SpotLearning

6 Uncommon Reasons to Create an Online Portfolio

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 26 Jul 2016 10:56:00 +0000

If you're like me, life gets really, really busy and there are some things that go unattended. Aside from my LinkedIn profile, my online presence has been one of the things that has suffered over the past couple of years.

Don't get me wrong. I've continued to stay connected with professional and personal friends, engaged in relevant conversations online, written a few articles, presented at a few conferences, and in general been a pretty consistent digital consumer over the past couple of years. What's been suffering is my role as an active content creator and curator. Most of my curation has happened inside the walled garden of the company I work for--an important audience, to be sure, but a much smaller audience, and therefore, a much smaller conversation.

And I think I've got important things to discuss with you! My recent thoughts and explorations have been pushing on the edges of some exciting spaces, including the social construction of learning, effective use of mobile for learning and performance, and the incidental capture and use of learning/performance data (as a catalyst for decision-making, selection, and professional development). I'd love to talk with you about these things!

As I've been thinking of sharing some thoughts around these topics, it's occurred to me that articles and presentations, though an important part of the conversation, simply aren't enough--they are one-directional. Because I'm really interested in sparking asynchronous conversations, I want to share (and receive) more. I need to more effectively articulate my thoughts and internal conversations about these topics.

Photo by Don McCollough

I think I need a portfolio--something that can help convey the twists and turns of the ideas themselves, as well as ideas about ideas. I want that portfolio to foster conversation with others. I know the only way for that to happen is to make it easy: easy to consume and digest the basic ideas, and easy to engage in conversations around them. I envision a space that frames the conversation and then invites responses by video, text, tweet, posted response, or comment--all hosted on the preferred platform of the respondent and aggregated in the portfolio.

I may set out to build a framework to accomplish this or I may find one to adopt, but before I venture into tools and solution designreasons I would use a portfolio. Of course, someone looking for a job (internal or external) could immediately benefit from a portfolio, but here are some other reasons I think a portfolio is the time investment:

1. Help spark a conversation. As mentioned above, I want to have conversations around the ideas I'm exploring. By showing samples and illustrations of concepts, frameworks, and models, others interested in engaging in that conversation can pursue deeper engagement in the topics. It's a key benefit to what Jane Bozarth refers to as "Working Out Loud" in her book Show Your Work.

2. Actively cultivate design skills. Design, especially visual design, is a skill that requires hands-on practice. Connie Malamed does a great job coaching learning designers (which I am at my core) in visual design in her book Visual Design Solutions.

3. Work through ideas. Sometimes, something I think I understand completely becomes rather difficult to explain without the context I hold almost as tacit knowledge. This is particularly true of inventions and models. The process of portfolio-making requires us to think through conveyance of ideas and to meet head-on those sticky points where others tilt their heads and raise their eyebrows.

4. Get feedback and critique. In addition to leveraging your portfolio as a catalyst for conversations, you should try to get feedback on your work. Designs of all kinds need user feedback at all phases. By the time you get your idea ready to share in a portfolio,

5. Self-critique. As you pull your ideas into some semblance of conveyable thought, you'll sometimes find holes in the idea itself. The portfolio is a way to quality-check your own work, and to work through issues on the way toward sharing and conversing.

6. Actively develop new skills. To work as a communication and conversation tool, a portfolio needs to have a dynamic nature of its own. You'll need to use different media to effectively convey different ideas, and you'll need to use tools to inject the right level of interactivity. Of course, in this process, you'll acquire new skills.

In the end, some of what you get out of life results from what you put into it. The economy of ideas is a tricky space sometimes, and its important to consider what is ready (and appropriate) for sharing and what's not. Finding the right balance can be challenging, but a portfolio, I'm convinced, is one way to get there.

xAPI Privacy Questions with Aaron Silvers

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 17 Feb 2015 01:40:00 +0000

Aaron Silvers has been a leader in the Experience API (xAPI or 'TinCan') community for years. In fact, if you know about xAPI, it's a pretty good guess that Aaron had a hand in you learning about it.

But even if you don't know about xAPI, you should care. It's one of those big-dot-deals that will let learning practitioners drill to the crux of things: performance.

For the past couple of years, Aaron and others in the xAPI community have guided me along the road to better understanding the potential xAPI has to be a truly transformative technological framework for the Learning and Performance community.

