Cammy Bean's Learning Visions

Nancy Duarte: Creating Stories that Resonate #storytraining

2012-05-09T13:01:00.001-05:00

These are my live blogged notes from an eLearning Guild/Citrix presentation with Nancy Duarte, author of Resonate and Silde:ology.

The story: a likeable hero, she encounters roadblocks, she emerges transformed (the perfect three part story structure)

Organizations need to keep creating ideas to continue to reinvent themselves. The lifecycle of an org (start, grow, mature, decline)…so we need to reinvent ourselves all the time. And that’s what good presentations can do. They can spawn ideas to reinvent…

good stories make our hearts race. But there’s often a gap from storytelling to presenter…and the presenters just fall…flat.

Powerpoint so often used to present reports.

But when you have a high stakes opportunity to persuade, you need to use story.

How do you incorporate story?

Every great presentation should have a beginning, middle and end. But there needs to be a turning point between those acts.

The audience is the hero of the story. They have all the power in the room. They’ll determine your fate. The presenter is the mentor. They help the hero get unstuck, or they leave a magical tool. When someone leaves your presentation – you should be giving them something of value.

Joseph Campbell came up with an 18 part story structure: ordinary world, a call to adventure, refusal of the call, meeting with the mentor, crossing the threshold (as you persuade them…)

The shape of great speeches:

What is – what could be – and you call out the gap…

It’s like sailing – as you sail against the wind, you need to capture resistance. Think about your audience, what will they throw back at you. What will be there resistance? Plant that resistance into your presentation. Your audience will get to your point of view quicker, if you plant that resistance into your talk.

Your ending should paint the picture of what the future is going to look like. A picture of your hope.

She goes on to analyze Steve Job’s speech unveiling the iPhone.

A STAR moment “something they’ll always remember”

The stakes are higher for making better presentations! TED and Twitter…people will trash your presentation if it’s not up to par.

If you have an idea, a dream, a way to move your company forward, you need to latch onto that and share it and change the world.

Questions from the crowd:

If you’re doing product training – let’s hope you have a good product!

Nancy encourages everyone to find their passion…people won’t invest in their communication skills unless they’re passionate about what they’re communicating about…

If you’ve got to complete something in three days, odds are that the stakes aren’t that high. Instead it’s “grind this out for the planning meeting.” Categorize the importance of things and fight for the ones that are really important. When it’s really hard stakes, then fight hard for the time. And then knock it out of the park.

When you’re doing a webinar – stand up, move around, use your hands. Post pictures of people in your space to help you remember that there are people on the other side of the technology!

Make sure it’s bite size chunks of content. You need to be more interesting than their email.

Be a consumer of great communications. Watch TED talks…and then PRACTICE your skills.

For training programs where the SME wants to include everything and the kitchen sink – remind them that this isn’t a report, that we need to focus on the story.

www.duarte.com for more!

Learning to Fly

2012-05-06T13:10:00.001-05:00

A few weeks ago, after an Easter candy sugar fueled meltdown, my six year old daughter learned how to ride a bike without training wheels. In about 20 minutes.

Here’s how it went down:

“Hey, let’s take off those training wheels and see what happens…”

“Really, mom? OK…”

I held onto the back of her back a couple of times and then just let go. She was off. A few weeks later, she’s zipping up and down our street like an old pro, a face full of wild exuberance. It’s good to be a kid.

Some thoughts from her experience:

She started at the beginning and went through the paces. A tricycle for a few years, then training wheels. (scaffolded learning support)
She had my support and encouragement when we took off the wheels. I held the back of her back and quietly let go when I could tell she had balance on her side. (a gentle guide)
She was motivated. Her older brother has been riding for awhile and she likes to keep up with him. (Note: he did not learn this whole bike riding thing nearly as quickly). (social learning)
Plus, bike riding is really FUN. (intrinsic motivation)
She was ready. (learner readiness)

What have you learned lately? And how did you learn it? How is her experience different from yours?

Karl Kapp Book Tour: The Gamification of Learning and Instruction #gamiLI

2012-05-01T21:55:00.001-05:00

It’s the Cammy Bean stop on the blog book tour for Karl Kapp’s newest book: The Gamification of Learning and Instruction: Game-Based Methods and Strategies for Training and Education
Karl Kapp is a professor of instructional technology in Bloomsburg University’s Department of Instructional Technology in Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania. He’s one of my favorite professors that I've never actually studied with (although he has taught me a ton). Over the years, Karl and I have had wonderful arguments about gamers and gender and instructional design. He took me on my first tour of Second Life and opened my eyes to the possibilities of virtual worlds. He wasn’t my professor, he just wanted to share. So thanks, Karl, for sharing with all of us yet another thoughtful book about a topic on everyone’s minds these days: gamification and learning. And now I’ll share a few thoughts of my own…
If you think gamification is just about putting badges into your courses, then this book is for you.
If you're still on the fence about whether games work for learning, then this is certainly the book for you.
If you need to gain buy-in for games within your organization and need to know what theories to cite to support your arguments, this is the book for you.
If you need some examples of how games can be used in learning, yep, this is the book for you.
But if you really want to start designing and creating games, go out and play 'em.
But still, that's not enough. There's a practical element we’re going to need if we’re really going to get this learning game thing right, so I just want to take a moment to focus on what it will take to build a game within an organization.
In Chapter 9 "Managing the Gamification Design Process", Karl talks about the process for designing a learning game and who you'll need on your team. At the moment, I suspect this project team list will be too daunting for most internal organizations:

"The following team members typically are involved with a project for the gamification of learning and instruction. Not all of these individuals will be involved every time. It depends on the size and scope of the project. However, a project manager, instructional game designer, artist, at least one subject-matter expert, and a programmer or two are almost always involved."

(Karl then goes on to talk about the need for animators, music/sound technician, and other specialized roles.)
Karl says if you don't have an instructional game designer (and these are hard to come by), you should go out and get an instructional designer who likes to play games. But if you then consider that many organizations, especially smaller ones, are working with "home grown instructional designers" (who are maybe just powerpoint jockeys or really good at Captivate, but not actually instructional designers in the truest sense), then I'm not sure that many organizations will be able to do this in-house -- or at least not do it well. I'll go out on a limb and say this bodes well for the growth of the outsourced instructional game design companies!
Karl doesn't talk much about budgets or time frames in all of this, but something to bear in mind. Seems like it takes more time and more money than a lot of organizations have for a lot of their "learning" projects. Karl, what say you? (And he'll probably say something like, "it doesn't have to take more time or more money".)
Jeannette Brooks of Articulate wrote about the book just yesterday and talked about how Storyline (Articulate’s soon to be released development tool) will put “gamification within easy reach of any e-learning developer.” What do you think? Will Storyline make this all possible? I suspect there’s more to good game design than the tool though, right?
So should there be more learning games? Absolutely. Will more organizations design and build them. Absolutely. Will there still be a lot of the same old training solutions coming out of the same old training departments? Most likely...
So I'll leave you with this cautionary tale from Karl Kapp:

"Too often the learning profession embraces a new concept as the answer to all learning problems and overhypes the concept to the point of backlash. It is important to approach the gamification of content and learning carefully and methodically. If gamification is seen as a panacea and applied to every single learning event, it will quickly become trivialized and non-impactful. Stay focused on using gamification for the right learning outcomes."

(Which is to say, don't be part of the problem. Instead, go out and read Karl’s book and find out why gamification isn’t just badges and points, but much, much more….)
Game on.
Follow the conversation on Karl’s Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/gamificationLI
And be sure to buy the book: The Gamification of Learning and Instruction.

