Category Archives: Education

Some People Don’t Have Computers

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Originally posted in July 2009 on The Total Learner Experience. 

I am convinced that technology knowledge and fluency is integral to having the fullest range of options in the 21st century. I mean, who’s not?

My concern is how to facilitate the access that all of us techies take for granted. I don’t have any answers, but I do have plenty of questions:

  • Do I design instruction and programs so that my students express themselves and have fun and buy-in to this tech world? or
  • Do I design so that they can get entry level jobs as receptionists and admins?
  • Do I try to sell some Puritan work ethic model (high school, college, 40+ hours a week) that I really don’t believe in, to some people who aren’t likely to buy it?
  • What are the upper middle class kids who do have access to computers since birth doing with them? How will they leverage their innate computer fluency as they grow into adulthood and jobs? How do I facilitate my kids having those casual, but oh so very important, experiences?
  • How can I sell my path to impressionable youth as one to emulate when I owe more money in student loans than I make in a year, drive a used car and work ridiculously long hours?

Suggestions?

Moving to Online Universities

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Originally posted on The Total Learner Experience. 

A friend and colleague approached me because my alma mater is interested in pushing into the world of online courses. I began thinking about what I think is critical about the university and college experience. Reflecting on all the numerous reasons why people go to college, I developed this list:

  • It’s what’s done
  • to make more more money
  • to avoid adulthood, or the real world, or whatever you want to call that delaying tactic
  • to pursue their interests
  • to network
  • to be qualified for the position they desire
  • to remain competitive
  • for the prestige and social status
  • to learn
  • personal satisfaction

I think that these reasons can also be applied to graduate degrees as well. Of course all these factors and more influence which institution a student might choose as well. These variables include:

  • Location
  • Price
  • Flexibility of courses
  • Relative academic rigorousness, relative emphasis on socializing, demographics of student body– including race, age, social status, economic status
  • Trajectory of graduates

I think where you go to school matters, but not necessarily for the reasons people always give. More than anything the college becomes a kind of identifier of the sort of person they might be, just like another accessory. Regionally, I know what a choice to attend a particular college or campus might say. Nationally, we may tend to share those judgments. Reflect on what you might think about a individual you meet who graduated from Berkley or MIT or West Point. Even without knowing anything further about the individual you might make assumptions about their politics, interests, “style”, or major.

For all their supposed rigor, The US News and World Report and other magazines’ annual college rankings feel fairly subjective and ultimately ring a bit false. I’m not super excited to have a veterinarian who claims to have matriculated at Yale perform surgery on my pup. Ultimately, I don’t really care what college a person has gone to as long as they perform their role well.

Others may not share that view. Online colleges need to stake out their expertise and proclaim what their requirements for enrollment are. I’m not impressed by online colleges advertising on every random social networking. Online colleges need to identify not only how they serve their audience, but how their audience, their graduates, serve us.

But also, if we accept that there is some name-brand recognition influencing why people choose to go to an institution, then we must consider how opening up an entire new product line will affect an established brand.

How much of higher education is breathing the rarefied air in the libraries and lounges? Or attending tail-gating parties? Or finding your niche of disgruntled malcontents? Or having casual coffee with your favorite professor?

On the other hand, online learning broadens the pool of people able to matriculate. Allowing students to engage in asynchronous off-site learning can change the demographics of the target population in the areas of age, work-experience, economic level, purpose and expectations. Responsible college administrators should acknowledge that if they plan to expand their client base, they should include reasonable

10 Ways to Use Facebook for Training

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This post first appeared in December 2009 on The Total Learner Experience. Although dated, I think it still has value. 

Bwc Brandon: You know as I work to create social learning micro-sites on the internal corporate network, it sometimes hits me that in a lot of ways I’m just re-creating what Facebook has already hit a home run with. So, Dolly, the question for you today is: How can I leverage Facebook for training?

DrjDolly: What content is best suited for Facebook? Is Facebook for content or is it for social networking and engagement?

Bwc Well it seems that technical training, soft skills training… really any type of learning content would work. The power of the platform seems to be around the integration of peer-to-peer dialogue and sharing with the context of learning. Facebook users are collaborating by default because they are exchanging comments and creating dialogue interactively. What we need to do is make this engaging activity applicable to work/training.

Drj Shall we brainstorm? What are the features of Facebook are conducive to training?