But I have questions.

As we arrive in a world where data increasingly has power and value, I imagine my own experiences being captured and analyzed and exchanged as part of a bigger data set--a sort of currency that describes the path I took to performance, along with minute details of my life. While I have no concerns about employers or others with whom I've entered into agreements using this data, what happens when a third-party analytics company gets ahold of it? Do they have a right to use it? Do others, who legitimately captured this data for reasons I agreed to now have the right to sell it?

My friend, Aaron Silvers, has a perspective on this. I feel quite fortunate that he was willing and able to share it with me:

Aaron can be found at many learning industry events, and online at http://makingbetter.us/blog/.

You can learn more about xAPI at adlnet.gov.

Visual Communication is a Core Competency

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 10 Feb 2015 17:01:00 +0000

e-Learning expert Tom Kuhlmann recently posted an article called "Essential Guide to Visual Thinking for E-Learning" in which he shared links to a number of great resources on Visual Thinking.

Tom's post got me thinking about the importance of visual thinking and how so many of my influencers would probably consider visual thinking among their most valuable competencies.

These are people who are tops in their areas of focus: consultants, authors, speakers, inventors, entrepreneurs, and true thought leaders (not self-proclaimed). It makes a lot of sense that visual thinking would be so consistently prized among them. They are, after all, thinking beyond the norm; connecting ideas and concepts that may have never before been connected. Having a visual way to do this is bound to facilitate the kinds of expansive thinking in which they so often engage.

I've heard it said that people can generally process pictures and symbols faster than they can read and interpret words. What's more, if you're explaining something and you show an image that visually conveys your ideas along with your words, isn't it easier for people to understand the ideas and concepts you're sharing? We need only to look back on our own experiences to confirm this is true.

So why not invest in our own visual communication competency? And where better to start than visual thinking?

Reading the article reminded me of the "40 Days of Doodling Challenge" posed by a number of my friends. It essentially works like this:

1. Learn something about visual thinking and visual communication (that's where the article comes in, but there are many, many other resources to draw from).

2. Every day for 40 days, draw something to convey a concept or idea that you would normally express in words.

3. Post your drawings to social media. (This helps you get feedback and encouragement, as well as encourages your friends to improve their own competency as well.) You don't have to post them all, but of course, if you do, you'll create a handy visual reference to your progress.

The thing is, you don't have to be an artist to do the 40 Days of Doodling Challenge; it's not about drawing pretty pictures, but rather, using simple images to convey ideas.

Why 40 days? The idea is that if you do something for 40 days, you'll get comfortable enough with it to form a habit. I do, however, know some folks who are doing 100 Days of Doodling, and it's easy to see that their skills are improving even more, and they seem to be having more fun!

If you read this article and watch the linked videos, you'll have been exposed to the basic concepts you need to begin your own 40 Days of Doodling Challenge.

In the end, you'll never regret improving your own visual communication and visual thinking competencies, and you'll find that you use these skills virtually every day and in almost every aspect of your life.

Visual Thinking and Design Books I Like: (from newest to oldest)

Malamed, Connie. "Visual Design Solutions: Principles and Creative Inspiration for Learning Professionals," 2015.

Brown, Sunni. "The Doodle Revolution: Unlock the Power to Think Differently", 2014

Rohde, Michael. "The Sketchnote Handbook: the illustrated guide to visual note taking," 2012.

Malamed, Connie. "Visual Language for Designers: Principles for Creating Graphics that People Understand", 2011.

xAPI Privacy Questions: Who Should Own My Experience Data?

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 25 Jan 2015 17:13:00 +0000

Years ago I was involved with a company that dealt with medical informatics. Among other things, this small firm was building an innovative Electronic Health Record (EHR); this was not too many years after the passage of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), and the design team faced some interesting questions about the data they would be capturing. While the need to manage the privacy of the data was not in question, the ownership of the data was.

Think about it: I'm a patient. The data is just representations of my health, so in a sense, I generated the data. Shouldn't it belong to me, almost in the sense of a unique composition of music belonging to the author?

Experience data is or can be as personal as health information. It is, after all, a reflection of life choices, thoughts, and performance. While a company paying me to take an e-learning course may have some de facto right to use the captured scores from assessments, as we move toward a more distributed model of experience information capture, who else should have the right to see that information?