And a final note about our modern lives and the need for games…
This really has nothing to do with Karl's book, but more just a pesky rant I've got in me about games and gamification in general. It seems our modern world has lost so much purpose...we need and want to be entertained because most of the challenge is gone (a very first world problem)...or we need to be numbed to the challenges we do have. And now we need to dress up our boring jobs with games because otherwise who wants to learn them or even do them...I don't know. Kind of makes me sad…

A conversation on measurement and metrics (#ASTDLN)

2012-04-24T14:24:00.005-05:00

These are my notes from the final workshop session at ASTD Learn Now in San Francisco. Bob Mosher and Conrad Gottfredson of Ontuitive are leading a conversation on metrics and measurement.

The things that we currently measure about learning are things that the learner doesn't really care about. (% of course completions, pass/fail rate, # student days, etc.)

Bob Mosher -- there is value in smile sheets. Research shows that if people like you're training, they'll take more. There is defendable data when 12,000 people say that class was good.

When we measure the first two moments of learning need (new and more) we can measure with knowledge & skills gain -- certification, demonstrable skills, compliance.

Gloria Geary, Why Don't We Just Weigh Them? http://www.gwu.edu/~lto/gery.html

When we move to the world of performance support, we need to gather data to show that we make a difference to the organization to achieve its aims -- we need to measure competency and measure moments 3-5. We need to tie it to on the job performance gains:

time to proficiency
lower support costs
completion of job-related tasks
increased user adoption
optimized business processes
customer/employee loyalty, morale, and/or retention
sales close/cycle time

But we need to be measuring what has a critical impact to the business. We need to be measuring moments 3-5 (apply, solve, change)

There are three ways we can measure:

digital monitoring (we can track activity, see where they click, see where they spend time).
performer monitoring (quick checks)
“others” monitoring

We can do quick checks and ask the learner how they’re doing – but not for those things that would be catastrophic if we don’t do them right.

Shouldn’t the real measurement be whether or not they’re selling more chairs (assuming they’re selling chairs, of course)? What’s been the business impact?

Critical Skills Analysis – determine along a spectrum where things have critical impact to the business. Work with SMEs to create a rubric for the lines of business and for different skills.
These are the lines of business perception of critical business actions – these aren’t the learning team’s perception…Bob and Con show a 1-7 ranked scale – a critical impact rating. At one end is complete catastrophic results – e.g., someone will die.

Make sure you’re investing in measurement in the right places. Figure out what’s happening in the right places. Figure out what’s happening to improve performance support and to improve critical business impact.

We can’t measure everything. Don’t try to boil the ocean. Measure what matters. How deep do I go?

The new analytics:

Chad shares some data you can get from a mobile app:

time spend on a page
frequency of use
sharing info
type of info accessed
conversion points (are they doing what we’ve designed the experience to do?)
Other things…does access frequency go up or down over tie? Does engagement time go up and down?)

Analytics more in line with what marketing people look at.

Sample analytics that they got:

20-25% of visits last between 10-30 mins (this was for a mobile quiz game that took about 2 mins – so people were spending more time here)
users returned to the app in less than one day
Game rules only comprised 1% of the time consumed – this was the manual/user guide – it confirmed for the developers that they had designed a good UI.

This was data measured outside of the LMS. The digital analytic world – google analytics – it’s a new era in data.

Yahoo Web Analytics – free tool used with advertisers. To determine what % of business is coming from different channels. At yahoo, using it to determine what learners are doing – what content they go to, what pages are useful, it allows them to understand behavior. If there’s content out there that no one is looking at…then why? This allows you to determine where they go and how long they stay – and to view it buy country/demographics. Who’s using it?

Business example – health insurance provider using a performance support system:

84% of sales force used the embedded learning solution DAILY
6% increase in DAILY work productive – finding correct info, not waiting for answers, not bothering others (measurable, observable behaviors)
2.4 hours saved per week per employee
So that means they had more time to sell. $454K saved based on audience of 3,000 users

How would you go about gathering data at the moment of APPLY?

Chad Udell on Tools for Mobile Development (#ASTDLN)

2012-04-24T12:40:00.002-05:00

Chad Udell (@visualrinse) of Float Learning is doing a quick rundown of tools he uses to help design, manage and build mobile projects. This is day two of the ASTD Learn Now conference in San Francisco.

UI Stencils http://www.uistencils.com/ Use these templates and tools for rapid prototypes that are to scale for the device you're building to...

Project management tools like basecamp, assembla http://www.assembla.com/

Prototyping tools

Fieldtest - web based tool to create fast mobile prototypes. http://fieldtestapp.com/ (focused on smartphones and up = android, iOS, windows mobile)
Chad shares a prorotype he created that you go checkout: http://fldt.st/10d1c7f
App cooker http://appcooker.com/ An ipad app for building iphone and ipad apps (very meta) $25...

Once we've got the design prototypes...the tools to build the application:

Chad cannot recommend any of the rapid learning tools for dedicated mobile development.

"Anything that's out there now, is not doing it well. if you want to build high quality mobile learning apps, you have to use dedicated mobile tooling."

HTML, CSS, and learn some basic design for user experiences for mobile.

jQuery mobile http://jquerymobile.com/ It's just like webdesign. Dreamweaver has this stuff built in for the newer versions.

(And Chad exhorts everyone to stop being scared of HTML - it's just an outline -- it's not programming!)

PhoneGap -- http://phonegap.com/ the only open source mobile framework that supports platforms. Helps you bundle up content to an app that's distributable to a marketplace (android, apple, etc.) Adobe purchased phonegap and is building it into all of their tooling.

Misconception that apps have to go through the app store. Apperian...helps you avoid putting proprietary content into the App store. www.apperian.com

Ah-ha’s and reflections from the first day of LearnNow (#ASTDLN)

2012-04-24T11:28:00.000-05:00

The group shares some of their key moments and reflections from yesterday’s workshop session here at ASTD Learn Now conference in San Francisco. I’m co-facilitating this conference with Bob Mosher, Conrad Gottfredson, and Chad Udell.

One project at a time. We can start with one small piece and not try to do everything at once.

Thinking about blended learning vs. blended training.

The pyramid (see my notes from yesterday)

Two clicks, ten seconds. We need to get people to the information they need quickly.

The five moment of needs: new, more, apply, change, solve. Moving the training org to think about all five of those moments and not just the first two.

We need to get to SUSTAIN. Focus really on what’s needed. All of the time expended on this long classes, etc. that people just forget after the event.

The implication for the formal learning if you change to thinking about this five moments of need – you re-design the formal event now to map into this new vision.

Implementing Social Learning (#ASTDLN)

2012-04-23T17:28:00.001-05:00

My slides from my session at ASTD Learn Now in San Francisco.

Implementing Social Learning

View more presentations from cammybean.

Getting Started with Mobile Learning (Chad Udell) (#ASTDLN)

2012-04-23T17:26:00.002-05:00

These are my live blogged notes from ASTD Learn Now Session with Chad Udell (@visualrinse) of Float Learning (www.floatlearning.com)

Mobile -- nearly pervasive devices.

Aspects of mobile learning:

mobility
ubiquity
accessibility
connectivity
context sensitivity (time, location and intent)
individuality (the content that I access is different than the content that you access)

Key questions you should be asking your organization before you get into mobile learning/key areas to consider:

What is driving mobile for you? Build a business case.

Do you have a champion? Someone who's willing to wear the superhero suit?

Differences in design....instructional, interactive, contextual. You become more of a curator; you help people by putting wayside signs along the way. It's an aggregator role. You're competing with Angry Birds...

