My second book, Learning By Doing, will be out on April 22. It is a comprehensive look at educational simulations. My entire first book, Simulations and the Future of Learning, fits neatly between chapters 19 and 20.
I have a copy on my desk, printed out on three hole punch paper, based on the last draft. I find myself thumbing through it a couple of times a day.
Don't tell anyone, but I have found a few grammer flaws. I also described a knot as Gideon, instead of Gordian (I hate when I do that).
But one of the biggest tests for any book in our world is how much does it practice what it preaches? Does it role model, or just lecture? How engaging and interactive can/should one make such a book?
I am satisfied with how funny it is. The line that I was most sure would be edited out (but that made it) is: "Virtual reality systems can now superimpose computer images onto real-time video goggles. Now soldiers, not just Alzheimer patients, can see snipers where there are none."
(By the way, I want to use this blog to officially say that my father-in-law who lives next door suffered from dimentia with his Parkinsons, so while it is still a shockingly cruel line, at least I know personally of what I speak.)
The humor corresponds to the game elements I suggest as a consideration for educational content. Each one is a risk, but the greatest risk is not to include any at all.
The interactive part might be the toughest test. I am satisfied when I was able to exemplify something described in a page or chapter by interacting with the reader.
For example, when talking about Thiagi's open style questions:
"He might give you a piece of a story or scenario, and then ask what
comes before it and what comes after. For example, consider this:
Then e-learning took off. It changed the world. Attracting all of the
best and brightest talent, it became the fastest growing industry of
the 21st century.
Thiagi might ask you:
• What came before this to make it happen?
• What came after it as a result that made it matter?"
Or when, after describing one type of early simulation model called branching stories, I asked:
"Which of the following is true for you?
• I have a strongly favorable impression of branching stories.
• I have a mixed impression of branching stories.
• I have a very negative impression of branching stories.
If you have an opinion about branching stories, it often reflects how appropriately they were used. By the way, if you were frustrated because the options were not exactly what you wanted, welcome to the user side of any branching interfaces."
Learning By Doing is more interactive than most books. But ultimately it is not as interactive as I wish it were, or that I hope (paper-based) books will be in the future.
We are in a changing world. It is hard not to feel honored to have a role in it, to feel excited about the possibilities, and yet frusterated that things don't happen more quickly, even when we are the ones holding ourselves back.
Thursday, March 31
The Canary in the Training Coal Mine
There is the old cliche that train companies should have realized they were in the transportation business and invented and embraced airplanes. This always seemed a bit dim to me. There was just not that much value-add they could have, well, added.
I bring this up because I think a lot about the training business. I don't mean the vendors, but the internal training group. What is the best model for them? For any group, what is their "brand," and what is their core competency? How can they grow that? To the degree that they have investment dollars, where should they be taking risks?
There is a trendiness in which the training industry seems to get sucked up. Every new technology captures our imagination. "Training should be more like TiVo, or cell phones, or web pages, or iPods, or Segways..."
Yet the canary in our coalmine is training people in management skills. Most organizations, if they are honest, are terrible at training at a higher level than entry level. There are a few exceptions, of course, but not many. The implications of this are staggering. One is that the people at the top of an organization don't look at training very fondly. The training group was not a key ingredient in the assent. Training is for someone else, not me. Another implication is that most managers are horribly trained. That impacts stock price and, frankly, our GDP.
I am not saying that we should stick to an early twentieth century notion of training as a teacher boring conscripted students. Quite the opposite. But I am saying that our mission, our reason for being, if it is not enabling higher-level skills is enabling low-level skills. And that seems like a lost opportunity.
I bring this up because I think a lot about the training business. I don't mean the vendors, but the internal training group. What is the best model for them? For any group, what is their "brand," and what is their core competency? How can they grow that? To the degree that they have investment dollars, where should they be taking risks?
There is a trendiness in which the training industry seems to get sucked up. Every new technology captures our imagination. "Training should be more like TiVo, or cell phones, or web pages, or iPods, or Segways..."
Yet the canary in our coalmine is training people in management skills. Most organizations, if they are honest, are terrible at training at a higher level than entry level. There are a few exceptions, of course, but not many. The implications of this are staggering. One is that the people at the top of an organization don't look at training very fondly. The training group was not a key ingredient in the assent. Training is for someone else, not me. Another implication is that most managers are horribly trained. That impacts stock price and, frankly, our GDP.
I am not saying that we should stick to an early twentieth century notion of training as a teacher boring conscripted students. Quite the opposite. But I am saying that our mission, our reason for being, if it is not enabling higher-level skills is enabling low-level skills. And that seems like a lost opportunity.
Thursday, March 17
Informal Learning, Blogs, and Corporations
One of the prime rules of blogging has to be that good information can come from just about any source. While going through my email, I decided to click on what was obviously an unsolicited newsletter from a vendor. The concept of an enterprise wiki sucked me in. I'm not sold on that idea.
But what did make me want to blog was ideas raised in another article in the newsletter entitled Three Rules for Sharing Informal Knowledge. The author suggests that the three defining qualities of information found in blogs (which IMHO would have been the better title for the article) are:
- Immediacy
- Interactivity
- Informality
He then goes on to say:
When companies start to take seriously the idea that something written in an informal tone can be just as valuable as something that has been copy edited and when they start to get comfortable with the self-correcting effect that comes when knowledge workers share information they will be amazed how much more powerful their information resources will be.
