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MOOC reflections

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A recent phenomena is the MOOC, Massively Open Online Courses. I see two major manifestations: the type I have participated in briefly (mea culpa) as run by George Siemens, Stephen Downes, and co-conspirators, and the type being run by places like Stanford. Each share running large numbers of students, and laudable goals. Each also has flaws, in my mind, which illustrate some issues about education.

The Stanford model, as I understand it (and I haven’t taken one), features a rigorous curriculum of content and assessments, in technical fields like AI and programming. The goal is to ensure a high quality learning experience to anyone with sufficient technical ability and access to the Internet. Currently, the experience does support a discussion board, but otherwise the experience is, effectively, solo.

The connectivist MOOCs, on the other hand, are highly social. The learning comes from content presented by a lecturer, and then dialog via social media, where the contributions of the participants are shared. Assessment comes from participation and reflection, without explicit contextualized practice.

The downside of the latter is just that, with little direction, the courses really require effective self-learners. These courses assume that through the process, learners will develop learning skills, and the philosophical underpinning is that learning is about making the connections oneself.  As was pointed out by Lisa Chamberlin and Tracy Parish in an article, this can be problematic. As of yet, I don’t think that effective self-learning skills is a safe assumption (and we do need to remedy).

The problem with the former is that learners are largely dependent on the instructors, and will end up with that understanding, that learners aren’t seeing how other learners conceptualize the information and consequently developing a richer understanding.   You have to have really high quality materials, and highly targeted assessments.  The success will live and die on the quality of the assessments,  until the social aspect is engaged.

I was recently chided that the learning theories I subscribe to are somewhat dated, and guilty as charged; my grounding has taken a small hit by my not being solidly in the academic community of late. On the other hand, I have yet to see a theory that is as usefully integrative of cognitive and social learning theory as Cognitive Apprenticeship (and willing to be wrong), so I will continue to use (my somewhat adulterated version of) it until I am otherwise informed.

From the Cognitive Apprenticeship perspective, learners need motivating and meaningful tasks around which to organize their collective learning. I reckon more social interaction will be wrapped around the Stanford environment, and that either I’ve not experienced the formal version of the connectivist MOOCs, or learners will be expected to take on the responsibility to make it meaningful but will be scaffolded in that (if not already).

The upshot is that these are valuable initiatives from both pragmatic and principled perspectives, deepening our understanding while broadening educational reach. I look forward to seeing further developments.

Making it visible and viral

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On a recent client engagement, the issue was spreading an important initiative through the organization.  The challenges were numerous: getting consistent uptake across management and leadership, aligning across organizational units, and making the initiative seem important and yet also doable in a concrete way.  Pockets of success were seen, and these are of interest.

For one, the particular unit had focused on making the initiative viral, and consequently had selected and trained appropriate representatives dispersed through their organization. These individuals were supported and empowered to incite change wherever appropriate.  And they were seeing initial signs of success. The lesson here is that top down is not always sufficient, and that benevolent infiltration is a valuable addition.

The other involvement was also social, in that the approach was to make the outcomes of the initiative visible. In addition to mantras, graphs depicting status were placed in prominent places, showing current status.  Further, suggestions for improvement were not only solicited, but made visible and their status tracked.  Again, indicators were positive on these moves.

The point is that change is hard, and a variety of mechanisms may  be appropriate.  You need to understand not just what formal mechanisms you have, but also how people actually work.  I think that too often, planning fails to anticipate the effects of inertia, ambivalence, and apathy.  More emotional emphasis is needed, more direct connection to individual outcomes, and more digestion into manageable chunks. This is true for elearning, learning, and  change.

In looking at attitude change, and from experience, I recognize that even if folks are committed to change, it can be easy to fall back into old habits without ongoing support.  Confusion in message, lack of emotional appeal, and idiosyncratic leadership only reduce the likelihood.  If it’s important, get alignment and sweat the details. If it’s not, why bother?

At the Edge of India

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A few months back, courtesy of my colleague Jay Cross, I got into discussions about the EdgeX conference, scheduled for March 12-14 in New Delhi.  Titled the “Disruptive Educational Research Conference”, it certainly has intriguing aspects.

