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Clark Quinn’s Learnings about Learning

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eLearning 2.0

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During the 1st day of Mark and Brent’s Collaboration summer seminar, they got folks active: starting blogs, wikis, webtops, etc.   They’re doing a great job:

c2sss

Naturally, in addition to the tactical questions (“how do I move this tab”?), the conceptual questions started: when do you use a blog versus a wiki, how do you make sense of all the options out there.

Now, as part of my performance ecosystem, I think blogs are a personal reflection or a history (as I told an attendee, it would be great for capturing a ‘war story’), whereas wikis are for collaboration to create a unified view of something (e.g. the way to tune a network).   I don’t think blogs support a rich discussion and aren’t that collaborative.   Also, one of the problems I see is that we often forget old tools in the excitement of new tools: discussion boards are a great way to have an ongoing conversation; you don’t need some new tool for this. Yet wikis are really good for capturing the output of a collaboration.

Also recently I’ve been having conversations with folks about integrating tools to meet larger needs.   Ning is a tool that provides ways for individuals to have profiles, to have forums, to list events, etc.   Increasingly, LMSs also have these capabilities.

The interesting thing is the great spate of tools out there: Google, Central Desktop, Zoho, Wetpaint, PBWiki, an ever growing list. There are suites of web meeting apps, web-based productivity tools, etc. How do you make sense of it? I think there’s another ‘bubble’ with these, and eventually a bunch will fail and out of the ashes a few will persist.   The good thing, I think, is that by getting your hands dirty with a variety of these, you’ll access some generalized skills.   And web apps are not going away.

I believe training anybody on any particular tool (even the seemingly ubiquitous Microsoft Office suite), is the wrong way to go.   Talk to them about the skill (writing, creating presentations, etc), and then give some assignments across a couple of different tools.   This gives you transferrable skills, which will equip you to communicate and collaborate regardless of the latest wave of tools.   And that’s what’s important, in this day of increasing change.

(Really) Mobile Games

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There have been some interesting experiments with location-specific games (see the work David Metcalf talks about), but this article really is interesting, talking about GPS equipped phones.   I recall an early game for the Treo that placed aliens around you virtually (laid the images over your camera image), and you had to pan around with your Treo, spot, and shoot them. This is much more.

Now, imagine the learning potential: games for onboarding that have you and your cohorts running around the campus or plant and solving puzzles; having to try to sell to virtual customers, and tracking their effectiveness in both space and time; the rest are left as an exercise for the reader (I’m on vacation, after all… :) ).   A topic for the Summer Seminar Series next week?

Learning by doing

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Well, this weekend was an interesting one.   On Saturday morning I not only resurrected my site, but got my Twitter experiment advanced by managing to insert a tweet feed into the blog sidebar. Of course, it formats strangely, and I haven’t been able to fix it yet.   I tried using the span command, but around the Javascript it didn’t seem to work.

Then it was changing the bathroom light fixtures.   Successfully, following on a recent toilet replacement exercise.   In between was an absolutely great block party our neighbors organized, with activities for the kids, food and drink for all.   Learnings from each exercise!

One of the things I tweaked to was that if we sit down and start using the right tool for the job, have patience and persistence, and be willing to stop and think, we can get more done that we thought, we just have to be brave (he stays, still in anxiety mode over making a deck on the slope in the backyard).   Of course, we’re benefited to the extent we see more standards in tools and equipment (I like that they’re standardizing on electrical hardware, which makes it pretty much plug-and-play, even if it took some creativity to end-run two different boxes in two different bathrooms, ahem).   Slowly but surely, the house is being transformed.

The second learning is on community.   By pulling together all the neighbors on our cul-de-sac, we’re building an awareness of each other, which supports us helping each other.   The usual suspects pitched in, and some new folks were invited to join.   It was a lovely evening though the breeze picked up to the point where people started heading out for sweaters before coming back.   I had to think: why can’t the whole world be getting together in their neighborhood and having a party?   Of course, it’s hard when they’re bullets flying by, bombs going off, etc.   Sigh.   Still, creating the right environment for getting together creates the right environment for sharing, and that’s where learning happens.

