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Sunday, April 29, 2007

Hire that Kid!



Warning sarcasm ahead

You may have read that there is a scandal brewing in schools across the United States and even the world. Kids are using iPods and MP3 players to cheat on tests. A horrible use of technology…those darn electronic gizmos…they are corrupting the youth of the world.

An article by Associated Press called “Schools banning iPods to beat cheaters” outlines how “schools across the country are targeting digital media players as a potential cheating device.”

A teacher at San Gabriel High School in San Gabriel, Calif., confiscated a student's iPod during a class and found the answers to a test, crib notes and a definition list hidden among the teen's music selections.

These kids are desperate for answers…as the article indicates, “Even an audio clip of the old "Schoolhouse Rock" take on how a bill makes it through Congress can come in handy during some American government exams.” The scandal.

The only solution…ban iPods and other MP3 players outright…and while you are at it…reinforce the already existing ban on cell phones. Get rid of any and all technology that is enabling cheating.

According to the article, "a spokeswoman for the National Association of Secondary School Principals, said it is not unusual for schools to ban digital media players."

Students need to do their own work so they can prepare for a career where their success rises and falls on working alone! And where they don't use pesky gadgets like cell phones, Blackberry's or other electronic aids to help them achieve their goals.

Because we know that every day adults in government, corporate and non-profit organizations do their own work without the aid of technology. And, they do it alone. Collaboration is bad, one person knows everything, working in a team is bad, helping a co-worker is bad. Stay in your cubical and don't talk to co-workers, keep your head down and focus on your own work. Don't ask anyone for help.

Wait a minute, this is backwards.

Instead of banning technology and struggling to maintain our 19th century schools system, why don’t we update them? Why don’t we leverage the technology of this “gamer and gadget” generation and embrace the idea that knowing how to retrieve, store and access data on hand-held gadgets in today’s society is more important than memorizing how a bill becomes a law. Didn’t Einstein state that he never memorized anything he could look up? Everyday schools force kids to memorize isolated pieces of trivia. (Witness "Are You Smarter than a Fifth Grader?")

Stop the insanity.

Instead, let’s teach students how to navigate search engines, how to distill large amounts of information into “talking points”, how to organize information for easy retrieval and how to discern quality information found on the internet from garbage.

Don’t teach kids that the only way to be successful is to memorize information and then regurgitate it on a paper-and-pencil test. That is obscene and a lie.

In fact, the kid who is clever enough to understand the value of the information contained in the School House Rock songs, download them from the internet and put them on an iPod for a test is EXACTLY the person I want on my development team. Someone who can think outside of the box, maximize resources and who understands how to utilize technology to get the job done.

Schools shouldn’t ban MP3 players, they should embrace them.

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End Note:
I think School House Rock is a great educational tool, I’ve written about the instructional quality of School House Rock before in School House Rock, School of Rock.

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Friday, April 27, 2007

Out and About: Talk'n About Games

Pictured from Left to Right are Karl Kapp, Greg Walsh and Steve Sugar. Three guys talking about games (apparently arranged by height).

Recently I had the pleasure of presenting on the topic of games with two interesting and exciting gentleman. One was Steve Sugar who has written a half-a-dozen books on what he calls "19th century games." Steve has developed board games, games where you toss koosh balls, bingo games and just about any other type of fun, educational game you can think of. He is a great presenter and I had a blast with him. Visit Steve at his web site, The Game Group.

Steve spoke about the 10 reasons games are such good tools for learning. You can read about them on this post The Value of Games

Also on the agenda was a former student of mine, Greg Walsh. He is so knowledgeable about interactive technologies and game design. He did an excellent job explaining the steps from the concept of a game to its final online version. You can visit Greg at his web site GregWalsh.com. He talks a bit about the presentation on his blog and provides a Link.

My job was to start the talk about games for learning. I discussed the generation of gamers and what their learning expectations are. The highlight for me was when an audience member came up afterwards and said, "you opened my eyes to video games, I used to think they were all bad but now I know they can be used for learning as well." Mission accomplished.

True...games are just a method of delivering content, in and of themselves they are not good or bad. Just remember to match the type of learning to the type of game.

