The buzz around massive open online courses (MOOCs) has finally started to infiltrate the corporate training space. After a couple of years of waiting to see where the online course trajectory was going, companies are starting to embrace MOOCs as a practical, economical, and effective solution to their growing training problems. Almost exactly two years ago, I wrote a post called "What Type of MOOC is Right for You?" At that time, there were only about a handful of different types of MOOCs. Today, the landscape is much larger, and it continues to grow as technology improves and trainers discover (or invent) new ways to use the technologies to the greatest benefit of learners and organizations. As I’ve tried to get across in this blog, a MOOC is more of a framework than a strict course format. Because of this, a huge variety of online courses fall under the MOOC umbrella. To help organizations identify the best types of MOOCs to use in their training programs, we’ll take it from the perspective of the employees. We’ll consider three MOOC variables: xMOOC versus cMOOC Public MOOC versus private MOOC Scheduled MOOC versus self-paced MOOC xMOOC versus cMOOC This distinction goes back to the early days of MOOCs. The first course that was ever called a MOOC sprang from the theory of connectivism, which is based on the idea of distributed community and emphasizes knowledge sharing and the development of personal learning networks. The xMOOC came later and is today the most common type of MOOC — in structure, content, and activities, it looks very much like a traditional course. There has been lot of debate about which type is "better," but the more useful conversation surrounds which one is more appropriate in different contexts. In deciding between an xMOOC and a cMOOC, the key question is: "What do the learners need to learn?" Is the goal for learners to gain introductory knowledge about a concept? Do they need to learn pure content, such as for compliance? Do they need to learn task-related skills, such as how to use a particular software program? → xMOOC On the other hand, do they need to learn more in-depth problem-solving skills? Do they need to work in a team? Do the learning goals cross departmental boundaries? Would learners benefit from meeting SMEs or others in the organization who are working on the same types of projects? → cMOOC It’s also important to note that these types aren’t mutually exclusive: most courses today fall somewhere between the two extremes, with the basic structure of a traditional course, but with an emphasis on networking. This model can promote the building of learner communities within organizations that can foster knowledge sharing and collaboration long after the course is over. Michael Caulfield of Washington State University puts it well when he says that to build communities that are based not just around the course, but around, "more authentic applications of course content…the xMOOC will have to become the chewy center of the cMOOC." Public MOOC versus Private MOOC MOOCs used in corporate training can be public or private. Public MOOCs can take a couple of forms — you could recommend that employees take a course available on Coursera, edX, or one of the other MOOC providers, or you could run your own MOOC and make it available to the public. Private MOOCs are restricted to the company’s employees and can be either developed in-house or purchased from a vendor. While there are certainly various factors to consider, such as cost, in terms of learners’ needs, the question to ask here is: "Where is the knowledge located?" Is the knowledge specific to your industry? Is it proprietary to your organization? Do you have SMEs to help develop the course? → Private MOOC Does the knowledge span industries? Is it readily available from other sources? Are you relying on outside SMEs? → Public MOOC Again, there are many possibilities within these categories. For example, for courses that are general in nature, but for which employees would benefit from collaboration, you could use a publicly available xMOOC, but then create a private cMOOC by using internal tools (i.e., your company intranet) where people can connect. Scheduled MOOC versus Self-Paced MOOC Finally, MOOCs can be either scheduled or self-paced. The question here is: "When do employees need to learn the information?" Is it must-have-now information (e.g., compliance, policy changes, new product rollouts)? Does everyone need to be at the same knowledge level? → Scheduled MOOC Is the course optional? Is the goal professional development rather than training? → Self-paced MOOC As before, these factors can be mix-and-matched to provide the best learning experiences for employees in each situation. Here are a few examples: Public, scheduled cMOOC: Employees from JLT Group took a Coursera course on public speaking. Once a week, they met in person to watch videos and discuss course material. Public, scheduled xMOOC: Just this week, steel manufacturer Tenaris launched an "Introduction to Steel" MOOC on the edX platform. It’s free and open to the public. Private, scheduled or self-paced xMOOC: It’s impossible to know exactly how many organizations are adopting this model, but a good number of companies are either developing or licensing MOOCs to be used solely within their organization. The fact that organizations are starting to consider MOOCs for their programs is positive — for the organizations, the learners, and the training industry. But it’s important to recognize the amazing variety that is possible so that we don’t fall into the trap of trying to use the same type of course to meet all training needs. A major benefit of MOOCs is their flexibility, and organizations will get the most out of the courses by using them flexibly based on the needs of the learners. Copyright 2015 Bryant Nielson. All Rights Reserved. Bryant Nielson - Managing Director of CapitalWave Inc.- Being a big believer in Technology Enabled Learning, Bryant seeks to create awareness, motivate adoption and engage organizations and people in the changing business of education. Bryant is a entrepreneur, trainer, and strategic training adviser for many organizations. Bryant’s business career has been based on his results-oriented style of empowering the individual. Learn more about Bryant at LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/bryantnielson Related Posts:What Style of MOOC is Right for You?What’s the Difference Between a MOOC and an LMS?How to MOOC: Social Media in the Corporate Classroom, Part 2What a MOOC Is and What It Isn’tAre MOOCs Too Risky for Your Corporate Training Program?(Visited 166 times, 1 visits today)

If you are in corporate training, this statistic should concern you: 70% of employees are either not engaged or actively disengaged (source: Gallup) Gamification is often touted as a sure-fire strategy to increase employee engagement, because people like points, right? But there is a dark side here: many gamification implementations fail. In 2012, Gartner predicted that by this year, 40% of Global 1000 organizations would "use gamification as the primary mechanism to transform business operations." But a little while later, Garter also predicted that 80% of gamified implementations would fail. That’s a huge number, and it has caused many to argue against gamification as a whole — why should companies spend any time, money, or effort on something that will fail eight out of 10 times? But let’s look a little more closely at that number. According to Gartner, these implementation were not doomed to fail because gamification is a bad concept altogether. They were doomed to fail because of "poor design" — because the tools of gamification were being used incorrectly. Now this was just a prediction, and I haven’t seen any recent statistics about whether or not it has come true, but I don’t doubt it. Because while gamification is a based on a relatively simple concept — making training (or any other work activity) more like a game will increase motivation and engagement — it is surprisingly difficult to do well. Or, rather, it is surprisingly easy to do poorly! So, if you are thinking about gamifying your training, here are three things you need to do to make sure your training is one of the success stories. Gamify the right things In almost every description of failed gamification I’ve seen, the top reason for the failure is a failure of the gamification to align with business objectives. Translated, what this means is that the designers gamified the wrong things. Gartner analysts suggest that gamification can be useful