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Clark Quinn’s Learnings about Learning

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Making Sparks Fly

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Last night I did a presentation for the San Diego chapter of ISPI titled ‘making sparks fly’. I used that concept to talk about a couple of my favorite topics: deeper instructional design, and social learning.

In the former, it’s about two things: getting the real cognitive underpinning right,  and the emotional content, both integrated in a natural and elegant way.  So you start with your objectives (at a high enough level, addressing real business needs). Then you immediately develop deep practice with core decisions embedded in meaningful contexts. You need sufficient practice to not get it wrong, as opposed to just getting it right. Then we elaborate with model-based concepts and story-based examples.  All introduced in ways that engage the emotions as well as the mind, and closing that process off similarly addressing the emotional as well as the cognitive.  The point being, if you’re going to do formal, do it right.

From there, I segued off to talk about social: the power of the additional processing you get from social learning.  This includes sharing ideas, and collaborative work.  Then, systematically looking at tools like blogs, wikis, profiles, feeds, and more for both formal and informal learning.  The notion is that thinking and working ‘out loud’ are, in the right culture, better than not.

Formal learning (and I didn’t discuss performance support, after all it  was ISPI :) addresses the optimal execution that will be just be the cost of entry going forward, while continual innovation requires the creative friction, the interpersonal interaction that generates new ideas.  You need to have good learning and good performance support on those processes you can identify, but then you need to create the environment where folks are helping one another solve the new problems that arise, including new ideas.  Engaging the learner, and the interaction, are both sparks to take what we do to the next level.

There’s more: culture, mindset, L&D role, and we touched on that, but in the broader picture, you want to start with social and performance support, only doing formal when you absolutely have to (as it’s dear). We need to stop doing formal only, and badly. We need to cover the spread, and do all well.  Or else…

The ‘Role’ of Compliance

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I’m not an expert on compliance training. I haven’t suffered through it, and I haven’t been asked to design it. But I know it’s a monkey on the back of the industry, and I know we have to address it. So how? I think there are two main barriers.

The first is the regulatory aspect. Much like I really think the problem holding back better for-profit schools is that the accreditation process isn’t informed enough about pedagogy, I think the agencies that oversee required learning don’t really focus on the right thing. When you are mandating the requirement by seat time, you’re missing the point. Really, you should have competencies associated with objectives. Compliance decoupled from outcomes is just a legal bulwark, not a meaningful prevention of behavior.

Of course, we could be spending that time doing more than a knowledge dump. I think there are two parts: helping people define the situation, and then providing them with skills to address it. Whether it’s ethics, harassment, or some other topic, if you’re just raising awareness you’re not equipping people, and if you’re just providing responses, you’re not helping them understand when it makes sense.

I’ve previously addressed the awareness issue, when I talked about shades of grey. The point being that seldom are things black and white, and the best way to help learners understand the situation is to give them scenarios and discuss in groups whether and how a situation qualifies. Having this done in groups, and then having a reflection session facilitated by an expert on the topic would really help learners get value. Even online, having them share their initial thoughts, and then see some other discussion would be valuable to get some of the benefits of social interaction.

So then the question becomes one of how to equip the learners to deal with the situations. There are always mandated policies, but they’re not always as easy to apply as suggested. First of all, I think role-plays make great sense here. You can use scenario tools for asynchronous situations, or just traditional role-play in the classroom. What’s important is that you consider these processes with problematic examples. So, for example, trying to do behavior coaching with a passive-aggressive individual. You might have someone who’s facing such a problem role play the tough individual to deal with, and another member of the class can try to apply the principles. Again, you’re venturing out into the grey that acknowledges it’s never as clear cut and easy as it seems.

Of course, the latter pedagogies don’t guarantee anything (learning is probabilistic, after all), and you’ve still the barrier that there’s little real reason to care given the current way the requirements are structured, but at least you have the opportunity to make the process less onerous for the learner and have a greater likelihood of actually accomplishing something meaningful in the workplace. Someone familiar with compliance want to weigh in on how I’m off-base?