I was asked to talk about games, the topic of my first book.  Owing to unfortunate circumstances (my friend and co-speaker on games had to change plans), it looks like I’ll also be talking about mobile (books two and three) which is exciting despite the circumstances.

However, what’s really exciting is the lineup of other people speaking. I’ve been a fan of George Siemens and Stephen Downes for years, and an eager but less focused follower of Dave Cormier and Alex Couros.  And I’ve only met Stephen once, and am eager to meet the rest.  I don’t really know the other speakers, but their positions and descriptions suggest that this is going to be a great event. Meeting new and interesting people is one of the reasons to go to a conference in the first place!  And, of course, Jay will be there too.

I’ve been to India before, as one of my partners has it’s origins there, and it’s a fascinating place.  Part of the conference is to look at how the latest concepts of learning play out in the Indian context, but given that it’s across K12, higher ed, and corporate, we’ll be talking principles that are across contexts.

Looking at disruptive concepts, with top thinkers, in an intriguing context, makes this an exciting opportunity, I reckon.  I realize it may not make sense for many readers, but I’m hoping some will be intrigued enough to check it out, and there will be a steady stream of related materials. Already there are links from many speakers, and resources about the Indian education context.  If you do go, please say hi!

Performance Architecture

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I’ve been using the tag ‘learning experience design strategy’ as a way to think about not taking the same old approaches of events  Ã¼ber ales.  The fact of the matter is that we’ve quite a lot of models and resources to draw upon, and we need to rethink what we’re doing.

The problem is that it goes far beyond just a more enlightened instructional design, which of course we need.  We need to think of content architectures, blends between formal and informal, contextual awareness, cross-platform delivery, and more.  It involves technology systems, design processes, organizational change, and more.  We also need to focus on the bigger picture.

Yet the vision driving this is, to me, truly inspiring: augmenting our performance in the moment and developing us over time in a seamless way, not in an idiosyncratic and unaligned way.  And it is strategic, but I’m wondering if architecture doesn’t better capture the need for systems and processes as well as revised design.

This got triggered by an exercise I’m engaging in, thinking how to convey this.  It’s something along the lines of:

The curriculum’s wrong:

  • it’s not knowledge objectives, it’s skills
  • it’s not current needs, it’s adapting to change
  • it’s not about being smart, it’s about being wise

The pedagogy’s wrong:

  • it’s not a flood, but a drip
  • it’s not knowledge dump, it’s decision-making
  • it’s not expert-mandated, instead it’s learner-engaging
  • it’s not ‘away from work’, it’s in context

The performance model is wrong:

  • it’s not all in the head, it’s distributed across tools and systems.
  • it’s not all facts and skill, it’s motivation and confidence
  • it’s not independent, it’s socially developed
  • it’s not about doing things right, it’s about doing the right thing

The evaluation is wrong:

  • it’s not seat time, it’s business outcomes
  • it’s not efficiency, at least until it’s effective
  • it’s not about normative-reference, it’s about criteria

So what does  this look like in practice?   I think it’s about a support system organized so that it recognizes what you’re trying to do, and provides possible help.  On top of that, it’s about showing where the advice comes from, developing understanding as an additional light layer.  Finally, on top of that, it’s about making performance visible and looking at the performance across the previous level, facilitating learning to learn. And, the underlying values are also made clear.

It doesn’t have to get all that right away.  It can start with just better formal learning design, and a bit of content granularity. It certainly starts with social media involvement.  And adapting the culture in the org to start developing meta-learning.  But you want to have a vision of where you’re going.

And what does it take to get here?  It needs a new design that starts from the performance gap and looks at root causes. The design process then onsiders what sort of experience would both achieve the end goal and the gaps in the performer equation (including both technology aids and knowledge and skill upgrades), and consider how that develops over time recognizing the capabilities of both humans and technology, with a value set that emphasis letting humans do the interesting work.  It’ll also take models of content, users, context, and goals, with a content architecture and a flexible delivery model with rich pictures of what a learning experience might look like and what learning resources could be.  And an implementation process that is agile, iterative, and reflective, with contextualized evaluation.  At least, that sounds right to me.

