Learnlets

Mac memories

21 January 2014 by Clark Leave a Comment

This year is the 30th anniversary of the Macintosh, and my newspaper asked for memories. I’ll point them to this post ;).

As context, I was programming for the educational computer game company, DesignWare. DesignWare had started out doing computer games to accompany K12 textbooks, but I (not alone) had been arguing about heading into the home market, and happened to run into Bill Bowman and David Seuss at a computer conference, who’d started Spinnaker to sell education software to the home market, and were looking for companies that could develop product. I told them to contact my CEO, and as a reward I got to do the first joint title, FaceMaker. When DesignWare created it’s own titles, I got to do Creature Creator and Spellicopter before I headed off to graduate school for my Ph.D. in what ended up being, effectively, applied cognitive science.

While I was at DesignWare, I had been an groupie of Artificial Intelligence and a nerd around all things cool in computers, so I was a fan of the work going on at Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (aka Parc), and followed along in Byte magazine. (I confess that, at the time, I was a bit young to have been aware of the mother of all demos by Doug Engelbart and the inspiration of the Parc work.) So I lusted after bitmap screens and mice, and the Lisa (the Mac predecessor).

My Ph.D. advisor, Donald Norman, had written about cognitive engineering and the research lab I joined was very keen on interface design (leading to Don’s first mass-market and must-read book, The Psychology of Everyday Things, subsequently titled The Design of Everyday Things, and a compendium of writings call User-Centered System Design). He was, naturally, advising Apple. So while I dabbled in meta-learning, I was right there at the heart of thinking around interface design.

Naturally, if you cared about interface design, had designed engaging graphic interfaces, and had watched how badly the IBM PC botched the introduction of the work computer, you really wanted the Macintosh. Command lines were for those who didn’t know better. When the Macintosh first came out, however, I couldn’t justify the cost. I had access to Unix machines and the power of the ARPANET. (The reason I was originally ho-hum about the internet was that I’d been playing with Gopher and WAIS and USENET for years!)

I finally justified the purchase of a Mac II to write my PhD thesis on. I used Microsoft Word, and with the styles option was able to meet the rigorous requirements of the library for theses without having to pay someone to type it for me (a major victory in the small battles of academia!). I’ve been on a Macintosh ever since, and have survived the glories of iMacs and Duos (and the less-than stellar Performa). And I’ve written books, created presentations, and brainstormed through diagrams in ways I just haven’t been able to on other platforms. My family is now also on Macs. When the alternative can be couched as the triumph of marketing over matter, there really has been little other choice. Happy 30th!

Gaming Learning

20 January 2014 by Clark Leave a Comment

Remember the game Where in the World Is Carmen San Diego? The game had you chasing an international fugitive, and you had to decipher clues about world facts to figure out where to go next to catch her, using an included world almanac. The claim for learning was that it developed knowledge of world facts. And that was patently shown to be wrong by Cathie Sherwood, then at Griffith University (if memory serves). What she showed was that kids learned how to use an almanac, but didn’t remember the information pointed to by the clues. And this is a consistent problem with educational software.

I’ve been thinking about games for the simple reason that I’m keynoting and doing a panel and a session about gaming and learning at NexLearn’s Immersive Learning University conference next week. I’ll be talking about how to design them, and lessons from games for the design of learning and assessment. So when I read this recent article, while generally supportive, I had a problem.

The good thing with the article is that it argues that we should be doing more with games to support learning, and I couldn’t agree more. When properly designed, games provide deep and meaningful practice. And we could be tapping into much more of the facets of games for designing learning experiences. Challenge, decisions, and consequences in a safe environment.

So what bothered me? At one point, the article does on about what skills are required in computer games, things like problem-solving, strategy, etc. And, yes, games do require those skills. However, what many have done wrongly is say that the games develop those skills, and this is wrong. For instance, when Kurt Squire was touting the learning outcomes of Civilization, it came from a teacher who scaffolded that understanding, not intrinsically from the game. Similarly, when my kids were playing Pajama Sam (a great series of games with interesting stories and appropriate challenges), we were scaffolding the learning.