Thanks to Dr. Greg Williams, Director and Clinical Assistant Professor University of Maryland,Baltimore County, for setting up the event.
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Thursday, April 26, 2007

Gadgets, Games and Gizmos: Get the Glass


Did your mom always try to get you to drink your milk? She probably told you that drinking milk will help you grow up to be big and strong. If she was like my mom, she tried really hard but it was never any fun to drink my milk. I always wanted chocolate or even Pink Quick to make my milk taste better. (actually I only wanted the Pink Quick once...until I actually tasted it...not good.)

Anyway, the "Got Milk?" folks...the other people who want you to drink milk (besides your mom) have created a really fun and entertaining game to teach about the benefits of milk. It is a 3D online, interactive, board game. It is fun and cleverly incorporates a board game with mini-games (Games within the game).

Check out the Get the Glass Game. You'll have fun. Thanks to Helmut Doll for pointing this game out to me. The board game provides a nice storyline, multiple choice questions, interactivity and the "thrill" of being chased by the police. To roll the die, just pick up with with your mouse and drop it. It feels like rolling the real thing.

This is an interesting method of creating an online game that would be fun and educational, think of how you can place your instructional content into a game like this.
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Tuesday, April 24, 2007

Email is Sooo 1990s

This week on the TrainingDay blog, I have written about how email is now "snail mail" since the gamers want to have information via text messages as opposed to email which takes too long. You can read the posted called Email is Antiquated.
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Saturday, April 21, 2007

Bloomsburg University's CAC Event


Every year corporate professionals from the field of e-learning arrive in tiny Bloomsburg Pennsylvania to evaluate students in a our graduate program in instructional technology. The picture above shows all the students who participated.

The exercise is part of a class I teach called Managing Multimedia Projects. In the class, I form students into teams and have them each create a Proposal based on a Request for Proposal I design specifically for the class. The students must write a 40 page response to the RFP, create a working prototype and then deliver a 20 minute sales presentation. One the exercise is complete, one team is declared the "winner" but they are all winners because it prepares students to write and respond to RFPs and gives them insight into the business aspects of the e-learning field.

This year, the RFP was issued by the non-existent PA Department of First Responders. The ideas was that this government agency wanted to create training for security guards across PA in the areas of ship terminals, airports, truck terminals and other transportation hubs that may be subject to threats. The students worked for about a month writing the proposal and another two weeks working on a presentation. One of the requirements was that the second phase of the training had to be performed in a 3D envrionment like Second Life or some other 3D Metaverse. All but one of the four teams chose Second Life. The fourth team chose the Quake III engine.

Over 35 e-learning professionals attended the event and evaluated the students. In addition, they had a chance to interview students for internships and jobs. It really helps in the search for talent to see the students perform in a pressure situation.

The entries below outline the three day event. If you want to see the RFP, bidder's conference questions and corresponding proposals. You can click here.

Read an alumni's post about CAC here.
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CAC Teams: Emagine


This team won the "Best Presentation" and "Best Overall" award. It consisted of Ashley Kreischer, Yan Zhang, Marnie Welliver and Brian Seely.

Our solution focuses on the S.T.A.R. procedure based upon the results of the Wonderlic IQ test. In Phase One, we will develop 3 online courses which each consist of four components based on the S.T.A.R. procedure with focus on transitions from each phase to the real world. Phase Two will be produced in Second Life, a 3-D environment, where the learner will explore different areas and situations to address the possible threats. In Phase Three, a checklist will be provided to the PDFRS official that will be training security personnel.

Based on ADDIE, an instructional design model, and the ARCS motivational model, we will design the content for the security training courses. This includes objectives, content outline, test items, instructional strategies, flowcharts and storyboards. We will develop the content of security training courses by converting them into actual instructional courseware through our implemented Learning Management Systems, using Flash® Professional 8, Second Life and incorporating swif.t3D.

The components of Phase One will offer some 3-D pieces and many interactive elements. To accustom the learner to Second Life, we will use swif.t3D software that can create 3 D imagery. This can be easily incorporated into Flash® Professional 8, the industry standard for interactive software.

We will continue to use Moodle as our LMS, a SCORM compliant open source learning management system. Moodle will be used for content organization and to track learner performance and time spent within Phase One. In Phase Two, Sloodle will link Moodle with Second Life’s interactive objects to also track the learner. We will be using our trusted partner remote-Learner.net as a third party to host our created Moodle and courseware. Remote-Learner.net put into use Second Life server software to accommodate the many users of the 3-D environment and speed up the connection.

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CAC Teams: A New Day



This team won the "Best Written" award and consists of Robert (Spyke) Krepshaw, Jared Kishbaugh, Bianca Pichardo, Jason Kojteck and Matt Milgram.