Now, what sounds right to you: learning experience design strategy, performance system design, performance architecture, <your choice here>?

 

Making Slow Learning Concrete #change11

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It occurs to me that I’ve probably not conveyed in any concrete terms what I think the ‘slow learning’ experience might be like. And I admit that I’m talking a technology environment in the concrete instance (because I like toys).  So here are some instances:

Say you’ve a meeting with a potential client.  You’ve been working on how to more clearly articulate the solutions you offer and  listening to the customer to establish whether there’s a match or not. You’ve entered the meeting into your calendar, and indicated the topic by the calendar, tags, the client, or some other way. So, shortly before the meeting, your system might send you some reminder that both reiterated the ‘message’ you’d worked out, and reminded you about pulling out the client’s issues.  Then, there might be a tool provided during the meeting (whether one you’d created, one you’d customized, or a stock one) to help capture the important elements. Afterwards, the system might provide you with a self-evaluation tool, or even connect you to a person for a chat.

Or, say, you’re walking around a new town.  Your system might regularly suggest some topics of interest, depending on  your interest showing architecture, history, or socioeconomic indicators.  You could ignore them, or follow them up.  Ideally, it’d also start connecting some dots: showing a picture from a previous trip and suggesting “Remember we saw an example of <this> architect use here?  Well, right here we have the evolution of that form; see how the arches have…”  So it’s making connections for you.  You can ignore, pursue further, or whatever. It might make a tour for you on the fly, if you wanted.  If you were interested in food, it might say: “we’ve been exploring Indian food, you apparently have no plans for dinner and there’s an Indian restaurant near here that would be a way to explore Southern Indian cuisine”.

Another situation might be watching an event, and having extra information laid on top. So instead of just watching a game, you could see additional information that is being used by the coaches to make strategic decisions: strengths and weaknesses of the opposing team in this context, intangible considerations like clock management, or the effects of wind.

And even in formal schooling, if you’re engaged in either an individual or group problem, it might well be available to provide a hint, as well as of course tools to hand.

The notion is that you might have more formal and informal goals, and the system would layer on information, augmenting your reality with extra information aligned to your interests and goals, making the world richer.  It could and would help performance in the moment, but also layer on some concepts on top.

I see this as perhaps a mobile app, that has some way of notifying you (e.g. it’s own signature ‘sound’), a way to sense context, and more. It might ask for your agreement to have a link into the task apps you use, so it has more context information, but also knows when and where you are.

This isn’t the only path to slow learning.  Ideally, it’d just be a rich offering of community-generated resources and people to connect with in the moment, but to get people ready to take advantage of that it might need some initial scaffolding.  Is this making sense?

Slow Learning – #change11

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This is a longer post launching my week in the #change11 MOOC (Massively Open Online Course).  

Our formal learning approaches too often don‘t follow how our brains really work.   We have magic now; we can summon up powerful programs to do our bidding, gaze through webcams across distances, and bring anyone and anything to pretty much anywhere. Our limitations are no longer the technology, but our imaginations. The question is, what are we, and should be, doing with this technology?

I like to look at this a couple of ways. For one, I like to ask myself “what would my ideal learning situation be”

Stop and ask yourself that.   Go ahead, I‘ll wait.   And feel free to share!

For me, that would be having a personal mentor traveling with me, looking at my tasks, providing both support in the moment, and developing me slowly over time.   I talked about how we might systematize that in a post titled Sage at the Side.   I also talked about this model as Layered Learning.   That is, layering on learning across our life.

It‘s part of what my colleague Harold Jarche talks about when saying “work is learning and learning is work”, the notion that as organizations start empowering workers to adapt to the increasing complexity, there will be no difference between work and learning, and we‘ll have to move away from the ‘event‘ model of learning and start integrating learning more closely into our activities.   We‘ll need to have a closer coupling between our activities and the resources, creating what Jay Cross calls a workscape and I‘ve termed the performance ecosystem.   That is, having the tools to hand, including job aids, people, and skill development, but in a more systemic way.

Think about that: how would you construct an optimal performance environment for yourself?   What would it look like?   Again, feel free to share.