For some, requiring skills will develop them. For the 10% or so who survive despite what we do to them ;). But if you want to be sure they’re getting developed, you need to do more than require them, you need to scaffold them. And we could do this if we wanted to. But we don’t. The existence of coaching for higher-level learning skills in the game environment is essentially non-existent. And I just think this is a shame. (Many years ago I was proposing research to develop a coaching environment on top of a game engine, so it could be available in any game designed with that engine, but of course it was deemed too ambitious. Hmmph.)

And don’t get me wrong, the article didn’t make wrong statements, it just reminded me of the problem that has bugged me and also I think damaged the industry (think: why is the term ‘edutainment’ tainted?). But we need to be careful what we say and how we talk about it. We can develop meaningful learning games, but we have to know how to do it, not just put game and instructional designers in a room together and expect them to know how to create a success. You need to understand the alignment of elements of learning and leverage those to achieve success. Don’t settle for less.

Intelligent Content

15 January 2014 by Clark Leave a Comment

I’ve been on the content rant before, talking about the need to structure content into models, and the benefits of tagging. Now, there’s something you can do about it.

You have to understand that folks who do content as if their business depended on it, e.g. web marketers, have a level of sophistication that elearning (and all elearning: performance support, social, etc) would do well to adopt. The power of leveraging content by description, not by link, is the basis for adaptive, custom, personalized experiences. But it takes a lot of knowledge and work, and a strategy.

You’ve seen it in Netflix and Amazon recommendations, and sites that support powerful searches. We can and should be doing this for learning and performance, whether pull or push. But where do you learn?

One of the people I follow is Scott Abel, the Content Wrangler. And he’s put together the Intelligent Content Conference that will give you the opportunities you need to get on top of this. This isn’t necessarily for the independent instructional designer, but if you do elearning as a business, whether a publisher or custom content house, or if you’re looking for the next level of technical sophistication, this is something you really should have on your radar.

Full disclosure: I will be on a press pass to attend, but they didn’t reach out to me. I reached out to them because I wanted a way to attend. Because I know this is important enough to find a way to hear more. I don’t have a set company I work for, so if I want to know this stuff to be able to help people take advantage of it, I have to earn my keep (in this case, by writing an article afterward). I only feel it fair, however, that if I think it’s important enough to finagle a way to attend, I should at least let you know about it.

(And, fair warning, if you do lob something at me, expect to join the many who have received a firm refusal, on principle. I’m not in the PR business. As I state in my boilerplate response: “I deliberately ignore what comes unsolicited, and instead am triggered by what comes through my network: Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Skype, etc.”. Save us both time and don’t bother.)

Social ROI?

14 January 2014 by Clark 7 Comments

Ok, so I’ve been thinking about this, but not sure what the current state of play is. Someone was stating that talking about ROI of the social network was important but hard to do now, and essentially wondered if there was new thinking in this area. So let me ask the question.

So I’m calling out L&D because they’re only measuring efficiency when they should be measuring impact. You look at measures used to evaluate the industry, and they’re things like cost/time/seat. Which is potentially a useful measure, but only after you’ve decided that having a bum in the seat is having a positive impact on the organization. If you’re not doing something measurable – decreasing time to close sales or increasing the number of problems resolved accurately on the first call – it doesn’t matter how efficient you are!

With social media, I believe it’s the same thing. If we put in social media and facilitate discussion in engineering, we’d expect a different impact than in manufacturing. In engineering we might get less time to design a requested feature, and in manufacturing we might increase usable yield. It really doesn’t matter if you’re seeing more use of the system, more messages or connections or what have you, if you’re not seeing an impact. Of course, if you can correlate them, all the better.

Sure, we also might affect indirect metrics – retention, workplace satisfaction, or customer satisfaction – with tangible value, but our real focus should be on direct metrics. If creating a more effective culture for sharing, and sharing is supposed to lead to better outcomes, it sure would be nice to demonstrate those benefits. I guess my experience with instructional design – if you design it according to the formula, it is good – leads me to some skepticism that we can just trust the outcome.

So, is this obvious, or are we still wrestling with this? Other opinions?