Does a prospective employer have the right to scan my xAPI records and infer certain thinking patterns and qualities based on an analysis of my choices, learning outcomes, and other experiences? Could that be part of the application process they require of prospective employees? Will they need a waiver from me--a HIPAA-like consent document?

A simple illustration of experience data in action:

Google is capturing a lot of information about my behavior. Here's a map of where I traveled one Saturday, courtesy of Google location services on my Android phone and Google Location History (https://maps.google.com/locationhistory/b/0).

Between the timestamp, GPS, and distance information, I can quickly see a picture of how "fast" I rode my bike in the morning. And there's pretty good evidence here that I went to watch the Norfolk Tides beat Pawtucket 3 to 1.

I choose to share this information with Google. I see a fair exchange. I'm getting value from their network collecting detailed information about my activities when they turn that into information I can use. And they extract insight from my data that enables them, on a grander scale, to identify patterns of human behavior, which they use to generate revenue through targeted ad sales, marketing insights, services, and much, much more. Information is the currency that fuels their business model. I'm sure they'd like to get their hands on the details of performance that will someday be generated by my xAPI data. And yours.

The questions that linger with me are: Who will be able to sell them that information? And in the end, who has the right to decide if and how they can use it?

Other thoughts on data ownership:

My friend, Aaron Silvers has been quite involved in xAPI for years; you can read some of his recent thoughts on this topic here.

Is "Forty Days of Dating" the New Soap Format?

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 19 Jul 2013 20:43:00 +0000

Just happened upon this really interesting project. The web design is compelling, but what really strikes me is the transition of the medium to the web: this is essentially a drama (soap opera) played out over time, and then formatted into a compelling story and released over time. Really interesting format to generate interest.

FYI, there is some PG-13+ language used in some parts of the dialog.

The content may not be representative of what we'll be watching in the future, but the format may be.

http://fortydaysofdating.com/

Take a gander; then come back here and let me know your thoughts.

Reminds me of Jason Merkoski's questions about the future of reading. Here we have a story, based on real experiences, that is primarily in written form, but played out over time. The authors are the actors (though they're not really acting), as well as the designers.

Is design skill the new essential for authors? Me thinks there is a change in the wind.

Jerry Seinfeld loves e-Learning!

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 12:25:00 +0000

It came to me in a dream last night, but it was just as real as the Gucci handbag I'll be sporting on my way into work this morning: Jerry Seinfeld absolutely loves e-Learning!

I first noticed him pulling bags from the trunk of his car as my son and a new friend we'd just met were walking down the quiet Manhattan street. I thought I recognized him from somewhere, but his name didn't immediately pop into my head.

"Joe!" he hollered out as we walked past the front of his nondescript sedan. "Jerry. Jerry Seinfeld." It all came rushing back. I had met Jerry at an e-Learning conference the year before. He'd inserted himself into every conversation about e-Learning that he could find, hanging out in the lobby bar until way past midnight to talk about practical, but fun ways to leverage social media for learning, how reusable learning objects may just have arrived before their time, and whether or not tracking informal learning transmuted it into formal learning.

"Hi Jerry, what have you been up to?" I piped back at him, turning to focus, at least for a moment.

"Oh, the usual, telling jokes to throngs of adoring fans. Nothing exciting, really. But what about you? What have you been doing? Have you built any new courses? Get your hands on any new tools? What about Storyline? What's that all about? I keep seeing references to it on the blogs and it sounds really exciting."

"Lots of questions, Jerry. Well, yes, I've been doing a ton of courses and my team--they've been really rocking the learning scene at Amerigroup, putting together really interesting stuff on clinical quality management topics like HEDIS, NCQA accreditation, and Continuous Quality Improvement. They did a course on Sickle Cell Disease and another on HIV. Actually, we just had a bunch of courses get national accreditation. But really, we're still up against the same challenges that we talked about last time. How do you crank out really good courses quicker and quicker?"

"e-Learning, Joe! e-Learning is the answer. I can't get enough of it!"

"Yeah, I remember you're a pretty big fan."

"Who wouldn't be? The infographics, the scenarios, the stories--and the jokes."

"Gotta have those jokes."

"No more page-turners!"

"Couldn't agree more, Jerry. Hey, it was great seeing you. We're headin' over to the park to hang out, so I'd better get going."

