiting HD movie screen formats), and as yet a dearth of critical software. However, it’s a platform, and consequently those can come in either hardware or software updates. What it has made possible, however, is a change in business models, and that’s a more significant outcome. Whether it succeeds is another issue, but I think the groundwork is there to make the change. Who’s up for trying to lift their game into the new model?

The Augmented Performer

2 December 2009 by Clark 4 Comments

The post I did yesterday on Distributed Cognition also triggered another thought, about the augmented learner. The cited post talked about how design doesn’t recognize the augmented performer, and this is a point I’ve made elsewhere, but I wanted to capture it in a richer representation. Naturally, I made a diagram:

DistributedCognition If we look at our human capabilities, we’re very good pattern matchers, but pretty bad at exercising rote performance. So we can identify problems, and strategize about solutions, but when it comes to executing rote tasks, like calculation, we’re slow and error prone. From the point of the view of a problem we’re trying to solve, we’re not as effective as we could be.

However, when we augment our intellect, say with a networked device (read: mobile), we’re augmenting our problem-solving and executive capability with some really powerful calculations capability, and also some sensors we’re typically not equipped with (e.g. GPS, compass), as well as access to a ridiculously huge amount of potential information through the internet, as well as our colleagues. From the point of view of the problem, we’re suddenly a much more awesome opponent.

And that is the real power of technology: wherever and whenever we are, and whatever we’re trying to do, there’s an app for that. Or could be. Are you empowering your performers to be awesome problem-solvers?

Kill the curriculum?

27 August 2009 by Clark 5 Comments

Harold Jarche (@hjarche) retweeted his prior post on “First, we kill the curriculum“, and generated some serious interest. For instance, Mark Oehlert (@moehlert) was inspired to write “Harold Jarche is Wicked Smart and We Need to Talk about Curriculum“. I know Harold, and he is wicked smart (see this skewering of homework), so I commented on his blog and it seems we may have a semantics difference as opposed to a fundamental one. Still, I want to make the point.

Harold, starting from the premise that the web is as fundamental a change as was the printing press, and, as the press could foster content, so the web can foster connections. The emergent nature of knowledge out of a network argues against a fixed curriculum and instead for contextualized knowledge. Arguing against a fixed curriculum, he says this:

a subject-based curriculum will always be based on the wrong subjects for some people. Without a subject-centric curriculum, teachers could choose the appropriate subject matter for their particular class

and this is, I think a valid point. There’s too much focus on rote, and already out-dated knowledge. Making my lad continue to demonstrate his ability to do the times tables ad nauseum only kills his love of learning. And the first year of middle school seems to be much more about turning them into manageable prisoners rather than learning much of anything. Things are moving so fast that it’s hard to imagine that much of what we learn, other than vocabulary, math rules, and science basics are necessary. Jim Levin argued 30 years ago that learning multiplication and long division was outdated in the age of the calculator and that estimation was the necessary skill to ensure you were in the right ball park. Why are we still teaching long division? In short, drill and kill is pretty dumb.

So, is there a curriclum? I think so, and Harold really says so too:

ensuing that students have mastered the important processes. Some of the processes that readily come to mind are critical thinking; analysing data; researching; communicating ideas; creating new things

Now, I think we’re arguing over whether skills are a curriculum, and I reckon they are, that is a focused set of learning outcomes we’re trying to achieve. Not content, but skills. I do believe there are some fundamentals, like levers, and gravity, and the associative property, but these are frameworks and models, tools upon which we build a flexible set of problem-solving, coupled with just the sort of skills Harold’s talking about (and I’ve talked about before).

The point is, the world’s changing, and yet we’re not equipping our kids with the necessary skills. We need a new pedagogy, problem-focused on things kids are interested in, as Harold suggests, and focusing on their information seeking and experimentation and evaluation and the self-learning skills, not on rote exercise of skills. I don’t do long-division anymore. Do you? Do you graph sentences? Do you remember formulas? I don’t think so. What you do is look up information, make job aids (why are stickies so ubiquitous?), or program in the formulas or use a tool.

Whether or not we call it a curriculum, those problem-solving skills what I want my kids learning, and it’s not happening. State standards are a joke. I don’t want them learning how to bold in Word, I want them understanding the concept of ‘styles’. I don’t want them learning how to color a square in Powerpoint, I want them to be effective in communicating visually. I want them to be learning how to solve ill-structured problems (cf another wicked smart person, David Jonassen)!

I don’t mind the revolutionary statement “kill the curriculum”, but I might just mean it as “kill the current curriculum”, because I do believe that the most effective path to help develop those skills is a formal learning process. However, it’s likely to be socially constructive in nature, not instructive. Let’s kill schooling, and reinvent schools as learning labs, with curricula focused on skills and attitudes, and perhaps a minimal core of knowledge. Which means our standardized tests need tossing, too, but then that should also be obvious. Portfolios and contextualized abilities, not rote knowledge tests. I reckon Harold and I (and Mark, another wicked smart person) are agreeing furiously. Anyone for a revolution?

