Left on the cutting room floor

I had a chance this week to peruse the 2012 Horizon Report – Higher Education Edition - a publication of the New Media Consortium (NMC) that describes emerging technologies judged to be likely to have a near term impact in the world of education.  I am frequently intrigued by the insights NMC provides, but this year, I was most excited by one of the trends they decided to leave out of this year’s final report.  On the preliminary ”short list” was an item that caught my imagination, “social reading.”

I agree with NMC’s analysis that this particular trend is still in its infancy and the technology to support it is not yet clear. But my solo practitioner, bookish heart is enamored with the possibility of being able to connect with folks who are reading the same material I am. 

A glimpse of what is possible

A few years ago, I finished the third book of a fantasy series that was truly the most satisfying, spectacular ending to a series that I have ever read (Brandon Sanderson’s The Hero of Ages). Unlike when it seemed the whole world read the end of the Harry Potter series in the same weekend, I knew no one who was reading the Mistborn series and so had no one to share in relishing the outcome. Luckily, I was able to locate an online discussion board. I spent several hours pouring over others’ reactions, discovering some additional nuances and terrific discussions.

I recently participated in Karl Kapp’s blog book tour for The Gamification of Learning and Instruction, and was able to get insight into others’ reactions to the concepts that Karl brought forward.  Because I was following that conversation, I became aware of a series of posts offering opinions both for and against gamification (discussed by Karl here). The posts challenge my thinking and called attention to aspects of gamification that I was not considering.

I have noticed this kind of conversation in the blogosphere when particularly intriguing or controversial books are published, and I have been enlightened and energized by those conversations – and occasionally have joined in through comments and my own blog posts.

These experiences demonstrate for me that “social reading” has a great deal of potential – well beyond online book clubs and review aggregators.

What my solo practitioner, bookish heart wants

While I can see the power in sharing highlights and margin comments (although that won’t work well for those of us prefer to read on paper),  I am more interested in engaging in conversation about the ideas brought forward in a book. I want to find the other people – people I’ve never even met – who have been intrigued enough by the material to share a little of their insights into its implications and connections with other material. Reading those kinds of comments and connecting with people who share my interests would be very valuable.

There are places where this kind of thing is happening. In my online classes, I can see the power of getting students to engage in a deeper discussion of our text as we go along. But that conversation is closed to the people attending the class. And while authors and publishers are more frequently creating web sites for their books, they tend to aggregate reviews and press. Creating sites that generate open dialog would be more powerful, I think – especially if the site also helps to introduce me to other like-minded thinkers.

A brief perusal of some of the current tools (GoodReads, BookGlutton, ReadSocial) provides glimmers of hope, but are not quite what I am looking for…

So I will very much look forward to the day when “social reading” hits the top of the list of technology trends with powerful tools and an entre to finding a virtual book club that helps me to expand my thinking and enrich my reading experiences. Until then, my bookish heart can dream…

Gamification Whistle Stop

Welcome to today’s stop on Karl Kapp’s Gamification book tour. In The Gamification of Learning and Instruction, Karl effectively cuts through the hype about gaming and lays out strategies that can allow learning professionals to understand how to use the power of games to improve learning.

Gamification is quite simply the act of “adding game elements, game theory,and game mechanics to learning content.” Far from being just a way to dress up an instructional approach or make it fun, applying game concepts can indeed improve both learning and application.

Here are some of the things you might learn from the book:

What people mean when they talk about “gamification” – the factors that transform engaging learning into game play:
It’s always important for us to have a clear understanding of emerging techniques in our field. Our clients are hearing about the importance of learning games from the business press, and they likely have opinions ranging from extreme enthusiasm to dismissiveness. While the characteristics that Karl lists here are quite familiar to those of us who have been dedicated to making learning engaging in all its forms, Karl explains how these elements combine to create effective games.

The evidence regarding whether games are effective, or more effective than traditional approaches to learning and instruction:
As you know, I am a huge fan of linking research to practice. Karl does a great job laying out the theory that explains how games work to motivate learners and improve learning outcomes, and he summarizes the research that demonstrates that game play produces important results. Studying these sections of the book will put you in a much better position to discuss your recommendations with both reluctant and overenthusiastic clients. These sections, for me, really underscore that designing effective game interactions is indeed serious business that requires careful thought along with a sense of fun. With this background, you’ll be better able to explain what each feature of your game design accomplishes and be better able to advocate for key characteristics that ensure the outcomes you want.