Evidence-based Design

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In my last post, I asserted that we need evidence-based design for what we do.  There are a number of sources for same. Of course, you could go do a Master’s or Ph.D. in cognition and learning, but there are shorter paths.

There are several good books out (and I believer that there is at least one more on the way) that summarize the implications of research design. Ruth Clark has been a co-author on a couple, eLearning and the Science of Instruction, and the subsequent Efficiency in Learning.  Julie Dirksen’s Design for How People Learn is another good one. Michael Allen’s work on design is also recommended, e.g. Guide to eLearning.

Will Thalheimer, Ruth, and Julie regularly write and talk about these things in other forums than books.  Go listen to them!  I try as well, though often filtered through games, mobile, or elsewhere.  There’re others, too.

A number of people run workshops on deeper design. I know I have one, and I’m sure others have them as well. Do try to make sure that it covers both cognitive and emotional elements, focusing on meaningful change.

There are gaps: there isn’t all the research we need, or at least not digested.  The role of emotional engagement isn’t as well fleshed out as we’d like, and some of the research is frankly focused on studies too small to give practical guidelines (c.f. the consternation on serious game design that surrounded a recent post).  Where we don’t have research, we have to make inferences from theoretical frameworks, but you should know those too.  It’s better than going on ‘intuition’ or folk science.

Still, there’s no excuse to do un-engaging, over-written, and under-practiced learning.  Better design doesn’t take longer (with the caveat that there’s some initial hiccup ’til we make the change).  We have the knowledge, and the tools aren’t the barrier.  Let’s do better, please!

How I Work

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David Kelly posted the following:

Lifehacker has a series called “How I Work. Every Wednesday they feature a new guest and the gadgets, apps, tips, and tricks that keep them going. It‘s a very interesting series that gives you a glimpse into how different people work and solve problems.

After recently seeing  Daniel Pink‘s interview  some colleagues and I thought it would be interesting to answer these questions as well as a fun way to share and get to know each other better.  I invite you to participate as well – I‘ll link other people‘s postings at the bottom of this post.

I decided to join in:

Location

Walnut Creek, CA

Current Gig

Executive Director of Quinnovation and Senior Director of Interaction & Mobile for the Internet Time Alliance.

Current mobile device

iPhone 4 & (original) iPad

Current computer

MacBookPro 13″ (w/ Apple Monitor)

One word that best describes how you work

Interruptedly (and, yes, I made that word up)

What apps/software/tools can’t you live without?

Looking at what’s open or has been recently: Safari, TweetDeck, Mail,  Skype, Reminders, iCal,  Word, Keynote, Notes, OmniGraffle, & OmniOutliner.

I keep up with what’s new with Safari and TweetDeck, maintain communication channels with Mail and Skype, keep myself organized with iCal and Reminders, write with Word and Notes, plan and present with Keynote, and think things through with OmniGraffle and OmniOutliner.

QuinnovationWorldHeadquartersWhat’s your workspace like?

Somewhat compact and crowded.  I moved from a bigger desk to our smallest room to accommodate the changing needs of our kids.  The room also houses a couch that becomes a bed for guests, and some shelves, so there’s not a lot of space. It’s organized for efficiency and effectiveness, not aesthetics.

What’s your best time-saving trick?

To put things into my calendar or my reminder list  now!

What’s your favorite to-list manager?

I struggled after losing Palm Desktop, but finally have settled on Reminders (Apple’s tool), as it synchs across devices seamlessly.

Besides your phone and computer, what gadget can’t you live without?

Definitely my iPad.  It replaces computer on many trips, and serves as a content and interactive device at times when I’m in more leisure than on the go.  If that’s cheating, it’d be a pocket tool kit: usually the Coast micro-tool, or Swiss-Tech Micro-Tech when traveling (no blade). Always need a file, screwdriver, …

What everyday thing are you better at than anyone else?

I’d like to say diagramming, representing models, but I don’t know if that’s ‘everyday’. If not, I’d say taking what ever’s left over in the fridge and making a real meal out of it.

What do you listen to while you work?

Not bloody much.  I can’t listen to most music while working, as the lyrics interfere with my thinking.