"Great seeing you too, Joe. We should get together again. Are you going to any e-Learning conferences next year?"

"Yeah, I've got a couple lined up. I'm going to the Guild conference in the Spring."

"I'm going to the Guild conference too--Learning Solutions 2012! I already registered and booked a flight! Hey, is Jane going to be there? Let's get together with Jane!"

"I'm sure she'll be there, Jerry. Why don't we try to set up a dinner one night and try to get everyone together so we can talk e-learning like old times."

"Awesome! I can't wait!"

As I turned around, I realized the kids (my son surprisingly younger in my dream than he is in real life) had already made their way to the park ahead of me, so I hurried off to find them hanging out at the monkey bars. "Who was that, dad."

"That was Jerry Seinfeld."

"Must be one of those e-Learning geeks," my son told his new friend. "My dad knows a lot of e-Learning geeks."

"Yep. He's one of those e-Learning geeks," I confirmed. I realized I was starting to think of him in the context of those friends I see a few times a year at conferences and online talking about the same things that interest me for the rest of the year. Seldom in person, but always very near.

As I reflected on the encounter, I remembered that Jerry was known throughout the world for engaging audiences, and that he'd only recently been drawn to e-Learning as a passion and a hobby. I thought of how the old, page-turner models we used to over-use would repel him just as quickly as really interesting e-Learning attracted him to the field. It reminded me that as we plan and design e-Learning solutions, it would pay us to consider how it would impact the average learner. It makes sense for us to constantly ask ourselves how they'll react to each part of the course or module. Before we go forward building any new design, we should ask ourselves: "What would Jerry do?"

Open Clip Art Library

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 03 Apr 2011 04:13:00 +0000

Stumbled upon a fairly significant library of open source clip art at openclipart.org. Simple search features, vector images, and all in the public domain. What more could you want?

Here's a screenshot of a simple search I did that yielded a couple pages of presidential images:

The site, which was started back in 2004 boasts hundreds of thousands of images available. Maybe you have some you'd like to contribute too. :-)

Editing MS Vector Clipart in Inkscape

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 03 Apr 2011 03:32:00 +0000

I'm working on a new learning model and I needed a vector graphics tool to help me produce a visual representation of the model. I came across Inkscape, with which I'm quite impressed. It's an open source product that strives to capture some of the functionality of Illustrator, Corel Draw, and Visio. It appears to do most of what I need. One of the great things I realized while playing with Inkscape was the ability to pull a vector image in from the Microsoft Clipart library and edit it in Inkscape. Just copying from PowerPoint won't bring over the vectors; instead, you must copy the item from the clipart library, as shown here.

Then, just Paste in Inkscape and the individual vector pieces are placed. The image below shows where I've updated an avatar with a better wardrobe and hair style. I also changed his eye color and moved the corners of his mouth down in protest. '-) Inkscape produces SVG graphics, so the edited images looked nice and clean in Inkscape; I just did a copy and paste back into PowerPoint to illustrate the changes. Here are a couple of samples in Inkscape. Context menus provide you plenty of options, including the ability to ungroup grouped vectors:

Below, you can see that vectors come through quite well and can easily be modified.

Again, for my needs, it's a pretty robust tool...and certainly worth investigating.

Have fun! Joe

Learner Engagement

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 19 Feb 2011 12:57:00 +0000

I've been spending the last year focused on two key topics: creativity and learner engagement. Fortunately, I've found that a lot of others are focused on these topics.

Mid-year in 2010, I did a session on Autonomous Engagement and introduced a concept I call "the five opportunities" framework for autonomous learning. The opportunities are:

Assess - learners gain an awareness of their autonomy and the opportunity for self-direction.

Introspect - learners need opportunities to determine what is important, especially at the beginning of the learning, and to construct complex meaning throughout the learning.

Engage - Experience-based activities provide the grounds for proof, as well self-validation of competency.

Reflect - Reconsideration throughout the learning helps learners determine what should be integrated and how. It also helps them decide what to forget.

Share - We all are compelled to make contributions and become advocates for the ideas that we share.

I've shared this model with about 400 people now and it's generated a bit of buzz at conferences and in online sessions. I'd be interested in your thoughts...and would be happy to flesh out more details.

PLENK2010 - Personal Learning Environments

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 00:03:00 +0000

Stephen Downes, George, Siemens, Dave Cormier, and Rita Kop are conducting a "course" in September that may interest you...it certainly interests me!