I think he hits on a couple of concepts that are barriers to adoption by most organizations. First, corporate control of information. There have been several recent articles companies trying to control blogs/bloggers (Apple suing bloggers for releasing information on Tiger or the Delta flight attendant fired for blogging about her travels.) I'm not going to weigh in on right or wrong, but leave it at I don't think many companies, particularly their legal departments are ready to relinquish control of information.
A second barrier i think is more problematic - listening. Most organizations, corporations especially, are focused on honing their message down to laser beam accuracy to have greatest impact on their target market. Talk to anyone in marketing or sales and they'll tell you about the effort that goes into getting the message right for a relatively small group of consumers. Building a mindset that then turns to it employees and welcomes unfettered dissent just isn't going to happen overnight. If at all.
The self-correcting effect that the author refers to is true, but takes time. Lots of time, in some cases. I haven't seen too many books on corporate strategy recently that have been advocating a "slow down, relax, you've got plenty of time" approach.
All this said, I still agree that any company who can overcome these barriers and successfully tap into the wealth of information available to it in informal channels will clobber its competitors. Agree? Disagree? Speak up! Hit the comment button below.
PS - To read great commentary on the latest ruling in Apple v. Doe (and blogging at it's best) check out morons.org.
Saturday, March 12
O Collaboration - Where Art Thou?
For those that know me (all three of them) know that I am pretty passionate about the power of the Internet being its ability to connect people to people, not people to content. I was reading an entry called Learning Conversation from Jay Cross' blog and was provoked enough to start writing a comment. A really long comment. So long in fact I thought I would post it here instead and get other people's reactions rather than have it buried there as a comment.
[yes, I believe that the comment format in blogs hinder more than help collaboration. Why, for example, can't blogs by default show comments to the right of the original post, in parallel, or even better have the option of the comment appearing as a footnote numbered so that you can precisly situate your comment relative to that section in the orignal post]
To get the context of what I am writing about play the archive of Jay's event before reading further.
I believe that for any effective learning event (events come together to form a continuous learning experience) a structure of before/during/after applies. For example during university my most effective classes were the ones that we prepared for ahead of time by reading the materials and then came to class ready to discuss. The same principles still apply online because they apply to effective learning, regardless of the delivery medium. One learning event flows into another one; the After phase of one event ends up being the transition to the Before phase of the next event and so it goes on to create the learning experience.
(as an aside I was recently talking to a generic courseware provider and expressing amazement that they were still in business given that no one has ever wanted a generic course but a solution to a specifc problem and he replied that they may be a dinosaur but that dinosaurs survived for thousands of years and it took a meteor hit to wipe them out - good point!)
To me Real Time Collaboration (RTC) solutions like Macromedia Breeze, Centra, WebEx, Elluminate etc replicate oh so many of the problems we face in the traditional face-to-face model. Yet on the other hand I don't want an unscripted, wandering presentation format. I want, I need, structure - just not the structure of the traditional classroom where it was so rigid that you felt that you were a captive unable to do anything let alone contribute in a meaningful way (i.e. sit and listen).
If you don't engage me then I'll vote with my web browser and go elsewhere. You need to keep me involved - the most effective way is to set my expectations before, during and after the event. I don't want just the agenda, tell me what the framework is going to be but keep it flexible. But remember, as a host, you are my guide and I trust you to be the ring master to keep us together as we explore the framework.
Let me give some quick general examples of what I mean by Before/During/After:
(1) Before - offer links of your related articles and blogs entries. If you really want to engage me I need to know the context of who you are (at least as expressed through your writings). You're the expert - you tell me what I should have passing knowledge of in order for me to understand you (context).
- Why ask me to email topic suggestions? Why can't I go to some place and post them out in the open for all to see. At least that way I can see other people's questions which may provoke questions from me. Email is so one way and runs counter to effective collaboration. Post a summary of the accepted questions ahead of time (as some questions you can roll into one question) so that I too have time to think about my own responses. Lets start the conversation before the event!
(2) During - it's online so of course all of us are going to be multitasking while attending. If you are PowerPointing us to death than at least show one web link at the top of each slide that allows us to dive in deeper on that particular slide topic (I'm going to be multi-tasking so you might as well try to give me some things to do).
- Give me profiles of my follow viewers so that when I participate in the chat room I know more about the person I am chatting with.
It may be shocking to some but I don't care about videoconferencing. I will take a static picture of Jay over watching a video stream any time. I will get enough of the nuances from the audio, the video doesn't add much, if anything it is a distraction. The power is in what you are saying, not in what you look like (this is the fundamental principle of the Internet).
(3) After - so now the online event is over but in reality the learning is still continuing. This is where RTC really needs to be improved because I basically feel that in today's world when the RTC event is over then it all fades to black . Sure creative sparks may fly during the event and a good conversation was had by all but (and this may be just me) I need to time to think about what was said before being able to really articulate my thoughts and contribute. Give me a place to go to afterwards.