Are you more of an introvert or an extrovert?

I’m definitely an introvert, but I’m also a ham (a nice tension, eh?).  So I don’t mind being on stage, but as soon as I’m off I go back to ‘I wonder if someone will talk to me’, and get drained when I’m around too many people.  I work best in small groups.

What’s your sleep routine like?

I work hard to get a regular eight hours,  having read the research. So it’s usually  to bed sometime between 10 and 11, and the house wakes up around 6.  Travel wreaks havoc with that, but caffeine helps.

Fill in the blank. I’d love to see _______ answer these same questions.

Alan Kay or John Seely Brown

What’s the best advice you’ve ever received?

To be myself.

Games & Meaningful Interactivity

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A colleague recently queried: “How would you support that Jeopardy type games (Quizzes, etc.) are not really games?”  And while I think I’ve discussed this before, I had a chance to noodle on it on a train trip.  I started diagramming, and came up with the following characterization.

GameSpacesI separated out two dimensions. The first  is differentiating between knowledge and skills.  I like how Van Merriënboer talks about the knowledge you need and the complex problems you apply that knowledge to.  Here I’m separating ‘having’ knowledge from ‘using’ knowledge, focusing on application.  And, no surprise, I’m very much on the side of using, or  doing, not just knowing.

The second dimension is whether the learning is essentially very true to life, or exaggerated in some way.  Is it direct, or have we made some effort to make it engaging?

Now, for rote knowledge, if we’re contextualizing it, we’re making it more applied (e.g. moving to the skills side), so really what we have to do is use extrinsic motivation.  We gamify knowledge test (drill and kill) and make it into Jeopardy-style quiz shows.   And while that’s useful in very limited circumstances, it  is  not  what we (should) mean by a game.  Flashy rote drill, using extrinsic motivation, is a fall-back, a tactic of last resort.  We can do better.

What we should mean by a game is  to take practice scenarios and focus on ramping up the intrinsic motivation, tuning the scenario into a engaging experience.  We can use tools like exaggeration, humor, drama, and techniques from game design, literature, and more, to make that practice more meaningful.  We align it with the learners interests (and vice-versa), making the experience compelling.

Because, as the value chain suggests, tarting up rote knowledge (which is useful  if that’s what we need, and sometimes it’s important, e.g. medical terminology) is better than not, but not near as valuable as real practice via scenarios, and even better if we tune it into a meaningful experience.  Too often we err on the side of knowledge instead of skills,  because it’s easy, because we’re not getting what we need from the SME, because that’s what our tools do, etc, but we should be focusing on skills, because that’s what’s going to make a difference to our learners and ultimately our organizations.

What we should do is be focusing on better able to  do, moving to the skill side. Tarted up quiz shows are not really games, they’re simplistic extrinsic response trainers.  Real, serious, games translate what Sid Maier said about games – “a series of interesting decisions” – into a meaningful experience: a series of important decisions.  Practicing those are what will make the difference you care about.

Leadership for Complexity

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The other meme from the retreat event  last weekend was the notion of leadership for complexity.   A few of us decided to workshop a topic around performance, leadership, and technology.   We realized technology was only a means to an end, and the real issue was how to move organizations to optimal performance (e.g. the Coherent Organization).

We talked through how things are moving from complicated to complex (and how important it is to recognize the difference), and that organizations need to receive the wake-up call and start moving forward.   Using the Cynefin model, the value will not come from the simple (which should be automated) nor the complicated (which can be outsourced), but from dealing with the complex (and chaotic).   This won’t come from training and top down management. As I’ve said before, optimal execution will only be the cost of entry, and the differentiator (and hence the value) will be continual evaluation. And that comes from a creative and collaborative workforce.   The issue really is to recognize the need to seize new directions, and then execute the change.

One concern was whether we were talking evolution or revolution.   Rather than taking an either or, I was inclined to think that you needed revolutionary thinking (I like Kathy Sierra’s  take on this), but that you fundamentally can’t revolutionize an organization short of total replacement (“blood on the streets” as one colleague gleefully put it :).   I reckoned a committed change initiative to the place the revolutionary thinking pointed was what was needed.