Would it look like an LMS over here, training away over there, job aids scattered across portals, and social networks hierarchically structured or completely banned?   Would you have spray-and-pray (aka show up and throw up) training?   Online courses that are clicky-clicky bling-bling? Resources accessible by the way the organization is siloed?   Even the simple and well-documented matter of spaced learning is largely violated in most of the learning interventions we propagate.   In short, all of this is in conflict with how the human brain works!

Look at how how we learn naturally, before schooling (what I call the 7 C‘s of natural learning). We see that we learn by being engaged in meaningful activity, and working with others.   It‘s not about knowledge dump and test, but instead about coupling engaged activity with reflection.   I like Collins, Brown, & Holum‘s Cognitive Apprenticeship as a model for thinking more richly about learning.   Other learning models are not static (c.f. Merrill‘s trajectory through CDT to ID2 to Ripples), and I believe they‘ll converge where Cognitive Apprenticeship is (albeit perhaps my slightly adulterated version thereof).   It talks about modeling, scaffolding and release, naturally incorporating social and meaningful activity into the learning process.

Taking a broader look, too many of our systems have a limited suite of solutions to choose from, and ignore a number of features that we need.   The ADDIE process assumes a course, and still doesn‘t have any real support for the emotional engagement aspect. A step above is the HPT approach, which does look at the learning need and checks to see whether the solution might be a course, a job aid, realigning incentives, or some other things. However, it still doesn‘t consider, really, engagement, nor does an adequate job of considering when connecting to a person is a more valuable solution than designing content.

And while Gloria Gery‘s seminal work on Electronic Performance Support Systems suggested that these systems could not only provide support in the moment but also develop the learners‘ understanding, I still don‘t see this in any systems in practice. Even GPSs don‘t help you understand the area, they just get you where you‘re trying to go. So we are still missing something.

I‘m really arguing for the need to come up with a broader perspective on learning.   I‘ve been calling it learning experience design, but really it‘s more.   It‘s a combination of performance support and learning (and it‘s badly in need of some branding help). The notion is a sort-of personal GPS for your knowledge work. It‘s knows where you want to go (since you told it), and it knows where you are geographically and semantically (via GPS and your calendar), and as it recognizes the context it can provide not only support in the moment, but layers on learning along the way.   And I think that we don‘t know really how to look at things this way yet; we don‘t have design models (to think about the experience conceptually), we don‘t have design processes (to go from goal to solution), and we don‘t have tools (to deliver this integrated experience).   Yet the limits are not technological; we have the ability to build the systems if we can conceptualize the needed framework.

I think this framework will need to start with considering the experience design, what is the flow of information and activity that will help develop the learner (e.g. “If you get the design right, there are lots of ways to implement it”).   Then we can get into the mechanics of how to distribute the experience across devices, information, people, etc.   But this is embryonic yet, I welcome your thoughts!

Really, I‘m looking to start matching our technology more closely to our brains.   Taking a   page from the slow movement (e.g. slow X, where X = food, sex, travel, …), I‘m talking about slow learning, where we start distributing our learning in ways that match the ways in which our brains work: meaningfulness, activation and reactivation, not separate but wrapped around our lives, etc.

There‘s lots more: addressing the epistemology of learners, mobile technologies, meta-learning & 21st C skills, and deep analytics and semantic systems, to name a few, but I think we need to start with the right conceptions.   Some of my notions of design may be too didactic, after all, and we‘ll need to couple information augmentation with meaning-making to make real progress, but I think this notion of stepping back and reflecting on what we might want to achieve and where we‘re currently inadequate is an initial step.

And now the initiative is over to you. I look forward to your thoughts.

Readings

Collins, A., Brown, J.S., and Holum, A. (1991).   .   Cognitive Apprenticeship: Making Thinking Visible. American Educator, Winter.

Quinn, C. (2004).   Learning at Large.   Educational Technology, 44, 4, 45-49.

Quinn, C. (2009). Populating the LearnScape: e-Learning as Strategy. In M. Allen (Ed.) Michael Allen‘s eLearning Annual 2009. Pfeiffer, San Francisco.

Quinn, C. (2010). Rethinking eLearning.   Learning Solutions Magazine. April.

Quinn, C. (2010). Designing for an uncertain world. Learnlets. April.