- And in the archive why can't I fill out the survey that was presented to the live viewers? You sure would get a lot more responses!
Macromedia - stop asking for my mailing address when I go to view the archive. If I want you to have it I give it so make it voluntary. And forget about getting my phone number, I don't even know you do, so here it is: 555-555-5555. It is an annoying barrier to what I came there to do - watch the archive. You already have what I consider to be my most precious piece of information - my email address.
For effective collaboration you need to synchronize not only the tools and people but also the processes.
(1) tools - the thing I hate most about Real Time Collaboration events is the lack of pre and post follow-up using other collaboration technologies. As Jay suggested at least link a blog to the archived event so I have a place to give my feedback and thoughts on the topic. Feedback keeps the underlying event alive and frankly the value of such an event increases over time as the comments will keep the topic fresh and current.
(2) people - most of your visitors will come from those viewing the archive version, often outnumbering the live viewers 100:1 (and more as a function of time). Keep that in mind when doing your live web cast.
- Don't just give me your email address at the end; give me a way to interact with other viewers because I know they are at least interested in the same topic. Even if I attended the live event why can't I keep up to date with the comments being added to the archive. Discussion group software has the ability to notify me by email of new postings, why can't the event archive do this?
And by the way, don't allow anoymous comments. If you have something to say then put your name to it (even better if it is a validated name or email address). This isn't AOL, this is a place for learning.
(3) processes - we need better ways of engaging people before, during and after an event. Like Jay said the Breeze technology technically worked fine but event was not as effective as it could have been. I felt that during Jay's event that there were two things going on - Jay and the guys talking and the interactions going on in the chat room. Sometimes the two worlds connected but not often. I wanted more crossovers to occur.
Real Time Collaboration works best when it acts as a springboard to something else and is viewed as one aspect of an entire learning experience. I'm sorry but no single RTC event by itself is going to change my life. The best events make me think about the topic so that I will continue to explore that area so that over time my habits will change. Until RTC vendors get this, that they are part of something bigger, then real time events will continue to leave the viewer turned off (pun intended).
So this is my rambling rant -
What do YOU think about my comments? Yea or Nay?
What do you think can be done to improve real time collaboration?
Click on the "comments" link below.
[yes, I believe that the comment format in blogs hinder more than help collaboration. Why, for example, can't blogs by default show comments to the right of the original post, in parallel, or even better have the option of the comment appearing as a footnote numbered so that you can precisly situate your comment relative to that section in the orignal post]
To get the context of what I am writing about play the archive of Jay's event before reading further.
I believe that for any effective learning event (events come together to form a continuous learning experience) a structure of before/during/after applies. For example during university my most effective classes were the ones that we prepared for ahead of time by reading the materials and then came to class ready to discuss. The same principles still apply online because they apply to effective learning, regardless of the delivery medium. One learning event flows into another one; the After phase of one event ends up being the transition to the Before phase of the next event and so it goes on to create the learning experience.
(as an aside I was recently talking to a generic courseware provider and expressing amazement that they were still in business given that no one has ever wanted a generic course but a solution to a specifc problem and he replied that they may be a dinosaur but that dinosaurs survived for thousands of years and it took a meteor hit to wipe them out - good point!)
To me Real Time Collaboration (RTC) solutions like Macromedia Breeze, Centra, WebEx, Elluminate etc replicate oh so many of the problems we face in the traditional face-to-face model. Yet on the other hand I don't want an unscripted, wandering presentation format. I want, I need, structure - just not the structure of the traditional classroom where it was so rigid that you felt that you were a captive unable to do anything let alone contribute in a meaningful way (i.e. sit and listen).
If you don't engage me then I'll vote with my web browser and go elsewhere. You need to keep me involved - the most effective way is to set my expectations before, during and after the event. I don't want just the agenda, tell me what the framework is going to be but keep it flexible. But remember, as a host, you are my guide and I trust you to be the ring master to keep us together as we explore the framework.
Let me give some quick general examples of what I mean by Before/During/After:
(1) Before - offer links of your related articles and blogs entries. If you really want to engage me I need to know the context of who you are (at least as expressed through your writings). You're the expert - you tell me what I should have passing knowledge of in order for me to understand you (context).
- Why ask me to email topic suggestions? Why can't I go to some place and post them out in the open for all to see. At least that way I can see other people's questions which may provoke questions from me. Email is so one way and runs counter to effective collaboration. Post a summary of the accepted questions ahead of time (as some questions you can roll into one question) so that I too have time to think about my own responses. Lets start the conversation before the event!
(2) During - it's online so of course all of us are going to be multitasking while attending. If you are PowerPointing us to death than at least show one web link at the top of each slide that allows us to dive in deeper on that particular slide topic (I'm going to be multi-tasking so you might as well try to give me some things to do).
- Give me profiles of my follow viewers so that when I participate in the chat room I know more about the person I am chatting with.
It may be shocking to some but I don't care about videoconferencing. I will take a static picture of Jay over watching a video stream any time. I will get enough of the nuances from the audio, the video doesn't add much, if anything it is a distraction. The power is in what you are saying, not in what you look like (this is the fundamental principle of the Internet).