So, use the right tools, set the right context, and be willing to work and reflect and improve and continue on.   Hope you too had a good weekend!

Mobile in perspective

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I’m not quite sure how the eLearning Guild is publishing the forthcoming articles from their research reports, but I believe it is as part of the Learning Solutions magazine, and that’s certainly the case with this first piece. Ellen Wagner, a member of the mobile research team, has a major article, with a small piece by me that’s an expansion of my earlier thoughts on mobile web. You have to be a least an associate member to download it, but associate membership is free. I’ll add that I believe the Guild is probably the best way to keep up to date on practical applications of technology for learning.

Ellen’s article is a thoughtful look at mobile learning, covering the industry trends. She points out that people are equipped with mobile devices: “the mobile workers aren’t waiting”. She says that the classic top-down doesn’t make sense, and figuring out how to make a mobile learning module does; that is, just do it. On the other hand, she also says that “to have a shot at broad adoption, mobile learning applications must be an integrated part of a larger organizational vision for building capacity”. These aren’t as incommensurate as they may seem, as those in the trenches should begin experimenting with mLearning just as they did with eLearning, and at the same time managers and executives should be looking to the broader eLearning strategy incorporating mobile (as I regularly suggest).

She points out the barriers that still exist, so that even when we’re seeing essentially ubiquitous computational and network capability, we’re seeing incompatibility across providers and platforms. There are still technology barriers to cross, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t start thinking ‘mobile’. The reasons are many, including the increasingly mobile workforce. And she acknowledges the emerging consensus that mobile learning is really about performance support. That may not be the limit, but it’s certainly the low-hanging fruit.

I highly recommend her article, as Ellen’s been deeply involved in the world of content delivery through her recent stint as the eLearning guru at Adobe, and has experience and knowledge that puts her at the forefront of thinking in this space. It’s an honor to have my little piece in the same document as hers. (NB: mine is also available separately as well, PDF).   Check it out!

Anxiety, ergonomics, and performance

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I’m a little under the weather today. Not sick, but I’ve had a procedure done (minor, really), and have been a naughty boy on my keyboard. They’ve combined to jump on me this week, and there are some interesting side effects.

First, a number of years ago I was teaching in a department of Computer Science (I taught interface design). Here were faculty members who used computers for their research, their teaching, everything. And, of course, started suffering the side effects of too much keyboard use. In teaching HCI/interface design I talked about ergonomics, and still was as guilty as the rest. Fortunately, the administration recognized the problem, and hired some guidance and was willing to invest in products to remedy the problems including chairs, keyboards, etc.

I rightly noted that just telling folks about how to do it ‘right’ and giving equipment wasn’t sufficient, and that they’d need support in making the change to new ways. Which didn’t happen, so I don’t know how well the lesson stuck for others, but I did put in place support for myself, specifically a piece of software that threw me off every 30 minutes for 5 minutes. It worked after I got rid of the unix terminal on my desk so I couldn’t switch to the other machine in those 5 minutes…

I’ve got a good chair now, and have adjusted the ergonomics to match recommended guidelines.

OSHA seating guidelinesWhat I didn’t do was use the mouse properly. I had a wrist rest that I used while mousing, not just in-between. I’ve got pain in my right wrist now. I thought I might’ve broken it snowboarding or skateboarding, but it was x-rayed and that wasn’t the issue. Referred to a physical therapist, it appears to just be overuse again (maybe a WoW side effect?). And a big deliverable.

I’ve moved the mouse to the left side for the time being (as I did before) to get some rest, and am working to get better habits going (tho’ I just noticed I was typing with my wrists on the wristrest for the keyboard!). I usually am jumping up for something, so I typically don’t spend too much time at the keyboard in one go, but there are times when I’ve got to be more careful.   I’ll get better and switch back (it’s tough at first, and while you get used to it, I’ll be happy to switch back).

Before I draw on the learnings from this, I’ll confess to one other issue. I just had a minor procedure done, that involved some cutting. It was a followup to a previous one. The first one wasn’t a problem, but for some reason this one had induced more anxiety than I expected. I was trying to type a message while waiting for the anesthetic to kick in (local), and my fingers were shaky! I’m fine, but the effects of anxiety were brought home to me in a big way.