for meeting three broad types of business objectives: Changing behaviors Developing skills Enabling innovation Let’s focus on the first two here, because they are related. Gamification is an excellent way to change behavior, which includes developing skills. Because this is true, for gamification to work, you need to make sure you gamify the right things. For example, if you have a training course, what is the desired learning outcome: that learners consume the content or that they can apply what they’ve learned to boost sales, or learn a new technology, or whatever happens to be the end goal? This is a simplistic example, but if you were to gamify only the content consumption, such as awarding points for watching videos, you may have just motivated your learners to play the videos on mute while they are doing something else. In contrast, if you gamify a task, such as working through tutorials, it becomes much more likely that employees will actually learn that task. Make sure that everyone can win When people hear the word gamification, they often immediately think of a competition. Indeed, leaderboards are considered one of the staples of game mechanics. But leaderboards are a double-edged sword: they are highly motivating to the people at the top, but they can be extremely demotivating to the people at the bottom. Adam Hollander, CEO of sales gamification platform Fantasy Sales Team, wrote in Fast Company that as a sales manager, he was always looking for new motivation tactics, so he would "constantly run sales contests and offer bonuses" to his reps. But, he noticed a couple of problems: The same reps won every time. And these were the reps who were already performing at a high level. Hollander wrote: "these were not the reps I wanted to motivate. Ideally I wanted to incentivize everyone else; not the reps that would perform anyway." Reps stopped caring once they fell behind. "The day I rolled out a new contest, everyone would get excited about it. But inevitably, reps would fall out of contention, at which point they would disengage and stop caring about the contest." Winning needs to be something that everyone can achieve. Rather than individual contests, consider group competitions. Or, better yet, have winning be an individual pursuit that isn’t tied to a contest at all, such as beating a level. You can still have rewards, but they should be rewards that everyone could conceivably achieve. Understand that gamification isn’t always the answer There are some very good reasons to gamify, but just like any other learning solution, gamification isn’t always the answer. Here are a couple of times you shouldn’t gamify a training course: The content is inappropriate. The most common example here is sexual harassment training. Just don’t do it. There is too much content to deliver. As Julie Brink wrote in Training Magazine, "This would make the game too long and possibly confusing." Your learners really don’t like it. Games are not motivating for all learners. Before rolling out a huge gamification initiative, test it out on a smaller scale. If it doesn’t succeed in motivating your learners, do it differently or try something else. You can’t force people to have fun! Ultimately, I believe that gamification can solve many of the engagement problems companies have today, particularly in training. To learn more about gamification and how to do it well, check out my other articles on the topic. Also explore these great resources from the Capterra blog: The 15 Best Gamification Resources for Trainers and Educators. Copyright 2015 Bryant Nielson. All Rights Reserved. Bryant Nielson - Managing Director of CapitalWave Inc.- Being a big believer in Technology Enabled Learning, Bryant seeks to create awareness, motivate adoption and engage organizations and people in the changing business of education. Bryant is a entrepreneur, trainer, and strategic training adviser for many organizations. Bryant’s business career has been based on his results-oriented style of empowering the individual. Learn more about Bryant at LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/bryantnielson Related Posts:The Gamification Design Process- How not to fail and what…Gamify Your MOOCMegatrends in MOOCs: #7 GamificationGamification and the Hype CycleStrategies for Implementing Gamification in Your Training…(Visited 200 times, 1 visits today)

On this blog, I’ve mainly discussed attitudes about MOOCs and online learning from the perspective of trainers, managers, and others higher up in the organization. But, there is an even more important group of people whose attitudes need to be addressed: the learners themselves. While it’s true that many learners prefer technology-enabled learning and would rather take a MOOC than a traditional course, you may also encounter employees who fear online learning. Here, we’ll look at the four biggest fears about online learning — from the learner’s perspective — and explore ways to overcome them. Fear of trying something new For someone who has never taken an online course before, or who hasn’t been in a classroom in a long time, the fear of trying something new can be very real…and very debilitating. This fear can have many different sources — a fear of looking foolish, a fear of the unknown, and so on. In a training environment, it is often a fear of being a beginner. This is especially true for managers and others in advanced positions, who might not be comfortable looking like a newbie in front of their subordinates. This fear can manifest in many different ways. If you encounter objections from learners that don’t seem to make sense, they may indicate a fear of something new. How to overcome it Sports psychologist Michelle Cleere has some good advice for overcoming this fear that can be easily translated into a training context: goal setting. She suggests that when learning a new skill, you should set small goals for yourself and check them off as you accomplish them. This practice gives you a feeling of accomplishment and helps keep you motivated. You can use this in your training. Create a checklist of small tasks associated with the beginning of your online course. These tasks could include registering for the course, setting up a learner profile, watching an introductory video, posting a personal introduction on the class discussion board, and so on. This will help your learners get comfortable with the format and provide them small successes along the way. Fear of the technology We live in such a digital world that this is hopefully becoming less of a problem, but it still exists in some organizations and among some audiences. The fear here is not of the technology itself, but of not understanding how to use it. For example, if you have learners who have never posted to social media, participated in online chats, or left comments on an article or a video, then participating in online discussions could be a hard sell. How to overcome it This fear is relatively easy to handle — train your learners how to use the technology before the course starts. For example, if you are running a MOOC, start with a short module on how to use the MOOC. In addition, provide technical support for your learners to help everyone get up to speed and stay there. Fear of not having enough time This fear is common among online learners. In a traditional training course, a chunk of time is blocked off — four hours here or two days there. In an online course, and particularly in a self-paced one, learners determine their own schedules. This aspect of MOOCs appeals to many, and is one of the reasons the courses have become so popular. But, for some, it can lead to the fear that they will not have time to participate in the course during normal working hours and thus will need to sacrifice their free time. How to overcome it If a training course is designed to take 20 hours, then 20 hours need to be set aside for it, even if it is self-paced. This doesn’t mean that the training needs to be specifically scheduled, but it does mean that during the training, managers need to allow their subordinates time to take the course. Some employees may choose to take the course at home in their spare time, but if you require them to do so, you will likely not only hear grumbling, but also find that many people are simply opting out. Fear that the training won’t succeed Finally, despite plenty of evidence to the contrary, there is still an attitude among many that online training simply doesn’t work as well as traditional face-to-face training. This attitude is dangerous because it can be a self-fulfilling prophecy: if learners believe online courses are subpar, then they may lack motivation and commitment, which, in turn, will lead to subpar results. How to overcome it A two-pronged approach is necessary here. First, there needs to be buy-in from executives and managers, as well as from the L&D department so that this attitude is not the result of a trickle-down effect. Second, prove it wrong by running an excellent online course. Give your learners a great experience of online learning — one that is meaningful and relevant, and that helps them do their job better, and this fear will quickly disappear. Fear — of trying something new, of technology, and so on — is at the root of most of the objections you may hear to online training. The best approach is to address these fears head-on by providing learners with the knowledge and the tools they need to succeed. Copyright 2015 Bryant Nielson. All Rights Reserved. Bryant Nielson - Managing Director of CapitalWave Inc.