Thalheimer, W. (2006).  Spacing Learning Over Time.  Work Learning Research.

Evil Design

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In the mobile ideation session I ran today for some folks, the question came up about good and bad examples of design, and subsequent events reminded me of the topic of not just bad, but evil design. What I mean is design that is crafted to return maximal outcome to the designer, not just at the expense of the user, but even to the discomfort of the user or contrary to their intentions.  Let me cite a few examples.

First, while this has been improved somewhat, the kiosks that <my usual airline> uses to check in had a big yellow ‘continue’ button that you used to indicate you were ready to move on to the next screen. And the first couple of times in an instance it was innocuous, so you got used to using the button comfortably and automatically.  But then, you’d get the opportunity to spend some extra money – nicer seats, extra miles – and the default action, signaled by the big yellow button,was to spend the money.  This could be several hundred dollars! I fortunately didn’t get trapped (I try to get to the airport early), but I wonder how many rushing travelers inadvertently *did* manage to overspend.  I think such a design takes advantage of our cognitive architecture, falling into a pattern, in unconscionable ways.

Then, today, I was driving back to O’Hare airport from the aforementioned engagement. Following my GPS instructions and the signs, I followed the route to the airport.  Now, on the way out there was a required toll, and I drove through and paid the guy (since naturally I didn’t have a pass). The signs on the way back announcing tolls didn’t look noticeably different, and so I didn’t pay too much attention. Imagine my surprise, then, to find a toll payment arrangement requiring either a pass (which of course I didn’t have) or payment by coins.  Which I also didn’t have.  And  the amount was more than the outbound fee, so even if I tried to use change, I likely wouldn’t have enough (who keeps lots of change around these days?).

The cameras no doubt caught me sitting there looking around, then calling for help, then furiously driving on after giving the camera a frustrated glare. Of course there’s a fine if you don’t pay, but there’s no way to pay except through a long URL that’d be hard to get exactly right.  You have seven days, which in one sense is nice, but might cause you to put it off and forget.  Worse, when you do go online, you’d have to known to record the license plate state and number to be able to pay!  And, of course, it’s highly likely in the rush of travel that you’d forget to do this.  This seems designed for the sheer purpose to get more fees.  For example, paying online is more expensive than paying the original fee.  Why can they have a person outbound, and not inbound?  It’s capitalizing on expectations and putting you in circumstances that are likely to maximize your inability to pay in the initial instance.  What’s with that?

It gets worse, by the way. If you didn’t remember (and our brains aren’t good at rote memory) that the site is singular (Xtollway.com) and instead type  Xtollways.com  (a reasonable and even likely mistake), you end up at a site that looks like it can help, but instead seems to have sponsored ads and looks for clicks. If you weren’t paying attention, you could end up giving your credit card to the wrong site, and still not have paid the fine!  I’m surprised such a site can exist and not be shut down!

Our cognitive architecture has some flaws, and these can be exploited by the unscrupulous (c.f. commercial gambling).  It helps to be cognizant of it. It ranges from the designing interface, to ad campaigns, and the whole way companies conduct  business (see the Cluetrain Manifesto).

This is, BTW, at least part of the reason I don’t like gamification, as many game mechanics like adding points tap into human reactions in a way to get them to do things they might not otherwise do.  This *can* be good if it gets them to do things like lose excess weight or quit smoking, but I’d rather tap into intrinsic motivation instead.

While I’m a fan of good design, and there’s a continuum to bad design, I still prefer that to evil design.  How about you?

President Clinton Keynote Mindmap

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President Bill Clinton riveted the crowd with a keynote covering a broad swath of problems. His solutions include systems thinking and positive dialog. Engaging and powerful.

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Motivation & Gamification

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The initial Learning 3.0 conference (well-done, Phillip, Julie, & Leah) was held in conjunction with The Motivation Show, a large conference (dwarfing our little group) and Expo on incentive and recognition programs.  And it’s thought-provoking.

