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Clark Quinn’s Learnings about Learning

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iQuiz, not quite

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With the ubiquitousness of the iPod, I’ve been looking for more to do with it than just play audio and video, but Apple’s kept a tight rein on the software (my fear for the iPhone, too). I was discussing it with my colleagues over beer (there’s that blogger/learning/beer thing again ;), and Jim Schuyler subsequently pointed me to the fact that not only have they recently released iQuiz, but allowed you to create your own quizzes. In addition, Aspyr has released a free iQuiz maker, which simplifies the task (if it doesn’t get confused, which it seemed to in a trial run). iQuiz supports both true/false, and multiple choice, with scoring.

Now, this sounds really great, and it can be, but there’re some qualifications. First, while there’s feedback possible for the true/false answer, there’s no specific feedback for the multiple choice questions (which I generally like better than true/false). If you can’t give any feedback for a wrong answer, you can’t learn from the question (yes, you can be motivated to go back and learn, e.g. listen to the podcast again or go read something). Really, you should be able to provide separate feedback for each wrong answer of a multiple choice (since your alternates to the correct answer should reflect prior misconceptions).

A second level of capability that would be really cool would be conditional branching depending on your response. This would let you build branching scenarios, which could really be powerful (giving you most of the power of full learning games).

We hand cobbled together (read: wrote and programmed in Brew) both quiz questions and scenarios (non-branching, but with several stages and specific feedback) on mobile phones for a project, and I still think it’s a good idea to supplement learning, albeit not a full learning situation by itself.

It’s clear Apple’s focused on creating fun with the iPod; they have trivia quizzes available, and talk about making the same to share with and challenge your friends. However, they’re only a small step away from making a really powerful learning adjunct that could make a big draw for the corporate elearning market. And they’re just one other step away from both a whole new market of fun (scenario stories for your friends), and another majorly powerful learning adjunct.

Now with all that caveat aside, for those learning situations where you do want to drill knowledge (and we overdo it so please use it sparingly and focus on skills), and you’ve got the backstop of resources so they can quickly go back and get it right, you’ve got another learning tool available on an increasingly ubiquitous platform. And a platform that has already demonstrable learning capability of podcasts and vidcasts (I was told of one group of engineers who asked for their colleagues’ white papers be read into podcasts so they could read them on their drives; a great success!).

I’ll keep hoping that there’ll be a way for small text scenarios (or even with images; built in Captivate 2 or SimWriter or SmartBuilder?) to be loaded onto iPods, but I’ll even look forward to quizzes with feedback for the different answers.

Partner & customize

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April’s Learning Circuits blog big question is: ILT and Off-the-Shelf Vendors – What Should They Do? The problem is that ILT and OTS vendors are producing canned product in an increasingly flexible and changing world. Their products take time to develop, and there’s much competition from what you can find free-to-air on the web. What’s a vendor to do?

I believe there’s a pyramid of basic business stuff at the bottom, vertical market specialization in the middle, and then there’s organization-proprietary stuff at the top. The top should be custom-developed in house. Another cut through this is the stuff that every novice needs to know, the middle ground where practitioners need updates as things change, and then at the top there’s the ongoing negotation of understanding among experts. This is a framework that has helped me think through the tools we use for elearning, but also helps me think through how to address this problem.

There are several sorts of basic business needs: specific tool skills (e.g. spreadsheet use), basic business comprehension (e.g. ROI, Sarbanes-Oxley), and interpersonal skills (e.g. communication, negotiation). At the next level up, we have vertical market specifics, such as financial (e.g. what defines ‘insider trading’) and health (e.g. federal regulatory procedures). I think there’s a role for vendors of shelfware in both these markets. However, they’ve got to get better, as most of what I’ve seen isn’t informed by what we know about learning.

So, for instance, the ILT vendors need to wrap the F2F experience with preparation, and subsequently support the learners afterwards, ideally creating a community. And the software vendors need to find ways to tap into the benefits of social learning, by having at least virtual meetings, and again building community.

So the ILT and OTS folks ought to partner, and distribute what’s best done asynchronously through OTS stuff and what’s done better F2F. Also, we probably need to find new business models. For example, training for software and processes should be provided free by the tool vendors. So the shelfware vendors need to develop it in conjunction with the tool/service vendors. I think, similarly, that vertical markets should create associations that partner with a vendor to get cost-effective solutions developed to serve those markets (and that’s happening). Those will be the only roles for shelfware vendors, and they’ll be limited.

Other than that, those hoping to build a library and milk it like a cash cow are probably doomed unless they are the ones that create the demonstrably superior learning that’s optimally efficient in time, optimally effective in outcome, and optimally engaging in experience. Pine & Gilmore tell us that the next step beyond the experience economy is the transformation economy, experiences that change us in ways we are interested in (and that’s what Engaging Learning is all about!). And those that do create it will be the ones who partner with vendors or associations, or own the market in that space.

