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Clark Quinn’s Learnings about Learning

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Understanding by Design

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I have long advocated, in consonance with sound learning   principles, that in a good design process works backwards:

  • start with the desired outcomes as capabilities,
  • align assessment to the outcomes,
  • and then design the learning experience to achieve those outcomes.

This shouldn’t be new.   Recently, I was pointed towards Wiggins & McTighe’s Understanding by Design, which turns out to be a curricular approach predicated on just such lines.   I am of mixed feelings.

First, I am thrilled to see someone in formal education talking about looking at more meaningful outcomes, particularly aimed at “clarify learning goals, devise revealing assessments of student understanding, and craft effective and engaging learning activities”.   This is something I’ve been trying to argue for in my work with formal education, e.g. with publishers, schools, and more.   It’s a more enlightened approach to design.

On the other hand, it’s sort of like my reaction when we investigated what should be covered in continuing medical education and were told that we should proselytize evidence-based medicine: “what have they been doing ’til now?!?!”   I continue to be amazed at how folks go about things in ways that do not reflect what we understand about doing things well.   And what I’ve seen of their 6 Facets of Understanding seem a bit vague (and mea culpa, I have not read their thorough exposition, but it seems like YAT, Yet Another Taxonomy), though I’m perfectly willing to be wrong about that.

Interestingly, they apparently do not recommend applying this approach to individual lesson plans, and instead constrain it to curriculum level goals. I can see how the focus should be on the goal, not the time-frame, and I personally believe in spreading out learning over a longer period of time.

It’s nice to have another label to attach to good design, so I laud the initiative, and hope we can get more good design, and more understanding, in our schools and everywhere else.

Thinking Social

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In talking about the 4C’s of Mobile, the last one I usually mention is ‘communicate’.   Communicate isn’t last because it’s least, but instead because it leads us furthest afield, into the areas of social learning, which has many ramifications in many ways: organizationally, cognitively, culturally, and more.   However, it is of importance for mobile in terms of thinking about how and when to take advantage of it.   It is also something that the Internet Time Alliance is wrestling with.

We strongly believe in performance consulting, that is getting to the root cause of the organizational problem, and determining whether the problem is skill set, information, motivation, or whatever.   This is a necessary step before you decide your intervention. However, the current models of performance consulting seem to be   missing a couple of things.   For one, they are not particularly good at engagement, at least in the formal learning setting, and trying to understand the audience’s interest.   More importantly here, they also seem to lack consideration of when a social media solution might make sense.

As a preliminary step, I went back to some material I have from my workshop on mobile learning design.   One of the activities is thinking about when you might want to consider a social solution, to connect to someone to communicate, rather than have a prepared solution.   My initial thoughts were that you might want to connect when:

  • the content is highly volatile
  • the situation is likely unique
  • the cost of access is low
  • the need for personal touch or mentoring is high

These make sense to me, but I’ve no reason to believe the list is comprehensive.   However, it is a starting point for thinking about when you might want to provide access to a social resource, whether a directory of appropriate people, or consider providing communication tools.

I might extend the list with:

  • when the situation is likely new
  • when there is an expert
  • when the situation is likely to be complex.

Here’s a tougher one: when would you think the situation would likely need a collaborator, instead of an expert?   What’s the trigger?

As I said, I’m just starting to wrestle with this.   What ideas do you have?

Quip: design

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If you get the design right, there are lots of ways to implement it; if you don’t get the design right, it doesn’t matter how you implement it.

Too often, people under design and overproduce, resulting in great looking products that are worthless.   This is certainly the case in elearning, but you see it in other fields, too.

Similarly, I’ve found that if you get the design right, you don’t need lots of production.   In an example cited in my Engaging Learning book, we designed a game for kids that need to learn how to live on their own. The first version looked like it was done by lame 3rd graders, but the play was right; as a consequence, we got some funding to tart up the graphics.   On the other hand, if the play hadn’t been right, it wouldn’t have gotten used.

One of the reasons to tout this is so many people are concerned about what tool to use.   I don’t really systematically study tools, because once you’ve got the design, you can probably implement it in a variety of tool solutions. And the tools will change, but the need for quality design won’t.

The focus has to be on the learning experience design first, and then you can worry about how you might build the delivery environment.   So, please, get design, and get the design right.   Then we can talk about how to develop it.