- Being a big believer in Technology Enabled Learning, Bryant seeks to create awareness, motivate adoption and engage organizations and people in the changing business of education. Bryant is a entrepreneur, trainer, and strategic training adviser for many organizations. Bryant’s business career has been based on his results-oriented style of empowering the individual. Learn more about Bryant at LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/bryantnielson Related Posts:Why 65% Savings Isn’t Enough: Barriers to Organizational…How to MOOC: Social Media in the Corporate Classroom, Part 1How to MOOC: Social Media in the Corporate Classroom, Part 1How to MOOC: Social Media in the Corporate Classroom, Part 1What Style of MOOC is Right for You?(Visited 149 times, 4 visits today)

For too long, corporate training has focused on teaching, rather than on learning. This is the fundamental reason why so much corporate training fails: the way it is presented simply doesn’t have anything to do with the way people learn. But as demands for training increase — not just training that satisfies butt-in-seat compliance requirements, but real training that leads to real results — learning is finally being acknowledged as the real goal. Over the past few years, there has also been a huge amount of new research into the brain basis of learning, which has lead to a host of new and more effective teaching strategies. Here, we’ll look at some of the research behind brain-based learning and discuss how technology-enabled learning, like massive open online courses (MOOCs), fits with this research. We’ll also look at some ways to effectively implement brain-based learning in MOOCs. What does the research say about how the brain learns? Neuroscience has revealed a lot about how the brain learns. Here are three of the key findings and what they mean for training. Brains like novelty Our brains are wired to detect change. Novelty triggers the dopamine system, which is widely known as the brain’s pleasure center, but it is also involved in learning and memory. Basically, when dopamine is released, the brain knows it’s time to pay attention. The implications of this for training are clear: hour-long lectures don’t activate many dopamine systems. If you want people to learn, you need to change things up, and that means more than just moving to the next PowerPoint slide. Well-designed MOOCs have plenty of variety — videos, readings, discussions, simulations, interactions, etc. — which provides the novelty our brains need. Brains like spaced repetition Our brains are not computers. You can’t just stuff in more information. We also forget, so repetition is important. Studies have shown that people who are exposed to the same information multiple times learn better when those exposures take place over time, rather than all at once. In other words, you will remember a paragraph better if you read it four times over the course of two weeks than over the course of 30 minutes. Traditional training sessions are run over a few days or maybe a week…and then learners are expected to remember what they learned until the next training, which may take place a year later. Fat chance! MOOCs, which take place over weeks or months, allow for spaced repetition, which means learners at least have a fighting chance. Emotions affect the ability to learn There are two sides to this one. On one hand, positive emotions are associated with better learning. Lessons and activities that are relevant and engaging produce positive emotions, which involve the dopamine system, which leads to better learning. On the other hand, negative emotions like stress and boredom impair the ability to learn. MOOCs can simultaneously increase positive emotions and decrease negative ones. Learners work on real-world problems that are relevant to their jobs and, because MOOCs are a pull rather than a push method of training, learners can choose to participate during the times they are most engaged. This also helps eliminate any stress individuals may feel about being away from their desks at inopportune times. These are just a few of the neuroscience findings that apply to learning. Explore the topic more fully here and here. How can you apply the principles of brain-based learning to online courses? Because of their format, online courses are perfect environments for applying the principles of brain-based learning. Instructional specialist Abreena Tompkins performed a huge meta-analysis of brain-based learning research and developed an online course design model based on her findings. Her model is called IGNITE: Intervals. Activities should be presented in intervals of about 15 to 20 minutes, followed by a break. Grouping. The brain works best in small chunks, so you shouldn’t present too much information all at once. Novelty. Make sure there is enough change to prevent wandering attention. Interconnectedness. Learning needs to be relevant and connected to the reason for taking the course. Technology and time. Select the appropriate technologies and give students time to do the work. Environment. Pay attention to the emotional environment to keep it positive and free of stress. MOOCs can satisfy these design requirements: They use bite-sized learning that presents information in small chunks. They use a variety of formats for content delivery and collaboration. They focus on relevant knowledge and skills. They use different technologies depending on the content and the learners’ needs, and they allow learners to control the pace of their learning. They promote a positive emotional environment through agency and engagement. The goal of training is not to teach (at least it shouldn’t be!). The goal of training is for employees to learn the knowledge and skills they need to do their jobs better. More than traditional training formats, MOOCs seem to be able to provide the positive, engaging, and relevant experiences that are required for real learning to take place. Copyright 2015 Bryant Nielson. All Rights Reserved. Bryant Nielson - Managing Director of CapitalWave Inc.- Being a big believer in Technology Enabled Learning, Bryant seeks to create awareness, motivate adoption and engage organizations and people in the changing business of education. Bryant is a entrepreneur, trainer, and strategic training adviser for many organizations. Bryant’s business career has been based on his results-oriented style of empowering the individual. Learn more about Bryant at LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/bryantnielson Related Posts:MOOCs, Games, and the BrainHow to MOOC: Bite-Sized ContentHow Much Learning Really Occurs in MOOCs?What Corporate Trainers Can Learn from MOOCs (Even If You…MOOCs and Microlearning(Visited 76 times, 3 visits today)