Lots of fragmentation - different operating systems, different devices. Is your organization BYOD (bring your own device?) -- don't get excited about every new device coming in and freak out.

What about security? It can be a big deal and is often seen as a barrier to entry. You're going to have to become friends with the IS guys in your organization.

Mashups are the norm. Data from one system (your CRM) may be living very close to other data (your company wiki). Your training content is now co-mingled and the lines are blurring. We need to get comfortable with this new world.

Who are the stakeholders?

Do you know your audience? Do you know their needs, their wants? Get them on board. How are they accessing data during the day on their company smart phones? Are they making calls? Texting? Going to your website?

Do you have a process? Strategy, design, develop, deliver. It needs to be agile, fast, rapid.

How do you and your company handle change? You're about to see a lot of it...

How can you evangelize mlearning within your org? Load up your ipad with ways you can help your business?

Choosing an outside partner. Focus on the content and outsource the tech. Gaming app: takes HMTL5 with CSS3 compiled with PhoneGap. Scenario app: built with Objective C and iOS SDK....if that gives you the heebie jeebies, find someone who likes to do that!

What does success look like? Don't try to boil the ocean. Make it simple...

The New Blend of Learning (#ASTDLN)

2012-04-23T14:04:00.000-05:00

aligned
embedded (in the workflow and available at the moment of apply. Two clicks, ten seconds. Needs to be close to the moment and instant...don't want lengthy responses if it needs to be immediate at the moment of apply. I need to transfer that information immediately at the moment of application. Sharepoint and LMSs can get it to you, but it's not immediate -- the content is too long.)
contextual (according to circumstance, specific roles and varying access needs. Anticipate the key and critical contexts: moment of need, job role, work flow, content access requirements, circumstance. An instance could be different than a specific workflow -- e.g., a teacher has to respond to an angry parent. That's an instance...not something that happens in a specific place in a workflow. Or the instance of an upset customer.)
just enough (only what's needed in the form needed to effectively perform inside the business process. They pyramid's the key.)
integrated (with formal learning to compliment and extend current learning investments)

The training wheel metaphor:

metacognition
cognitive apprenticeship

In your training/formal class: build in an evolutionary methodology of trust, comfort and belief. Start a training program off with cases...over the formal class pull away the training wheels -- trainer walks them through it, solve a problem with a peer, and so by the end the individual is solving the problem on their own.

The Five Moments of Learning Need (#ASTDLN)

2012-04-23T13:13:00.000-05:00

These are my live blogged notes from ASTD Learn Now Session with Conrad Gottfredson and Bob Mosher of Ontuitive (formerly LearningGuide Solutions). I am a co-facilitator for this 1.5 day conference, along with Bob, Conrad, and Chad Udell of Float Learning. About 55 learning colleagues gathered here at the lovely Hilton in San Francisco.

“I don’t care what they know, I do care what they do.”

It’s all about APPLY.

Training is good and New and More. Getting them started, keeping them going.

Need to help them CHANGE and SOLVE. This is part of the APPLY world.

Throw out the word “informal learning” – try to get the CFO to pay for informal learning. Instead, let’s shift to the word “performer support” – that’s a defined, measurable word.

Note that it’s “performer” and not “performance” – it’s more human. Performance support is the enabler, the solution that we build.

“Performance is reality. Forget everything else.” Harold S. Geneen CEO of ITT
In today’s dynamic world, I often need to learn at that moment of APPLY. Apply is time sensitive – I can’t get out and hunt down something in an LMS right now…

The new challenge of learning = knowledge aggregation. In today’s world we’ve got too much knowledge and info. We’ve got access to more than enough stuff. We live in a world of abundance. (In the olden days, you needed the expert up there to get it out to the people). We have been in a pile on mode for 20 years.

We need to support the learner DURING, BEFORE and AFTER…

We can’t survive in a world of “I’m going to help you when you’re in the problem…” -- that shouldn’t be all they have. We need to prepare them…

Allison Rossett: “If we were better at before and after, we’d have fewer durings.”

Which of these five moments of need does your organization address thoroughly?

New
More
Apply
Change
Solve

We have been blending training, not blending learning.

Most of us have structural frameworks to do #1 and #2…we haven’t had methodologies for 3, 4, and 5….

The pyramid – the learner sits at the top at the moment of need.

At the top: process, steps, concepts.

Sometimes that’s not enough and they want resources: references, learning, people (this is not good to bad hierarchy)

(Don’t confuse modality with design.)

(2 clicks, 10 seconds -- people will take bad stuff fast over good stuff that's hard to find. We need to get people to the right things quickly).

Example:
In your class on the new software program -- teach them what it can do, talk them through scenarios. Don't show all the steps and the clicks and the drop-down menus. Show the steps in an EPSS...

Bob now demos a LearningGuide built into a Salesforce.com implementation. On a page, you click a LearningGuide button -- it brings up a whole list or links and info for the entire pyramid. It's context sensitive.

Can do this same thing for a soft skill process -- Bob shows a graphical dashboard for a job requisition process. Each step of the hiring process is shown and you can click down to find the steps/tasks/training resources (they pyramid) etc.

This type of system can sit on top of an LMS. So you can do tracking.

We overteach. Let's stop doing that. We don't have the time anymore.

The Changing Nature of Business & Its Impact on Learning (#ASTDLN)

2012-04-23T12:29:00.001-05:00

Economic disruption can happen in one part of the world and carries its impact across the world…disrupting our businesses.
Technological disruption
Demographic churn
Political instability (the economic consequences of terrorism and upheaval)

The challenge for organizations: to learn at the speed of change. We must continuously undergo new skill cycles to prepare for new competitive cycles. Who hear can really plan for three years from now? Who can say, we’ve got our learning solutions in place? It’s like we’re all trying to change tires on moving trucks.

So what is the new normal? How do we learn at the speed of change?

“The consequences of standing still look worse than the consequences of taking a chance on change.” Denis Pombriant

3 fundamental functions that have to work together within an org to help adapt:

intelligence function
strategy function
learning function (we have to learn from strategy and give it back)

Today we need to be dynamic learners:

1957-1981 = Permanent Learning – one-time learning for permanent qualification
1981-2004 = Continuous Learning – for ongoing qualification
2004-2009 = Dynamic Learning – rapid, unlearning, relearning, collaborative, self-directed learning at the moment of need

The nature of the leader in the new normal….from leader as expert to leader as learner….personal credibility based on personal learning agility…it’s a different set of leadership skills.

If you want to live in LearnNow…you have to live in the world of SUSTAIN. It’s not training anymore. We can’t keep a classroom mentality. We need to live in sustain and transfer. Get out of the brick and mortar or the LMS.

For a new learner, training is still the right starting place. We don’t advocate cutting training. We do advocate changing it A LOT. Training helps you get to mastery. But mastery does not get you to sustain. Knowing stuff does not mean doing stuff.

The LMS plays in the red zone = training.

To get to sustain, we need to embed performance support across this whole spectrum.

In the sustain stage, what if people could keep raising their own bar…innovating, maintaining mastery, continuing to learn while getting better? LearnNow techs including EPSS (embedded performance support solution – not electronic…, social and mobile help this.

John Maeda The Art of Leadership #LSCon

2012-03-21T08:52:00.001-05:00

Opening keynote session with John Maeda, President of Rhode Island School of Design. I’m at Learning Solutions in Orlando today – hosted by the eLearning Guild. Forgive typos and poor grammar!