The solution was:

A New Day proposes to develop a two-phased training program with the third-phased in mind. Our two-phased training solution will train PDFRS’ security personnel to quickly identify and respond to potential acts of terror. The two phases will consist of a traditional E-learning environment for Phase 1 and a 3-D multi-learner online learning environment for Phase 2. Phase 1 will incorporate a role-playing style engine referred to as, Choose-Your-Own-Path (CYOP). This engine will promote active learning by engaging learners to make key decisions in order to progress through the training.

Phase 2 will incorporate an open source gaming engine (licensed to A New Day) for the 3-D online learning experience, as opposed to commonly used 3-D online environments such as Second Life. This approach will eliminate problems associated with Second Life, such as hacking and griefing, and additionally provide improved graphics and controls.

For the first phase of the Security Awareness Training program, A New Day will create six modules of training using our CYOP engine (developed in Flash and XML, allowing for flexibility and customization). Each learner is required to spend one hour in each module according to PDFRS. However, A New Day will not incorporate a time limit. Instead we will provide additional practice sessions for those who need more instruction. An avatar will serve as a guide to coach the learner through the content of each module. CYOP encourages interactivity and the transfer of knowledge to on-thejob experiences by mimicking real-world encounters.

During Phase 2, A New Day will use an open source gaming engine (Quake III) to create a 3-D multi-learner online learning environment. Learners will be able to interact with their peers and trainers from PDFRS in real time throughout each lesson. The 3-D environment will closely represent the real-world work environment, allowing the learners to effectively identify potential problems and respond to them accordingly.

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CAC Teams: Think e-Design


This student team consisted of Mary Beyer, Spring Taylor,
Hong Sun, and Heather Gee.

There solution was:

Think e-Design proposes to redesign the delivery platform within the current learning management system (LMS). Since PDFRS currently has an LMS, Think e-Design recommends utilizing this existing technology.

We propose to design SWAT (Secure Pennsylvania With Awareness Training) University. SWAT U will be an e-learning portal created for the two phases of requested e-learning modules. To reinforce security awareness and the performance-based objectives introduced in the Phase One online modules, the security personnel will enter Second Life for Phase Two. Second Life is a web-based, Three Dimensional (3D) virtual, multi-learner online role-play environment. In Second Life the security personnel will create an avatar (persona in the virtual world) that can socialize, interact and explore ‘real-world’ security awareness situations.

SWAT U will consist of a Welcome Center, a Learning Center, Learning Resources and Career Resources. The Learning Center will consist of the six required e-learning modules and a link to Second Life. We will build exercises and real world incidents to reinforce the learning objectives in the six training modules.

Think e-Design will use Raptivity, a rapid interactivity builder to design the six interactive e-learning modules. The modules will consist of performance-based objectives with a full assessment of the learner’s change in behavior.

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CAC Teams: Elan


For Bloomsburg University's Corporate Advisory Council's Request for Proposal activity this semester, the teams had to create a two tiered solution to train security guards to recognize and identify suspicious persons, objects and situations. There were four teams this semester.

One, named Elan, consisted of Asmahan Akam, Weitian An, Jacob Naylor and Kathryn Rebilas. They proposed a two-phased solution titled "Pennsylvania Personnel Awareness Training and Reality-based Online Learning Solution" (PA PATROLS). Phase 1 training consisted of six self-paced modules built in an interactive e-learning environment. The learners would be required to complete two “all-required” modules and one specialty module that corresponds with an individual's line of work. Phase 2 utilized the internet-based virtual environment Second Life.

In this solution, learners would be put into groups of ten and led virtually by an instructor through one “all-required” module and one specialty module.

Elan received the "Best Prototype" award.

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Thursday, April 19, 2007

CAC Meetings

Here is Vince Basile discussing internship opportunities for companies to hire our graduates as interns.

Two teams have competed so far in the CAC presentations, very professional presentations. One team mentioned the use of Second Life and the other using a different type of software solution. The teams were "A New Day" and Elan.

Here are some photographs of the third team's presentation.


This an image of a mnemonic to help you remember the colors of the rainbow. Part of an instructional strategy presented by the team.


Here is a screen capture from the last student team, Think eDesign. There theme was focused on quickly providing a solution.