(3) After - so now the online event is over but in reality the learning is still continuing. This is where RTC really needs to be improved because I basically feel that in today's world when the RTC event is over then it all fades to black . Sure creative sparks may fly during the event and a good conversation was had by all but (and this may be just me) I need to time to think about what was said before being able to really articulate my thoughts and contribute. Give me a place to go to afterwards.
- And in the archive why can't I fill out the survey that was presented to the live viewers? You sure would get a lot more responses!
Macromedia - stop asking for my mailing address when I go to view the archive. If I want you to have it I give it so make it voluntary. And forget about getting my phone number, I don't even know you do, so here it is: 555-555-5555. It is an annoying barrier to what I came there to do - watch the archive. You already have what I consider to be my most precious piece of information - my email address.
For effective collaboration you need to synchronize not only the tools and people but also the processes.
(1) tools - the thing I hate most about Real Time Collaboration events is the lack of pre and post follow-up using other collaboration technologies. As Jay suggested at least link a blog to the archived event so I have a place to give my feedback and thoughts on the topic. Feedback keeps the underlying event alive and frankly the value of such an event increases over time as the comments will keep the topic fresh and current.
(2) people - most of your visitors will come from those viewing the archive version, often outnumbering the live viewers 100:1 (and more as a function of time). Keep that in mind when doing your live web cast.
- Don't just give me your email address at the end; give me a way to interact with other viewers because I know they are at least interested in the same topic. Even if I attended the live event why can't I keep up to date with the comments being added to the archive. Discussion group software has the ability to notify me by email of new postings, why can't the event archive do this?
And by the way, don't allow anoymous comments. If you have something to say then put your name to it (even better if it is a validated name or email address). This isn't AOL, this is a place for learning.
(3) processes - we need better ways of engaging people before, during and after an event. Like Jay said the Breeze technology technically worked fine but event was not as effective as it could have been. I felt that during Jay's event that there were two things going on - Jay and the guys talking and the interactions going on in the chat room. Sometimes the two worlds connected but not often. I wanted more crossovers to occur.
Real Time Collaboration works best when it acts as a springboard to something else and is viewed as one aspect of an entire learning experience. I'm sorry but no single RTC event by itself is going to change my life. The best events make me think about the topic so that I will continue to explore that area so that over time my habits will change. Until RTC vendors get this, that they are part of something bigger, then real time events will continue to leave the viewer turned off (pun intended).
So this is my rambling rant -
What do YOU think about my comments? Yea or Nay?
What do you think can be done to improve real time collaboration?
Click on the "comments" link below.
"Informalization" of everything
Citizen journalism is an interesting concept that continues to gain attention. Sites are beginning to provide resources to assist these journalists in improving the quality of their writing and reporting. As with any societal change, the visible is only an indication of a foundational shift. "Informalization" seems to be a growing trend - podcasting, music, journalism, etc. What is driving the move from institutional to personal (i.e. the "rise of the individual")? And what does it say to those of us in education and training fields?
I think traditional institutions have been slow to respond to the speed at which information is flowing. Newspapers report news 12 hours after it happened. Bloggers often report it first-hand and within minutes. Personal control has caused a fair bit of stress to the music, movie, and now media industries. There are certainly downsides to this trend (authenticity, responsibility, accountability of the "new journalist" as examples). For the purpose of this post, however, I'd like to look past those downsides and focus on what the trend of informalization means to learners.
Learning is under similar pressure. I'm concerned that higher education and corporate training will fail to understand the fundamental shift in individual control in highlighting personal learning needs...and meeting those needs in an informal manner. Education doesn't need to look far to see the danger of failing to acknowledge changing needs of its end users (note journalism in particular). In a rapidly evolving information climate, firm structure is a handicap. Fluidity, adaptability, and responsiveness are survival traits. What has to happen for training/education to meet the needs of today's changing learner?
I think traditional institutions have been slow to respond to the speed at which information is flowing. Newspapers report news 12 hours after it happened. Bloggers often report it first-hand and within minutes. Personal control has caused a fair bit of stress to the music, movie, and now media industries. There are certainly downsides to this trend (authenticity, responsibility, accountability of the "new journalist" as examples). For the purpose of this post, however, I'd like to look past those downsides and focus on what the trend of informalization means to learners.
Learning is under similar pressure. I'm concerned that higher education and corporate training will fail to understand the fundamental shift in individual control in highlighting personal learning needs...and meeting those needs in an informal manner. Education doesn't need to look far to see the danger of failing to acknowledge changing needs of its end users (note journalism in particular). In a rapidly evolving information climate, firm structure is a handicap. Fluidity, adaptability, and responsiveness are survival traits. What has to happen for training/education to meet the needs of today's changing learner?
Wednesday, March 9
Open Source LMSs
I am just curious what people have found in terms of open-source LMSs. Are there any good ones?
Tuesday, March 8
Flash
In the old days, web purists ranted against Flash. It was proprietary. It wasn't web-like.
How do people feel now? I'm thinking more of posting on the open web than in a controlled in-house environment.
I'd like to replace Abode pdf white papers with a new design I'm calling a "brief." Briefs are created in FlashPaper. Take a look.