Bwc OK, so let’s make it a contest. Let’s list 10 ways we can use Facebook for training. I mean we’re professionals right? With imaginations like ours, we should be able to easily list 10 ways! Here’s one way:

1. Discussion threads. People seem to love engaging in dialogue about relevant subjects. A simple discussion board functionality is key in attracting learners to a higher level of engagement.

DrjFacebook recently took out the updates about when people commented on others’ walls. I liked that and was sad to see it go. It allowed me to see what my friends were saying — even if it was directly relevant to me AND it often introduced me to new people that I liked. You never know what tidbit of seeming off-topic information will inspire a new idea.

Bwc  2. Class notes and links to supporting information. In academic settings I’ve seen many professors, trainers and facilitators add their syllabi, notes, and links to websites. I’m using Microsoft Sharepoint now to create a wiki where I will host pre-work content and activities for a workshop I am designing. A Facebook-like platform is great for this, although versioning control would be a nice-to-have.

Drj Sharepoint?

Bwc Sharepoint is Microsoft’s collaboration platform. A lot of people are using it for collaborative learning environments. Check out more about it here.

Drj 3. Course feedback. Students can provide feedback about their favorite or least favorite aspects of the training.

Bwc This is where a “two-way” information stream can provide excellent near real-time feedback. An instructional designer could easily move to a more “agile” design process by using Facebook’s social utilities to gain “instant” feedback on instructional content. I’ve been using similar methods for several years by building database systems. Facebook has this functionality built in!

Drj

4. Student Reflection. Students are required to post some “takeaway” from any training that they just completed in their status, which can help their community at large.

5. Events. If you can get out of the whole departmental competition thing, it could be really interesting to have online “events” that everyone was invited to facilitate cross-company brainstorming for new initiatives.

Bwc 6. Build your personal network/brand. It’s important for individuals to be able to broadcast their expertise and interests. Facebook-like platforms could become similar to an “auctioning” of skills. IBM does this now with their internal Blue Pages. Employees are encouraged to list their skills, expertise, and availability. People can search using keywords to find suitable candidates for their projects.

Drj I like this idea. We haven’t talked about LinkedIn, but it seems like this might be an internal version of that.

Bwc 7. Post-classroom events (extended learning). We used this recently on a leadership training program. Although the primary component of the training course was a 3-day classroom experience, we designed pre-work activities for the cohort to participate in online, and, to ensure retention and reflection we also designed post-classroom activities. The cohort remained engaged, and continued to work on the post-class activities. One benefit were the “breadcrumbs” left behind by the cohorts… subsequent cohorts could learn from them.

Drj  8. Games. We could do a post of different types of games. But clearly all sorts of games are popular on Facebook. I don’t play, but I know that Mafia Wars, Farmville and the like have some real appeal. I could see seeking out people who had certain skill sets to form your teams. You and I play Scrabble and its knockoffs. Facebook serves as a portal to every kind of game imaginable. I could also see some scavenger hunts for content and personnel.

Bwc How many games on Facebook are designed for learning though? Quite a few I think… it’s just not real obvious.

Drj I FIRMLY believe that every activity people participate in teaches or reinforces some learning or knowledge (even if only a physical response). Even if games are not designed with education/instruction/learning in mind, they still have features that can be exploited and minded to fold in formal/planned learning opportunities. I mean, somehow they have made the most inane, tedious tasks on Farmville completely compelling. Who knew? Which leads me to think about another way to use Facebook for training:

9. Quizzes. What kind of programmer are you? What does your desk say about you? What kind of cubicle mate are you? While these are humorous, I could see some actual useful ones, like providing Myers Briggs profiles and the like. Oh, and here’s the 10th (I beat you to it)!

10. Fandom. I was interested to see that the number one corporate identity on Facebook is Coke. Their presence was first created by a zealous fan. The page has become their corporate identity, and hugely popular. A lot of times employees can be the biggest fans of a company and hold the most knowledge. Creating a safe environment to tell the positives of the company can offset some of the griping that we all need to do sometimes.

Bwc Yes, but some companies are paranoid about their “intellectual property” being made public. It’s akin to the music companies obsessing over DRM — the one thing a company needs to understand about today’s information revolution: you can’t control everything … so focus on influence rather than control. Comcast learned this quickly, and adopted Twitter to broadcast network statuses to its customers. Now it uses Twitter for customer support.