Social Media Strategy thoughts

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What is a social media strategy for outreach?   Really, it‘s about demonstrating your thinking, your values, and background. It‘s about interacting with appropriate people in ways that reflect who you are.

Here is some thoughts about how that maps out in two areas: Facebook, and Twitter.   I‘m mentioning these as two of the most viable and visible tools for social media engagement.

Twitter

Having a twitter account is a necessary start, maybe several. One might be just a daily thing people can follow, but it has to provide value.   So, for example, you might stream out an interesting bit of the day. That, alone, however, is not enough.

A second important role is to engage people.   More important than the first idea is to ‘be‘ an entity.   If an organization is on social media, and increasingly they should be,   it needs to be interactive. This is accomplished in several ways:

  • point to what the organization is doing
  • point to interesting things outside of the organization
  • re-tweet relevant stuff that others post (which requires following interesting people)
  • respond to people replying to that account.

These require resources, essentially a person or persons who handle these duties.   Done well, these activities demonstrate that there is an interesting mind and a sincere heart behind the account.

Facebook

The same is true of a FaceBook page.   Not only should people be friending it, they should be coming back to be engaged   the organization, but now also with their colleagues also interested in the organization.

There are different ways to be on Facebook: as a static page, or as a ‘presence‘ with dialogs, groups, etc.  A static page might get a few ‘likes‘, but you really want to build a site as a place to come for folks interested in the organization and it’s work.   There need to be discussions supported (and interacted with).   There need to be updates.   There needs to be a way for people to have a dialog with you.   You need information: photos, events.   Use apps to create polls. In short, it’s about interaction around the organization and it’s work.

Again, the message is that you‘re active, engaged, you really care about what you do.   And, again, it takes resources.

Twitter/Facebook Integration

These two elements do not live independently.   Your Twitter strategy should be aligned with your Facebook strategy, so your tweets point to new information on Facebook, your Facebook account reflects your tweets, etc.   Your tweets should drive traffic to the Facebook site, but not exclusively.

There‘s more that can be incorporated: blogs (I use twitter and my blog more than my facebook page, but I‘m an individual not an organization).   However, your elements shouldn‘t be too fragmented.   E.g. only have separate Twitter handles and Facebook pages if your separate initiatives have to maintain unique identities. However, that‘s a branding issue, and not a place I‘m qualified to talk about.   Once you‘ve got the identity, then you need to align your Facebook and Twitter strategies.

So, you should be doing this, and you need to be doing it well.   If you don’t do it right, you may as well not do it at all.

Learning Technologies UK wrap-up

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I had the pleasure of speaking at the Learning Technologies ’11 conference, talking on the topic of games.   I’ve already covered Roger Schank‘s keynote, but I want to pick up on a couple of other things. Overall, however, the conference was a success: good thinking (more below), good people, and well organized.

The conference was held on the 3rd floor of the conference hall, while floors 1 and ground hosted the exposition: the ground floor hosted the learning and skills (think: training) exhibits while the 1st floor held learning technology (read: elearning) vendors.   I have to admit I was surprised (not unpleasantly) that things like the reception weren’t held in the exhibit halls.   The conference was also split between learning technologies (Day 1) and learning and skills (day 2), so I have to admit being somewhat surprised that there weren’t receptions on the respective floors, to support the vendors, tho’ having a chance to chat easily with colleagues in a more concise environment was also nice.

I’m not the only one who commented on the difference between the floors: Steve Wheeler wrote a whole post about it, noting that the future was above, and the past showing below.   At a post-conference review session, everyone commented on how the level of discussion was more advanced than expected (and gave me some ideas of what I’d love to cover if I got the chance again).   I’d   heard that Donald Taylor runs a nice conference, and was pleased to see that it more than lived up to the billing.   There was also a very interesting crowd of people I was glad to meet or see again.

In addition to Roger’s great talk on what makes learning work, there were other stellar sessions. The afore-mentioned Steve did a advanced presentation on the future of technologies that kept me engaged despite a severe bout of jetlag, talking about things you’ve also heard here: semantics, social, and more.   He has a web x.0 model that I want to hear more about, because I wasn’t sure I bought the premise, but I like his thinking very much. There was also a nice session on mobile, with some principles presented and then an interesting case study using iPads under somewhat severe(military) constraints on security.