The Art of Leadership

Maeda was tenured faculty at MIT – professor by day, student by night as he got an MBA. And then four years ago he became college president with no training! So he bought books. And now he’s been learning about art and design.

Four things he’ll talk about today in regards to leadership: build from foundations, craft the team, sense actively, fail productively.

Build from Foundations:

Get your hands dirty. Artists are dirty – covered in chalk and paint. For the first year at RISD the goal is to break these artists down so they can learn to see again – stop drawing the buildings, but just drawing the shapes – the essence of what you’re really seeing…and not what you’re seeing in your mind. This helps you get to the WHY of why you’re doing something.

Hilary Austen, Artistry Unleashed (a book) – case study of how artists think and takes apart 3 zones of knowledge:

Directional Knowledge (Identity): I’m an artist, a programmer. A sense of what I want to be.
Conceptual Knowledge (The How): I’m going to learn and make sense of this. Gather the skills and get the concepts.
Experiential Knowledge (Doing): Get my hands dirty and figure it out.

This stream of learning is mastery. And as you’re doing, you start changing your conceptual knowledge - “hey that’s not how it really works.” And then you change your identity - “I’m not that kind of artist; i’m this kind.” This is the lifetime pursuit of excellence.

Craft the Team:

Great teams can enable; bad teams disable.

In Japan – these wooden buildings have been standing for thousands of years…how is that possible? Choosing the right materials – they went to the mountain and took trees from the north side of the mountain to build the north facing walls, etc.

Choose the right materials.

Your materials are your people.

How do you get individuals to work as a team? It’s the fundamental question and it’s a hard thing to do.

“There’s a WE in WELCOME.” Human power of welcoming people – it’s not coming through dialogue boxes or hashtags. It’s coming from people.

Most leaders use “we”.

Marshall Ganz – no books, works at Harvard, has YouTube Videos you can look for that talk about this – simple principles of leadership based on common sense and the wisdom of the ancients – think of it as a spiral with three parts:

Every leader leads through the stories that they tell. Through stories that move you through action. You will only act if you engage. Engage is not normal – you have to get out of autopilot.
The story of self – who am I, where do I come from.
The story of us – who are we and how are we connected and similar.
The story of now – the world has changed; we have to work together to make a difference.

Every leader that is successful follows this pattern. Leaders need these stories because they’re usually leading a change. Leaders aren’t necessary if change isn’t needed. If everything is certain, you don’t need leaders. You need leaders in times of uncertainty.

Individuals can’t hear you unless they can feel you.

Sense Actively:

Artists are always doing the wrong things at the right now. They’re trying things.

Flying kites – the only time you can see the wind. Artists fly kites.

The wind (the forces of change today that we can’t see):

He shows a chart of earnings and income vs. cost of medical and college costs.
The monopoly on information is being disrupted…times are uncertain…we need leaders.
Organizations and hierarchy – this is being disrupted. It’s awkward because everyone can talk to everyone. This is terrible for those who are happy at the top. It’s morphing into a network – and it’s disorganized and feels a bit odd. And it’s a trans-organization network – you can friend your competitor (you know what they’re doing and what they’re eating!).

Fail Productively:

Leaders are often challenged to listen when the listening is hard. Leaders are often connecting people – they hope to make connections between people.

Leadership = Traditional Leadership and Creative Leadership

symbol of authority vs. symbol of inspiration
yes or no vs. maybe (comfortable with ambiguity)

Ben Horowitz’s blog. The secret of a CEO is to never tell anyone you’re having a psychological meltdown. “If you manage a team of 10 people, it’s quite possible to do so with very few mistakes or bad behaviors. If you manage an organization of many more it becomes quite impossible.”

A lot of leaders are used to

Redesigning Leadership (book by John Maeda and Becky Bermont) – chronicles first two years of being president of a college.

Humanity and Technology

The disruption of TVs, computers, mobile (a tv on your face…)

Technology realizes progress at light speed…electrons travel at light speed; people don’t.

Technology…delivery text, images, music, movies…there’s a pattern across CD ROMS to browsers to phones…we’re kind of stuck in this loop now.

Design = making solutions; Art = making questions

Artists ask why..why not? It’s not about auto-pilot…

VUCA (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, Ambiguous) – characterizes how we feel now. It’s sounds scary, but we can work with it with a different VUCA (Visioning, Understanding, Clarity, Agility). This is the antidote to the now. Building common understanding.

Art and science are merging again. Scientists are inspired by artists.

Design makes something desirable. It makes you want it. (Think Apple products!)

Turning STEM into STEAM – adding the arts back into science. Bringing the left and right brain together. (STEM = Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics)

The Accidental Instructional Designer: A Learning Solutions Workshop!

2012-02-29T14:15:00.000-05:00

On March 19, I'll be leading a one day workshop in Orlando as part of the pre-conference program for the eLearning Guild's 2012 Learning Solutions conference.

From the workshop description:

Most of us working as instructional designers got here by accident, by showing an aptitude for training or expertise in a particular subject matter area. And now, here you are, responsible – in some way – for the design, development, and/or delivery of eLearning. And now you’re actually passionate about what you do. So now what? This workshop will help answer some questions: What does eLearning look like today? What flavors does it come in and do I need to be an expert in all areas? How do I know when to use what kind of eLearning, or whether eLearning is even the right choice?

If you're an accidental instructional designer looking to get better at what you do and willing to explore some new ways of looking at things, then please join me in Orlando!

There's still plenty of time to sign up.

The CBT Lady

2012-02-15T18:37:00.001-05:00

In the spirit of trying to explain to people what I do for a living, I was trying to explain to someone recently what I do for a living.

“I help organizations design and deliver online training programs…”

The guy made a cross with his fingers and hissed at me saying, “Oh no, you’re the CBT Lady!”

Visions of hairnet covered lunch ladies. I haven’t recovered yet from this one.

The CBT Lady?

“Oh no. You create those horrible things that we have to sit through. Every screen is locked out. And there’s a test at the end and if you get one question wrong you have to take the whole thing again!"

I then tried to explain, “We create elearning that is NOT that…we try to do that much better…”

“Oh no, the CBT Lady!”

Two weeks later. Same guy. He introduces me to his wife. She and I start chatting about what we do. “She’s the CBT Lady!” And then she starts hissing at me.

It was all in good fun. But seriously. This is how our industry is perceived by the world -- by those forced to suffer through hours of clicky-clicky blah-blah at the hands of the CBT Lady.

Whatever you do, don’t be The CBT Lady. I’m begging you.

Photocredit: “Always be nice to the lunch lady” by MelvinSchlubman

Write the Questions First...

2012-02-13T11:42:00.002-05:00

"Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer." ~ Rainer Marie Rilke, from “Letters to a Young Poet"

Words to live by. And, it turns out, words by which to design instruction.

Kineo Event in Los Angeles Feb 28th

2012-02-08T09:55:00.002-05:00

If you're an elearning professional in the Greater Los Angeles area, please join us for a fun and informative networking and sharing event on February 28.

Kineo clients from the entertainment and technology industries will be presenting case studies, and I'll be leading a conversation, along with Kineo's Tanveer Makhani, on mobile learning for the enterprise.

Date: February 28, 2012

Time: 8:30 AM – 11:30 AM

Location: Warner Bros. Screening Room, Burbank, CA

For more information email events@kineo.com

Bring yourself, bring your elearning friends and clients! See you in Burbank!