Drj  I see we keep returning to the theme that companies need to have a more flexibility in this era of accessible info.

Bwc Well there are 10 ways… but there are many more. The big question for companies: are you going to build internal social platforms, or leverage the public ones? It seems like many companies will want to keep their social networks behind their firewalls. This may work in the short-run, but newer generations of workers (Millennials and the 2020 Gen) will want to be able to blend their public and work networks and profiles. That will make for an interesting dialog… maybe we can discuss that one soon?

What’s the Difference Between a Game and an Educational Game?

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Back in 2009, Google Wave was the next big thing.  Dolly and Brandon used it to discuss their opinions on the difference between a game and an educational game. The distinctions are key for instructional designers to consider when deciding to design a game for a learning intervention.

Drj DOLLY: Games vs. educational games. I know, one’s fun and the other one is not! Really, though, what are the differences? I think intentionality of design is a key point, because I think that all games — indeed all experiences — are educational. Bernie deKoven talks a lot about children’s games providing an opportunity to roleplay and work out developmental issues. I know I learned a lot about what a ruthless sort my brother is when he beat me repeatedly at every board game created. So, if we accept that every game has learning opportunities, how do we make sure to include the fun?

Bwc BRANDON: Both can be fun, right? The basic difference is an educational game is designed with specific learning objectives and should be able to assess whether learning occurs.

Drj

I think assessment is key. That’s the external component that is often artificial. So many times assessment of learning within games have two basic problems:

  1. It’s completely external and separate from the game play.
  2. It’s too “safe”– Alex Trebek doesn’t give you second chances in final jeopardy. It’s FINAL!

I was thinking about that whole shift in board games with the advent of Cranium. Their whole goal was to remove the idea that there was one winner who had all the fun, but that players of multiple intelligences could play and those people could have fun. Bonding, instead of board throwing!
Bwc Hmm… Good point — Cranium could be looked at as a “learning game” although it doesn’t have traditional learning objectives, right?

Drj Well, if you look at their objectives they are met. And their learning objectives fall nicely within affective measures and an arts curriculum.

Bwc For example?

Drj Well, the goals of the game include team cooperation and communication through graphic arts and music.

Bwc “Game” is such a broad term. A game must include some element of Play, I presume. I also assume a game designed with a learning outcome in mind has structured play (as opposed to unstructured play — like when a kid plays with blocks).

Drj Garvey said that a game is institutionalized play. Look at football. It’s a game, clearly. We wouldn’t say that it’s educational, but you can learn it (and those who learn it best find it financially rewarding). Also by using it as a metaphor you can teach life lessons and/or management strategies, or you can teach math from the stats of the game.

Bwc So this leads me to think about the “game perimeter”. Most games have boundaries, right? We step into the perimeter’s “magic circle” to play the game. In the corporate workplace, the “magic circle” is the game’s play boundary the instructional designer/game designer creates. The trick for instructional designers is to craft what learning occurs while the player is in that circle… so does that mean that the assessment needs to occur inside or outside the perimeter?

Drj I think the best assessments are seamless and inside that perimeter. Examples could be performance-, point- or victory-based.

Bwc So are we saying that the differences between a game and a successful educational game can be minimal if assessment can be more embedded and genuine?

Drj Sure.

Creative Effective Training Evaluation

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Drj Dolly: Brandon ranted about ineffective evaluations while I was holed up under the 2 feet of snow here. The snow is still here, but my Internet is finally back. His comments about evaluation made me wonder what I consider effective evaluation to look like. Cumulative evaluation should be as authentic as possible. If you want someone to be an effective salesperson, you’d better identify what competencies are required and then have them replicate and practice as best they can in the classroom environment.

Bwc Brandon: Good point. I concur. However, more and more organizations are hit with the high-cost of travel and the inefficiency of removing people away from their jobs for instructor-led training. We need to provide effective strategies for authentic evaluation in an online format.

Drj So I can think of two ways to recreate these situations in the digital world: virtual simulation and/or role-playing. Learners will have different profiles. Does someone who is technically minded need the same practice as someone who is naturally a people person? Both these individuals need to come out with the same skill sets at the end, but perhaps they need different practice. Formative self assessments combined with flexible course sequencing can allow individuals to focus on their areas of real need.