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Wednesday, April 18, 2007

Spring CAC 2007: Ardent Learning


A last minute "surprise" presentation at CAC, Sam Shahani asked if he could present even though the company was not on the Agenda, of course I said "yes" it is always great to have information shared and presented. He presented along with Carrington Grossman about Adrent Learning and what they are all about.

They deliver many differen types of learning from e-learning to print media to meetings-in-a-box.
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Spring CAC 2007: ESP Systems


ESP Systems create an innovative system to help servers and bus-people in a resturant know when customers want their check or want to clear the table. Drew Palmer explained how their system works and who they need to create e-learning for.

Their audience is 19-22 year olds with a turn over of about 150% who need to learn how their system works. So they wanted to use e-learning to support their business. They view it as a "huge" driver of their business. If they are effective in e-learning, they will be effective with thier product.

They train 6,300 learners a year with e-learning. They are hoping to get 70-80,000 learners a year when they partner with a national resturant chain. The courses they develop are about 20 minutes. The big issue is integrating their solution with the Point of Sale systems in the resturants.

Their goal is to embedded interactivity into the learning constantly through the learning environment. They want the learner to "feel" that the course is shorter than it actually is.

They want to move toward gaming with a scenario where the learner is waiting on a table and they have to react to input and then make decisions. The game would assign points based on the system. They also have a challenge of how to deliver training via an iPod or cell phone and then how does that cell phone become a communication vehicle.

They are actually trying to create the concept of having learners upload interesting pieces and ideas to a web site much like YouTube. The learners themselves would capture the "learning moments" they would be placed on the site and the accessed by others, perhaps via a cell phone.
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Spring 2007 CAC: Pal-Tech


Andy Pasternak from Pal-Tech presented on the topic of Learning Management Systems. The company focuses on the Federal government and providing learning solutions to those agencies. they specialize in traning technology and management and they have international expertise providing services in over 50 countries. Create and support training in multiple languages.

He discussed how they helped the State Department choose a Learning Management System. Andy listed the steps necessary to properly conduct the LMS selection process:

-Analyze your organization's LMS needs
-Write an RFP that reflects your needs
-Develop a schedle and tools for evaluating proposals
-Organize the on-site presentations by finalists
-Install select products on-site and conduct the technical and hands-on evaluation
-Produce final acquisition report and management plan.

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Spring 2007 CAC: Banker's Edge


Stacey Gawrys and Kevin Bennett from Banker's Edge.

The presentation was about how to add simple games to compliance training in the financial industry which is highly conservative.

Here are some of the compliants with many compliance e-learning courses:
-Just the facts--not engaging
-Dry and boring
-Staff just click through it yearly
-End users not really happy when it is time to complete the annual training

Interesting that they mentioned that most people taking the courses are in mid-20's but the people buying the training are older and that causes a little bit of a disconnect.

Future goals include:
-Engage a competitive spirit as much as possible
-Gear towards audience so they enjoy the games
-Design universal games to be used over and over again
-Develop customizable games to change content when needed for different topics
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Spring 2007 CAC: Black and Decker


Greg Walsh presented a presentation called "Going to the Dark Side: Out Sourcing e-Learning"

He described the environment in which outsourcing takes place at Black and Decker and how his group transitioned from an internal group to primarily an external group. Of the 22 courses his group is doing this year, 21 of the courses will be done externally and only one done in-house.


He discussed some advantages of outsourcing:
-Lower Cost--actually equal cost
-Freedom/Flexiblity
-More courses at one

He also discussed some disadvantages:
-Stressful to lose people you worked with due to layoffs
-All new processes (new authoring environment, new bug tracker)
-Work being donee off-site, can't see what is happening
-Quality is suspect until products are produced and seen to evaluate

Lessons Learned

1) Nothing beats sitting next to your co-workers (when on a project team
Vendors: be available or give schedule of availability

2) Buyers: A a clear change-management plan and prepare for new processes.
Vendors: Ask lots of questions. Some clients doen't even know what they need to tell you.

3) Not every vendor wil work out/fit it.
Vendors: Make your clients feel like they're the only ones.
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Spring 2007 CAC: NXLevel


Bob Christensen presented for NXLevel. He discussed their product called i-Prism which has been designed for the creation of e-learning with a great deal of flexibility and abilty to manage content and learning objects.

The tool allows the inclusion of videos, quizzes and Flash animations. The tool has an scenario editor as well as a quiz editor and even some basic drag and drops.