Taiwan Game Design Workshop opportunity

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I’ll be offering the game design workshop in Taiwan as part of the DIGITEL 2007 conference (“The First IEEE International Workshop on Digital Game and Intelligent Toy Enhanced Learning”.   It’s only the second time it’s offered in Asia, and it’s offered at a very good price compared to what it usually costs at most US conferences.   If you’re anywhere near (Japan, Korea, China), it’s probably the cheapest opportunity you’ll get for this typically well-reviewed workshop (I work hard to make it good, and keep improving it).   I’d love to see you there.

Wisdom

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Sorry I haven’t been posting, but my (reasonably short) paper on Learning Wisdom has been this week’s topic of discussion over at ITFORUM. ITFORUM’s a group of largely university-based faculty and staff in instructional technology, but the regulars are people who are quite knowledgeable about learning, technology, and the cultural constraints around them. My paper this week was the second one I’ve written for them; the first appeared 10 years ago, and was the basis of my book Engaging Learning.

In this paper, I’m asking questions about what is wisdom, how you could teach it, what a wise curriculum and pedagogy would be, and how technology might facilitate wisdom. Though admittedly few, there have been great contributions from around the world, with thoughts on whether you can assess wisdom, what elements might contribute, and more.

It’s clear that the issue is striking a chord, but it’s also a ‘hard problem’, as came up in an earlier discussion on the topic. Still, it’s my personal mission, and I’m sticking with it.

December’s BIG Question(s)

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Once again, it’s the Learning Circuit’s BIG Question, which is really 3 questions:

  1. What will you remember most about 2006?
  2. What are the biggest challenges for you/us as head into 2007?
  3. What are your predictions for 2007?

So, what will I remember most about 2006? Probably that it was the Year of the Game. Gaming became mainstream (we moved it out of the ’emerging’ track at TechKnowledge, for example). Whether called Serious Games, Simulations, Scenarios, or whatever, it’s definitely crossed the chasm. That’s not to say it’s ubiquitous, or even well done yet, but it’s definitely playing a role in many more organizations, and it’s on more people’s radar.

It’s also been a year of more strategic use of eLearning. The progression on my models page is one way I’ve been thinking about it (feedback welcome), but increasingly I’m seeing folks interested in road maps to address organizational performance by leveraging their IT investment in more intelligent ways, not just purchasing an LMS and acquiring content to meet training needs.

The biggest challenges will be executing successfully to take eLearning to the “next level”, whether it’s tactics like improving the instructional design or adding eCommunity to strategies about changing the customer role. It’s too easy to take half-baked approaches: have one workshop run, or engage one improvement initiative without applying the organizational change implementation thoughts that accompany these initiatives.

It’s also important to focus on the goals, not the tools. Getting the design right is the hard part, not figuring out what technology implementation can render the design.

My predictions for 2007 are first that mobile learning will cross the chasm like Games have. It’s on the cusp, and I’m hearing lots of different buzz going around. The capabilities are pretty mature now, and the integration is now possible, so that we have a whole new set of affordances or capabilities that provide some real performance opportunities.

I also think that the hype will go off podcasts and blog and wikis as phenomena, and they’ll take their rightful place as power tools in our suite of resources. This is not to diminish them in the least, they’re valuable tools at the higher level for collaboration and communication, but we’ll start looking at the larger picture, about why we need collaboration and communication and start developing systemic approaches, not experimenting with them as one-offs.

We’ll see greater awareness of the necessity of what I call performance ecosystems and Jay Cross has termed ‘Learnscapes’ (a nice term, I may have to adopt it). We’ll start seeing a recognition that individuals need a unified and richly populated playground with all sorts of resources and ways to extend our understanding and our capabilities.

And I fervently hope we’ll begin to recognize that we can’t assume that if we build it, they will learn, but we have to develop a learning culture, that we need to develop our learners’ ability to learn, that we have to recognize, take responsibility for, and foster meta-learning (learning to learn).

While this is not my last message of the year I hope, this is a great opportunity to thank everyone for a very interesting year, and send my best wishes that the coming year be the best yet for all of us.

77 Steps?

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Jimmy Atkinson passed on this list of 77 Ways to Learn Faster, Deeper, & Better. Maybe he knows I’m keen on meta-learning, or learning to learn, and there are some nuggets in here. No one’s suggesting, I’m sure, that you should go for all of them, but you might want to graze the list and incorporate one or two into your existing approaches.

Being a better learner is one of the key differentiators, going forward (it’s part of my curriculum, which I discussed previously). I admit I haven’t scrutinized the list in fullness, though I might add “engage yourself”, that is, finding your own ways to make the content meaningful if the instructor hasn’t, such as creating examples where it would be important to you.

Still, having more guides to becoming a better learner is a ‘good thing’ (see also Marcia Connor’s Learn More Now). Learn on!

Designing Informal

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I haven’t received Jay’s Informal Learning book yet (he’s promised it’s coming) but I’ve been thinking about informal learning a lot lately, not least because it’s emerged as an issue in some recent elearning strategy engagements.