Bwc That just describes a sales training course I completed using Thiagi’s 4-Door Model. It allowed the learner to “self-adjust” the content based on their own self-leveling of knowledge. It does beg the question though: how do you “branch” an evaluation based on different learner profiles? Can you have an effective evaluation instrument via a dynamic system that presents a contextual series of assessment items based on the learner’s individual profiles?

Drj I think that you can have a self-assessment that gives the learner guidance in their own strengths and weaknesses.

Bwc OK, so you’re talking about self-assessment. What about an actual skills certification? One that can affect a learner’s job status, salary, or in the case of compliance or regulatory situations, a learner’s knowledge that could have life or death consequences? Can a dynamic evaluation instrument provide the appropriate assessment of knowledge?

Drj I don’t know what you mean by “dynamic evaluation instrument”.

 

Bwc “Dynamic pooling” is when the system displays content based on a learner’s input at the time of input.

Drj What you are talking about now is less about the assessment/evaluation used and more the consequences related to that assessment or evaluation. The SATs are pretty weighty and they’ve been using a dynamic response for years. A student gets progressively harder questions until incorrect responses are entered. Then a cycle commences where easier and harder questions are given to the student until the logarithm determines what the student’s level of mastery is. I’d say that stakes are high, but the College Board feels comfortable using this dynamic response.

Bwc Right. So I’m saying we need a similar system in corporate learning where appropriate assessment techniques seem to be a missing factor. In eLearning, there is a cycle of ineffective self-check systems instead of situational problem-based assessments. For example, a colleague was discussing with me the usage of “misconception” problems in assessment. They can present more authentic situations such as posing the problem in a scenario and requiring the learner to identify the parts of the scenario that are wrong or inaccurate. Even using open-ended question types where the system evaluates based on a keyword or series of keywords can be quite effective. How are we truly able to measure whether knowledge or skills are transferred if we’re not willing to properly evaluate?

Drj I like that because some people are just natural or trained to be good test takers. That kind of exercise actually accurately tests knowledge that they have, rather than their ability to suss out a poorly written stem or item. I know you are all about performance. Shouldn’t people’s training be based upon actual deficits in their performance and knowledge? And if they are high performers or can demonstrate mastery of course materials, shouldn’t they be rewarded by being allowed to choose their own training regimen, anyhow?

 

This post first appeared in January 2010 at The Total Learner Experience. 

IBM CityOne goes live

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I was a bit excited this morning to see that IBM’s CityOne had finally launched. I’m always a fan of innovative games with real life applications and I am currently searching for activities to use with my high school students. Billed as a SimCity-like experience, but with an educational side, I was expecting to have some fun building a city to my specifications and doing some high level problem-solving.

That build-up would indicate some disappointment– and indeed there was. The glossy cityscape I viewed was inviting and attractive. A small icon indicated my first problem to solve. I clicked, exposing the specific city-planning issue related to water. Three solutions were presented with various pricetags. I choose the most expensive, most comprehensive solution and was presented with some boilerplate response. Mousing and clicking over the screen to find my next challenge I determined (perhaps incorrectly) that I had no more challenges. I ended this first of ten rounds thinking that I couldn’t make much progress if I only had ten challenges to solve.

I made it to turn 7, barely. By this round I had begun to have challenges from all 4 areas (water, energy, retail and banking), but they all had the same basic format. There were few of the identified game attributes– little challenge, no suspense, I had no idea what I was competing for or against and I didn’t know how or why I could fail– and I didn’t really care.

I was attracted to the game because of this line from Gizmodo: “The idea here, presumably, is that it’s always a good thing to educate the populace about the these sorts of problems, and, hey, who knows, someone might unwittingly stumble on a solution we can actually use.” This is hard to see how that could happen  because all of the activities are call and response. There is no room or opportunity for players to create their own innovative solutions.

This seems like a marketing/training tool go awry. To launch the game I had to enter detailed personal info– not surprising– but the limited options for industry or occupation indicated to me that IBM had a  target audience in mind. One of the follow up questions asked you to indicate if you were a software purchase “decider”. Many of the game solutions included using software (presumably developed and marketed by IBM) to clean up a variety of perceived major city issues.

It’s disappointing to me that this game is so lame. I have no problem with companies reaching out through games– I just want them to be fun. There was no fun to be had.

This post originally appeared in October 2010 on The Total Learner Experience.