The kinds of learning challenges that are best addressed by games:
While games don’t have to be complicated, most of what we think about when considering a game strategy requires quite an investment in time and effort to design and develop. It’s helpful to understand a bit more which types of learning goals can be effectively addressed through gaming techniques. Karl lays out some specific recommendations for applying gamification to different types of knowledge (declarative, conceptual, rules-based, and procedural) and learning domains (cognitive, affective, psychomotor).

The process for designing a game:
As new instructional techniques come into use, they challenge the traditional processes we have for designing, developing and delivering learning, and they change the roles that need to be played. Karl describes some of the implications for design processes and design teams, launching from the traditional ADDIE model along with the emerging scrum or Agile methodologies.

The book contains much more than just these sections, of course, and it contains plenty of examples which bring the concepts to life. As such, it’s a valuable resource for design ideas even if your goal is to include some game elements without actually designing a game-based activity. In addition to providing advice on what to do, Karl also has some cautions regarding the issues that may be created if we  incorporate some elements without incorporating others, or don’t pay careful attention to how certain elements are used.

In all, then, The Gamification of Learning and Instruction is a terrific addition to your bookshelf; I highly recommend it. Nice job, Karl!

What do we need to curate?

In my last post, I commented on recent discussions on the topic of curation. I observed that my Learning Environment Design framework is in some ways a vision for curating learning resources in order to support complex learning needs in organizations. But I had another motive for reading Steven Rosenbaum’s book, Curation Nation.

A need for curation.
One of the things I’ve heard from colleagues and students is that they don’t have time to go looking for the best blogs, twitter feeds, articles, and books for their professional development (no less to read them once they know where to look). They find themselves overwhelmed with information and work demands, and just keeping up with email and project deadlines in the corporate world can be daunting.

Steven Rosenbaum suggests that in this situation, a curator might be highly valued – having someone who can be trusted to pull together the best stuff. Rosenbaum says, “we can see a future in which individuals can galvanize and publish their passions and knowledge in a way that will create value from personal passions and niche expertise.”

The interesting thing here is that a curator doesn’t necessarily have to “own” the space – we can have lots of different curators pulling together resources that seem important from their own unique perspectives. The idea is not for the curator to create a comprehensive directory, but to cut through all the stuff and recommend the things that the curator finds most important or interesting. A professional can pick the curator that seems to be most in line with his or her own point of view. It’s like knowing which movie critic has your taste, or which bookseller is best at recommending books you will enjoy.

Curating learning for learning professionals.
Since supporting the development of learning professionals is my passion, I’m wondering if I might be a good resource for curating learning resources for people working in our field. I recently opened a consulting practice that I’ve called Learning 4 Learning Professionals (L4LP). As I build out my offerings, I’m wondering if I should collate links or create a Twitter feed to promote learning resources and interesting ideas in L&D.

In addition to continuing to blog, I might curate and make lists of the resources I find most helpful, links to other articles on interesting trends and big ideas in our field, links to my favorite conferences and workshop opportunities (aside from my own workshops, of course) – there are a lot of possibilities. These would NOT be paid advertisements, but simply my own take on what’s useful.

What do you think? Who are the curators you already follow? What are some of the questions you have about what’s “out there” that you’d appreciate if somebody (maybe me) would put together in one place? Where would you prefer looking for such things – a blog, a Twitter feed, a web page, a LinkedIn group, a Facebook page, or some other outlet?

To get a sense for whether this might be something that you (gentle readers) might appreciate, I put together a quick survey. If you’d like to take the time to respond to this 4-item survey on possible curation strategies related to learning for learning professionals, you can access it at the following link. 

L4LP Curation Survey

Or, you can comment on this post or contact me through my consulting practice at www.L4LP.com. I would be happy to hear from you.

Curator: Another hat to wear

As learning leaders, we wear a lot of hats. Just like in fashion, the popularity of these hats tends to come and go, but there are classic ones that never seem to go out of style.

Which of these hats is on the shelf in your closet? - trainer, designer, performance consultant, learning architect, learning consultant, learning advisor, business partner, developer, learning and performance professional, knowledge manager, program evaluator, community of practice leader, OD consultant, chief learning officer – the possibilities go on.

And here’s the newest hat available in L&D shop windows: curator. I have to say, as much as I am sometimes worn out by the endless parade of hats we’re encouraged to favor, I’m loving this newest one.