It's an experience centered around Personal Learning Environments Networks and Knowledge (PLENK); it's for the serious learner, from what I gather...and if my guess is right as to the reach of the participants, it's likely to result in some significant advancement and awareness of PLNs.

For information on how it works and what it's all about, start here. If it works for you, I'll see you there. I'll blog here through the experience; if you do, remember to include the hastag #PLENK2010 in whatever you create.

e-Learning DevCon Insights

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 17:18:00 +0000

I'm speaking at eLearning DevCon 2010 this week for the first time. I've heard about this conference for years, but this is my first trip here. I have to say that it's been a great experience.

Smaller venue that some of the bigger conferences, and much fewer attendees--about 300+, according to the opening session.

The networking has been great, as virtually everyone at the conference is interested in e-learning development. Sessions are fewer, but the topics are more focused on development and related concepts.

Particularly enjoyed Brian Chapman's keynote, which while it was future-focused, was mainly informative around what some larger companies have been doing to solve key problems, especially social learning challenges. Also Nick Floro has done a bunch of really good sessions. Tatiana Chapira also had a nice session on prototyping this morning and will be doing another on "bite-sized learning" later.

Overall, this is a nice conference and well worth consideration. The hands-on sessions are a great way to pick up some competency quickly.

Twitter hashtag: #EDC10, which apparently is someone's twitter name too. Oops.

The 12 Tutorials of the Promised Land (sorta...)

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 04 May 2010 15:51:00 +0000

Okay, so I may have gotten a little carried away with the headline, but our buddy Tom Kuhlmann has just posted another great article pointing to 12 tutorials that walk you through an approach to creating engaging, interactive e-learning.

Definitely worth a read: The Rapid e-Learning Blog

e-Learning Salary Survey

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 04 May 2010 14:38:00 +0000

The e-Learning Guild released findings from it's 2010US Salary Survey today...among the highlights:

- The average salary of a person who lives in the United States and works in e-Learning is $79,252.

- Salaries of e-learning pro's continue to rise, even against a poor economy.

- Still appears to be considerable gender inequity, with men making more than women.

- Contractor salaries are are relatively weak when compared with full-time employees and factoring in benefits.

This is my off-the-cuff summary a couple hours after reading the report. If you want the details and you're a Guild member, it's here. If you're not a member, you may want to search for other, more detailed summaries...or join the Guild for full access.

Sentence Diagramming

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 02:28:00 +0000

Here is a nicely done instructional video on sentence diagramming. It's part of a series on this topic.

What really jazzes me about this series is the simplicity: these are just a bunch of videos...but because of the content, your brain is compelled to apply the lessons as you go...making them even more powerful!

The other interesting thing is that by reading the comments, it's clear that these are very helpful to a number of learners.

I can think of a handful of ways this could be improved instructionally, but as components of learning, these simple explanations are excellent!

Google Wave Book

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 11:40:00 +0000

Okay, I'll admit it...even though I have a Google Wave account, I haven't done much with it.

So I'm excited to learn about this guide. It claim comprehensivity, which I don't doubt at all. But perhaps the most interesting thing about the book to non-Wavers is the publishing model. You will note, when you follow the link, that the book's contents are freely available online, but you also can purchase the book, if you like.

I really like this model. It's a nice balance between openness and entrepreneurial thinking. While I might not shell over the bucks for this specific book, there are plenty that I want to have in my hand as I apply the concepts and the learning.

Open Source e-Learning Tools

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 21:17:00 +0000

Great post by Michael Hanley on the e-Learning Curve blog. You made the blogroll.

Learning Leaders Launched

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 17:12:00 +0000

Just launched a new "pod-blog" project called "The Learning Leaders."

The first interview is with Brent Schlenker of the e-Learning Guild. He's got some great insights on the future of learning and some of the things we should give a listen to.

Jump in and join the conversation...and let me know if you have some others you'd like to hear from on "The Learning Leaders."

Thanks, Joe

Spot Learning: the book

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 22:36:00 +0000

So, I'm caving in to my inner scribe. I've decided to take the plunge and write another book. It's not that I'm a glutton for punishment or that I can't stand to have down time; the problem is that we are in a really important transition and a lot of people don't know how to handle it.