First, you have to know that while I understand sales commissions and rewards, because they *work*, I don’t like them. It seems to me to be rewarding a behavior of convincing people to buy things they might not otherwise do. And, yes, I know that there’s a move to solution selling (through one of my partners I’ve done a fair bit of work on sales), but still, solution selling hasn’t always worked (partly because it often isn’t  implemented well: e.g. the incentives are still aligned with product selling).

So you can imagine my reaction as I walked the motivation expo hall on the last day.  Aisle after aisle of vacation destinations, gourmet foods, luxury items, and more. It would’ve been a great shopping experience if you were well-heeled and this wasn’t focused on corporate buyers.

And I became curious. We’d heard that there are incentives for many things: health, safety, and more. I’d heard of rewarding innovation.    I wondered if, as I cynically believed, this was largely for sales rewards instead of those other things. And while I couldn’t get the answer as clearly as I wanted, it wasn’t as bad as I’d thought.

What I found was that sales was something less than a quarter, consumer promotions roughly a quarter, business gifts roughly another quarter, and employee recognition rounded out the last quarter. So, 70-75% or so was on  the transaction side and the rest was for employees. Moreover, talking to one of the recogntion system vendors, it became clear that this trend was new; that sales *had dominated, but they were moving to recognizing that this could apply more broadly (tho one of the venue folks noted that the show had shrunk from years before).

And I think it makes sense. Look, there are product and service designers working to come out with new and better products that better serve the market, and increase sales. And, as one of the attendees I shared lunch with noted, if the learning group offers improved sales training and product training, and it creates a delta in sales, why don’t they get a share?

Now, this whole incentive ‘motivation’ thing is “gamification”. They’re creating simple reward things that increase behaviors, but they’re extrinsic, not intrinsic (cf the distinction between gamification and what I call engagification). And, as Dan Pink’s “Drive” says (as did the keynote by the former CEO of Texas RoadHouse), intrinsic awards work better.

I think I’ll stand by my belief that sales incentives can end up creating a situation where people are rewarded for getting people to do things that they’re not inclined to do. And while some may argue that it is in the best interest (e.g.  getting people to be safe, or exercise, or eat better, which I’d argue folks largely would  like to do), in general I reckon most folks wouldn’t like to buy things that they might not otherwise purchase. And for those who think I’m being too harsh on sales, let me ask what they think would happen if those incentives went away and sales folks were on salary only. Would you have happier consumers?

Look, I’m still happy to do the best I can to make sales training and product skills the best it can be (and I’ll suggest that the design principles I espouse will do that as well as it can be done), because it is largely independent of the rewards structure. I just want that, as a society, we might want to look at the tradeoffs. When teachers impact society in more important ways (granted, in my opinion), I think we might want to be looking at increasing their performance more than sales folks.  Reckon?

Three core foundations for online learning

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The wise Ellen Wagner has a neat post about what should be the ‘ten commandments’ of online learning.  I agree with them, and recommend them to  you.  I have thought about it in a slightly different, but similar frame.

I came up with this as I was trying to suggest what the core value propositions (yeah, I said it, deal with it) of an online offering should be.  And I tried to frame it the way I thought Steve Jobs might:

  • An absolutely killer learning experience
  • We don’t just develop your understanding, we develop you
  • We’re your partner for your success

What I mean by a killer learning experience is one that is engaging and  effective, ie all the principles of Engaging Learning. It’s a pedagogy that’s challenging, meaningful, relevant, tightly coupled, and more. It’s also social, having you learn with others, not just on your own.

Developing the person means not only developing their knowledge of the topic, their degree, but also their success factors. That includes things like helping them develop a portfolio of work, developing skills in working with others, communicating, etc.  In essence, layered on top of the domain knowledge are 21st century skills, which are likely to be the only lasting value you can provide learners (c.f. Father Guido Sarducci’s 5 Minute University).

And finally, it’s about not just providing the content and having the learner sink or swim, but instead actively looking at the learner’s performance, finding ways to scaffold the learning and being attentive to signals of potential trouble.  It’s data-driven adaptivity to the individual learner, coupled optimally with human intervention.  And competency-based, so the learner has clear indications of what they need to do.

We can do this, on a cost-effective basis, and I reckon it’s going to be the only sustainable differentiator to be a successful provider.  The only question then becomes: who’s going to bring it all together?  The market is waiting.