It was hard to see everything I wanted to, with four tracks. To see Steve, I had to pass up Cathy Moore, who’s work I’ve admired, though it was a pleasure to meet her for sure.   I got to see Jane Bozarth, but at the expense of missing my colleague Charles Jennings.   I got to support our associate Paul Simbeck-Hampson, but at the cost of missing David Mallon talk on learning culture, and so on.

A great selection of talks to hear is better than not. There was also a very interesting crowd of people I was glad to meet or see again.   A great experience, overall, and I can happily recommend the conference.

Continual Learning

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A recent request for feedback on new learning technology research areas highlighted areas they thought were important, and a subset naturally struck me:

  • the connection between formal and informal learning: an interest of mine since I first noticed the gap in organizations
  • emotional and motivational aspects of technology-enhanced learning which was the topic of first book
  • informal learning: which is a major component of my work as a member of the Internet Time Alliance
  • personalization of learning: which was the focus of a project I led a decade ago and still an area of interest
  • ubiquitous and mobile technology and learning: given that I’ve just written a book about it :)

As academics are wont to do, this isn’t a surprising list (there were interesting others as well) because despite the overlap there’s reason to study each on their own.   But what inspired me was the intersection.

I started thinking about a vision (PDF) I had about 8 years ago now, where your portable mobile device would know where you are and what you are doing, and coupling that with your learning goals, would layer on support for developing your learning goals opportunistically based upon your context.   Think about how you’d learn if you had no limits at all: your ideal could be to have a personal mentor always with you looking for opportunities to develop you.

The learning benefits are severalfold, it’s customized for you, and it’s focused on your interests.   It also ideally would bridge the gap between formality and informality, as it could be more formal for a new area but then become more informal gradually.   Another way to think of it is as ‘slow learning‘, (like ‘slow food’, not like ‘slow learner’) based upon a long-term relationship with (and a long-term interest in) the learner.

The technology capabilities make this possible. What is still required would be the curricula, the content, the rules, and the business model. If nothing else, I think organizations should be thinking about this internally, mobile or not.   It is another way to start thinking about workscapes/performance ecosystems and a broader perspective on learning. Anyone game?

Talking on Games at Learning Technologies UK (26-27 Jan)

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On short notice, I’ll be speaking on games at the UK’s Learning Technologies conference at the end of the month.   I’ve heard great things and always wanted to go, and now I get to.

I’ve met and talked with Donald Taylor, who manages it, and he instill confidence in the quality of the conference.   And looking at the lineup of speakers, I’m impressed and eager.   I see folks I’ve wanted to hear and meet (Cathy Moore and Clive Shepherd, for two), folks I know and want to spend more time with, and new folks to find out about.

And I’m keen to revisit games.   It’s been six years (!) since I put up my take on designing learning games, but I have continued to look at what’s out there.   And I mmodestly think that while there are some really great books out there, none really provides any improvement in what I focused on: why learning can and should be hard fun.

In particular, the alignment between what makes engaging experiences and what makes effective education practice is still the best model I’ve found to frame design, and my design process still provides systematic and pragmatic guidance about how to design them.   After all, it’s all well and good to talk about how wonderful games can be, but if you can’t reliably and repeatably do that for any learning objective, it’s kind of a waste. And I stick to my claim that you can’t give me a learning objective I can’t design a game for, but I reserve the right to raise the objective ‘high’ enough (in the taxonomic sense).

I truly believe games are important.   They are, quite simply, the best practice environment you can provide to develop the learning outcomes that will make a difference to your organization: the ability to make the right decisions.   Ok, the best next to mentored live practice, but that has problems of scale; mentors are hard to clone, and live practice can be costly.   Games can also serve as assessment environments.

So, I encourage you to attend the conference if you can, it looks quite good. And, if you do, I hope you introduce yourself.   Looking forward to it!

Happy New Year

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I have much to be grateful for at the start of this new year. I have had quite simply fabulous opportunities to engage, learn, and contribute. For that, I thank you.

I am always working to discover new ways to contribute, both alone as Quinnovation in learning experience design strategy, and with my colleagues in the Internet Time Alliance in helping organizations work smarter. I’m fortunate that a second book is due to be published on the 2nd of February, this time on mobile learning, to complement my first book on learning game design.

My latest thoughts are captured here, and I invite you to subscribe via RSS or email if you don’t already. It’s my alternative to a weekly ezine.

Fervent wishes for the coming year, hoping it is your best yet.