Is your training working? That is the question. We can talk about MOOCs and gamification and whether self-paced courses are better than scheduled courses until we’re blue in the face, but the reality is that only one question really matters — what works? Much has been written on the subject and many experts have weighed in on what they consider to be the most crucial training metrics (here are my top 10). However, it remains that for individual courses and at individual companies, the effectiveness of training is ridiculously hard to measure. This difficulty has even been studied. In 2008, Zane L. Berge, a professor at University of Maryland, Baltimore County published a study on exactly this topic. He found a host of reasons why training is hard to evaluate: Training lacks planning, sponsorship, or budget. Training is done for the wrong reasons. The training goals of various stakeholders are different: managers are interested in performance, while trainers are interested in results that can be measured with a test. The skills and knowledge learned during the training "are not applied on the job and thus have no impact." And finally, the methods generally used to measure and evaluate training are "antiquated." So, assuming that you are tracking some metrics for your training programs, what are they actually measuring and how can you gain more insight into what’s working and what’s not? As Berge found, some of the main problems with training evaluation are linked to a lack of clear goals, which happens both when training is not adequately planned and when various stakeholders have different objectives. When there is no pre-planning for evaluation and no communication about the specific objectives, it’s easy to both start and stop the evaluation process at the most basic level of employee engagement and reaction: How engaged were employees in the training (determined by how many videos they watched, how many resources they interacted with, how many discussions they participated in, etc.)? How did they feel about the training (did they find it interesting, valuable, a good use of their time)? These are the easiest things to measure. But do they really tell you anything of substance? Not really. So, how can we do it better? There are many models of training evaluation, including the popular Kirkpatrick Model, which breaks evaluation into four levels: reaction, learning, behavior, results. Other people have suggested implementation, application, business impact, and ROI. Still others have argued for separating behavior metrics from performance metrics, and other modifications. Cornerstone OnDemand, which makes a learning management system and other software for training and recruitment, has developed a model that is both simple (only four steps) and includes higher level metrics (i.e., business impact). It also provides some guidance for how to objectively account for each aspect. Their model, shown in this slideshare, has four categories: Activity — What are we doing? This is the bookkeeping category. It includes things like the number of courses, the number of learners, and the total cost. Though they don’t specifically say this, it could also include much of what currently counts for training evaluation in many companies, that is, how many videos watched, and so on. Efficiency — How well are we using our resources? Efficiency is still pretty bookkeeping focused. For example: What is the cost per learning hour? How many hours are spent per activity? What is the cost per activity? (Here is an efficiency calculation for MOOCs compared to traditional ILT.) Effectiveness — Is it doing what we intended it to do? What are the results? Now we’re starting to get into the stuff that really matters. Note that to accurately measure this, however, you need to start with a list of specific training objectives you want to meet and (here’s the kicker), the dollar estimate of the impact of those objectives. For example, if your goal is to increase sales by 10% over a six-month period, or to reduce errors by 10% over the same period, how much would meeting each of those objectives be worth? This measurement also includes a rating for usability, Net Promoter Score, and manager rating. Finally, employee attitudes toward the training are measured not only immediately following the training, but also a few months later, when employees will be better able to judge whether what they learned is valuable for their job performance. Impact — What benefit are we getting from those results? Finally, impact looks at the benefits that the efficiency results provide using Robert Brinkerhoff’s Success Case Evaluation method. This method looks specifically at success stories and the value of those successes. For example, if a MOOC saves 10 hours of training time for each of 100 people, then the business impact is equivalent to the value of 1,000 additional hours of work productivity. You can use also use this method to calculate ROI by comparing the value of the business impact with the cost of implementing the training program for those 100 people. In addition, this model can help you improve your training program by analyzing the successes (and the failures) and identifying what contributed to them. There are many ways to evaluate training. Whatever method you choose, the key is to decide in advance what metrics are important, make a plan for how you will measure them, and then use the data to increase the effectiveness and the business impact of your training in the future. Copyright 2015 Bryant Nielson. All Rights Reserved. Bryant Nielson - Managing Director of CapitalWave Inc.- Being a big believer in Technology Enabled Learning, Bryant seeks to create awareness, motivate adoption and engage organizations and people in the changing business of education. Bryant is a entrepreneur, trainer, and strategic training adviser for many organizations. Bryant’s business career has been based on his results-oriented style of empowering the individual. Learn more about Bryant at LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/bryantnielson Related Posts:Measuring Success (ROI) of a Training MOOC, Part 1Measuring Success (ROI) of a Training MOOC, Part 2Training Mojo: How to Align Training Metrics with Company…Top 10 Training MetricsWhy You Should A/B Test a MOOC, and How to Do It(Visited 26 times, 1 visits today)

Link to Zaidlearn's del.icio.us LinksDigital Curator to the Stars & More on the Digital Curator (Jeff Cobb)The Digital Curator in Your Future (Steve Rubel)"...I do believe that Zaid Ali Algasoff is in the process of firmly establishing himself as the e-learning curator of Southeast Asia. His recent Any Free Hosted CMS or LMS? (Yes, Obama Says!) is just one piece of the accumulating evidence...(Source)" - Jeff CobbWOW! My self-actualizing e-Learning curator ego is reaching the top of Mount Everest! Hmm, what is a curator anyway?CURATOR? "A curator, in a cultural institution context, is a guardian or an overseer. According to Wikipedia, he/she "is a content specialist responsible for an institution's collections and their associated collections catalogs. The object of a curator's concern necessarily involves tangible objects of some sort, whether it be inter alia artwork, collectibles, historic items or scientific collections (Source).""Rubel argues that, in order to manage the massive amounts of information now flowing across the Web, the world needs digital curators, "people who are selfless and willing to act as sherpas and guides. They’re identifiable subject matter experts who dive through mountains of digital information and distill it down to its most relevant, essential parts (Source)." I can live with that! But to tell you the truth, if I am really the e-learning curator of Southeast Asia, we are in big trouble! First, most of my readers are not from Southeast Asia, but instead they are from United States, Canada, Europe, India, Australia and a few Brazilians that can't get enough of this blog. Also, my messy informal learning repository adventure is not exactly the most efficient place to find what you are looking for. I suppose you might discover something juicy here, but it is probably more by accident, or through a Google search, rather than systematically searching ZaidLearn. Nothing wrong with that, But I believe now has come the time that I also embrace my left brain of organization, and by doing so, I will hopefully nurture the whole brain for efficient management of my learning discoveries, which will hopefully lead to more effective learning. I really appreciate and respect Jeff Cobb's kind reflections, but I still have a 'green mile' to travel, to live up to such a billing effectively. Though, I love the challenge and until other e-Learning curators do show up in Southeast Asia (or is known beyond!), I don't mind taking the lead. So, here is my plan to move on...del.icio.us?To be honest, I should have gone del.icio.us a long time back. Don't ask me why I didn't (Stubborn to unlearn!)