Is the fact that Macromedia owns Flash a hang-up?
How do people feel now? I'm thinking more of posting on the open web than in a controlled in-house environment.
I'd like to replace Abode pdf white papers with a new design I'm calling a "brief." Briefs are created in FlashPaper. Take a look.
Is the fact that Macromedia owns Flash a hang-up?
Friday, March 4
Alignment (or Big Brother II)
Dave,
This is actually a comment on your earlier posting, but I couldn't resist adding the picture, so I've posted here.
It appears to me that the Big Brother ideal (see all, know all, control all) functions, in the eyes of many, as a driver of progress. It incites people with money to invest in technology because they know other wealthy control freaks have the budgets to buy and the will to extend their control. The phenomenon is as obvious in the technology industries as it is in contemporary politics.
The fearsome side of Big Brother is made to look more attractive and consistent with traditional ideals when its purveyors emphasize the advantages to the individual (retain all, access all). IBM calls it "just for me" (one step beyond "just in time"), but behind it there's the implicit notion of alignment, which might send chills up some people's spines.
As we attempt to build the pillars of the yet to be constructed collaborative culture that awaits us, I suggest that “coaching” , as you suggest, is a better place to start but that “mentoring” would be an even better place to finish.
What’s the difference between the two? Simple: spontaneity!
This is actually a comment on your earlier posting, but I couldn't resist adding the picture, so I've posted here.
It appears to me that the Big Brother ideal (see all, know all, control all) functions, in the eyes of many, as a driver of progress. It incites people with money to invest in technology because they know other wealthy control freaks have the budgets to buy and the will to extend their control. The phenomenon is as obvious in the technology industries as it is in contemporary politics.
The fearsome side of Big Brother is made to look more attractive and consistent with traditional ideals when its purveyors emphasize the advantages to the individual (retain all, access all). IBM calls it "just for me" (one step beyond "just in time"), but behind it there's the implicit notion of alignment, which might send chills up some people's spines.
As we attempt to build the pillars of the yet to be constructed collaborative culture that awaits us, I suggest that “coaching” , as you suggest, is a better place to start but that “mentoring” would be an even better place to finish.
What’s the difference between the two? Simple: spontaneity!
Saturday, February 26
Cross-cultural issues in learning
Four days ago I was leading a workshop on facilitating online learning for the faculty of the Higher Colleges of Technology in Abu Dhabi. One professor pointed out that most eLearning pedagogy was created by North Americans, for North Americans.A typical student attending the Colleges is an Emerati whose English-language skills can't be taken for granted. Prior to coming to college, all schooling was in Muslim schools. In all likelihood, the student is weathy and drives either a BMW or a LandCruiser. He'll be studying engineering, computer science, or management. The distance learner will be coming online after work.
Can anyone share some stories or point to resources about tailoring online learning environments to non-U.S. cultures?
Thursday, February 10
Mobile as an Early Warning System
Last week, while attending ASTD's TechKnowledge, I had the chance to catch Harvey Singh's presentation on learning and mobile technologies. Besides the fact that I now have to have a tablet PC - NOW! - one comment Harvey made stuck with me. (Paraphrasing)
mobile technologies can enable intervention as performance begins to become misaligned with goal behaviors creating a tangible performance improvement.His point being that while processes are automated and captured through mobile technology, we will also be able to monitor performance much more granularly. Is this Big Brother watching and screaming as soon as we make one minor false step? Or is it coaching at it's very best?
Tuesday, February 1
What's going on here!?!?
Surprise! There are some changes we're making here at the Learning Circuits Blog. Jay's getting some relief by bringing on a new blogmeister, we've changed platforms (from Moveable Type to Blogger), and other changes described below. Please have patience as Dave, Jay and the Authors revitalize LCB to make it an exemplar of what blogging can do!
Don't forget to re-bookmark LCB with our new address [learningcircuits.blogspot.com].
Don't forget to re-bookmark LCB with our new address [learningcircuits.blogspot.com].
Learning Circuits Blog Evolution
In the past year it seems the world discovered blogs. We’re proud that LCB was one of the first team authored blogs on the net but the attention received by blogs have brought tremendous changes in capability and expectations for content and design. To stay at the forefront, Learning Circuits Blog has to evolve. In addition to the obvious changes to format and page design (due in part to a switch to Blogger as our platform), there are five major areas of change:
We hope these changes will make Learning CircuitsBlog a community you’ll want to be an active participant in. We welcome and need your input into these changes and any other you’d care to suggest. Drop Dave an email at david_c_lee@mac.com to make suggestions or volunteer to help out.
Hit the comment button and let us know what you think.
Tie-in to Learning Circuits. We will be making more conscious efforts to tie to the content of Learning Circuits. We’ll be discussing and debating the topics found in Learning Circuits and linking to related LC content.
Expand Author Voice. The author team is being expanded to bring in voices from various eLearning markets – K-12, Corporate, Government, and International. Recently there has been discussion that there is duplication of efforts in different learning environments. We hope that through new voices from various areas, LCB can be a place to share best practices and learn from each other.
Collaborative Practices. Much has been said about how blogs are a powerful learning tool We think so too and plan to use LCB as a workshop to demonstrate and experiment with new types of collaborate practices in a blog. In other words we intend to practice what we preach.