Now that is leadership

1 June 2009 by Clark 6 Comments

In my recent workshop, an attendee shared a story that I have to pass along. He works for a company that serves a sector of the marketplace that has been core to US business, and is now in tough times. Naturally, the employees are concerned about the prospects.

The CEO is sharing, via a blog, his ongoing thoughts on dealing with the issue. Rather than puff pieces for external readers, written by a PR hack, he’s writing authentically for internal consumption about where his thinking is going and what he and the executive team are doing. He’s not making false promises, and the employee was very clear that there are no clear answers yet, but they’ve insight into how deep the thought processes have been about the situation, and how earnestly (and cleverly) they’re working on solving the issue. He’s even sharing the questions he’s considering. While all the comments aren’t visible, anyone can provide input and the CEO can react. This is powerful.

I’ve mentioned before that providing a ‘leading out loud’ record for people to follow is a great mechanism to foster virtual mentorship and share directions, and this is a really valuable way for organizations to communicate. As Rae Tanner discussed with me yesterday as we walked around DC before the start of the ASTD main conference, imagine an organization where everyone was onboarded with a real understanding of the business (we thought a game would be appropriate), and then were able to follow the ongoing thinking. Do you think they’d be better equipped to execute, and, better yet, contribute to organizational success? Certainly if it was coupled with a learning culture and rewards aligned with the desired behaviors.

The worskhop attendees easily ‘got’ the value of this scenario; that CEO knows what leadership is about, and is manifesting it in a visionary way. This is what technology can facilitate. Technology is a tool, but one that provides new affordances for communication and collaboration. The opportunities to improve things individual, organizationally, and societally are awe-inspiring. Now we need to seize the initiative and make really worthwhile things happen. Are you game?

Do what you love, love what you do

16 March 2009 by Clark 6 Comments

For the Working/Learning blog carnival, the topic is, as always, “work at learning, learning at work”. Last time I participated (almost a year ago), I talked about how learning should be fun, so you shouldn’t be working at at, it really should be ‘hard fun’. I want to expand on that topic, as there are probably characteristics that make it fun or not.

Most people who have hobbies invest time and money in equipment, practice, learning, and more. If you love what you do, it’s as much avocation as vocation, learning about it should be fun. You’ll naturally be tapping into how to continue to learn.

For example, I love what I do, so I was thrilled to be able to follow the eLearning Guild‘s recent conference through Twitter (great as always, apparently); in particular Craig Wiggins, Eric Wilbanks, and heroically, John Zurovchak were really tracking the sessions they were in, bringing the content out and even bringing our queries in. Their passion showed through, and fanned mine.

Of course, if you don’t love what you do (you work to live, as they say), there’s a different situation. Ideally, at least you’re doing something you prefer, and you just need to tap into the elements you like as motivation. Frankly, while it should be incumbent on learning designers to help make it motivating, it’s also incumbent on the learner to take responsibility for learning too. We, as learning folks, can’t make anyone learn, we can only create conditions for learning.

We should, however, be sensitive, and help our learners tap into their inner motivation, take responsibility for learning, and develop their abilities to learn. If we do that, we’ve helped make it so you’re not working at learning, just learning and working.

Workplace Learning in 10 years?

2 March 2009 by Clark 3 Comments

This month’s Learning Circuit’s blog Big Question is “What will workplace learning look like in 10 years”. Triggered by Jay & Harold’s post and reactions (and ignoring my two related posts on Revisiting and Learning Design), it’s asking what the training department might look like in 10 years. I certainly have my desired answer.

Ideally, in 10 years the ‘training department’ will be an ‘organizational learning’ group, that’s looking across expertise levels and learning needs, and responsible for equipping people not only to come up to speed, but to work optimally, and collaborate to innovate. That is, will be responsible for the full performance ecosystem.

So, there may still be ‘courses’, though they’ll be more interactive, more distributed across time, space, and context. There’ll be flexible customized learning paths, that will not only skill you, but introduce you into the community of practice.

However, the community of practice will be responsible for collaboratively developing the content and resources, and the training department will have morphed into learning facilitators: refining the learning, information, and experience design around the community-established content, and also facilitating the learning skills of the community and it’s members. The learning facilitators will be monitoring the ongoing dialog and discussions, on the lookout for opportunities to help capture some outcomes, and watching the learners to look for opportunities to develop their abilities to contribute. They’ll also be looking for opportunities to introduce new tools that can augment the community capabilities, and create new learning, communication, and collaboration channels.