Up until recently, I thought that a curator worked primarily in museums, and it wasn’t a role that I wanted to take up. But here’s what a curator DOES:

• Functions as a keeper, or a custodian, personally responsible for the acquisition, classification, and safeguarding of materials in a collection.
• Facilitates meaning-making by bringing together a variety of ideas and practices in a framework or context through which they can be accessed.
• Acts as a catalyst, whose actions – the selection and interpretation of materials – initiates a dialogue.
• Makes ideas available; acts as the filter through which ideas and practices become known. 

 (Above role definitions are adopted from Curators in Context.)

That’s EXACTLY what L&D professionals need to be doing these days.

Curation is another way to describe a process I have called Learning Environment Design, an idea I’ve been talking and writing about for a number of years. When people have complex, emerging learning needs, it’s hard for a formal curriculum to keep up. In the “new culture of learning,” it is assumed that we will identify our own learning needs and use all the resources at hand to find our own learning resources and propel our knowledge and skill development forward. But that’s not as easy as it sounds.

Learning Environment Design advocates for the idea that as learning leaders, we MUST do a better job helping our learners find the best “stuff” to support their learning. There are so many possible resources and activities that can support learning of complex skill sets and ever-changing knowledge bases, it’s imperative that we help our learners get to the best material as quickly as possible. We have to be curators!

I’ve been reading Curation Nation by Steven Rosenbaum, and finding a lot of terrific advice that I can put to use in advocating for learning environments. Mr. Rosenbaum talks about curation as a way to solve one of the biggest problems of the internet age – too much information. Search algorithms can be helpful, but there’s no substitute for solid recommendations on where to find the best information, the most helpful experts, and the leading edge conversations. And how do we find those recommendations?  Curators!

“The question is, by what mechanism does the cream rise to the top? The secret ingredient is people. In order to collect the best content and put it together, someone’s got to figure out what’s best. That’s what curators do; they bring their judgment and experience and taste to bear on the  question of what you and I should look at next. And we cannot survive without them.”

We cannot survive without them. Our learners are looking for US to help them sort through the possible resources for learning and point them in the right direction.

Aggregation alone is not helpful. With aggregation – all you’re doing is putting a lot of related “stuff” into one place (unfortunately, that will be familiar to many of us who use shared workspace tools).

Curation is about being picky about what gets captured. It requires the judgement of a knowledgable human – and by wearing a curator hat, we can expand our effectiveness in supporting learning and performance in our organizations.

What do you think? Do you want to sport a curator hat as well?  I have more thoughts on the subject, so stay tuned for additional posts. 

 

My thinking on curation has been influenced by the following:
> Curation Nation  Book by Steven Rosenbaum published in 2011.
> The Trainer as Curator. By Clive Shepherd in the April 2012 edition of T+D magazine. (Accessible using this link if you are a member of ASTD.) 
>  Who are your curators?  Blog post by Jeff Cobb at Mission to Learn.
>  Curation: A Core Competency for Learning Professionals. Blog post by David Kelly at The Learning Circuits Blog. March 20, 2012

On Gamification

Our industry can be pretty good at coming up with fancy new names for ideas that have been in use for a while, and “gamification” is the newest buzz word in the list.

“Gamification is using game-based mechanics, aesthetics and game thinking to engage people, motivate action, promote learning, and solve problems.”  ~ Karl Kapp

This week, Karl Kapp publishes a new book on The Gamification of Learning and Instruction. In it, he explains how many of the characteristics that “gamify” learning are proven practices for designing engaging training programs. By deliberately combining these practices with lessons learned from the success of the best game play, we can substantially amplify the impact of our own efforts.  The book is definitely worth the read.

I am pleased to be part of Karl’s Blog Book Tour, so I’ll make more comments when my turn comes around on May 9. In the meantime, I encourage you to follow along on the tour. You can find the schedule here.

 

From Theory to Practice

Today, I am a guest-blogger on ASTD’s Higher Education community of practice blog, and I invite you to mosey over there to engage in a conversation about how we make adult learning theory practical. Here’s the link to my post, From Theory to Practice.

You don’t have to be a professor to comment – I’d love to hear from formal and informal students of adult learning as well. How has learning about theory improved your practice?

While you’re at the ASTD site, I invite you to take a quick tour. Just a few weeks ago, ASTD transitioned their web content to a new format, and established a variety of communities that they hope will be more effective at serving the needs of the various constituencies within ASTD. One or more of the communities may be of interest to you. While I’m still learning my way around, I think the new web site makes it much easier to find the material and links that are useful.

As one of the largest professional organizations for training and development practitioners, ASTD provides a lot of useful content and inspiring conferences for our field. I hope to continue to contribute to the blog-based conversations among folks in the higher ed community. As well, I am working on sharing research insights in T+D magazine.

