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Clark Quinn’s Learnings about Learning

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Mobile tools

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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?

Design: final heuristics

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Part 4 of the 4 part series:

Here‘re the final suite of heuristics I came up with many years ago as a result of looking at our design process and the barriers our cognitive architecture can put in our own way.

Full Spectrum Design: One of the most insidious problems observed in educational multimedia is a tendency to incorporate all the solution into the computer.   The system will be the repository of all the text, sound, graphics, etc, and the instruction.   Unfortunately, this does not properly reflect what’s known about reading text on screen and the role of the teacher.   In conjunction with the No Limits Analysis, another way to get the best design is to consider the full spectrum of media, particularly considering delivering text on paper, having the instruction accomplished by an instructor, etc.   The proper use of the term multimedia is to consider all the available media and their use and to distribute the instructional task across all of them.

No Limits Analysis: After assembling a team, the first step in the design process is analysis, and an important component is proper information gathering to ensure that all relevant possible sources of inspiration have been considered.   However, before we consider what others have done in the same, we should see what we come up with when we think as if there were no limits.   This occurs after the pedagogical problem has been identified but before other examples are considered.   The step is to consider how the problem would be addressed if there were no technological limitations, as if anything could be accomplished as if by magic. Arthur C. Clarke said “any truly advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic”, and we‘re really at the stage where the barriers are our imaginations, not the technology.   So stop and think what an ideal solution would be.   You may not be able to achieve what you imagine, but you certainly can‘t if you don‘t identify that option, and you‘ll prematurely limit the solution space.

Kitchen Sink Analysis: After the No Limits Analysis, comes the systematic consideration of other corners of the design space or other relevant prototypes for modification.   Lewis & Reiman suggested that “plagiarism” is an appropriate design strategy (as far as your lawyers would let you, as they cautioned), where ideas are lifted from existing designs rather than reinventing the wheel.   An expansion to this concept is to not only look at what others have done but to also consider how instruction might proceeded without computer support, what theory suggests as an approach, etc.   In short, the suggestion is to exhaustively search all potential sources of input into the design process, including the proverbial ‘kitchen sink’.   This process is both to help populate the design space and discover all constraints.

And let me add one other that I didn‘t explicitly include before:
Lateral input:   Research on brainstorming and creativity (cf D Bono), has shown that besides being systematic and covering all the known or plausible solutions, lateral thinking is valuable. After you‘ve been exhaustive within the box, find ways to get ‘outside the box‘.   Use random inspirations: play a game, doodle, get some random input!   Get silly!   It may not be politically correct anymore, but back when I worked for a learning game company, the CEO (hi, Sky!), used to bring in pizza and beer on Friday afternoon and have some idea sessions!   There are lots of tools and approaches, just make sure you make some concerted effort here.

OK, that‘s it for this series on design.   I hope these past few posts give you some useful guidance or ideas.   I welcome your own!

First: https://blog.learnlets.com/2008/09/design-design-as-search/

Second: https://blog.learnlets.com/2008/09/design-our-barriers/

Third: https://blog.learnlets.com/2008/09/design-the-first-heuristics/

Learning out loud

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In an article I was reading, they mentioned how Patagonia was tracking the environmental footprint of some of their products. The point they made, however, was that doing this was part of their ongoing experimentation/research that they were publicizing to get others to join in towards making this a more sustainable world (my inference). The phrase they used that intrigued me was the quote that they were “learning out loud”.

One of the reasons it intrigued me was that I realized that what I’m doing with Learnlets is indeed ‘learning out loud’. But I hadn’t really reflected on what that could mean, and I think there are some really interesting opportunities here. First, by learning explicitly, we can reflect on our own learning processes, looking at how we learn, essentially initiating double-loop learning.

Second, others can watch us learn, and learn with us. They can also learn to learn. Learning together, we can learn more effectively. I think this is a critical component of the Work Literacy movement looking at how to improve at work; they’re making their thinking explicit and asking for participation.

One of the Big Questions was Should All Learning Professionals Blog, and I replied. My answer then was that all should reflect, and I’ll add now that doing it publicly (blog or otherwise) is an opportunity to have others participate and even add value. Yes, there’s a risk involved, but I’ll suggest you throw ego to the wind, and take a chance on greater learning.

So I’ll keep on learning out loud, and hope to hear you, too. Let’s learn together; better, and have more fun doing it.