The issue, then, is the vision and guidance to get there.   What’s needed is leadership that can lead the organization to be able to leverage complexity for success.   This will be about equipping and empowering people to work together on shared goals: sharing, commenting, contributing, collaborating, and more.   It will be inherently experimental in an ongoing way.

What that means practically is an exercise I (and we) are continually working on, but we’ve coalesced on the top-level frameworks to form the basis of tools, and what’s needed are some organizations to co-develop the solutions.   Design-based research] if you will. So who’s up for working on the path to the future?

#itashare

iPads do make sense for schools

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Donald Clark (the UK one) generally writes great posts: insightful and irreverent, and consequently fun. I like that he is willing to counter the prevailing wisdom with good research. I hope to someday meet him. However, his recent post against iPads in the classroom seemed to me to miss a couple of points.  Not that I fully disagree with him, but that I think that some elaboration might shed some light.  Note: I’m starting by focusing on K-6, not middle school or higher ed. He does acknowledge the potential value for young kids, so we’re not quibbling too much, but I still want to make a few points.

He first claims that they don’t support writing.  Yes, that’s true, the touchscreen isn’t the same as a keyboard.  However, my colleague Scott Marvel has filmed lots of kids with iPads and he tells me they don’t have much trouble using the touchscreen (they’re not highly capable with regular keyboards at young ages), they use speech to text as well, and also take freehand notes too.  So writing isn’t horribly impeded on iPads for younger kids.  Further,  writing shouldn’t necessarily be done in the classroom anyway. Learning to type, and heavy writing should be done offline, and shared for feedback in class.  It’s a waste of valuable teacher time, when they could be facilitating meaningful engagement.

I also note that he says they don’t work for creative work, and that they should be creating, not consuming. I generally agree on the creation aspect (while noting that flipping the classroom and getting reading and tutorials done at home isn’t bad and the latter isn’t passive consumption), but note that he’s missed one of the big content creation aspects that smaller devices support: taking pictures and filming videos.  It may be that iPod Touches are even better for K-6, but running around and filming with a tablet (particularly an iPad mini, which may be optimal for K-6) is better than a laptop.  And I’ll bet that the video and photo editing tools on tablets are just the simple tools that kids really need; they just need basic capabilities.

I note that I didn’t buy my iPad for content consumption: when it was announced I wrote it off for just that reason. However, between the time it was announced and became available, I saw how I would use it to be more productive: creating not consuming.  And I bought one the first day it came out for that reason.

Let me also elaborate on the size point.  Elliot Soloway many years ago made the point that laptops were the wrong form-factor for young kids, and he started using Palm Pilots.  I think it’s still the case that a laptop isn’t right for kids, and that touch screens make much more sense than keyboards and touch pads or mice.  There are plenty of people noticing how 2 year olds are able to use iPads!

Donald also talks about coding, and it  is a shame that there isn’t a HyperCard equivalent for the iPad (though Infinite Canvas may be such, tho’ it’d need educational pricing).  However, something like Scratch for the iPad would be a real opportunity (precluded by Apple, unfortunately, I wonder if there’s an Android version).  And coding K-6 other than scratch doesn’t make a lot of sense.

He says that iPads are problems for teachers, and I’m somewhat sympathetic. However, too often I’ve seen instances where teachers weren’t properly prepared.  For instance, something like GoClass (caveat: partner), while still a bit instructivist, could scaffold teachers initially until they began to see the opportunities.  And there needs to be mobile management software to deal with the issues. However, I’m hard pressed to believe iPads are any  more fragile than laptops.

Now, for higher grades, I take the point.  My lad and lass both have MacBook Pros, though they each also have an iPod touch (lad’s is my old iPhone without a sim card) that they use.  Note that they do not take the laptops to school in most cases.  I think that a nice augment for mobile work, getting out of the classroom (please!) is much better facilitated with a tablet or pocketable (smartphone/PDA) than a laptop.  And even for collaborative group work, sharing a tablet is better than hovering around a laptop.  If necessary, they could be using a bluetooth keyboard when needed.  So while I know this is hard to justify on a cost basis, I’d probably argue for an iPad or pocketable for class, and a desktop or laptop for home.