He mentioned that it was so easy that his son uses the tool to quiz his friends on bugs. Great use of simple technology and very flexible.
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Spring 2007 CAC: The Phoenix Group and Xerox Corporation Presentation


Cliff Sobel from The Phoenix Group and James Knittel from Xerox presented a solution they jointly created and how they developed entertaining ways to get across information about their new products. Transferring knowledge that the sales reps from Xerox could use.

Cliff mentioned that there were four key issues with existing training that needed to be addressed.

1) Type of training that was previously delivered was dry and a little difficult to get through.
2) Traffic to online learning courses was a low
3) It had a lack of interactivity
4) There is so much information that needed be be memorizee and kept track of that the reps felt overwhelmed.

The answer was to develop a highly interactive site using the underlying concept of motorcycles as a unifying theme because of a male dominated audience in their early to mid-thirties.

User could "play" certain elements of the instruction, for example a WD-40 can in the corner could be clicked on and then it would spray.

They also highlighted how the product was linked to applications the sales reps customers were involved in.

Finally, they showed a configurator that was used to show how different variations could be created out of the components of the copier system. The solution increased the use of the training dramatically...from a sub-10% up to over 75%.

The training provided a lot to the salesforce in terms of helping them to understand how to configure a solution and then present that solution to the client.
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Spring 2007 CAC


Our bi-annual Corporate Advisory Council has kicked off today. The first day is when companies present what they are doing and how they incorporating e-learning into their organizations. So we are blogcasting the event live as it happens so feel free to participate and join in the discussion.

I did the first presentation on the topic of Games, Gadgets and Gizmos.

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Tuesday, April 17, 2007

Game Consoles Take Over

"In any given minute of the day, about 1.6 million people in the U.S. are using a video game console."

This according to research released by Nielsen Wireless and Interactive Services, a service of The Nielsen Company.

The research goes on to say that 41.1% of all TV households own at least one game console (our household owns a PS3 and Wii not to mention the PS2 and Nintendo 64...and not including any hand-held platforms.)

As stated in the press release:
“The video game console has become a major player in the battle for the living room,” said Jeff Herrmann, Vice President of Nielsen Wireless and Interactive Services. “In households across the country, consoles are successfully competing for consumers' time and attention; not simply as gaming platforms, but as multimedia hubs that also can deliver high quality digital movies and IPTV.”

So does your training or academic department own a game console? Are you even considering owning a game console within your department? Why not? Not professional or academic enough, your trainees and students are using them...shouldn't you.

Game consoles are powerful computers and multimedia devices, the clerk at Best Buy told us not to purchase a Blu-Ray disc player since we had a PS3...he said it plays the disks as well as the player and...get this...is cheaper.


Read the entire press release. Read the entire report.
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Monday, April 16, 2007

Sad

As a faculty member, father and human being, my heart goes out to all of students, faculty, staff and parents at Virginia Tech. Sometimes we live in such sad times.
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Gadgets, Games and Gizmos for Learning: It's Finally Here


Yes, it is now official, you can order Gadgets, Games and Gizmos for Learning: Tools and Techniques for Transferring Know-How from Boomers to Gamers. The book is available at Amazon and from the publisher at Wiley's web site.

Also, check out the web site for the book www.gadgetsgamesandgizmos.com. It has an interactive game/console timeline, wiki-based glossary so you can add terms, example knowledge transfer games, whitepapers, articles, reviews, even a place to get fun gear based on the illustrations in the book and lots of other good stuff. The site will be continually growing so check it out from time to time.

Plus on Friday April 20, 2007 I will be presenting in the Adobe Luminary eSeminar Series on Gadgets, Games and Gizmos for Learning from 10:00 AM - 11:00 AM US/Pacific. Register today, I understand there are only a few slots left.

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Friday, April 13, 2007

Gadgets, Games and Gizmos: iPods Morph


Rumor has it that Apple is in the process of creating Wi-Fi enabled iPods. (via Gizmodo via digitimes via AppleInsider.

This coupled with Nike's iPod enabled shoe, once again show how gadgets can be used to transfer knowledge from one place to another...wi-fi allows for easy transfer. So imagine your iPod sensor from running sending a wi-fi message to your online database tracking your progress and automatically recording your daily workout numbers.

Or imagine a sensor built into the gloves of an employees that can sense if a process is being done incorrectly and then provide audio feeback in the form of instructions or training to the employee after it wirelessly downloads the instructions from a server. (just-in-time training from the equipment worn by the employee...now that is customized training.)