Making Mobile Mayhem

8 January 2014 by Clark 3 Comments

As I suggested in my post on directions for the year, I intend to be stirring up a bit of trouble here and there. On a less formal basis, I want to suggest that another area where we need a little more light and a little less heat (and smoke) is mobile. There is huge opportunity here, and I am afraid we are squandering it.

We’re doing a lot wrong when it comes to mobile. As Jason Haag has aptly put it, elearning courses on a phone (or tablet) is mobile elearning, not mobile learning (aka mlearning). And while there’s an argument for mobile elearning (at least on tablets), and strong case for augmenting formal learning with mobile (regardless of device), mobile elearning is not mlearning’s natural niche.

mLearning’s natural niche is performance support, whether through content (interactive or not), or social. Think about how you use your phone? When I ask this of attendees, they’re using them to get information in the moment, or find their way, or capture information. They’re not using them to take courses!

So we need to be thinking outside the course. To help, we need case studies, across business sectors, and across the areas. Which means we need people to be getting their hands on development tools.

Which is a second problem: the tools that are easiest to use are being used to create courses. The elearning tools we use are increasingly having mobile output, but it’s too easy to then just output courses. It turns out one of the phenomena that characterize our brains is ‘functional fixedness’, we use a tool in the way we’ve used it before. Yet we can use these tools to do other things. And there are tools more oriented towards performance support. Anything that creates content or interactivity can be used to build performance support, but we have to be doing it!

There’s more that we need to be doing in the background – content, governance, strategy – but we need to get our minds around mobile solutions to contextual needs, and start delivering the resources people need. Mobile is big; the devices are out there, and they’re a platform for so much; we need to capitalize.

The place where you’re going to be able to see the case studies and explore the tools and start getting your mind around mobile will be this summer’s mLearnCon (in San Diego in June!). And you really should be going. Also, if you are doing mobile, you really should be submitting to present. We need more examples, more ideas, more experience! (If you need help writing a proposal, I’ve already written a guide.)

Really, presenting is a great contribution to yourself and the industry, and we really could use it. Help us make mobile mayhem by showing the way. Or, of course, join us at the conference to get ready to mix it up. Hope to see you there.

2014 Directions

1 January 2014 by Clark Leave a Comment

In addition to time for reflection on the past, it’s also time to look forward. A number of things are already in the queue, and it’s also time to see what I expect and hope for.

The events already queued up include:

ASTD’s TechKnowledge 2014, January 22-24 in Las Vegas, where I’ll be talking on aligning L&D with organizational needs (hint hint).

NexLearn’s Immersive Learning University conference, January 27-30 in Charleston, SC, where I’ll be talking about the design of immersive learning experiences.

Training 2014, in San Diego February 2 – 5, where I’ll be running a workshop on advanced instructional design, and talking on learning myths.

The eLearning Guild’s Learning Solutions will be in Orlando March 17-21, where I’ll be running a 1 day elearning strategy workshop, as well as offering a session on informal elearning.

That’s all that is queued up so far, but stay tuned. And, of course, if you need someone to speak…

You can tell by the topics I’m speaking on as to what I think are going to be, or should be, the hot issues this year. And I’ll definitely be causing some trouble. Several areas I think are important and I hope that there’ll be some traction:

Obviously, I think it’s past time to be thinking mobile, and I should have a chapter on the topic in the forthcoming ASTD Handbook Ed.2. Which also is seen in my recent chapter on the topic in the Really Useful eLearning Instruction Manual. I think this is only going to get more important, going forward, as our tools catch up. It’s not like the devices aren’t already out there!

A second area I’m surprised we still have to worry about it good elearning design. I’m beginning to see more evidence that people are finally realizing that knowledge dump/test is a waste of time and money. I’m also part of a forthcoming effort to address it, which will also manifest in the aforementioned second edition of the ASTD Handbook.

I’m quite convinced that L&D has a bigger purpose than we’re seeing, which is naturally the topic of my next book. I think that the writing is on the wall, and what is needed is some solid grounding in important concepts and a path forward. The core point is that we should be looking from a perspective of not just supporting organizational performance via optimal execution, with (good) formal learning and performance support, but also facilitation of continual innovation and development. I think that L&D can, and must address this, strategically.