? Instead you should explore and enjoy my growing juicy collection of del.icio.us links (+160 and growing fast!) , which will make it easier for readers to enjoy my arsenal of recommended free learning resources and tools. Here are my most prominent del.icio.us tags:Favorite ToolsOER (Open Educational Resources)OCW (OpenCourseWare)Podcasts...moreAlthough, many of my del.icio.us learning resources perhaps should use multiple tags (e.g. MIT OCW, OER, Podcasts, etc.), I have tried as much as possible to use one appropriate tag for each resource, instead of giving them too many tags. I personally don't want to find the same learning resource in every tag (although it might correct!) while looking for stuff. Anyway, I am still learning the art of tagging, and hopefully it will improve as I embrace del.icio.us.As I have been collecting juicy learning links (URLs) since 2001 (stored all over the place!), I have literally thousands of them to rediscover and add to del.icio.us. So, in the coming weeks I will be busy rediscovering, filtering (out!), and tagging my last seven years of learning, and creating my own little arsenal of del.icio.us learning resources and tools, which we all can enjoy. A BREAK FROM BLOGGING?In addition, I have decided to take a break from blogging for at least 2-3 weeks, so I can reflect (in peace!) what I have achieved and prepare for the second phase of ZaidLearn. Second phase? I suppose anyone that has been reading my blog has probably been overwhelmed with all the learning resources and tools discussed and shared here. And to be honest, I am really getting bored simply talking about new resources and tools discovered, and believe that ZaidLearn needs to move on to focus more on what really matters in education. EFFECTIVE LEARNING!!!!!!ZAIDLEARN 2.0In the future, I will still share great resources and tools I discover, but that will del.icio.us take care of from now on. I suppose I will provide a weekly del.icio.us update on the juiciest stuff discovered. So, what about the 'ZaidLearn' blog? It will go on, but it will from the next post onwards (with the exception of weekly del.icio.us updates) focus on interesting topics and issues in relation to facilitating effective learning online. The posts will be short/long articles (500-2000 words) where I share my research, experiences, thoughts and ideas about learning (like I got much experience to share!). I predict that I will post 2-4 articles a month, meaning this blog will certainly not be as active as before, but it will hopefully be of better quality :). My secret recipe (no longer!) for writing articles, will be roughly 4 days of research and reflection (in-between formal working activities), and then on the fifth day 1-4 hours of writing and editing, and Voila an article has been posted. I hope by using this formula, I can by year end (2008) compile these articles into an e-Book, which of course will be free to download (if anyone is interested!). To put more pressure on myself (I love that!), I will challenge myself to write articles that are good enough to be published in the likes of Tomorrow's Professor Blog (Stanford University) and New York Times (NYT). So, Rick Reis (Editor of Tomorrow's Professor Blog) please consider my articles, although I am no professor (Need another 15 years for that one!). Anyway, all my articles will be published in ZaidLearn, and if they are really good, I am sure they will find their way to other interesting places, except peer reviewed journals. Why? I write with an unhealthy mix of emotion, logic, flavor, disruption and creativity beyond the scientific acceptance level of most peer reviewed journals. Alright, enough! Have fun exploring my growing compilation of del.icio.us learning discoveries!I WILL BE BACK! Soon! That is in 2-3 weeks time :)

Link to my del.icio.us Survey/Polling ToolsGoogle Labs - Google Survey (Tool?)"...There are still millions of students and educators in the Schools, Colleges and Universities around the world who are doing research, conducting surveys and spending a lot of time collecting data, providing them often with little time to analyze and reflect the findings (critical/creative thinking aspect!). However, by providing them with a free easy-to-use online survey tool (alternative or complimentary option to their research) with basic features to create and conduct online surveys, collect the data, and display the results/reports in text and visual format (with exporting options to Excel, SPSS, etc.), could do miracles from an educational point-of-view... (Source)" I did once write an online letter to Google (October 12th, 2007) about our need for a free easy-to-use online survey tool, but I never got a reply. I suppose they get millions of e-mails every day, so why answer my one, unless the idea is really great (and innovative!), or I am NEO. With the exception of Google's polling tool in Blogger, I have yet to see any innovative progress from them. Microsoft seem to be too busy with their upcoming WorldWide Telescope (WWT) (Great surf-the-galaxy tool!), and who wants to get locked into Facebook's limited 70+ million user community doing polling and surveys (Confidentiality! Yeah, we can trust Facebook!). Yahoo? No idea! In short, the big players seem to be slow on this front, or perhaps they are planning to acquire one soon from the growing crowd of innovative online survey tools already out there.FREE ONLINE SURVEY/POLLING TOOLSHere are more than a dozen FREE online survey/polling tools (Selected using my sixth sense!), which you might want to explore further (Source):SurveyMonkey.comPowerful tool for creating and running web surveys (including visual reporting). The free version provides several limitations (e.g. limited number of questions and respondents), but if you are creative you can do your stuff. Anyway, the commercial version is quite affordable (if needed), so why worry!PolldaddyCreate free online surveys (e.g. market research) and polls. Excellent for polls!FreeOnlineSurveys.comCreate online surveys, polls and questionnaires for any number of uses. fo.reca.stAllows you to design free online surveys, collect responses from the visitors of your blog or website, analyze them and finally present the survey results. SurveyGizmoWeb surveys, Polls, Forms, Quizzes, Landing Pages. Free and commercial version. QuibbloA free tool that enables you easily to create your own quizzes, fun surveys & tests online. Kwik Online SurveysAn easy-to-use survey development tool that enables you easily to send surveys & questionnaires by Email, YouTube, Facebook or posted on online Forums.PollographAn easy-to-use survey authoring tool. Free accounts can publish up to 5 free online surveys. The thing I like about this tool is that there is no limit to the number of questions you can include in each survey. Also, there is no limit to the number of responses that you can gather in each survey.eSurveysProIt offers both a free and commercial version. But I like the fact that the free version enables you to create and conduct unlimited surveys and have unlimited responses.LimeSurvey.orgA good open source survey tool. You need to download and install on a server. It includes +20 different question types, and basic statistical and graphical analysis with an export facility. VTSurveyIs a web-based tool which enables end users to autonomously create and run online surveys, feedback or registration forms (4 question types). You need to download and Install on a server. Although, it has limited tools, question types and reporting features, it is extremely easy-to-use. BuzzDashCreate and share polls. Built upon individual polling modules called buzzbites™, BuzzDash provides a real-time forum where people can solicit, measure and share opinions on nearly any issue. Zoho PollsCan create and share polls. If you want a more comprehensive list of survey/polling tools, mashing-up both commercial and free ones, I strongly recommend that you visit Jane Knight's amazing directory of learning tools (including 50+ survey/polling tools! Trust me, this list will grow!).Oops, I got to get back to my vacation from blogging. If you are wondering again what I am doing during my holiday from blogging, CLICK HERE. Yes, I am building my arsenal of del.icio.us links (230+ and growing!). I have been collecting great links since 2001, so I got a lot to filter and add :)