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Thank You, I'm Honored


Yesterday, I learned that I have been voted by TrainingIndustry, Inc. as one of 2007's Top 20 Most Influential Training Professionals. Thank you.

I really think the award belongs to the alumni and students of Bloomsburg University's Instructional Technology program where I teach. These are the people who are influencing the field on a daily basis and who are constantly working to improve methods, procedures and delivery of instruction to corporate, academic, government and non-profit learners.

You can see the entire list here.

Thank you.
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Thursday, April 12, 2007

Second Life Build Begins for Class

Our instructional technology department has purchased a private island called "MSIT Island." I am using it for my class this semester and for one I will be teaching this summer. Currently two student teams are building educational environments on the island in accordance to an Request for Proposal created for my class.

I just had a meeting with one student today to work our securing his parsel of land from the other team so that each team (in a competitive situation) cannot "spy" on the other team. (gotta love human nature)

I am intrested in seeing how the project will progress and I will keep you posted on what they are doing. I can't reveal too much until the end of April since the class involves a bit of competition and I don't want to be accused of giving away any secrets.

But here is a snapshot of me and one of my students talking about using Second Life for his class project.

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Tuesday, April 10, 2007

Learning Circuits April Big Question: Are We There Yet

The Learning Circuit's Blog question for this month is "ILT and Off-The-Shelf Vendors, What Should they Do?"

I am going to answer that question by recanting a story from Gadgets, Games and Gizmos for Learning.

In high school, I literally had a lesson on how to fold a map. The lesson was part of a six week class on how to read and use maps. I vividly remember the lesson because it confounded me how re-folding a simple piece of paper could be so darn frustrating. I always had the last flap inside out. Instead of the nice map cover, I had an obscure piece of Pennsylvania highway on the front. I did not do well folding a map and only a little better reading it.

When I got older, I always seemed to have jobs that required me to travel (someone has a warped sense of humor). Therefore, I always had various types of maps in various stages of being folded shoved into the glove compartment of my car—just enough so it would close (but eventually, they would spill out.)

The maps had highlighter all over them from my efforts to determine the quickest route to my destination. Then one day, after being forced to take my car because hers was in the shop, my wife bought me an atlas. It had all the maps in a nice neat book I could keep on the front seat. It was a great improvement for the aesthetics of my car.

Then, a few years ago, I started to use automated directions from the internet. It was fantastic; all I needed to do was type in my home address and the destination address. My printer would instantly provide turn-by-turn directions and even small pictures of the route highlighted in purple. I received a printed set of instructions guiding me to my final destination. I could throw away my atlas.

Whenever I traveled, the electronic directions provided pinpoint accuracy for about 99% of the trip. For some reason, they seemed to break down all time during the last mile. The last 5280 feet were always wrong. Leading me to believe that gas stations created the web-based directions so you would stop in and ask for directions. It was also a little scary trying to read the directions at 60 miles an hour to determine whether or not I should get off at the upcoming exit three lanes over.

Another unfortunate side effect, was that my car now had dozens of sheets of paper scattered about. Every trip required one set of directions for my destination and one set for the return trip. If I wanted to take a side trip, I needed to print directions for that little jaunt as well. These directions were a definite improvement over maps, no folding, but my car was back to being a mess.

Enter Global Positioning System (GPS) technology. I now have a small device that looks like a tiny television monitor stuck on the inside of my windshield and plugged into the outlet of my car. It is a GPS receiver. This receiver, no bigger than six inches, displays a map showing the route I need to follow and providing a visual image of my car on the highway. It also gives me verbal turn-by-turn directions from a female voice named “Jill.”

The GPS has eliminated both my need to print directions from the internet and the danger of trying to read instructions at 60 miles an hour. Technology has replaced the need to teach people how to read (and fold) maps and it made my car neater.

So, what should ILT and Off-the-Shelf Vendor focus on...creating embedded learning experiences within an organization, automation of information...not education. Create workflow learning, Just-in-time learning, replace the need to "know" something with the ability to look it up or to have the device, process or machine inform the user of the machine, process or device...focus on moving the burden of knowing from the person to the object or process. Just like fast food establishments with cash registers that automatically make change...vendors need to work on the same type of concept.
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Create a Mystery

This week over at TrainingDay, my post is titled Create a Mystery...and in that spirit, I won't tell you what it is about...it's a
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