Less related, he makes the side claim that employees don’t use iPads. I’m amazed at the number that turn up at workplace learning conferences, and in meetings.  They seem pretty ubiquitous, so I don’t buy this claim.  Yes, they may be older, and some folks are using netbooks or MacBook Airs, but I see plenty of folks with iPads equipped with keyboard cases. I keep a bluetooth keyboard for when I’m cranking (e.g. writing on an airplane), but frankly just for quick notes the touchscreen keyboard works good enough for meetings, and that ‘all day’ battery really makes a difference.

And I’ll add on one other benefit for mobile devices: the ability to do contextual work. These devices can be context aware, and do things because of where you are.  This is yet to be really capitalized on, but provides a real opportunity.

I think tablets are only going to get more capable, and already make more sense in the classroom than laptops.  Teachers should be seeing how to use them, even at higher levels, and save the high-powered writing and editing out of the classroom.  Laptops make sense for learners, but not in the classroom. In the classroom, smaller and more versatile devices make more sense.

Living with Complexity

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Don Norman (disclaimer, my PhD advisor and mentor) has had a string of important books, starting with his stellar  Design of Everyday Things (tops my ‘recommended books’ list for designers).  His latest, Living with Complexity, is not as landmark a book as that, but it has some very astute thinking to present.

The book, as the title implies, is largely about how complexity isn’t bad, it’s necessary, and the real issue is about designing to manage it.  We want powerful systems to accomplish meaningful goals, and he makes the case that this naturally requires complexity, either at the front end or at the back end.  Complexity at the front end offers powerful choice at the tradeoff of comprehensibility, which we often want. Complexity at the back end can seem like magic, but offers more opportunity for things to go wrong catastrophically.

Good design is naturally the solution.  He suggests that good design makes complexity usable, and bad design makes complexity frustrating.  And he makes a strong point that it’s now about services.

He goes beyond product design in detailing how you really aren’t designing just a product, but an experience, and that it takes a system to create an experience.  Using Apple’s iPod, he points out how simplifying the purchasing (backend: lining up publishers to allow downloading individual titles for a simple fee) and downloading music (instead of converting files and storing in special folders) made a device that could carry a lot of music in a small package.

He goes deeper into service design, using the examples of waiting in lines (I now know why immigration in SFO can be so frustrating!).  He finally gets to coverage of recommendations for improvements, including signifying (making affordances perceivable), checklists, and job aids (over courses).  His focus is on tapping into how our minds work, and aligning tools with them.  He covers both sides, including what designers should do differently, and what ‘consumers’ can do.   He also covers some of the mismatches between design and consumers, going beyond the design to the overall system.

Overall, while seemingly not as well structured as previous books, this book offers some advanced thinking into design that will benefit those looking to take a bigger picture.  Feeling more like a collection rather than a coherent narrative, each of the elements is related and there are important insights in each section.  Recommended for the advanced designer.

Starting from scratch

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From a conversation with my ITA colleagues, talking about the (self-imposed) death of L&D that Charles wrote about, Jane wondered what we might do if we were starting from scratch.  I decided to take this on, thinking about an org that was already in operation, with it’s goals, processes, and practices, and what I might do if I were to come in and get it going (with the support of the executive team to do what I thought was right).

My initial step would be to establish a social media system, supporting conversations and collaboration on work teams and communities of practice.  I’d make sure that folks could establish dialogs, work together on documents, and share files, quick pointers, and more fully developed thoughts. They’d also be able to both create and share media, video, audio, and screencasts.  I’d want to have some folks supporting the development of the use of this capability, in a performance consulting  or performance strategist role.

Associated with this would be a big emphasis on transparency in communication, with the overall mission of the org percolating all the way through, and emphasizing the part each role plays in the overall picture.  Another emphasis would be on developing individual capability for self-learning.

My second step would be to set up a mechanism to support portals organized around work tasks (not by org silo), where media, files, and conversations around topics could happen.  The goal is to have tools ‘to hand’ as well as people.  Thus, any created job aids would be appropriately located. Again, with a performance strategy focus. This is related to the first point.