We are moving from a monolithic ivory-towered training paradigm where all knowledge, processes, and expertise is filtered down to a more distributed, real-time, learned-this-earlier-today sourcing of learning content...and candidly, it's a scary space to navigate for many otherwise very competent learning pros.

On the flipside, those who blindly dive into this transition with a jump-first; then-check-for-parachute mentality are doomed to failure or harm--not out of ill-intent; you just don't know what you don't know.

"Spot Learning" will bridge the gap and bring together much rational thinking about this shift we find ourselves in. I'm sure I'll test out many ideas here, so don't hesitate to weigh in.

The conversation is young, and your ideas are relevant.

Finding Fellow Tweeters

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 00:30:00 +0000

Whether you are interested in e-learning or little league baseball, there are people out there who want to talk to you...whether you know it or not. Fortunately, there are some tools that will help you find each other so you can wile away the wee hours talking about things that nobody outside your virtual circles could quite possibly be interested in.

Here are some of the tools that bring like-minded Tweeters together:

Twellow - one of my personal favorites, this tool quickly returns lists based on location, industry, and keyword search, and lets you follow with a click. While I haven't personally used it for prospecting, it looks promising for that purpose.

Nearby Tweets - lets you find Tweeple near you...or anywhere really.

TwitterPacks - find Twitter groups by interest.

TwitterLocal - an Adobe AIR application that lets you filter tweets by location.

TweetMondo - cool visual application with a map (I like gadgety stuff)

ChirpCity - city-specific tweets and tweeple...good for a quick peak at the local twittersphere

Local Tweeps - find and get found

Another great way to find other Tweeters is by the conversation.

TweetChat - lets you follow any conversation by its hash tag.

Tweetbeep - gives you Twitter alerts by e-mail when conversations mention you, your company, your products...or anything else; so if you're tracking a hot topic, like "spot learning", you can find out who else is talking about it...quickly.

Social Certification

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 22:01:00 +0000

Great posting over at Search Engine Watch by Erik Qualman in which he describes key statistics from Social Media.

One of the implications is that we ultimately will see a change in the construction of learning content from being centered around institutional processes to evolving out of individual and socially collaborative processes. And perhaps we'll even how some certifications are granted.

Imagine, if you will, a social certification of sorts where individuals rate others on special competencies. Say, for example, you do some killer SEO work for me and I give you a 5-star rating. Why wouldn't that rating be more relevant than your MEd from Indiana...at least as it relates to SEO work.

I'm not saying certificates are bad; I'm just thinking the world is moving too fast for anything but the social internet to keep up with the changes, and if I want a Google Wave-proficient programmer, there's no way today to be sure I'm getting one aside from the certification of experience.

In the meantime, I advise you to get your portfolio updated; until we standard of social certification, that may be the best viable alternative. It's less and less about who you are and more and more about what you've done. And in the social web, it's virtually always about who ~~you know~~ knows you.

What the Economy Teaches Us About Learning

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 17:29:00 +0000

I read recently in the Wall Street Journal (subscription required) about how some fundamental assumptions of Financial Analysts are being overturned by the new economic history. Specifically, the article quoted Financial Advisor Carl Mahler introducing himself by stating "Hi. My name is Carl, and I'm a recovering asset-allocationist."

Asset allocation is a long-held strategy for diversifying investment portfolios in order to mitigate risk. Over time, models have developed that did a pretty good job of limiting the impact of general economic swings, but in recent years, the models have begun to break down. As I dug deeper into the article, it became clear that some fundamental changes in the basis of economic assumptions are at play.

This afternoon, I came across a story in the Financial Times of how British Airways and others are begging workers to work for no money...or to reduce hours, or take sabbaticals at reduced wages. The author laments: "To understand what is going on, one needs to forget all the economics one ever learnt." Again, some shifts in the underlying assumptions about the employer-employee relationship have caused changes in the landscape. The basic assumptions that one works for pay or does not work for no pay no longer hold true. Many workers are willing to work for less, or offer up free work days in exchange for a perception of better job security.

So, how does all this relate to learning?

I hold that we are in a time of fundamental paradigm shifts. People have thrown the rules out the window because they realize that the old rules no longer apply.

