...now how would you design content to take advantage of this? If you say, "we could put a really cool 'Next' button in the corner" ..I'm coming after you!

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So one of the greats of design thinking, Don Norman (Design of Everyday Things, The Design of Future Things, etc) has really kicked over a design anthill. Last month (I think, the essay isn't dated) Norman published an essay entitled "Technology First, Needs Last." (image: Tim Brown)  Essentially Norman asserts that: "I've come to a disconcerting conclusion: design research is great when it comes to improving existing product categories but essentially useless when it comes to new, innovative breakthroughs. I reached this conclusion through examination of a range of product innovations, most especially looking at those major conceptual breakthroughs that have had huge impact upon society as well as the more common, mundane small, continual improvements. Call one conceptual breakthrough, the other incremental. Although we would prefer to believe that conceptual breakthroughs occur because of a detailed consideration of human needs, especially fundamental but unspoken hidden needs so beloved by the design research community, the fact is that it simply doesn't happen."Whoa. OK. Pause. Reflect. Bruce Nussbaum published a reply to this essay (so Norman's must've come out in December 09) - the response isn't I think very powerful but some of the comments are; including one by Norman himself. Norman makes some good points but in his comment on the Nussbaum piece, exposes an argument that I think I fundamentally disagree with. He (Norman) asserts that "People's needs come after the technologies exist. The need for cooking came after the taming of fire (animals don't cook their meals). The need for communication devices (telegraph, telephone, radio, cellphone, internet, postal mail, email) came after the technologies made them possible. People 1000 years ago did not have a need for email, or not even for the telephone: it took the existence of technologies to make these activities possible, which then slowly determined the need. (Remember, when the telephone was first introduced, few people could conceive of why they would want it. Hotels resisted it. Etc.)"Um, I don't think so. People had a need for cooked food prior to taming fire. Less disease, ability to store food, warmth, ability to dissuade predators, fear of the dark - these were all needs that pre-dated the technology-else why pursue the technology? We may not have been able to fully articulate what the needs were but we humans saw something in the fire-we had felt its warmth, seen its light, etc-that convinced us to tame it. We have also had a powerful, driving need to communicate with each other. Why else have humans been driven to crush berries and figure out which dyes would best stain a cave wall? Did we really have no need to share written information before the invention of the written language? So let's leave that aside for a minute (and because I think I'm right) and focus on the real question here: can thinking about design, absent any new technology, produce revolutionary, innovative leaps?  I don't know, would you consider Jules Verne to be a design thinker? Asimov? Heinlein? Arthur C. Clarke? They all envisioned radical, revolutionary leaps forward and did so in spectacular fashion w/out the technology existing that they envisioned. So maybe there is a dialectic here between design and invention. Some of the comments found in other articles detailing this battle (1, 2,) discuss the flow involved in bringing an invention to the fore and working it in such a way that it actually has impact - in essence move from invention to innovation. So for #lrnchat, what is the question(s) we could draw out of this for discussion?  What is the role of design thinking in designing instruction? What do we see as the interplay between technology and design? How do invention and innovation relate to/impact what we do? Can we envision a need for which a technology does not yet exist? Are we as dependent on the technologists, the engineers, the inventors as Norman suggests?

Learning in 3D: Adding a New Dimension to Enterprise Learning and CollaborationFirst an apology - I was supposed to write this review weeks ago and seriously dropped the ball. That in no way should take away from the fact that I think this is actually a very important book. I actually think it is important in a way that has very little to do with any underlying technology or set of technologies. So I should add that my undergrad degree was in management. That means that anytime someone quotes Peter Drucker, I have to sit up straighter and pay attention. So when Tony and Karl quote Drucker and the idea of "rountinization" - that new technologies are most often employed early on to do old tasks faster - I latched onto that one.   Don't believe it? Really? Think about e-learning for a minute. How long have we been doing that? 10 -15 years? How many times are we still confronted with that design choice of which corner to put the "next" button in? That's awesome design evolution isn't it? Why do we still have page-turners? Because we've just automated them. Tony and Karl assert: "Trainers appear to be wrapped up in some strange form of unconscious collusion wherein their dogged adherence to the classroom paradigm has rendered them oblivious to the incredible potential that the webvolution holds to revolutionize learning for both businesses and educational institutions." Man, you ain't kidding. Not just trainers. I don't want to cast too small a net here. Schools. Colleges. The classroom has trapped a lot of people. Gary Woodill has a great piece on the history of the classroom as instructional technology. So Karl and Tony might not want me to say this, but the virtual world stuff in their book is top notch - you should read it word by word, but its not the most important thing in the book. Passages like the one below are:"In short, just as business has had to change dramatically as a result of  dynamic market economics, so too must the learning function. Critical to successfully navigating this change is recognizing that the path to strategic leverage within the firm lies in cultivating a generative learning culture. Creating a true learning organization will require significant and systemic changes to the learning function practice, not merely the automation of training processes and the digitization of training content, but a wholesale redefinition of how learning adds value to organizations."So do yourself a favor and pick up this important book and read it. Then think about what you need to do as a learning/training professional with this amazingly rich set of tools and platforms called virtual worlds and consider the challenge that Tony and Karl have so powerfully laid out - don't use these tools to create the world's best 3D "next" button. Think past classrooms. If you don't then what a waste we'll be looking at in 10 years. 