Give and get…(tools please!)

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I told you before that electronic versions of the eLearning Guild printed research reports are now available for FREE for all paid Guild members and all associate members that complete the survey related to a particular report. These reports include Measuring Success, Mobile (with yours truly), Immersive Learning Simulations (ditto), Learning Management Systems, and Synchronous Learning.

Steve Wexler, their Director of Research, lets me know that the surveys for their forthcoming reports on tools are available.   I’ll kindly request that take the time to fill them out (they’ve got data from 1059 folks already!). Particularly if you’re using tools for Simulations, Media, and Combining & Deploying (those’re the areas where the fewest contributions are). Get free access to the great advice, share your experience, and help yourself and your peers.   I’ve already done so for the tools I use.

I’m really thrilled that they’re creating this great source of data and informed insight. I can tell you that I will be reading from all the reports I wasn’t part of (I’ve already read the ones I was involved in; great stuff from my colleagues)!

So, please do take the time to be at least an associate member, consider being a full member, and fill out the surveys for all.   Hey, for a little time, you can get access to some great thought.

Content, context, and experience

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In my (next to) last post, I talked about print versus screen reading, and at the end made a comment about publishers. I want to extend that comment here, and to do so I need to go to Pine & Gilmore’s Experience Economy.

I’ve talked about it before, but the premise briefly is that we’ve moved from selling services to selling total customer experiences (the pre-sales, the sale, the product or service, the support). Hence the success of Apple, which creates amazing experiences, generating great customer loyalty and satisfaction. So how does this bear on publishers?

The hoary old cliche’ is that publishers need to realize that they’re not about books, they’re about content (the analogy being to the railroad companies who suffered when they didn’t realize they were in the transportation business). On the other hand, the current discussion in industry is that now context is king. The point is that content can be customized to the immediate need. What the experience economy tells us is that the differentiator will be the overall experience. So, is experience or context king?

I want to suggest that the answer is ‘yes’. Contextualized content creates a positive experience. However, I want to argue two facets to this. Publishers do need to move to where content is semantically tagged for when there are smart systems that can contextualize it. However, I want to suggest that they also need quality information design to create a good experience even when it’s unable to be customized.

That’s come into play with educational publishers. Pine & Gilmore have argued that the subsequent economy will be the ‘transformation economy’, with experiences that transform us. I want to suggest that quality learning design will be the differentiator, and it definitely means going beyond traditional instructional design and incorporating cognitive science research and emotional engagement. I immodestly suggest that Engaging Learning is part of the solution, but the point is much bigger. It’s about reorganizing content to focus on meaningful outcomes, and then aligning the experience to achieve those. While incorporating the semantic hooks as well.

So, I’m arguing that the content business needs to look to both quality in design, and elegance in implementation, to support either or both scenarios: customized and quality experiences.

Learning Mobile

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Ok, so I’m on the eLearning Guild‘s research team for mobile learning (a truly awesome group of people to be able to work with), and one of the team members asked: how do you get transfer from mobile learning? My reply was:

transfer … comes from a couple of sources: applying the same concept as skill in different contexts, and reflection even after a single context explicitly discussing abstraction and reapplication in other contexts.

So, a couple of ways (and agreeing with [the] notion of a blend, so these are in conjunction with other activities): you can stream out different examples in different contexts for viewing/reading/listening (vcast, PDF/page, podcast), you can make available little mini-scenarios in different contexts, you can bring in reflection after real-life practice, you could provide abstraction and reapplication questions after most any of the above…

This was just off the top of my head, but there’s a point here. You’ve heard me riff on models before, and to answer the question I stepped back and looked at the fundamental concept behind transfer (ok, a very abbreviated version), and then put that together with some of the models behind mobile, and was able to generate an answer on the fly.   That’s the power of models: they’re explanatory, they’re predictive, and they’re generative.

And, of course, thinking about mobile design is a habit I’m trying to inculcate in organizations and designers. There are great opportunities to deliver not only immediate (and, potentially, contextualized) performance support, but also to extend learning. Will Thalheimer has touted ‘learning follow-on’ systems, and it’s also consonant with my ‘slow learning‘ interest in developing people over time.

So, think models, think mobile, think opportunity!

(And stay tuned for the report. I was part of the Immersive Learning Simulations report, and it was not only fun but I think the outcome is really good, and I expect the same here.)