Think about it--in the learning business, we have come full-swing from a time when all learning was informal (think 1930's and earlier) to a period when the only learning that mattered included some sort of certification (1970's to 2006 or so), to a new model where what you can do matters more than your certificate or pedigree. Already, the people producing some of the most relevant learning are pioneers of all ages who are really subject-matter experts with neither a fear of technology nor of learning.

The new model for workers, financial analysts, and learning is one in the same: whatever works. Increasingly, we see tools that are capable of monitoring and measuring quite granular data points. We seem to be on the cusp of a world where ongoing performance metrics could be collected and aggregated, following individuals through their careers. And why not? Wouldn't this breed greater employment equity?

Some years back, I read of students who were crafting their own degree programs by leveraging online courses. They were in it for the learning and didn't care if they got the certificate or not. And in a world where performance can be measured over time, why does the certificate matter as much? It does not make you more qualified...or more certified.

The future of learning will see learning pros helping other experts produce content in more relevant ways; the learning pros will not be the guardians of the content; they will not be the sole masters of the technologies that facilitate learning. But they do play a critically important role. They are consultants who understand the learning process; they recognize that there are things that must happen to maximize the impact of learning and to minimize the cost of learning. These things can be taught...and those are the very skills we will be called upon to share with the world.

Get ready. Nothing will remain the same in this brave new world.

Where'd I Put My Brain?

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 02:04:00 +0000

Wouldn't it be nice to have a spare brain? What if your phone could take pictures or record audio and you could search either anytime you wanted to remember something...making a computer function as a memory capture and organization device?

Well, check out Evernote:

Here's a nice article that gives a quick overview...but let's think beyond that to the implications for learning:

One of the best ways to trigger memory is through activation of episodic memory, which has to do with place (either virtual or real);
All kinds of memory can be triggered by episodes.
Generally, up to 80% of what we learn is captured visually.
Generally, another 10-15% of what we learn is captured through hearing.

Hmmm...I really do need an iPhone. I wonder if, as people get older if it might be considered a medical device to assist with memory. "There's an app for that:" it's called Evernote.

Another Simple Message Design

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 13:00:00 +0000

An even more powerful message. In this case, the message itself must overpower the medium. Notice the simplicity. Simple is good.

Thanks go to Edward Harran for posting this on http://www.digitalforgood.com/.

WolframAlpha to Know Everything

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 02:32:00 +0000

Stephen Wolfram is at it again. Not satisfied to rest on his laurels after creating Mathmatica and it's several incarnations, Wolfram's company WolframAlpha is engaged in a long-term project to "make all systematic knowledge immediately computable by anyone." WolframAlpha is built on a code base that now includes over 5 million lines of symbolic Mathematica code...but according to site information, it's only getting started. And they're off to a mighty fine start!

Try for yourself. Enter a couple words. The site suggests stocks, but I tried something off-chart, like "financial analysts" and learned within a second that there are about 228,300 people who claim the title of financial analyst and their numbers are growing at a rate of almost 16% annually.

Twitter, according to WolframAlpha has 360 million "page views" each day from 47 million visitors and is the 15th highest-ranked site. Hmmm, I wonder who the others are. When I enter a phrase it doesn't know how to handle ("web ranking"), Alpha gives me a list of suggestions, including some tips for good results.

The service answers specific questions rather than giving general topics.
You can only get answers about objective facts.
It can only answer what it knows about.
It only shares (and presumably has) public information.
It likes fewer words, but specific requests.
It prefers whole words.

So, given these parameters, I decided to ask some real questions, like how debt each American owes:

us debt / us population = 26,351 per person (2007 estimate)

Oh, to go back to 2007 debt levels! ;-)

WolframAlpha will also present you with relevant formulas if you search on terms and phrases like "credit card debt," "mortgage," or "amortization." It will also try to present you with diagrams and maps where relevant.

It will even tell you the "weather in Honolulu when Barack Obama was born". It was, by the way, 76 to 86 degrees and 60% humidity on August 4, 1961 in Honolulu.

In a world, WolframAlpha, you Rock! (which happens to be a surname for 0.0069% of people.

"Everyday Inventions" from Saul Griffith (TED)

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 01:01:00 +0000

Peppermint Poo?

Starts out funny, but gets a little scary when you think of the implications of building programability in to biochemical organisms...although they're really talking about building programming into materials. Still extensible, I think...and it's 3 years old. So, the question I have is did we already make the leap and are we robots yet?