Link to Printer Friendly Version PDF Version"We want the development of modal insan (model citizen), students who can think critically and creatively, who are able to solve problems and have the ability to adapt themselves to an ever-changing global environment." - Blueprint for Education Development, Malaysia (2006 - 2010) ONCE UPON A TIME ….A long time ago (early 2007) in a galaxy far away (Malaysia), there was a little boy (33 years old) who happened to be me. This little boy was suddenly entrusted to transform a dying course at the University entitled ‘Critical Thinking’. Here I was leading a Learning and Teaching Unit (in the Quality Assurance department) facilitating change and improvements to our e-learning approach, and managing a University wide ‘Thinking Skills Infusion Programme’ (TSIP). Although, I had trained many lecturers, senior lecturers and professors in using technology to facilitate learning, I had ironically never had any real experience in managing an actual course at the University.Now, one of the leaders from our academic world figured rightly out that perhaps I needed some real experience to understand what it is like to be a lecturer, before having the right to lecture to lecturers on how to teach and facilitate effective learning (which makes perfect sense!). Also, since I had been managing the TSIP programme for over six (6) months, the "Critical Thinking’ course would be the perfect challenge and opportunity to test all my untested theories and suggestions on effective learning.In a nutshell, I was asked to lead and transform the ‘Critical Thinking’ course, which is a requirement for all undergraduate students.THE UNITAR WAY!Although, Universiti Tun Abdul Razak (UNITAR) is currently becoming a more conventional University, it used to adopt a blended learning model, which usually included courseware, online forums, online tutorials (OLT), and Face-to-Face (F2F) tutorials. Every course is led by a course leader supported by tutors who facilitate their own sections. The course leader is responsible for guiding the tutors, and preparing the course plan, course materials, assignments, quizzes and exams. In addition, the course leader is responsible for correcting the final exams (40% - 50% of the course assessment evaluation), and giving the students’ final grade for all sections. The tutor’s role is to communicate with the course leader, facilitate the course for their section(s), and grade the coursework (50% - 60%).COURSE REENGINEERING NEEDED?Based on my initial unscientific findings, students found the course difficult to understand and the overall students’ satisfaction rates were lower than in other courses for the undergraduate level. In addition, both students and tutors complained that the lecture notes were not sufficient. Although, the past course leaders seemed to have a done a good job facilitating their own sections, they failed based on my understanding to communicate and facilitate consistent quality to all the sections. Overall, students and tutors seemed frustrated with ‘Critical Thinking’, and some even questioned the relevance of this course. They argued that this course focused too much on theory and memorization, and failed to actually help students develop fundamental thinking, reasoning and language abilities that are needed for academic success. Although, UNITAR had developed a reasonably good page tuning critical thinking courseware, the existing curriculum of the critical thinking course seemed to be mostly (80-90%) based on John Chaffe’s famous book "Thinking Critically" (6th Edition, 2000). Even the course objectives and topic outline seemed to be paraphrased out of the book. As UNITAR’s self-developed courseware was structured very differently from the course outline, it was hardly reflected or used by either the educators, or the students.So, I began to read John Chaffe’s famous book "Thinking Critically" to get better feel of what the students were learning. Strangely, I kept on falling asleep while reading this book, and although the content is relevant and useful, the writing style and design of that book (I suppose the later versions are more engaging!) did not appeal or inspire my thinking mind. So, if I am falling asleep reading this book, what about the students?In addition to this book, the course also recommended students to read another book entitled ‘Critical Thinking: A Student's Introduction’ (G. Bassham & Co., 2007). So, I explored the book, and found it more activity-oriented, engaging, and inspiring. However, I still felt that something was missing to spark the ‘Critical Thinking’ course to life.So, I explored our ‘Critical Thinking’ courseware again, and was actually positively surprised with the quality of the content. However, since it was structured very differently from the course outline and it did not have a search function, naturally students found it quite frustrating to use.Based on these surface level reflections, I felt (based on my limited knowledge) that I needed to revamp the whole course to really make any difference. However, I also decided to take advantage and extract the learning juices from the three original main course resources just mentioned. Based on my understanding, the problem with this course was not so much the content, but the process on how it was facilitated. Based on my findings, and too little focus was given to engaging the student’s learning mind to question, analyze, synthesize, reason, problem solve, and make better decisions, which I believe is the essence of this course. Finally, and importantly for most of our students, English is their second language, and the student population consists of a colourful inter-religious/cultural/racial blend (Indian, Chinese, Malay, etc.), which especially the two recommended critical thinking books are not really tailored to.Although, I was no master in ‘Critical Thinking’ (still the case!), I believed that I had enough reasons to take the risk to reengineer the course to make it more relevant and effective.COURSE PLANNING & PREPARATIONAlthough, I was planning to reengineer the course, I felt that the original course objectives would remain the same, with just a minor twist. The role of the lecturer coaching ‘Critical Thinking’ is to: Teach the fundamental thinking, reasoning and language abilities that a student needs for academic success.Engage students in the active thinking process.Integrate the development of thinking abilities with the four skills: Reading, Writing, Speaking and Listening.As students seemed to fear the word "Critical’ more than thinking (tough one, too!), I suggested to change the name of the course to just ‘Thinking Skills’, but that was firmly rejected. Then I had this crazy idea to simply develop the course outline (modules and topics) and learning objectives, and let the students discover, explore, organize, adapt and construct the course content based on existing materials available on the web (User-generated content). This idea was totally rejected. Finally, I suggested to include a ‘Creative Thinking’ topic, which I felt was missing from the course, but that was also rejected. Creative thinking is different! So, instead I decided to infuse creative thinking into every single module of the ‘Critical Thinking’ course.In the end, just before the semester started we managed to agree upon the course outline, which was (Click on the links to view the modules in Slideshare): Introduction to Critical Thinking Thinking Tools Arguments = Part I + Part II + Part III FallaciesLanguage Decision MakingProblem Solving Due to limited time, I constructed the content for each module during the 15-week semester, usually a week or two ahead of schedule. As our University was increasingly becoming more conventional, we were required to conduct a 2-hour F2F tutorial every week with our students. Although, we could use OLT, I decided not to, due to the nature of the course (real-time activity-based), number of students (300+), students status (mostly full-time), lack of broadband Internet access (for some), and that the group of tutors facilitating this course were reasonably experienced (more than me, actually!) and were fully capable of managing their own section(s) without my interference. As a course leader, I was also assigned to manage three (3) sections (90+ students).However, to improve the possibility of consistent quality, I did prepare lesson plans (and student activity sheets) for the tutors, which gave them some idea on how I would conduct my tutorials. The lesson plans also included answers (if any), tips, and resource links to some of the puzzles, questions, and videos (YouTube) discussed in the presentation slides. In short, I provided them with some ideas on how I would facilitate the tutorials, but empowered them the freedom to think and do it their own way, as long as they covered the syllabus.COURSE CONTENTThe main focus of the revamped course would be on students’ practicing, reflecting and improving their thinking skills, and less emphasize would be given to exploring critical thinking theories, concepts and the endless definitions associated with it. What is critical thinking anyway?With this in mind, the course content was constructed focused on engaging the students to reflect and improve their ability to question, analyze, synthesize, reason, problem