Enhance Participation. Blogs are at their best when everyone is involved, so we’re taking steps to encourage everyone to participate. We’ll have flash polls to get feedback on topics we’re discussing, sweepstakes for those who post comments, and working with the author team to assure posts are written to be provocative and welcoming of commentary. We’ll also have a subscription service to keep you informed of changes on the site and, of course.
New Blogmeister. Finally, Dave Lee will be taking over the reigns from Jay Cross for the administrativeaspects of LCB. Dave has worked on both sides of the vendor/consumer table with eLearning and has 16 years of building innovative educational programs for corporate, higher educational and international markets.
We hope these changes will make Learning CircuitsBlog a community you’ll want to be an active participant in. We welcome and need your input into these changes and any other you’d care to suggest. Drop Dave an email at david_c_lee@mac.com to make suggestions or volunteer to help out.
Hit the comment button and let us know what you think.
Monday, January 31
Email posting
We're in the final countdown period for the Learning Circuits Blog.
This post is coming in via email. I'm sending it via Gmail and am
curious to see what it looks like.
Sound, too.
jay
This post is coming in via email. I'm sending it via Gmail and am
curious to see what it looks like.
Sound, too.
jay
Friday, January 21
Why we're here
Welcome to Learning Circuits Blog:
* This blog is dedicated to sharing ideas and opinions about the state of learning and technology.
* Please use it to launch trial balloons,debate with others, and challenge assumptions.
* Join us in sharing pointers to new and interesting stuff.
* Continue the discussion of issues raised in Learning Circuits
* Raise questions you'd like the Learning Circuits community to answer.
* This blog is dedicated to sharing ideas and opinions about the state of learning and technology.
* Please use it to launch trial balloons,debate with others, and challenge assumptions.
* Join us in sharing pointers to new and interesting stuff.
* Continue the discussion of issues raised in Learning Circuits
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Wednesday, January 5
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Stuff Only a Geek Would Love
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#1: This is not the place for commercials or purely self-serving posts. The Blogmeiser and Yoda reserve the right to erase any posts they feel like.
#2: Only the designate members of the blog team can create a post on LCB. However, everyone can comment on posts and are encouraged to do so.
#3: You want to blog here? Email the Blogmeister a paragraph saying what you can contribute.
#4: We want a healthy and fun dialogue on this site. Please avoid personal attack, flaming another member of the community, or throughing dead flowers.
#5: Try to keep your posts and/or comments as brief and focused as possible. No one wants to read through long, draw out, meandering, unfocused, using-to-many-adjectives posts
Stuff Only a Geek Would Love
Learning Circuits Blog is hosted on a free Blogger account. Thank you, Google.
We use Feedburner to generate our RSS. (Click the XML chicket for more info).
Monday, May 13
Curiously, Clark and I don't seem to know for certain whether we "furiously" agree or not. This seems rather typical of the whole learning business. I tend to agree with Clark that we do agree! The problem is that at different times we are probably referring to different phenomena. My suggestions were very general, pointing towards the overall strategy for handling a variety of content, which I see as process (transforming input into output). I also glanced at questions of content selection in the light of cultural variation. When we focus on specific content needs, particularly the "learning objects" we hope to find somewhere or need to produce ourselves, we are faced with these cultural problems, which, as Clark points out, constitute helps or hindrances depending on 1) the profile of the individual learner 2) the trainer's awareness or even real knowledge of that profile. I think a lot of work needs to be done on both at the same time. I don't believe we have any valid human models yet for dealing with this efficiently (i.e. converting information into effective strategy) and everyone else (i.e. the knowledge management specialists) seems to be focused on structuring the information. I believe that this is only the first step and may need some guidance from the strategy side to develop the right structural models.
A new theme occurred to me today and I have no idea what it's worth or how far it can be taken, so for the sake of my own ongoing reflection I'll state it here (I need to set it down somewhere!) and await any constructive or, why not, destructive criticism. It is curiously linked to the bee in Clark's bonnet, but inverted (the stinger is on the other end!). The notion has to do with the teacher’s or trainer’s state of knowledge -- not the learner’s -- before and after a course. I am not, however, suggesting pre- and post-testing! I am suggesting that it should evolve, almost as much as the learner’s state of knowledge and that we should take an interest in tracking this evolution. The context I am referring to is that of collaborative online learning. This wouldn’t be the same thing for traditional face-to-face teaching (but see my final remarks below), and even less so for pre-programmed eLearning (which I see increasingly as isolated or modular learning objects, whose meaning and impact derive from the variable contexts in which they are used more than from their internal merits).
My notion is that of a kind of open or “improvisational teaching”, a strategy that specifically aims at learning to teach a particular course by teaching it, after defining its overall structure and logic. It proceeds from two observations:
1) no one can fully anticipate what will happen in the learning process, particularly in distance learning,
2) we do not necessarily know in advance what resources, among all that are available, will prove the most productive for real learners (in all their cultural variety).