So, what are the take-homes here? First, be careful out there! Watch out for your own computing, and keep yourself practicing safe keyboarding (as well as safe surfing). As the therapist said, she’s surprised by how many folks say they’re too busy, but don’t realize that they’re more effective overall if they take the necessary breaks.

Second, how important it is in behavior change to get support. If you don’t provide support, it’s too easy to backslide into bad habits. And by the time symptoms manifest, you’re already damaged.

Finally, don’t forget to make a safe learning environment. There’s an (upside-down) u-shaped curve for performance, where as anxiety/pressure increases, there’s improved performance to a point, but then it falls back down fairly quickly. That high point in relation to pressure shifts a lot depending on the learner. Be careful to ensure that any anxiety is reduced sufficiently to allow learning to be effective (and now so low as to similarly interfere with learning).

Here’s to safe and effective keyboarding and learning.

Fantastic Gaming (long)

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In the Serious Games discussion list, Richard Wainess posted a thoughtful and eloquent reply to my request for research on the value (or not) of fantastic settings, in which he argued about the necessary learning design depth required in game design. I‘m primed for the discussion since I‘ve just been in the process of designing a learning game with a team. I thoroughly agree with him, and I’d highly recommend you find and read his response except for the fact that it appears there’s no archive. However, I had assumed the issues he‘s suggested, and penned this (slightly modified) response:

I think you’re missing the value of fantastic settings in effectively adding on top of what you say. We could set a task (e.g. negotiation) in several real-life environments, including with a car dealer, with the boss for a raise, with the kids about bed time (bad idea), etc. Or we could set it in space, for example, negotiating with suppliers for equipment, with civilizations for territory, with buyers for products, etc. Once we ensure we’ve put the necessary skills into the game, across differing contexts, and added the post-game reflection, is there a potential benefit for having a more compelling storyline? That trades off positively against the less direct transfer?

Yes, it takes different contexts to abstract and generalize, but let’s not neglect the value of motivation. So I agree it absolutely *has* to encompass the essential skills across contexts (broad enough to generalize to all relevant situations, and to no irrelevant ones). But there’s more than just that. My hypothesis is that embedding them into an exaggerated storyline may enhance the outcomes more than a real-world setting (and the more so the more general the skill).

If it’s not a storyline that the learner cares about, they’re not going to engage like they will when it really matters to them (e.g. the car *they* want to purchase). So we need that motivation, that emotional engagement as well. And that’s when we’re going to want to align the cognitive and game engagement. When people really have to perform, they have external motivation. Don’t we want to embed that in the experience as well?

I suggest that once we get the educational process down and vary the settings in context, that increasing the motivation through a compelling storyline that both is a meaningful application of the skill and is a storyline that the learners care about, will increase the outcome measure more than an more realistic, and dull, exercise. It’s testable, and I want the answer rather than just relying on my intuition (which will suffice for now; I too am trying to meet real needs, not just satisfy academic interests, but I’d feel far better knowing the answer one way or another).

My feeling is, rightly or wrongly, that not enough people get the depths he talks about, and on the other side, the argument I make above. I‘d like the answer, but in lieu of that, I‘m going to stick with my belief. (And later, Richard responded about how my response made him smile, as he’s starting just this research.)

A further claim from another respondent said that we just need to make the next Oregon Trail, which spurred this rejoinder:

If you don’t have the academic underpinning that Richard argues so eloquently for, all the cool window-dressing won’t lead to a thing. If you’ve infinite resources, you can iterate ’til you get the outcomes you suggest, but I’d prefer to draw upon principled bases and shorten the development process by systematically combining deep learning design with creative engagement design.

It almost appears that the few good edutainment titles were more a case of “even a blind pig finds a truffle once in a while” (a botched metaphor, to be sure, but personally relevant as how my friend described me finding my wife) than the result of a real understanding; there are too many bad titles out there. I don’t want to trust to chance that NASA’s MMO will be effective, nor burn through too much $$ to ensure it. I’d like to use what we know to help do it reliably, and repeatably. We owe it to ourselves and to society to demonstrate that serious games are a viable learning vehicle, not a hit or miss (or money sink) proposition.