Photocredit: Hollywood by tolomea

ASTD TechKnowledge Wrap Up in Pictures #ASTDTK12

2012-01-30T14:29:00.001-05:00

Back home now after another exciting week in Las Vegas for ASTD’s TechKnowledge 2012 conference and expo. (I took a redeye home Friday night and then went camping with my son’s cub scout pack Saturday night. Crazy, I know.)
Held at the Rio in Las Vegas, this year’s conference featured great keynote sessions from Jane McGonigal, Stuart Crabb of Facebook, and Lisa Doyle of the VA; concurrent sessions and creation stations with Jane Bozarth, Connie Malamed, Julie Dirksen, Kevin Thorn, Aaron Silvers, Judy Unrein, Kris Rockwell, Ellen Wagner, Reuben Tozman, Cindy Huggett, and many others; TK Chats on varied topics; and endless hallway conversations. I know my brain was full but invigorated!

I live blogged most of the sessions I went to:

Here are some other highlights of the conference, in pictures:

Talking authoring tools and HTML5 at TK Chat with Dave Anderson of Articulate, Patrick Krekelberg of Allen Interactions, Thomas Toth and Judy Unrein.
This year’s TK Chat sessions ran the gamut, with particularly hot topics around Social Learning, Gamification and tools. One of my favorite conference moments was during the TK Chat on mobile when Kris Rockwell (@hybridkris) gave someone her conference AHA moment about QR codes.

Kineo was onscreen as-large-as-life every time I walked past the the Adobe Booth, where they had a Kineo Captivate project running on endless loop.
Although Kineo’s Managing Director Steve Rayson was in London at the Learning Technologies conference, there he is on the screen behind Adobe’s Allen Partridge. Kind of a fancy magic trick, eh?

This year was the second annual Monsters of Instructional Design TK Chat with esteemed ID professors: Steve Villachica (Boise State), Allison Rossett (SDSU), Karl Kapp (Bloomsburg), and Ellen Wagner (Sage Road Solutions).
We talked about the disconnect between many ID programs and the demands of the industry, and tried to resolve the big problems of the biz – like trying to hire talented professionals well-versed in the whole elearning professionals pie: the Science of Learning, the Art of Learning, the Technology of Learning, and the Business of Learning.

Thursday’s general session was keynoted by Stuart Crabb, head of learning at Facebook. With over 70% of Facebook employees born since 1979, they’ve got some different cultural challenges than a lot of orgs. Perhaps a picture of the way things will be?
I took it as an opportunity to go all meta and posted to Facebook while listening to Stu talk about Facebook.

But not all of the magic happened during the day. One night I hit the town and saw Penn & Teller. Here’s me with Judy Unrein (@jkunrein) talking to Teller (yeah, he talks). Later, Judy’s phone ended up inside a frozen fish in the back of the auidence. I got to call her phone while it was in the fish. Talk about thrilling! (Photo credit: Kevin Thorn @learnnuggets)

My role as chairperson of this year’s Planning Advisory Committee for TK12 included emceeing all the general sessions. (Photo credit: Kris Rockwell @hybridkris)
Here I am looking particularly passionate about something. Either that or I was ready to break into song – it was Vegas after all.
All in all, a great conference and I was thrilled to have been able to play the role that I got to play. Thanks to ASTD for letting me play along this year!

Lisa Doyle Veterans Affairs Acquisition Academy #ASTDTK12

2012-01-27T15:32:00.001-05:00

My live notes from today’s closing session at ASTD TK12 in Las Vegas. Lisa Doyle is the Chancellor of the Veterans Affairs Acquisition Academy and named Chief Learning Office of the Year by CLO Magazine for 2012.

“The more we understand our Veterans, the better we will serve them.”

VA – second largest cabinet level agency in the US. 300,000 employees. 152 medical centers and hospitals across US. Second only to the Dept of Ed in providing educational benefits. Largest cemetery system in teh US.

55% of VA workforce is eligible for retirement in the next ten years.

Opened the Acquisition Academy in 2008. Competency based programs.

Opened five schools to train. (acquisition internship school, contracting prof school, facilities management school, program management school, supply chain management school).

Critical success factors:

environment
holistic model
theory to practice
quality control (maintain and evaluate learning across the enterprise)

The Academy is a two story brick and mortal building. A learning environment and not a workplace. It’s full of color and curved surfaces. The board room has no square walls to inspire innovation and creativity and risk taking (properly managed).

16 classrooms – can train 450 people a day. With interactive whiteboards, etc.

The walls are painted with the mission: why we’re here: “To care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan.” ~A. Lincoln

The holistic model

3 year internship program—training the next generation of professionals (second careers, those out of college)

technical skills, interpersonal skills, writing, speaking, self-understanding, leadership skills (you serve as a leader at all levels – so this begins on day 1), skill building (learning laboratory). mission service.

Scenario Driven Learning Laboratory

Preparing interns to do the work when they go out on job rotation. VAAA’s IDs use VA work to create scenario driven exercises, case studies, etc to expose learners to the actual job environment

Job rotations are critical – so they can be added bench strength – in medical centers and hospitals throughout the US.

Decreased time to competency.

Education with a purpose.

Internship program for wounded warriors. Over 100 million veterans are unemployed. The rate for post 9/11 Veterans is higher than the rest of the veteran population (particularly those ages 18-29).

Veterans are ideal candidates and make excellent employees. The attributes that Vets develop during their time in service are attributes that employers look for: leadership skills, discipline, rigor, team members, they take care of each other…

It’s a little different from standard intern program:

infused education (it requires 24 hours of business credit – they’re in college 2 days a week onsite at the VA Academy – they partnered with a local college and the professors come to them)
peak performance training (managing mental emotional and physiological responses to perform at peak levels – helping wounded warriors transition back from the battlefield). Also includes study skills – many of these went from high school to the battlefield.

Wounded Warrior program helps VA with succession planning. Allows them to hire experienced employees. Creates a career path for wounded warriors where they can progress in the VA.

It’s Veterans serving Veterans.

Learner Experience Design with Julie Dirksen #ASTDTK12

2012-01-27T13:03:00.001-05:00

My live blogged notes from Julie Dirksen’s Friday session. Julie wrote the book: Design for How People Learn. www.useablelearning.com

Learner experience design: overlap between user experience design (uxd) and instructional design

User experience design – how Amazon makes sure that customers can buy a book. – as long as someone can get to the end of the process, it’s a success.

With Instructional design – we have a higher standard – it’s not just about getting to the end of the process – it’s about creating behavior change.

Making the user interface invisible to the learner. Reducing cognitive load – don’t want the learner thinking about how to get through the program, want them expending their cognitive load on the content…

Elements of User Experience by Jesse James Garrett – the layers that go into user design (http://www.jig.net/elements)

When something doesn’t work in classroom training, you know immediately. You’ve got an immediate feedback loop and you adjust it.

So how do we get that type of feedback into the process?

Question: How do you do analysis? Send out surveys, interview SMEs, job shadowing, observation…contextual inquiry.

Job shadowing/contextual inquiry: following them around. Go in for a 2-3 day engagement to kick off a project – 1st day you talk about the problem you’re trying to solve…then “can you sit me with someone who’s doing it?” (you get a ton of information and it really doesn’t take that long).

You learn things that the SME might not have told you – they print out the form to compare it, there are other reference materials he has nearby, he jots some notes down that he’ll need 3 screens later. If you watch them do it, you can find out all sorts of interesting things. If you hadn’t done this, you would have missed some big things.

We do a bad job matching up context of our learning environments to context for use.