So, of course, I think that we still have quite a ways to go in terms of capitalizing on social, the work I’ve been advocating with my ITA colleagues. They’ve been a boon to my thinking in this space, and they’re driving forward (Charles with the 70:20:10 Forum, Jane with her next edition of the Social Learning Handbook, Harold with Change Agents Worldwide, and Jay continues with the Internet Time Group). Yet there is still a long ways to go, and lots of opportunity for improvement.

An area that I’m excited about is the instrumentation of what we do to start generating data we can investigate, and analytics to examine what we find. This is having a bit of a bubble (speaking of cutting through hype with affordances, my take is that “big data” isn’t the answer, big insights are), but the core idea is real. We need to be measuring what we’re doing against real business needs, and we now have the capability to do it.

And an area I hope we’ll make some inroads on are the opportunities provided by a sort-of ‘content engineering‘ and leveraging that for customized and contextual experiences. This is valuable for mobile, but does beyond to a much richer opportunity that we have the capability to take advantage of, if we can only muster the will. I expect this will lag a bit, but doing my best to help raise awareness.

There’s much more, so here’s to making things better in the coming year! I hope to have a chance to talk and work with you about positive changes. Here’s hoping your new year is a great one!

2013 Reflections

31 December 2013 by Clark 1 Comment

It’s appropriate to look back at the year, here at the end of it. Reflection is a powerful and all-too-neglected tool. My year started off with a bit of travel and ended up with a lot of thought, writing, and preparation.

I started off with a bang, with two separate trips for presentations in Saudi Arabia with a few weeks of each other (phew!). The second included a paper that was a stab at rethinking formal learning: Redesigning Design (warning, PDF). It integrated my previous discussion of activity-centered learning with backwards design. And visiting foreign countries is something I enjoy, if not getting there ;).

I also presented at a wide variety of events, from regular venues like ASTD‘s TechKnowledge and ICE, and the eLearning Guild‘s Learning Solutions, mLearnCon, Performance Support Symposium, and DevLearn. More unique opportunities included the Professional Association of College Trainers and the International Conference on College Teaching and Learning. I attended Association for Educational Communications and Technology just to hear what’s happening on the academic side.

I always enjoy such opportunities. The most interesting aspect to me are the discussions that emerge after sessions, whether I’m the one presenting or I’m getting a chance to listen to someone else. The conversations in-between are also interesting, with colleagues old and new. Having a chance to mingle informally adds a valuable component to professional interactions.

Which was the driving force to attend a couple of retreats that are a different sort of professional reflection. This past year I attended Up to All of Us, and a second, similar, get together, both for the second time. These were opportunities to recharge and connect with like-minded colleagues. The ability to listen and interact in natural settings over an extended period is a separately valuable type of interaction.

Some of my best interactions came online in small groups, not least the Internet Time Alliance (the rest of you know who you are). The chance to interact with colleagues like Jay, Jane, Charles, and Harold continues to be a fabulous boon. My only regret is that we didn’t quite get things going the way I’d originally hoped we would. Despite the intellectual firepower, we didn’t converge on a unified model until too late. I admit my limitation in that I couldn’t really be prepared to ‘go to market’ until we had a core framework that would serve as the basis for tools, a book, etc. When we finally did, it was too late as everyone had gone off in their own directions, of need. The model is still important, and will be revisited in the forthcoming tome, and while it can serve as a basis for us working together (we’re still an entity, and available), but the real benefit to us is the continued opportunity to interact intellectually as well as personally.

I engaged in client work as well, of course, which is yet another powerful opportunity to learn, coupled with the opportunity to contribute. I was fortunate to engage with a variety of different organizations in facilitating design and strategy, including some mobile work. I like it when I can help clarify concepts, leading to tighter design, as well as raise the full spectrum of issues leading to more comprehensive strategies. I really enjoy getting into specific contexts, coming to grips with the issues, looking for matching models and frameworks, and systematically working through them to provide innovative solutions. Not when you’re doing the ordinary, but when you are uncertain what’s needed, or need to take it up a notch, is where I’ve been able to add real value.