One of the issues is the transition from novice to expert. I think Tony O’Driscoll’s model captures it elegantly, how the role of formal drops off and informal comes to play a bigger role as you transition from novice to expert. At the expert level, collaboration that is the knowledge negotiation process can be handled by email, blogs, and wiki. The problem is having the learner becoming part of the community from the beginning. I’d like to insist that it be baked into the LMS infrastructure, but I think instead that our elearning needs to be designed with communication and knowledge representation into it even for the most formal courses.

Which, of course, is hard to think of when you’re taking the typical siloed view of content and designing independent asynchronous courses. Which is why I’m arguing for a performance focus for organizations.

For example, the learning follow-on systems touted by Will Thalheimer, the example Jay Cross posted about where a new app emailed him several times over several days with further tips, and my own ‘layered learning’ model for slow learning.

Along the same lines, in a couple of recent engagements I’ve been suggesting that customer help needs to have a single entry point, with self-help resources and then an obvious and steady progression forward through getting assistance if the answer doesn’t already exist (ala my Learning At Large paper, PDF).

The points being that we need a broader focus, and our instructional design has to be augmented with information design and information architecture. It’s about supporting performance, not just about courses.

Virtual Worlds?

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A number of years ago I was involved in James Burke’s great Knowledge Web project. In organizing it, we were using Active Worlds, a 3D virtual environment. We’d stand around in this gorgeous room, each with our avatars, and text message each other. It quickly became apparent that the virtual world added nothing.

The new virtual world buzz is around Linden Labs Second Life. I had a look, but wasn’t overwhelmed. Now several colleagues are involved in it in significant ways. Both have experience in (and passion for) learning through technology, and I may have to rethink my take on virtual worlds.

It helps to know that, based upon Marcia Conner’s book Learn More Now, I’m a solitary or, at most, small-group learner. So, as I’ve maintained in the design of games, when your learning objective is interpersonal is when it makes sense to use a social game and a social world.

Through my teaching, particularly the learning theory course I’ve taught this summer, I recognize the constructivist value of having learners negotiate a shared understanding. That hasn’t benefited from a virtual world (except for a novelty factor, a Hawthorne effect, which I suggest will wear off and a new gimmick will be needed). Up ’til now, a discussion board or chat room had all the necessary affordances.

However. A colleague just passed me a link to this video (you’ll most likely have to scroll down) about the New Media Consortium’s space in Second Life. And in it, I saw something I hadn’t really thought about. Most of it was the standard “places to meet”, events, and some nooks and crannies to explore, but…
…that’s not what interested me. What’s interesting is that it is easy (apparently, I didn’t master it in my exploration) to create new things. So you can make models or representations and share them. THIS is a major benefit. Now we can share 3D representations and discuss them.

I’ve suggested in the past that the operating system metaphor I really want is ‘magic’, where I can make things happen with spells (scripts) or buy tools if I have money rather than time. Not to go into that here, but at least in a virtual world we can now make that true. Which also makes true that we can reach a new level of collaboration. And that is interesting!

‘Game’ online

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CO2FX is a ‘game’ about national policies and the carbon dioxide effects. You have responsibility for the science, economic and policy decisions for a national government. It’s very playable, although figuring your way through the interface takes a lot of exploration and experimentation.

The assessment that it’s a game is somewhat problematic; I claim that the designer can’t claim it’s a game, only players can determine whether it is (it’s a subjective assessment). Using my terminology, it’s a scenario (a simulation is just a model; it’s a scenario when you wrap an initial state and a goal state, possiblly with a story; it’s a game when you tune the experience to engagement).

The experience is certainly challenging, and there’s novelty in that what you do doesn’t seem to have the effect you inferred from the feedback, but the overall drama felt lacking; I didn’t feel quite the sense of urgency or outcomes; e.g. my popularity seemed to be waning, even though there was great economic growth, but I didn’t hear rumbles of dissent or have to weather bad press.

It’s a great example of what can, and should, be done, but it doesn’t stand on it’s own (it’d benefit from some ‘wrapping’ around the goals, to scaffold the learning, and to support post-hoc reflection).   Don’t get me wrong, I think there’s great educational value, but I think the claim of it being a game is a wee bit premature.

Doing trumps analysis

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I had a great conversation with my brother-in-law on Sunday. He’s in charge of the training for a division of a sector of a major organization. He took over a group that was stuck in analysis paralysis, and has started executing against their concepts.

What he’s doing is mostly face-to-face stuff, and it’s very broad and general. He doesn’t call it training, he calls it learning (hear, hear). His attitude is very much about winning back trust in the group first, and is happily doing lots of different wild, fun things, and then learning from the outcomes of those experiments. He’s fortunate in that he’s got a supportive leadership (now), a relatively hands-off management, and a budget.

He’s not doing a lot of ROI analysis at this point, but he did a lot of consultation beforehand about what the big pains were, and I have to say that I laud his approach; it’s pragmatic and it seems to be working. Find the big issues, and address them in an open and engaging way to rebuild trust. The rest can follow.

What I forgot to ask was what he intended to do once he had those wins on the board!