The best place to study for a test is not a coffee shop, but in a windowless classroom with noisy HVAC system – study in the environment where you’ll be taking the test. Context matters. By having more context in our learning environments, we help with retention. (this is very well researched – if you study with a vanilla candle, you’ll do better on the test if you’re burning a vanilla candle…)

Creating a trigger response (if you hear an angry customer, what triggers for you that you need to use your angry customer training…? If you see this, do this..if you see that, do that…)

high context vs. low context training

metaphors that are cute waste the opportunity (e.g. a course on lean manufacturing that uses a world soccer cup metaphor is a bit of a waste – we want to trigger lean process when they’re on the job and not watching soccer on the weekend).

User Personas

In User Experience Design, you use PERSONAS to do your audience analysis.

“This is Alice, age, job function, description – She’s been with the company for 3 years and started as a tester…she uses this at home, she says this type of thing…” – it’s much more of a fleshed out story of the person.

Typically have 3-4 user personas.

It’s not fiction writing.

Takes a bit of time – typically do it on bigger projects.

Prototyping

Really important when you’re creating more interactive learning…(not as critical if just doing page turners)

(Trying to prevent the problem of building something and THEN having people say “oh, that’s not going to work…”)

Create a wireframe prototype in PowerPoint – can take an hour…Get feedback on what the interaction is going to be (roughly).

Keep it quick and dirty – if people get hung up on “it’s the wrong font” then you’re having the wrong conversation.

The act of prototyping helps you uncover design issues…

Usability Testing

Test your designs.

Steve Krug’s books on usability testing: Don’t Make Me Think; Rocket Surgery Made Easy

What it isn’t: not user acceptance testing, focus groups, demos, sending out for feedback.

It IS watching someone using your application. You sit next to them or you do it on a WebEx.

Create a test plan (there’s a sample on Julie’s resource page I’ll list below).
Recruit users 5-6 users; 1-1.5 hours each. By the 3rd user you’ll start finding the big issues. You could do 3 users and then make some changes.
Write a script. Let them know why you’re there; I’m here to test the interface and not you; don’t help them as they go through it (don’t say “oh, you just click on that..”; Have them talk aloud as they go through it.
Then document your results.

Julie’s resource page: http://bit.ly/tk12_LXD

Moving to the Virtual Classroom: A Trainer’s Roadmap to Success with Cindy Huggett #ASTDTK12

2012-01-26T20:54:00.001-05:00

My live notes from Cindy Huggett’s @cindyhugg session at ASTD TK12. She’s been doing virtual classroom since 2001.

She wrote the book: Virtual Training Basics

Two types of virtual training: webinar vs. classroom

One def of virtual training: “an online synchronous instructor led class with participants in dispersed locations, that uses a virtual classroom software program” vILT (virtual instructor led)

Step #1: Clarify definitions and expectations.

Ask what do you mean by virtual training? what are your goals?

Tells the story of an org that was having issues – she had told them one person, one computer, one phoneline, but they were all in the same room.

Construction site – might not be the best use of virtual.

Step #2: Remember that virtual training is still training.

Apply what you already know – learning outcomes – to change behavior, learn skills (although may just be knowledge acquisition).

Lots of people forget what they know to do in the classroom -- when they get to virtual and instead they do death by powerpoint.

How many people do you typically have in a face to face class? Mostly in the 15-25 range for f2f classes. How many people do you put in a virtual class? Is it the same number? Just because you can cram in lots of people, doesn’t mean you should. The # you have in the virtual class is the same you should have in f2f. (If 100 people showed up to your class that you designed for 20 people, it probably wouldn’t work).

You can design classes for larger classes.

Skills trainers need: facilitate discussion, engage participants, present content, use technology, give instructions, observe particpants, keep track of time…

Three main differences for a facilitator going from f2f to online:

technology is the delivery mechanism
different type of multi-tasking for the facilitator
engage participants in new ways (because you can’t see them)

Step #3: Learn your virtual classroom software.

Learn what it looks like for you and your participants. Learn every button in that tool. Know what it can do.

(What’s the difference with the tools? Like cars, every tool has unique features. They all do similar things, but they have different layouts, etc.)

[Cool: Cindy’s using Poll Everywhere right now – 35% of participants using WebEx].

And always ask – what version of the virtual classroom software will be used? (e.g., Citrix goto meeting, goto training, goto webinar – they do different things!)

So how do you learn? All the vendors have classes, etc. – then use it – then practice.

Step #4: Set up for success.

Have a consistent setup for every class you deliver. (what does your desk look like when you facilitate online?”

Cindy shows us a picture of her desk when she gives a webinar:

Two computers – one logged in as presenter and one as the student. AND she has an extra backup computer. (some platforms let you see what the student sees)
Water (with a lid!)
Print out of her presentation in case something goes wrong
Sticky notes with reminders (do you speak too fast, too slowly? etc.)
Headset for phone (use the phone that you’ve got a clear, solid connection on – could be VOIP, landline, cell phone – but have backup)
Thumbdrive with materials
Backup Internet connection (she has a USB wifi…) in case power outage, etc…
Clock in the background

Get into your space an hour before the session starts – not when it starts!

Step #5: Be prepared. Be extra prepared.

Prep your notes, practice, have tech backups for internet, do you have a copy of your link if you lose connection?, have options for exercises if they don’t work…

www.atrainserlife.com – download her “checklist for virtual delivery” – to help you think through your back up plan.

Step #6: Get good at multi-tasking.

It’s about preparation and speed. Making quick corrections and adjustments (it’s like driving – you need to be able to monitor many things at once but keep moving forward).

Tips for multitasking:

be prepared – know your content really well
know your software – make sure you know where the button is to find the poll question!
have a co-pilot – a producer or a co-facilitator – when you have shared responsibility, it makes it easier.
be a proficient typist
practice!
resist temptation to do too much
know what’s ok to let slide (you don’t have to comment on every single chat that comes in through the chat window)

[it can be more expensive to do virtual – I need a co-facilitator, another computer, headsets…you have different expenses than you might in f2f]

Step #7: Harness your voice.

Pay attention to your volume, rate, tone and overall sound. (Record a virtual class so you can hear your own voice – then listen for 10 minutes!)

Modulate your voice.

Get used to your microphone (it can change the sound of your voice).

Step #8: Engage participants.

Plan for interaction at least every 3-5 minutes.
“Teaching online is like teaching after lunch.” ~ Jennifer Hoffman
Open poll, use breakouts, app share, use chat, annotate, handouts, notes, etc. – use the tools
“let’s do a pair chat – joe, sally – find each other in private chat and have a deeper conversation”
Use handouts in your session – not your slides – but something that goes along with it (might email, they download, ship them a box with a popcorn bag, bag of tea and the handouts…”come join us at 1:00 on Friday”)
Use the whiteboard – even in large classes, you can say “if you’re wearing blue today, let’s answer this question” on the whiteboard.
Remember, not a passive webcast – but an active virtual training experience.
Start before you start…as soon as the learner logs in start engaging them –
Set ground rules upfront and let them know it’s going to be an interactive session.
Set the calendar invite for the meeting start to 5 minutes early (so people aren’t logging in at one minute after the start).
Don’t spend 20 mins introducing the program – get them in right from the start.
In small classes, keep people OFF mute (encourage them to go to a quiet conference room if they need to so they can have a better learning experience).

Step #9: Practice, practice, practice.

vILT can cost more so you can take the time to learn the software, to practice, etc. – make the commitment and the investment.

Step #10: Know what to do when everything goes wrong.

Expect challenges and prepare for them!

What can go wrong? (audio – there’s an echo, it goes out; technology snafus – the link changes, etc.)