My notion of improvisation is borrowed from jazz, one of my previous occupations*. To be good at improvising, you have to learn not only the art of soloing (which you at least partly invent), but you must also know the chord changes (+ variations) of the tunes you are playing, the chosen style for each number, your precise role in the ensemble sections and, especially if you are accompanying rather than just soloing, have a good idea of the style and system of each of the other players. These multiple constraints nevertheless leave you free to discover through playing the things that work and don’t work both in general and specifically with regard to each type of musical event. The most interesting thing about working with other musicians is what you learn from them each time you rehearse or play. And of course the more you play a particular tune, the easier it gets to keep it going and to find ways of innovating and surprising without upsetting the underlying logic and the other musicians.
In short, I’m in favor of under-planning one’s course strategies and leaving room to for us to learn from the learners themselves. Actually it’s less under-planning than avoiding over-planning. This means, without sacrificing one’s “authority”, learning how to encourage the learners to bring things to you (discovery of appropriate resources you may not have been aware of, new ideas or ways of looking at the material, patterns or sequences of behavior that produce learning more effectively than your initial game plan). In other words, we should seek to be instructional co-designers rather than instructional designers.
It might be said that what I’m describing is a form of beta testing. But its implications are very different. You beta test something that is fully designed down to the last detail. What I’m suggesting is a system in which we as trainers and designers are actively concerned, at least the first time around, to integrate elements that come from the learners, or rather our own interaction with the learners. This can obviously only apply to collaborative training. But it can lead to strategies for producing learning objects. Much needs to be said on how to conduct this approach (how to create the overall model, how to manage events, how to communicate with learners, how to react to embarrassing mistakes, how to make permanent or replicable everything one learns, etc.).
After a brief search on the web, I found that David Hammer of the University of Maryland, in a context of traditional face-to-face instruction, calls a similar approach “discovery teaching” and identifies some of the areas of resistance to it by teachers. My contention is that it is less risky and more appropriate in an online environment. It is also easier to structure, plan and capitalize on.
* I ended up living in Paris because, after participating in a free-for-all jam session organized by Steve Lacy at the American Center nearly 30 years ago, I was offered a permanent job as a pianist (accompanying dance classes at the Université de Paris) and accepted it in order to become fluent in French!
Saturday, May 11
(originally posted by Clark Quinn)
Well, I really want to reply to Peter, but right now I've got a bee up my bonnet, and I want to vent (how's that for mixing my metaphors?). I'll get to Peter's comments in a moment...
In recent work, I've reliably been coming up against a requirement for a pre-test. And I can't for the life of me figure out why, they're not using the data to do anything but compare it to the post-test! This didn't make any sense to me, so, I did a Google search to see what came up. In "Going Beyond Smile Sheets... How Do We Know If Training Is Effective?" by Jeanie McKay, NOVA Quality Communications, I came across this quote:
[Level Two] To evaluate learning, each participant should be measured by quantitative means. A pre-test and post-test should be administered so that any learning that takes place gets attributed to the training program. Without a baseline for comparison of the as-is, you will never be able to reveal exactly how much knowledge has been obtained.
Now I don't blame Jeanie here, I'm sure this is the received wisdom, but I want to suggest two reasons why this is ridiculous. First, from the learner's point of view, having to do a pre-test for content you're going to have to complete anyway is just cruel. Particularly if the test is long (in a particular case, it's 20 items). The *only* reason I can see to do this is if you use that information to drop out any content that the learner already knows. That would make sense, but it's not happening in this case, and probably in too many others.
Second, it's misleading to claim that the pre-test is necessary to assess learning. In the first place, you should have done the work to justify that this training is needed, and know your audience, so you should have already established that they require this material. Then, you should design your post-test so that it adequately measures whether they know the material at the end. Consequently, it doesn't matter how well they knew it beforehand. It might make sense to justify the quality of the content, but even that's falacious. We expect improvement in pre-post test designs (this is forbidden in psychology as a mechanism to determine the effectiveness of an intervention, without a control group), so it doesn't really measure the quality of the content. Though it could be considered a benefit to the learning outcome, there are better ways to accomplish this. There is no value of the pre-test in these situations, and consequently it's cruel and unusual punishment for the learner and should be considered unlawful.
OK, I feel better now, having gotten that off my chest. So, on to Peter's comments. I agree that we want rich content, but if we have the current redundancy to address all learners, we risk being boring to all to make sure everyone's learning style is covered. We *could* provide navigation support through the different components of content to allow learners to choose their own path (and I have). That works fine with empowered learners, but that currently characterizes no more than about half the population. The rest want hand-holding (and that's what we did), but that leaves the redundancy.
Which, frankly, is better than most content (although UNext had/has a similar scheme). However, I'm suggesting that we optimize the learning to the learner. I'm not arguing to assess their cultural identity, but to understand the full set of capabilities they bring to bear as a learner (my cultural point is that we're better off understanding them as individuals, not using a broad cultural stereotype to assume we understand them). That is, for some we might start with an example, rather than the 'rule' or 'concept'. For some we might even start with practice. We might also present some with stories, others with comic strips or videos. Morever, we drop out bits and pieces. A rallying cry: Use what we know to choose what to show. Yes, additional steps in content development are required to do this (see my IFETS paper), but the argument is that the payoff is huge...