So I just got back from GDC and before that it was Learning Technologies 2010, DevLearn before that and next it'll be Learning Solutions, IITSEC, LEEF (supposed to be REALLY good this year), maybe throw in some KMWorld, a little OGI and Gov2.0 and there you go. I could also include past years when I've gone to ISPI or ASTD and so on...but there are a lot of conferences in my past and in all probability, a lot more in my future. Now, don't get me wrong- I love a good conference. I love the interaction w/ the other attendees, maybe seeing a really smart/funny/inspirational speaker maybe meeting some cool new company with a really interesting new product. <insert other shoe dropping>...but it also gets old. I've been to a lot of shows, spoken at a lot of shows but at some point you find yourself (or at least I do) starting to skip some of the sessions and look for actual, authentic conversations. This happens more I find at conferences that I've been to multiple times. Then you start to question why you're there in the first place - think Up In The Air but for conferences. So I've started to really wonder, how can re-engineer conferences so that they stay relevant for people like myself (and the others like me - you know who you are - we can all make lovely quilts out of our name tags and badges). Then I read Jeff Hurt's really nice post on this topic and I liked it but I think its interesting that he and I are coming at the same problem from different angles (I think). I think that Jeff is focusing on fundamentally re-wiring the conference experience at a level that is probably much deeper than what I am thinking of but also maybe harder to get to - maybe I can offer a potential signpost to Jeff's ultimate destination. I am thinking about this kind of neo-nomadic conference crowd that moves from event to event. The ones who have been there before, who are speaking, who are considering just flying into town to give their session and then hopping right back out again. What are we Master Storytellers? Veterans of the Conference Wars? Whatever you call us (annoying know-it-alls?) we're out there and we're taking time away from home, work, etc to be there and we'd probably like to get something out of it. I also realize that we are a small percentage compared to the rest of the conference so we can't expect everything to be catered toward us. That being said...what if anything can we propose to conference organizers to keep us interested, engaged and excited about their events?Do we create some kind of event-within-an-event that you have to be allowed into? A secret club of attendees and speakers who are weary to their souls about seeing another presentation of rapid-template-based development or another buzzword-turned-product vendor presentation. We want deeper thinking. Conversations. Community. I mean of course we want free WiFi and power strips at every table but who doesn't?Since I was just out at GDC, I was also hearing a lot about how to keep users coming back to social games - subscriptions, premium content - maybe there is something there that conference organizers can use. Some dynamic that can be drawn out from Farmville or Epic Pet Wars that can be used to keep us grizzled old veterans excited about next year's iteration of your conference. Unless of course you don't want us around. That's cool too. I said before, we're a small population, maybe it just makes economic sense for you to ignore us and just work for new, fresh attendees. Maybe though we're getting to be the ones approving peoples' travel to these events and we'd be more likely to approve things that we were going to or at least still interested in. Whichever way - I do understand that there is an ROI consideration to be done here. Let's talk about it though- I look forward to seeing what Jeff Hurt's ideas are on this and all of you. Thanks, now please remember your lunch tickets and move along to pick up your conference bag.....

I'm a historian. Servant of Clio. Got a Master's in it. Did Doctoral work in it (ABD all the way man!). I have actually read Washington's diaries, The Federalist Papers, Cato's Letter's, Royster, Wood, Bailyn, Maier, et al ad infinitum and I keep rewinding that scene from Good Will Hunting like a million times! I've actually also been paid to teach history to college students and even to conduct paid historical research. So yeah, I'm a historian. I actually regard that title with respect. Did you know that PhD in history is one of the toughest and longest PhDs to get? Try coming up with "an original contribution to the body of knowledge" when that body of knowledge has been around for a couple of thousand years. History as a discipline is also one tough taskmaster? Wanna talk reading loads? Writing loads? Please. Maybe, just maybe something like first-year law school may hold a candle but it'd be close (I'll probably hear from you Lit majors and that's cool too). Did you know we have a whole sub-field dedicated to attacking our own methods and conclusions? (its historiography but more on that in another post). What other field is crazy enough to do that? So I actually threw up a little bit in my mouth when I read all the articles about what the Texas School Board just did. (1,2,3,4) Actually I think I screamed and cursed a bunch too. Seriously. I swear sometimes I think that everyone who's had a history class or seen National Treasure thinks they are a historian. Drives me freakin crazy. You know what? Don't tell me what you know about 'the Founders' until you've spent time with them. I mean original sources. Because that's what historians do. We go to original sources and from there we build up. So when I see a bunch of partisan, amateur hacks tearing up the tracks of history for their own bullshit, political purposes it drives me mad. Have you dumbasses actually read Locke, Hume, Rousseau? I'm gonna bet not but yet you somehow feel qualified to make curriculum changes with regard to the Enlightenment. I've read 'em you Texas punks...you wanna go a couple of rounds? Why don't you show up and try to pass a doctoral comprehensive exam?The problem is that this disease will not stay in Texas by sheer dint of the size of the state, this will affect what textbooks will be offered all over the country. I shudder for the future of our children. Now as I'm writing this rant - I'm also wondering if people who actually have degrees in Instructional Design, or Curriculum Design, or Education feel the same way about some of us in the learning/training field? Now, I've taken grad classes in ISD (shout out to Boise State!) but I also never hold myself out to be an ISD. So now I wonder, history has a fairly well-developed sense of itself - our methodologies, our philosophies on how to "do" history (not to say that there isn't ongoing, heated debate but that is actually a good thing)...does the field of instructional design have a sufficiently coherent sense of 'self' to conjur up such a pure rage as I feel toward the TSBOE? If not, then what's the difference? Is it just a matter of time? Hmmm...I do sense another post coming....

Of this counter...Gary Hayes (the creator) states: "More about the Count - I quickly built and coded the app based on data culled from a range of social media sources & sites at the end of Sept 2009. The design will be finessed and I will be adding extra functionality (such as week, month & year lookahead/backs plus dynamic data input)."