If you’re running a virtual classroom, set your email response to “I’m in a virtual class right now. And if you’re a participant, here’s the link…”

Prepare participants (send the link in advance so they can test, work with IT so people’s systems are set up)
Prepare yourself
Prepare your backup plans

Tips for the in the moment (when it all goes wrong):

Expect tech challenges
Stay calm and take a deep breath (don’t get flustered….)
Let the producer handle it.
Spend moment or two troubleshooting.
Use your backup plans.

Stuart Crabb of Facebook #ASTDTK12

2012-01-26T12:13:00.001-05:00

My live notes from the general session at ASTD TK12 on Thursday.

Humans have been collaborating since the dawn of time. Facebook didn’t invent that, just created a great tool.

What does it mean to be social? It’s not new. (Cave drawings from 32,000 BC – telling a story, sharing with those around them). We’ve been doing social networking for millions of years.

(He’s using Facebook timeline to tell the story).

Middle ages the Guttenberg Press – huge advance in mass communication. Mass distribution of thoughts and ideas.

1970 Marshall McLuhan ‘the medium is the message’

1995 The Internet

2004 Facebook and the social graph – the social layer of the internet which allows people to connect and share. People want the opportunity to share and connect – this is why it’s taken off, not because Facebook created this amazing product…

Newsfeed – sharing the story of what your friends are doing.

YOU are the censor of your own social graph. You are at the heart, the center of your social graph.

Who is Facebook?

Huge potential to push out content at scale within organizations.

Five Values:

focus on impact
move fast
be bold
be open (everyone needs to be able to challenge things throughout the company)
build trust (need the trust of our users)

How do you motivate the Facebook generation?

www.trendera.com – research on generations. Danger in talking about stereotypes and in assuming these are absolutes.

Characteristics

Boomers: strong work ethic, respectful, loyalty, hours equals output

Xers (1964-78): independent, skeptical, job change drives worth, work/life balance

Ys: values driven, need to know why (offspring of helicopter mom’s), many career changes, very peer oriented (more concerned with what peers say than managers.

Motivation:

Boomers: moving up ladder

xers: flex, control of work/life

Y: need & expect praise (feedback systems in orgs need to change), flexibility in life, co-worker recognition matters

Y generation is more connected to technology and the social platform than any before them.

Need to challenge assumptions about our performance culture.

Five insights gained at Facebook – found through trial and error – to create a performance culture that speaks to this generation:

Not “I can learn most from those with more experience than me” – but “I want to learn from those around me”.

Not “Excellence is defined by what I know and what I do well” – instead “Excellence is defined by my strengths and what I ship” (so no more competency framework – instead a strengths based partnership)
Not “Progression in my career is vertical & logical” – instead “career development is like a jungle gym” (propogate the notion of people moving all over the jungle gym – to give opp to do something cool that plays to strenghts)
Not “effective learning is in the class and rooted in books” – but “small bites of real-time learning on the job are the most powerful.” (FB subscribes to the 70, 20, 10 model – 10 % formal learning, 70% on the job, 20% coaching/mentoring)
Not “The performance review helps me stay on track and grow” – let’s take performance reviews out to the back shed and shoot it -- "instead “constant real-time feedback helps me get better everyday and know what’s next” – this allows people to course correct very quickly. (FB has an internal platform to record feedback and share it –it’s social – anyone can give feedback to anyone else).

Traversing the jungle gym is not about title, hierarchy, level or compensation (roles) but strengths, learning, self-improvement (experiences) – there are amazing opps in front of you but you have to earn that.

70% of Facebook were born after 1979.

Extrinsic things, to create alignment:

No office or cubes
fighting to keep a small culture as they grow
one job title “engineer” (common job roles)
Food is free at facebook, take care of dry cleaning, fitness center (want to create an environment where it’s easy to come to work and there’s no great friction getting there – they can focus on task at hand)
Reward for impact and execution – all reward decisions are based on peer calibration

Intrinsic factors:

everyone is an owner – we tell people when they come in the door “don’t be a douchebag” –
We sprint and pause – you have to own that
we give thanks – built a tool to give people recognition and thanks. give a clear signal that you did something right.
We are hackers

In a survey, 83% said they value feedback from their peers.

It’s not about the hours, it’s about output

He shows a four minute video of interviews with new employees:

“move fast and break stuff”
“it’s about making mistakes and learning from them”
“be super ambitious the moment you walk in the door”
“I’m amazed at how many lives it touches every day”
“everyone believes we are changing the world”

Join the conversation.Don’t block it!

Use the FB platform to build apps…

Learning needs to be a social experience. Communities of practice – built on authenticity, social by design.

It’s a jungle gym out there. Opportunity based career experiences – shift conversation from structure to opportunity.

Set your organization free from traditional career development!

Be an architect of change.

How to Combat Cognitive Overload with Connie Malamed #ASTDTK12

2012-01-25T21:26:00.001-05:00

My live notes from session at ASTDTK12 with @elearningcoach.

Long term memory is like a server farm.

We can hold 4-5 bits of info in working memory (this is based on newer researcher – the old info was 7 +/- 2 bits…)

Rather than concentrate on pushing facts on our learners, we should concentrate on what they have to DO. Give them small bits of info.

Long term memory – as far as we know, it’s infinite. It stores info in schemas.

Often we can’t remember something is because we don’t have the right retrieval cue --

SCHEMAS

collection of generic properties about a concept or category – it’s how we organize info.

Write down three notions when you think of comic books: stories, cartoons, superheroes (those are mine)

In some cases, your audience is going to have the same schemas as you – in some cases, not.

We form schemas in working memory. We then bring them into long-term memory.

But to understand something, we have to bring it back from long-term memory to working memory.

Working memory is very vulnerable to overload.= high cognitive load (which leads to poor comprehension and obstructs learning)

Cognitive load affected by # of interacting elements.

This is a framework – haven’t discovered an anatomical structure in the brain…

Source of load matters:

germane CL (devoted to processing information, construction and automating schemas)

intrinsic cl (not much we can do about it)

extraneous cl (imposed by the manner in which information is presented to learners – this is what I call “clicky-clicky bling-bling” –this is what we can control!)

If you present info with big words that people have to interpret, you’re imposing high cognitive load.

If we can eliminate the extrinsic load, we help the learner.

Our jobs:

help learners construct schemas to free working memory capacity – give them a clean network.
automate schemas to free w.m. capacity (most adults don’t have to think about how to read while a kindergartener has to work hard; procedural memory gets automated)

Remember the difference between novice (clumsy, error-prone, slow, difficult) and expert (skilled and fluid, they have lots of schemas, it’s smooth and effortless). Help people construct schemas so it can become effortless.

The Five Moments of Need (Google it…) – bring this list to your SME meetings – when will the learner NEED this information?

(More than half of the audience works in small teams of 3-4 to build elearning. Today we do more with less).

Ways to combat cognitive overload:

Make the learning meaningful – so they can understand it, make it relevant to what you’re doing in the workplace, connected to the network of schemas)
Help create schemas – refer to previous knowledge because it’s like giving them free schemas – so they can build on something they already know – always remind learners of what they already know. This increases working memory capacity. And if they can connect it existing schemas, it will help them retrieve it later more easily. Use analogies: “a database is like a file drawer system…”

The expertise reversal effect: (avoid redundancy for experts) – if you treat an expert like a novice, it taxes their working memory. They’re getting drawn down to the novice level guidance. They have their own rich schemas and you’re just messing with it. So remove redundant info, guidance and prompts for experts. Provide resources for informal learning.
Add meaningful learning to the training – solve real-world problems, case studies and worked examples.
Chunk and organize information
Give learners an overview – a mindmap for a visual audience – that’s where learning objectives came from – an advanced organizer (but now everyone just skips the objectives screens!)
Streamline your multimedia – keep attention focused (avoid split attention: learners watch a video and then have to read separate text bullets…instead present words as narration rather than onscreen text! if not using audio, integrate text with animation or video)…you can’t have two different things going on the screen!
Use simple graphics – you can replace text with graphics. people learn better from simple line drawings than complex photos….