Ok, so I‘m opinionated. What did you expect? I didn‘t spend, off and on, 25+ years doing learning game design to just throw up my hands. So, am I off my rocker?

Learning tools

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It’s been getting a wee bit crazy, and will be for at least the next two weeks (apologies in advance if my posts get sparse). Today I began the morning talking to our local elementary school teachers at their staff development day as a consequence of offering to assist in their technology efforts and a welcome reception by the principal. A really committed principal and great staff working in the context of a woeful funding situation and inadequate tech support…

My role was to provide some big picture guidance which then would spark their working sessions around technology. We started with the latest incarnation of the Shift Happens 2 video to set the stage. I then presented a bit of my strange and twisted background before going through some thoughts on curriculum, pedagogy, and technology (nothing new to regular readers of this blog).

Interestingly, I talked afterwards to one of their many bright lights (the designated technology coach), and when I said (as before) that they shouldn’t be teaching the apps, but talking about goals (represent your hypothesis) and giving the kids reference cards, she had an interesting response. She said she’d tried that, and some kids were left helpless. 4th graders!

This, I admit, boggled my mind. I know I’m an idealist and optimist (much of the time :), but this is a pretty good school. I don’t know if their parents aren’t using tech (which is the situation in some of our families), or that they’re not seeing tech sufficiently in earlier grades (which also happens to some extent). I suggested that the approach allows the teacher to work with those who are having trouble with the steps, and that even other students who did get it could help, but it felt a bit weak.

In retrospect, I think it argues even more strongly that the approach I suggest should be used, but much earlier! Perhaps the teaching can and should be how to use references to learn to things with technology tools, not just how to save a file, but instead, when your goal is to do x (e.g. save a file), how to look up x in the reference card and follow the steps.

Which mimics my overall response which is that in this age of increasing knowledge and knowledge change, we need to be modeling, and equipping our learners to, use resources to solve problems, not to learn specifics that will soon be out of date.

I confess I’m not steeped enough in this particular literature, so I’ll have to do some searching, but as I told them, I don’t have answers but I’m happy to work with them to figure the answers out. Which pretty much overextends out my philanthropy bandwidth, but some things are just too important! Fingers crossed.

MacWorld Expo report…

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For those of you who didn’t make the trek yourself (and why would you, unless you’re a fanatic Mac user or live in the Bay Area), here’re some brief thoughts on the MacWorld Expo this year. You can mostly ignore if you don’t care about Macs, but I have to say that more people are considering or making the switch!

First, the MacBook Air is unbelievable. It’s just SO thin! It’s hard to believe it’s a full computer. The way it uses wireless to remove the need for backup and accessing CD/DVD is very well thought out. You’ll have to have another Mac (or a PC) to do media stuff, perhaps, but that’s more peripheral. And I’ve gotta love the tag line: Thinnovation (sounds so familiar :).

Microsoft’s Office 2008 for the Mac is available, and is finally reasonably priced (Home/Student Edition; I don’t need Exchange capabilities). I just bought iWork, but Pages doesn’t have outlining, plus I’ll want to read the new Office XML formats, so I snapped it up. Apparently it’ll support 3 licenses, so it covers the whole house, too. I may not trust the OS, but the apps can be a requirement. (NB: iWork covers 5 licenses, so it’s around the house too).

I also bought Parallels, the virtualization software that lets Intel-powered Macs run Windows (supposedly runs XP better than VMWare’s Fusion, the main competitor, and I’m SO not going to Vista). It supposedly lets me use the license for XP from my old copy of Virtual PC (an emulator, that was unusably slow). I don’t intend to run Office, but I sometimes need Internet Explorer with Active X for various client stuff (as I was doing last week, with some over-the-top security plan). We’ll see how it goes!

The floor was covered with neat covers for iPhones, iPods, and even your laptops, accessories like input devices (keyboards), stands and furniture, etc. Also, of course, software. There’re usually expo-only deals, so I ended up saving more than the cost of the Bart ticket and lunch by coming down (but not by much, since I didn’t buy much, the only other thing was a keyboard cover for my laptop).