Their metrics will be different, not courses or smile sheets, but value added to the community and it’s individuals, and impact on the ability of the community to be effective. The skill sets will be different too: understanding not just instructional but information and experience design, continually experimenting with tools to look for new augmentation possibilities, and having a good ability to identify and facilitate the process of knowledge or concept work, not just the product.

10 years from now the tools will have changed, so it may be that some of the tasks can be automated, e.g. mining the nuggets from the informal channels, but design & facilitation will still be key. We’ll distribute the roles to the tools, leaving the important pattern matching to the facilitators.

At least, that’s what I hope.

eLearning 2.0

12 August 2008 by Clark 2 Comments

During the 1st day of Mark and Brent’s Collaboration summer seminar, they got folks active: starting blogs, wikis, webtops, etc. They’re doing a great job:

Naturally, in addition to the tactical questions (“how do I move this tab”?), the conceptual questions started: when do you use a blog versus a wiki, how do you make sense of all the options out there.

Now, as part of my performance ecosystem, I think blogs are a personal reflection or a history (as I told an attendee, it would be great for capturing a ‘war story’), whereas wikis are for collaboration to create a unified view of something (e.g. the way to tune a network). I don’t think blogs support a rich discussion and aren’t that collaborative. Also, one of the problems I see is that we often forget old tools in the excitement of new tools: discussion boards are a great way to have an ongoing conversation; you don’t need some new tool for this. Yet wikis are really good for capturing the output of a collaboration.

Also recently I’ve been having conversations with folks about integrating tools to meet larger needs. Ning is a tool that provides ways for individuals to have profiles, to have forums, to list events, etc. Increasingly, LMSs also have these capabilities.

The interesting thing is the great spate of tools out there: Google, Central Desktop, Zoho, Wetpaint, PBWiki, an ever growing list. There are suites of web meeting apps, web-based productivity tools, etc. How do you make sense of it? I think there’s another ‘bubble’ with these, and eventually a bunch will fail and out of the ashes a few will persist. The good thing, I think, is that by getting your hands dirty with a variety of these, you’ll access some generalized skills. And web apps are not going away.

I believe training anybody on any particular tool (even the seemingly ubiquitous Microsoft Office suite), is the wrong way to go. Talk to them about the skill (writing, creating presentations, etc), and then give some assignments across a couple of different tools. This gives you transferrable skills, which will equip you to communicate and collaborate regardless of the latest wave of tools. And that’s what’s important, in this day of increasing change.

(Really) Mobile Games

7 August 2008 by Clark 1 Comment

There have been some interesting experiments with location-specific games (see the work David Metcalf talks about), but this article really is interesting, talking about GPS equipped phones. I recall an early game for the Treo that placed aliens around you virtually (laid the images over your camera image), and you had to pan around with your Treo, spot, and shoot them. This is much more.

Now, imagine the learning potential: games for onboarding that have you and your cohorts running around the campus or plant and solving puzzles; having to try to sell to virtual customers, and tracking their effectiveness in both space and time; the rest are left as an exercise for the reader (I’m on vacation, after all… :) ). A topic for the Summer Seminar Series next week?

Learning by doing

14 July 2008 by Clark 6 Comments

Well, this weekend was an interesting one. On Saturday morning I not only resurrected my site, but got my Twitter experiment advanced by managing to insert a tweet feed into the blog sidebar. Of course, it formats strangely, and I haven’t been able to fix it yet. I tried using the span command, but around the Javascript it didn’t seem to work.

Then it was changing the bathroom light fixtures. Successfully, following on a recent toilet replacement exercise. In between was an absolutely great block party our neighbors organized, with activities for the kids, food and drink for all. Learnings from each exercise!

One of the things I tweaked to was that if we sit down and start using the right tool for the job, have patience and persistence, and be willing to stop and think, we can get more done that we thought, we just have to be brave (he stays, still in anxiety mode over making a deck on the slope in the backyard). Of course, we’re benefited to the extent we see more standards in tools and equipment (I like that they’re standardizing on electrical hardware, which makes it pretty much plug-and-play, even if it took some creativity to end-run two different boxes in two different bathrooms, ahem). Slowly but surely, the house is being transformed.

The second learning is on community. By pulling together all the neighbors on our cul-de-sac, we’re building an awareness of each other, which supports us helping each other. The usual suspects pitched in, and some new folks were invited to join. It was a lovely evening though the breeze picked up to the point where people started heading out for sweaters before coming back. I had to think: why can’t the whole world be getting together in their neighborhood and having a party? Of course, it’s hard when they’re bullets flying by, bombs going off, etc. Sigh. Still, creating the right environment for getting together creates the right environment for sharing, and that’s where learning happens.

So, use the right tools, set the right context, and be willing to work and reflect and improve and continue on. Hope you too had a good weekend!