solve, and make constructive decisions.To deal with the students fear and motivation to think critically, I decided to put Aristotle, Plato and Socrates on the bench, and introduce my new dream thinking support team led by Master Yoda, Mr. Bean and Inspector Gadget. They play a critical role in relaxing the learners’ mind to laugh, think, discuss and reflect their own thinking. If Mr. Bean can think critically, why can’t I?Finally, to engage students to think, the content or presentation slides included a lot of thought provoking questions, puzzles, cartoons, pictures, quotes, and group activities to continuously spark the desire to explore the content further.In short, I extracted and mashed up past learning references, added my flavour, and brought in assistance from another galaxy (e.g. Master Yoda) and Earth (e.g. Mr. Bean) to reengineer the content.F2F TUTORIALSI made it a point from day one that students will have to think-out-loud in this class, and no one will be able to escape this. Of course to loosen up the overall fear, I would first gently force the most nervous or scared looking student in the class to answer an open-ended question with their own opinion. By giving this person encouragement and support to whatever the answer may be, the other students in the class might feel safer to participate. It actually works, even in Malaysia were students are often scared to talk and share their ideas in class.Every F2F tutorial is broken down into four (4) sessions: Warm Up (5 - 15 minutes) - To awaken the students’ minds and bring the class to life, I would begin each class with a few brain stimulating activities, which could be a/an puzzle, question, picture, issue, or a quote.Lecture & Discussion (30- 40 minutes) - This session is very much like an interactive lecture, whereby I would explain, reflect and discuss together with the students the ‘Thinking Menu’ of the day. Group Activities (45 - 55 minutes) - In this session students are broken up into small groups (4- 6 participants) to collaborate on some relevant thinking activities. Each group have to choose their leader, and are given specific time frames to complete particular tasks (or using specific thinking tools), and then they need to summarize their answers or findings in writing, and finally one (or more) of the group representatives have to present and discuss the group’s output with the class. Sum Up (5-10 minutes) - Summarize the module and synthesize/evaluate/reflect the group activity findings. Students are also required to share and rotate task duties, which will ensure that all students at least once or twice will have the pleasure to present the output to the class during the semester. By having such group activities in each class, students also get to practice their teamwork, time management, communication, listening, writing, and presentation skills while collectively thinking about important issues.To make the group activities relevant to their learning, I tried to select interesting and meaningful discussion topics. For example, during the first F2F class group activity, students were asked to reflect what it means to be an excellent student and lecturer. They were asked to discuss, identify and rank the "Top 10" characteristics/traits/behaviours of an excellent lecturer and student. By the end of the class we together had actually negotiated what to expect from one another throughout the semester. I told them that I will try my level best to be an excellent lecturer according to their terms (caring, punctual, open minded, effective teaching, etc.), and that I hoped that they could be an excellent student accordingly (hard working, self-disciplined, active participation, honest, etc.).By the end of the semester we had managed to discuss and reflect collectively a lot of interesting and relevant topics including global warming, great thinkers and inventions, whether entrepreneurship is genetic or can be learned, the essence of beauty, whether all-star wrestling is real or not, and much more. During the learning process students had also managed to explore several useful thinking tools including mind mapping, six thinking hats, CoRT, and SWOT Analysis.ONLINE FORUMSStudents were required to participate in two (2) online forums scheduled during the semester. Each forum carried 2.5 percent (total = 5%) of the course assessment evaluation. Assessment scheme for each forum was:1.0 % - For your reflective response to the forum issue.1.0 % - for reflecting, adding value or challenging at least one of your classmates’ responses.0.5 % - for submitting your 1st response within the first week of the forum.The assessment scheme was set to encourage early participation and threaded discussions (not just a list of short essay answers!).In the first online forum, students were asked to argue who they thought was the greatest thinker of the 20th century, and in the second forum students were asked to discuss an invention (and the thinking process behind it) that had an influential impact on mankind.Both forums turned out to be informative and dynamic. Especially, the first forum, where approximately 300 students joined one mega discussion, was a huge challenge beyond the capability of our in-house developed learning management system (LMS), and my browser. After having several mega headaches trying to manage and reflect hundreds of posts, I made sure in the second forum to chunk the discussion into groups based on the course sections, which were facilitated and marked by each individual tutor.The good thing we can take from the online forums is that most students know about Wikipedia. The not so good thing was that many of the students simply copy/pasted from it without giving much thought, or any reference or credit to the source. Interestingly, a few students managed to copy/paste Aristotle, Plato and Socrates from Wikipedia (No comment!). There was even one case of a student copying another students’ excellent reflective answer from the forum itself, and then pasting it as his own answer with a minor change to the introduction and conclusion. Luckily, the student being plagiarised informed me about it, and I did the necessary to teach the plagiarizer a lesson he probably won’t forget.Overall, it was a thrill to engage and discuss about great thinkers and inventions (and the struggles they went through) with the students, and many of them took these forums quite seriously, and some of their reflections and arguments were quite impressive. I was also impressed with some of the students’ reflective arguments for why they should get a better grade.ONLINE QUIZStudents had to take three small quizzes, each carrying five (5) percent of the course assessment evaluation. One (1) quiz was conducted during a F2F class and two (2) quizzes were conducted online. I gave the students the opportunity to do each online quiz (multiple-choice) from any place within a one week period. In the first online quiz, I used randomization of questions (from a question pool) and shuffling of questions/answers, and I had deliberately created a tough one to awaken and challenge the students to think early on in the course. Interestingly, only 3 out of 272 who took the first online quiz got 100%. The second online quiz was based on the module 4 (Fallacies). This time around I did not use randomization of questions, but I did continue with shuffling of questions/answers. 