Apple made other announcements besides the MacBook Air, including a hard drive-equipped wireless router to automatically handle backups for the whole network, some iPhone/iPod Touch software updates, and iTunes movie rentals. Much as I like the Air, I think that the latter is the really interesting move, business-wise. The 24 hour limit on watching time after starting will be an initial deal-breaker (we often take 2 nights to finish a movie), but other than that there’s a real potential switch here in terms of the relationship between consumer, distributor, and producer.

I’m trying to recall what else I saw that’s of interest for elearning and more. There’re some Mac training companies, but that’s not really what I mean. I guess the one thing, besides cool software like Graphic Converter and OmniGraffle, was the fact that The Brain is now Mac compatible. The Brain is a tool that lets you link concepts together in ways that reflect their conceptual relationships. Jerry Michalski has publicly been creating his brain for years now, as a great demonstration (and a personal tool). It can currently be used to collaborate via a server version that uses the web (though potentially P2P soon, apparently), and it’s the type of knowledge sharing and collaboration tools I think we need to advance organizational innovation.

All in all, a fun way to spend the day (I also got to spend some time walking the floor with mentor/colleague/friend Jim Sky). I’ll have to let you know if more reflections emerge, but as I say when I talk about mobile learning, we really have magic these days (c.f. Arthur C. Clarke’s “any truly advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic”). Our limitations are between our ears, now, no longer the technology.

Clive on resources vs instruction

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That may not be how he’d think of it, but Clive Shepherd’s got a post about whether to provide well-structured learning solutions (using a balanced meal metaphor) or a suite of resources (I think of a buffet to extend the metaphor). My suggestion is to have the buffet, with some support on choosing a balanced meal. That is, don’t assume the learner’s good at self-learning, but don’t force them into a cookie-cutter solution either.

Why don’t we spend more effort on helping learners acquire self-learning skills? It seems such an obviously valuable investment that Jay Cross and I spent some time carrying the torch and still feel it’s valuable (he’s got a whole chapter on it in his Informal Learning book). If you don’t, I reckon you’re not equipping your workers for ultimate success. It’s like leaving money on the table.

Fishing for learning

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I’m not the least interested in fishing (traumatic childhood experience :), but my wife and kids are. Both kids have tried, but to no avail. Yesterday, our local community was hosting a festival, however, including a fishing clinic. So we signed the kids up. The clinic was arranged with quite a bit to ensure success.

First, they stocked the ‘lake’ (hardly more than a pond). Second, they conducted a class before going out to the water. Then, they provided scaffolded practice in a protected environment. And they ensured a parent attended as well as the kids.

The class was a little late starting, and rambled a bit, but had a very good approach. The presenter was relaxed, and included some chatter, but basically led the learners through the crucial steps to be ready to fish. He talked about tying on a hook, He used a big prop hook and rope to show the principles of tying the hook onto the line. He also talked about principles of things like weights and bobbers, while showing the basics.   And had the kids answer questions along the way, to force them to think.   There wasn’t divergence into other forms of fishing (e.g. flies), but just a focus on what you need to go. Then they enabled those who didn’t have their own equipment, ensured everyone was ready, and moved out of the room and into the practice environment.

The practice environment was a roped off section of the shoreline, and a net-enclosed section of the lake. There were worms, and cleaning and packing if you caught anything and wanted to keep it. A big deal was made of a big catfish caught earlier in the day. The team of instructors cruised around answering questions and advising if useful.

Our session was in the evening, and things eventually got hot, with two big bass being caught at our end, and something big at the other. Our boy caught a small sunfish (his first fish ever, he was thrilled), and later had a big one that got away. My daughter had one nibble which was lost to an equipment problem. But it couldn’t have been set up much better to optimize the chance to succeed. And we found out it’s stocked year-round, so they can go back and try some more.

It’s a great model to think about for novices who need motivation as well as some key skills. How can you better ensure success and consequent motivation as well as the ability to execute again?