I spent much of the latter part of the year working on my next book, to be out this coming year. I’m not happy with the state of the industry, nor the pace of change, so the book and another initiative (stay tuned) are a couple of stabs at trying to make things better. If you’re reading this, you’re more likely part of the solution than the problem, of course ;).

I’d also agreed to do a number of chapters in books and articles, so as soon as the book manuscript was done, I had to scramble to meet my other deadlines. As well as presentations for some of this coming year’s commitments; a topic for another post. You’ll see more writing emerging in articles, chapters, etc, soon. Duck!

Personal life was not neglected, I took a couple of weeks off this summer to travel with the family on an East Coast US History tour, from Boston, through New York City, to DC, with a side trip to Gettysburg. It was not only pleasant, but also a learning experience in many ways, both seeing new things, and seeing them through different eyes. I also spent some time in the wilderness, backpacking through Yosemite National Park, a different sort of retreat, but equally valuable. We also dealt with the passing of my mother, which was not unexpected. It’s odd to finally be the eldest, the patriarch as it were.

I have to say it was a good year, despite the challenges. And it leads me to be optimistic, looking forward, as is my wont. I hope that, as you look back on your year, you find insight, inspiration, and satisfaction.

Making sense of emerging technologies

23 December 2013 by Clark Leave a Comment

Last week I was attending the board meeting for eLearnMag, the Association of Computing Machinery’s ezine on eLearning. The goal was to bring together the board to discuss new directions. eLearnMag bridges the academic and practitioner sectors, providing an opportunity for research to inform practice, and vice-versa.

In preparation for the meeting, a survey was taken of the readership, to find what they were looking for. The top element, by far, was to keep up with emerging technologies. This makes sense in an era of increasing technology advancement, but it brings with it a worry as well.

Too often, new technologies come out with an abundance of excitement. Bluntly, there’s a lot of smoke as well as fire. Every new technology is going to be a panacea, particularly for education. Remember Virtual Worlds? They were to be the ultimate solution for all learning needs, but instead experienced a crash after a bubble of hype. Now, they’re reemerging with a more reasoned understanding of their core values.

How do we keep from being buried by hype? We need to understand the core affordances of technologies, the real capabilities brought by technology. More importantly for our purposes, we need to understand the core learning affordances. We do this by teasing out the fundamental capabilities, and then matching that to our needs.

For example, I previously took a stab at exploring the affordances of virtual worlds, and similarly for mobile. The point is to map core capabilities and emerging capabilities, and use those to evaluate technologies for supporting learning and performance.

Going forward, I implore you to try to avoid the hype, and look at the real capabilities. Look for insight, not bluster. It’s strategic in making sure technology is used appropriately, and pragmatic to avoid investing in chimeric capabilities. So, what technologies are you curious about?

Categorizing mLearning

17 December 2013 by Clark Leave a Comment

In thinking about mlearning, I have characterized the possibilities of mobile as augmenting formal, performance support, social, and contextual. It occurs to me, as I continue to think mobile, that there is another way to view it.

The realization came from the fact that you can use social for both augmenting formal learning and performance support, just as you can with content (both media files and interactive experiences). Which leads to a different way of characterizing the space. Thus, social versus content is a different cut through mobile than is formal learning versus performance support.

An interesting other cut is that you can do something contextual for any or all of these areas as well: you could provide a contextually relevant or local directory of mentors for formal social or collaborators for performance support. For formal content, you could leverage contextual elements with associated content, or even create an alternate reality game playing off the context. And for performance support, you might customize job aids to point to local resources, or provide augmented reality to annotate the world.

What I’m doing here is revising the way I cut through the space. Social plays a role in both formal and performance support, as does content. Contextual is really a third dimension in addition to the other two dimensions.The older characterization was useful for thinking through design, but I think this is conceptually cleaner.

I’m always trying to get better, and this seems more accurate. So, does it make sense to you? More importantly does this help, or only confound the space from the point of view of doing good mDesign?

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