My path to ITA

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Internet Time Alliance logoAs my colleagues Harold and Jane have done, I thought I’d capture my learning journey that led me to the Internet Time Alliance.   I started out seeing the connection between computers and learning as an undergraduate, and designed my own degree. My first job out of college was designing and programming educational computer games, which led me back to graduate school and a Ph.D. in applied cognitive science to find out how to design learning solutions better.

That has been a recurrent theme across academic endeavors, some government-sponsored initiatives, and an internet startup: designing solutions that are innovative and yet pragmatic.   It was really brought home to me when we were recently discussing a new initiative, and while my colleagues were looking at the business opportunities, my mind was racing off figuring out how to design it.

This continued in my consulting, where I moved from designing the individual solutions to designing the processes and structures to reliably deliver quality learning experience design, what I’ve called learning experience design strategy.   However, as I’ve worked with organizations looking to move to the ‘next level’, as happened with and through some of my clients, I regularly found a recurrent pattern, that integrated formal learning with performance support and eCommunity (and some other steps).

So I was focusing on trying to help organizations look at the bigger picture.   And what I recognized is that most organizations were neglecting   eCommunity the most, yet as I learned more about this from my colleague Jay Cross, the social and informal learning were the big and missed opportunity. When Jay started talked about grouping together to address this part of the space, it made perfect sense to me.   The opportunities to have large impacts with challenging but not costly investments is a natural.   So here I am.   Based upon my previous work on games and now mobile, there are some design strategy opportunities that fall to Quinnovation, but I’m eager to help organizations through ITA as well.   Hope to talk to you in the new year about whatever is relevant for you from here.

Working Smarter Cracker Barrel

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My Internet Time Alliance colleague Harold Jarche is a clever guy. In preparation for an event, he makes a blog post to organize his thoughts. I like his thinking, so I’ll let him introduce my post:

Next week, at our Working Smarter event hosted by Tulser in Maastricht, NL, we will have a series of short sessions on selected topics. Each Principal of the Internet Time Alliance has three topics of 20 minutes to be discussed in small groups. My topics are listed below and include links to relevant posts as well as a short description of the core ideas behind each topic.

These are mine:

Mobile

Mobile ‘accessorizes‘ your brain.   It is about complementing what your brain does well by providing the capabilities that it does not do well (rote computation, distance communication, and exact detail), but wherever and whenever you are.   Given that our performers are increasingly mobile, it makes sense to deliver the capabilities where needed, not just at their desk.   The 4 C’s of mobile give us a guide to the capabilities we have on tap.

Working smarter is not just mobile capabilities, however, but also combining them to do even more interesting things.   The real win is when we capture the current situation, via GPS and clock/calendar, so we know where you are and what you are doing, to do things that are relevant in the context.

Even without that, however, there are big offerings on the table for informal learning, via access to resources and networks.

Social Formal Learning

Social learning is one of the big opportunities we are talking about in ‘working smarter’.   Most people tend to think of social learning in terms of the informal opportunities, which are potentially huge.   However, there are a couple of reasons to also think about the benefits of social learning from the formal learning perspective.

The first is the processing.   When you are asked to engage with others on a topic, and you have designed the topic well, you get tight cycles of negotiating understand, which elaborates the associations to make them persist better and longer.   You can have learners reflect and share those reflections, which is one meaningful form of processing, and then you can ask them to extend the relevant concepts by reviewing them in another situation together, asking them to come to a shared response. The best, of course, is when learners work together to discern how the concepts get applied in a particular context, by asking them to solve a problem together.

The additional benefit is the connection between formal and informal. You must use social learning tools, and by doing so you are developing the facility with the environment your performers should use in the workplace. You also have the opportunity to use the formal social learning as a way to introduce the learners into the communities of practice you can and should be building.

Performance Ecosystem (Workscape) Strategy

Looking at the individual components – performance support, formal learning, and informal learning – is valuable, but looking at them together is important as well, to consider the best path from where you are to where you want or need to go.   Across a number of engagements, a pattern emerged that I’ve found helpful in thinking about what we term workscapes (what I’ve also called performance ecosystems, PDF) in a systemic way.

You want to end up where you have a seamless performance environment oriented around the tasks that need to be accomplished, and having the necessary layers and components.   You don’t want to approach the steps individually, but with the bigger picture in mind, so everything you do is part of the path towards the end game.   Realizing, of course, that it will be dynamic, and you’ll want to find ways to empower your performers to take ownership.