Finally, I’d consider formal learning to supplement the informal learning, in places where it demonstrably would add value, with a view to minimizing the use of this except where a sound business case could be made that the time spent was aligned to key business indicator, and that developing this skill was the necessary approach.  And, perhaps, on ways to effectively take advantage of the systems indicated above.  However, a longer term approach than the ‘event’ model would be used.  I’d want to track activity, not just content and assessment.  Compliance and onboarding, typically roles for formal learning, would have a different look than currently.

I’d supplement this with mobile access, and ultimately start looking for ways to add contextual support.  I’d be looking for  business impact across the board. I’d probably structure this as a performance unit, and ensure that the staff are trained to look at the full suite of opportunities to improve performance including social, and consider the emotional side – motivation, anxiety, and confidence – as well as the cognitive.

This is all hypothetical, of course, but I think it’s illustrative of a different way of approaching this.  I think that the way things are going: changing faster, dealing with more ambiguity ,and requiring more ingenuity and innovation, require a different approach than the assess, prepare, rollout model.    The focus increasingly is on supporting people meeting their needs, instead of attempting to meet their needs.   Organizations have to be more nimble, and this approach starts there and works back, instead of the other way around.

#itashare

The Future of Mobile?

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In the webinar I did the day before yesterday, one of the questions I was asked was what I thought the future of mobile would be.  My first response was that mobile wasn’t going away, and that we’d see more converged devices.  I also opined that five years ago I couldn’t have predicted where we are now, and consequently it might be hard to think that far forward.  There was also a question of whether I thought the laptop was dead, and I kind of did.

Since then, however, I had a few moments in the middle of the night when I should’ve been sleeping, and I pondered this a bit more.  Let me answer in greater depth, thinking through hardware, software, and context.

One of the questions was wearables.  I frankly don’t know whether we’ll want them just on our sleeve (though it might be a nice fashion accessory), or still pulled from a pocket.  I think we’ll have the opportunity to have either. What will really be important, however, is having that visual display whether tangible in the world, or projected via a headsup display.  We’ll also have audio, both to listen to, and to communicate with. We’ll still likely couple that with gesture, whether on a screen or detected via gestures.  The important thing is that we’ll be interacting with our normal tools for acting on the world.  I think we may still need keyboards from time to time, as text is still a relatively rich communication channel with low bandwidth requirements.  Whether we can have virtual keyboards is still an open question, I think.

I do think the devices will continue to have richer sensors: in addition to accelerometers, compasses, GPS, microphones and cameras they’ll also have barometers, thermometers, and more.  They’ll be able to tap into these to do ever more clever context-sensing and reacting.  And I think they’ll be in a variety of form factors, some choosing pocketable, some choosing to tradeoff mobility for screen real estate.  Some will choose to have one multipurpose, perhaps, others likely will have several. They’ll synch seamlessly, so that it doesn’t matter what device we have when we’re looking for answers. And there will still be a role for the very large screen, with lots of real estate, when we’re tapping into our powerful pattern matching capabilities.

I think that it’s strongly possible that more of the computational capability will be served from the cloud, instead of locally, though I think the local capabilities will continue to increase as well.  I fully hope that they will be able to do intelligent and context-sensitive things.  My ideal is sort of a continual mentor, developing me over time and scaffolding behavior. This is probably wildly optimistic, though I’ve been asking for it for near to a decade, and we’re beginning to see elements thereof.

The interfaces may well simplify.  With rich communication possibilities, distributed across gesture and voice, the necessary screen representations may be minimized.  Still, as was recently pointed out to me, the current space is relatively mature and only a revolutionary technology shift would have a change. Can we anticipate that?  Likely, but not likely to hit the market within that 3-5 year timeframe.  And I’m willing to be wrong on that.

Regardless of technology, I can safely predict that most people will have some portable digital companion with them that they use to make themselves smarter in the moment, much as we do now. But I’m hoping that we’ll also be able to be using it to make us smarter over time, maybe even wiser.  That, to me, is the real vision of the future.