More to come!

Time to slow down

We live in a world that speeds by so fast. In our work lives, and in our personal lives, we seem to be constantly pressed to do more, to become more efficient, to find ways to do just enough to satisfy the immediate needs. It’s exhausting!

So today, I want to take a contrarian point of view. I want us to slow down, to try luxuriating in thinking and reflecting, and to explore the value of elegance and nuance in our work. Most importantly, I want to encourage us to take time out to learn.

What got me thinking
Over the last month or so, I participated in some online conversations hosted by Michele Martin and Brent MacKinnon on the topic of social artistry. Highfalutin words, to be sure, but a concept worth exploring because it deepens our understanding of what it means to be a facilitator of learning. (For detailed writings on social artistry, see links at the bottom of this post.)

According to Etienne Wenger, the secret of social artistry is ” knowing how to use who you are as a vehicle for opening spaces for learning…  It is a way of tapping into who you are and of making that a gift to the world … it’s about being able to use who I am to take my community to a new level of learning and performance.”

How I want to be as a learning professional
In my work, I am realizing that knowing how to use myself to open up spaces for learning is a worthy goal; I want to be a catalyst, a provocateur, a challenging thought partner. I want to take my community – the community of learning and development professionals – to a new level of learning and performance. I want us to actively learn from our experiences and from each other. I want us to draw in the theory and research of our field in making decisions and crafting recommendations. I want us to reinvent how we support learning in the face of today’s work challenges and in light of so many new tools and approaches.

Being a good teacher/facilitator is part of that, to be sure, but there is much more. To be the kind of professional who makes space for other people’s learning, I need to take up less of that space with my way and my ego. That is, I need to listen deeply, to offer interesting and challenging questions, to show authentic respect, to put off judgement, to be brave enough to engage in verbalizing sometimes messy thought processes in order to co-create knowledge and understanding.

As a seminar leader, faculty member, and consultant, I facilitate learning all the time. The traditional role involves selecting content, designing engaging activities, and tying in relevance and application. That works exceeding well (if done well) when there is a body of knowledge to pass on, or when the skills needed are clear and their development can be accelerated with formal training and practice.

That said, it seems to me that we can make all kinds of learning events and processes more powerful if we also open up space for reinvention, for co-creation, for deep reflection, for processing the lessons of experience. I will be challenging myself to create these kinds of opportunities within formal programs I design and lead as well as considering how these spaces can be supported in a broad learning environment. 

I’ve already experimented with this in some of the graduate classes I teach. In certain courses, I’ve spent little time going over content, or testing them on the definitions and steps put forth by their reading on the topics at hand. Instead, we’ve engaged in thought-provoking conversation around questions they bring to the table and the challenges of applying concepts and implementing theoretical ideas. The students have walked away, I think, with a deeper understanding of the topic than they may have had if I had reviewed key points and directed activities on the topic. And they’ve learned a thought process around grappling with new ideas, testing them in our minds,and  identifying and mitigating possible issues with application. Leaving that space open is scary, because I never know where a conversation is going to lead, but it’s also energizing, and it engages me as a learner as well.

Outside of graduate school, how often do we get time to talk at length about new ideas and practices? Not often enough, I bet, and we simply need to do more of that. My challenge in this work of incorporating social artistry with facilitation will be to slow down enough to generate the kind of powerful discussion and engagement that exponentially raises the level of learning while not slowing down so much that the world passes by while we’re still thinking about it.

An invitation to slow down
This post has been more of a reflection in progress than a real call to action. I know that sadly, learning professionals are as unlikely as everyone else to have time to slow down for learning. So many learning professionals tell me they have no time to read, to attend seminars, to go to conferences. Even having water cooler conversations with peers is too time-consuming; our communications are often reduced to emails and text messages instead. Our daily exposure to rich lessons of experience may be being squandered because we never take the time to think about what those lessons are and what they might mean for our work going forward. We have to be social artists in crafting our own learning as much as we are social artists in generating learning with others.

So I’ll just close by inviting us to slow down a minute and establish some practices that create a space for our own learning. This week, open up a conversation or two, and see how it goes.

For more on social artistry, see:
Reflecting on #socialartists and #change11 – Nancy White’s comprehensive post summarizing the discussion from a massive open online course (MOOC) on change.
Learning, careers, and social artistry – Michele Martin’s thoughts on the subject with lots of interesting links.
Social Artistry - by Jean Houston, one of the original thinkers on the subject – describes artistry in community.