I couldn’t stay for the entire session…apologies for abbreviated session notes, but hope this is helpful!

Jane McGonigal: Getting Serious about Games #ASTDTK12

2012-01-25T12:47:00.001-05:00

Jane McGonigal, author of Reality is Broken: Why Games Make Us Happy and How they Can Changer the World opening keynote at ASTD TK12. These are my live blogged notes.

1 billion gamers right now (‘gamer’ = plays more than 1 hour a day)

Shared some mind blowing stats about how much people play games (hard core Call of Duty players play one month of full time work a year – 170 hours!)

Angry Birds – we want to solve problems, we want to be engaged.

‘the opposite of play isn’t work – it’s depression’

Playing games gives us optimism and energy.

10 positive emotions that gamers get: joy, relief (from stress/anger), love, surprise, pride, curiosity, excitement, awe & wonder, contentment, creativity. (#10 is joy, #1 is creativity)

Creativity – we get to see our impact on the world around us.

And then we just played a massively multiplayer thumb playing game! (thumb playing at an epic scale)—we just got an oxtytocin lift from holding hands with each other for more than 6 seconds (love) – this will last for the next hour!

71% of US works are actively disengaged (*Gallup 2011) – they aren’t growing and learning, no creative agency in their work. This costs $300 billion a year!

Fix this lack of workplace engagement to the kind of stress we feel when we play a good game. (we play games to be challenged) At work, we feel negative stress.

We want more positive stress – same physiological symptoms – increased breathing, etc. – but because we feel in control, this feels like excitement and enthusiasm. The only thing that’s changed: ‘am i in control? did i choose this challenge?” Eustress

Relishing the challenge. A blissed out sense of being in flow.

Gamers spend 80% of their time failing (not completing the level, etc.) – but then you keep playing the game! In the real world, we walk away.

Four learning superpowers: blissful productivity, social fabric (we understand the motivations of the people around us – when you play games with other people you learn their skills so you can partner more effectively) , urgent optimism, epic meaning (connect to a purpose)

(The symptoms of ADHD disappear when kids are playing games – they can stay focused and follow through)

In the US 99% of boys under 18 play games; 94% of girls play – less of a dividing line between genders.

92% of two year olds laying games (on phones and ipads).

By the age of 21, you’ll have spent 10,000 hours playing games (virtuoso skill!)

EVOKE – learning environment created for world bank institute to teach social innovation. (jane mcgonigal created this game) - “now the network needs a new hero, you” A game that will teach you to solve the world’s problems. Teaching collaboration, entrepreneurship, sustainability, creativity, local resources, etc.

A crash-course in changing the world. “If you have a problem, and you can’t solve it alone, evoke it.”

YOU can play this game! www.urgentevoke.com

An online platform. Created a video trailer. Textbook is set 10 years in the future.

You create your origin story. 10 questions you answer, 1 per week (like spiderman’s origin story)…at the end of 10 weeks, they had an interactive calling card to get funders and collaborators.

People used social media tools to document their projects. Someone started a farm.

In 10 weeks, enrolled 20,000 students. lots of people played the games to learn to start their own businesses. The World Bank ended up selected over 50 new companies.

If you completed all 10 missions, you had created a business plan. They funded over 50 enterprises.

World without Oil

(another game example)

Created a six week simulation/social media game. 1,700 full time players.

Teaching a skill – future forecasting – but learning from our players.

The opportunity for learning at workplaces is not just about conferring content – but we can create new collective intelligence so that companies can learn from the employees.

If you’d like a copy of her slides: email slides@avantgame.com

Tony Bingham Opening Session #ASTDTK12

2012-01-25T12:01:00.001-05:00

These are my live blogged notes from the opening session at ASTD’s TK12 in Las Vegas.

2012 is the year of collaboration. Why now?

Opening video produced by video – Search on in 2011 – the year in review. “2011 was the year of…” – go Google it and watch it.

Q4 2010 smart phones outsold computers.

Sharing lots of stats…800,000,000 on Facebook, iphone sales, tablet sales, etc. This is not a flash in the pan.

The New Social Learning by Tony Bingham and Marcia Conner - “how can we help people bring this social media tools into their learning environment?”

Seth Godin “if you wait until there is another case study in your industry, you’re too late.” – we need to di it now.

Telus (Canadian telecom company) – they equip workers with flip cams while they’re on a post high up in the air and they’re sharing those with each other. Dan Pontefract at Telus – creating a culture of collaboration. We’re all responsible for sharing our knowledge with each other.

NetApp – advanced app where you can learn, onboard, ask questions.

Mayo Clinic – creating a culture of collaborative caring. They set up a twitter account to share with the public, prospective patients, med/research communities. A woman with wrist pain started following @mayoclinic. She learned about a doctor…she got the correct diagnosis and got surgery she needed.

CIA – we need to share. Created the CIA WIRe (World Intelligence review). Share info too broadly, people can die; share too closely, people can die.

Hilton – using mobile to support formal efforts, etc. making it more personal and accessible. lpads for senior leadership.

Getting started:

think mobile (design for the device)
realize small successes – don’t expect overnight transformation
find an executive sponsor
partner with IT and others
use low cost software tools available today (yammer, etc.)
Drive IMPACT vs. ROI
Govern lightly

ASTD TechKnowledge 2012 #ASTDTK12

2012-01-23T11:47:00.001-05:00

I’m gearing up for an early morning flight tomorrow to Las Vegas, baby.
Looking forward to a week of learning about learning with 1,200 of my peers at ASTD’s TechKnowledge 2012.
As this year’s Planning Committee Chairperson, it’s been a real honor to help Linda David and the rest of the ASTD TK team plan the education format for this year’s conference. Working closely with the fabulous TK12 Committee members (Aaron Silvers, Cindy Huggett, Judy Unrein, Kris Rockwell, Darlene Christopher, Steve Villachica and Terence Wing), ASTD has put together a program that includes practical sessions to help learning professionals do what they need to do today (and do it better!) as well as forward thinking sessions to prepare them for what’s to come.
I’m looking foward to partaking of as much learnin’ as my little brain will permit.
I’ll be catching as many sessions as I can and posting my blogged notes here, so be prepared for a deluge of long posts with poor grammar and spelling mistakes…
When not flitting around like a bee, I’ve got a few tasks I’m responsible for – so fee free to hunt me down and say hi:
Wednesday:

7:15 Hosting the conference orientation session.
8:30 Leading off the general session (as the TK12 Committee Chair, I’ve been asked to emcee the event. I’m trying to channel Billy Crystal.)
1:30 Assisting the fabulous Ellen Wagner with a session on talking to Senior Leaders (“Batter Up! – what’s your pitch?”).
4:30 Leading a TK Chat on Instructional Design with Ellen Wagner, Allison Rossett, Karl Kapp, and Steve Villachica.

Thursday:

11:00 Running a concurrent session on learning design “Yawn-Proofing Your E-Learning”.

Friday:

10:15 Leading a TK Chat on Mobile Learning with Chad Udell and Kris Rockwell.
11:30 Channeling Billy Crystal again as the emcee of the final closing session.

Hope to see you there!