The assessment is indeed a significant task, but in a long-term relationship with the learner, we can do something particularly valuable. If we know what their strengths and weaknesses are, as a learner, we can use the former to accelerate their learning, and we can also take time and address the latter. A simple approach would be to present 'difficult' content with some support that, over time, would be internalized and improve the learner's capabilities. Improving the learner as a learner, now THAT's a worthwhile goal!
I strongly support Peter's suggestion that using a rich world as a source for embedding (or extracting) learning to make it meaningful is ultimately valid, and the base of much of my work on making learning engaging. We may be agreeing furiously, except that I may not have made what I meant by learner assessment clear.
In answer to Peter's query, I'm sad to report that we have not, and can not, publish on the 31 dimensions. I can only suggest the path we took: using Jonassen & Grabowski's Handbook of Individual Differences as an uncritical survey of potential candidates, as well as other likely suspects from any other source your research uncovers, then to make some sensible inferences to remove redundancies (much as the 'Big 5' personality factor work attempts to make sense of personality constructs). Make sure you cover the gamut of things that might influence learning, including cognitive, affective, and personality factors.
Well, I really want to reply to Peter, but right now I've got a bee up my bonnet, and I want to vent (how's that for mixing my metaphors?). I'll get to Peter's comments in a moment...
In recent work, I've reliably been coming up against a requirement for a pre-test. And I can't for the life of me figure out why, they're not using the data to do anything but compare it to the post-test! This didn't make any sense to me, so, I did a Google search to see what came up. In "Going Beyond Smile Sheets... How Do We Know If Training Is Effective?" by Jeanie McKay, NOVA Quality Communications, I came across this quote:
[Level Two] To evaluate learning, each participant should be measured by quantitative means. A pre-test and post-test should be administered so that any learning that takes place gets attributed to the training program. Without a baseline for comparison of the as-is, you will never be able to reveal exactly how much knowledge has been obtained.
Now I don't blame Jeanie here, I'm sure this is the received wisdom, but I want to suggest two reasons why this is ridiculous. First, from the learner's point of view, having to do a pre-test for content you're going to have to complete anyway is just cruel. Particularly if the test is long (in a particular case, it's 20 items). The *only* reason I can see to do this is if you use that information to drop out any content that the learner already knows. That would make sense, but it's not happening in this case, and probably in too many others.
Second, it's misleading to claim that the pre-test is necessary to assess learning. In the first place, you should have done the work to justify that this training is needed, and know your audience, so you should have already established that they require this material. Then, you should design your post-test so that it adequately measures whether they know the material at the end. Consequently, it doesn't matter how well they knew it beforehand. It might make sense to justify the quality of the content, but even that's falacious. We expect improvement in pre-post test designs (this is forbidden in psychology as a mechanism to determine the effectiveness of an intervention, without a control group), so it doesn't really measure the quality of the content. Though it could be considered a benefit to the learning outcome, there are better ways to accomplish this. There is no value of the pre-test in these situations, and consequently it's cruel and unusual punishment for the learner and should be considered unlawful.
OK, I feel better now, having gotten that off my chest. So, on to Peter's comments. I agree that we want rich content, but if we have the current redundancy to address all learners, we risk being boring to all to make sure everyone's learning style is covered. We *could* provide navigation support through the different components of content to allow learners to choose their own path (and I have). That works fine with empowered learners, but that currently characterizes no more than about half the population. The rest want hand-holding (and that's what we did), but that leaves the redundancy.
Which, frankly, is better than most content (although UNext had/has a similar scheme). However, I'm suggesting that we optimize the learning to the learner. I'm not arguing to assess their cultural identity, but to understand the full set of capabilities they bring to bear as a learner (my cultural point is that we're better off understanding them as individuals, not using a broad cultural stereotype to assume we understand them). That is, for some we might start with an example, rather than the 'rule' or 'concept'. For some we might even start with practice. We might also present some with stories, others with comic strips or videos. Morever, we drop out bits and pieces. A rallying cry: Use what we know to choose what to show. Yes, additional steps in content development are required to do this (see my IFETS paper), but the argument is that the payoff is huge...
The assessment is indeed a significant task, but in a long-term relationship with the learner, we can do something particularly valuable. If we know what their strengths and weaknesses are, as a learner, we can use the former to accelerate their learning, and we can also take time and address the latter. A simple approach would be to present 'difficult' content with some support that, over time, would be internalized and improve the learner's capabilities. Improving the learner as a learner, now THAT's a worthwhile goal!
I strongly support Peter's suggestion that using a rich world as a source for embedding (or extracting) learning to make it meaningful is ultimately valid, and the base of much of my work on making learning engaging. We may be agreeing furiously, except that I may not have made what I meant by learner assessment clear.
In answer to Peter's query, I'm sad to report that we have not, and can not, publish on the 31 dimensions. I can only suggest the path we took: using Jonassen & Grabowski's Handbook of Individual Differences as an uncritical survey of potential candidates, as well as other likely suspects from any other source your research uncovers, then to make some sensible inferences to remove redundancies (much as the 'Big 5' personality factor work attempts to make sense of personality constructs). Make sure you cover the gamut of things that might influence learning, including cognitive, affective, and personality factors.
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