60 out of 285 managed to get 100%, which was an astonishing result (and perhaps a much easier quiz!). Interestingly, I had constructed a ‘Two Wrongs Make a Right’ fallacy in module 4 which says, "I don’t feel guilty about cheating on Zaid’s online quiz. Half the class cheats on his quiz." Strangely enough, in one section a whopping 20 out of 42 got 100% correct. The results were impressive, but something was not right. Then I discovered that 17 out of these 20 with full marks had completed the quiz in less than 3 minutes. Other students who did the quiz took on the average more than 10 minutes to complete. Also, one of the students had come to my office during the quiz period with a friend (in a giggling mood!), claiming that someone else had logged in as her, and done her quiz (and gotten only 90%!). She asked me to reset her quiz. So, to give her a second chance, I reset her quiz. She took less than 2 minutes to get 100%. I told the students in the next class that some of them had cheated on the online quiz, and asked those who had done it to come forward and admit their wrongdoing. I also told them about the quiz completion time discovery, and that I had a list of all those that are likely to be guilty, and that this was also a test of integrity and character. After the class, the guilty came forward one by one to apologize for their wrongdoing. Although, they did something wrong, they showed great character to come forward and admit their mistake. To my astonishment, one student made it clear to me that they did not cheat, but instead argued that they had collaborated together to succeed. Now, that got me to think that perhaps we could also conduct online group quizzes in the future, which could be useful to facilitate collaborative learning in a quiz competitive mode. I suppose we all learned a few lessons from this incident. Finally, if you are planning to conduct online quizzes, keep in mind that you will never know who is actually doing the online quiz, unless you have a witness (proctored exam), or it is done in a computer lab with surveillance, so that you can verify who is actually doing it. But then again if students really want to cheat, they will find a way. Besides minimizing the possibility of cheating, it is perhaps more useful to encourage and practice good values and behaviours during the learning process. In short, we need to practice good values and behaviours ourselves first, before we can expect such things from our students. Look who’s talking!GROUP PROJECT & PRESENTATIONIn addition to three (3) quizzes, two (2) online forums, and group activities in each F2F session, students were required to work on a group project, which would be presented to the class some time during the last four (4) weeks of the course. They were required to research a problem or issue of their choice, and then write a recommendation report with constructive suggestions on how to deal with it. Interestingly, I made it compulsory that everyone in the group had to present some portion of their project during the group project presentation. While all shared the same grade for the group project (15%), each student was evaluated individually for the presentation session (10%). Although, there were many interesting projects and engaging presentations, I suppose the video showed by one of the groups of a person dying from AIDS (last moments!), is something that until today still lingers in my head. Overall, it was good to see that most of the students were confident enough to present and not chicken out. Although, many of the presenters perhaps faced the slides and notes more than the audience, we have to give them credit, because they were also presenting and articulating their findings in English, which is their second language. I suppose with more practice and encouragement, they can master the ability to present confidently with less supporting aids. FINAL EXAMThe final exams (50% of the total course evaluation) are conducted F2F at the students’ respective study centres. The ‘Critical Thinking’ course exam included a mixture of short essay and discussion type of questions. The final exam was divided into two sections: Section A (20%) - They were given five (5) questions (answer all) to check their understanding on the core concepts learned in this course. They were required to (depending upon the question) identify, describe, differentiate, and give examples. Section B (30%) - They were asked to identify the purpose (or main-point), analyze, evaluate and/or give their opinions/reasons/suggestions on an article, advertisement and a quote. Having punished the students mentally to think-out-loud throughout the course, I suppose I made the final exam reasonably easy to pass (including juicy examination tips!), testing all the six (6) levels of Bloom’s taxonomy.To be honest, I have never been a fan of final exams. If I had the choice I would instead add at least 30% of these marks for class participation (Currently only 5%). If I was to take any of those final exams I took during my undergraduate and graduate studies, I would surely fail this time around (Even if I got ‘A’ previously!). So, what are final exams measuring anyway? Then again, we cannot blame it on the final exam mode, but instead we should question those asking the questions.RESULTSWere students satisfied? It was encouraging to know that I averaged approximately 90% (you need at least 85% to me nominated for best lecturer award!) in the teaching/course evaluation survey over three (3) sections. However, it was more encouraging to learn that the total average for this course was around 85% (including the tutors’ results).However, did learning take place? It is difficult to verify this one, but I know for sure that 92.9% of all the students taking this course (316) managed to pass it. I do have some positive and constructive comments to share here from a few students and tutors."(Student)…Thank you for your guidance and not forgetting your lively classes. It's been a month since the exam and I must say all the fallacies learnt remain and is being applied in everyday reading materials and at workplace with…" "(Student)…Last but not least I would like to thank you for being "the teacher that inspires". I truly enjoyed myself in your class and would really look forward to being your student again (No.no.. I don't want to repeat Critical Thinking ..maybe for other subject)…""(Student)…Thank you very much for your quick reply. You are certainly a very good, efficient and helpful lecturer. From my experience, you are the second lecturer who have answered my questions during the holiday but for this semester the only one. They should be more lecturers like you…" "(Student)… honestly I have learned a lot from this course, not only in thinking, but more than what I could describe here. Really enjoyed your class and the way you teach has definitely changed the way I looked at learning myself...""(Tutor)…Your Forum 2 question is very interesting and the rules and regulations suggested are good. That will make the students send in their answers earlier…It’s nice having you as the course leader. You are so efficient and informative." "(Tutor)…I must let you know that I am very happy with your approach to the critical thinking course. It has such a fresh and imaginative look. The slides are so attractive and I like the F2F Lesson Plan. It keeps us aware on how you (as a course leader) look at things. Please keep that up…"Now this is pleasing to my ego! As for Kirkpatrick’s levels of evaluation 3 and 4, it is difficult to provide any concrete evidence, except for comments such as the ones above. But let’s hope that students can apply some the thinking skills learned during the course and gain some positive results in their studies, work and life. Actually, I should track these 316 students down and find out!AREAS TO IMPROVE?One year has passed since I revamped the ‘Critical Thinking’ course. I only managed to facilitate this course for one semester, and then the top management argued that I could be more effective to the University doing other things than actually teaching students. Luckily, the course is still being taught and that they are still using my little contribution to ‘Critical Thinking’ at the undergraduate level.However, having become one year wiser (or dumber!) and discovered through reading what is needed to survive in places like Microsoft or Google, I believe this ‘Critical Thinking’ course needs to be constructively destroyed and reengineered.Here are a few things that I would do, if I had the chance to revamp it again:Challenging Puzzles/Exercises - I would add new puzzles and thinking exercises to challenge the students’ analytical, imaginative and problem solving skills to the level they can expect from a Microsoft or Google interview. Give them a taste of it, which might actually accelerate their motivation to learn. Leaner Modules - Streamline the modules to consist of fewer topics and concepts, and instead spend more time on each element, enabling students to have more time to learn, practice and reflect before moving on. Especially, the 'Arguments' module would be totally revamped (simplify and focus), which was too much based on the book (Critical Thinking: A Student's Introduction’), due to my lack of knowledge in this area. Online Tools - Would use more tools such as online surveys/polls (to gather students' opinions and collectively reflect) and perhaps LAMS (Learning Activity Management System), which could be useful for sequencing and managing thinking activities such as Six Thinking hats. Also, I would request students to use wikis to work on their group projects, enabling me to follow the progress of the project. In addition, it would be interesting to explore 3D virtual worlds like Second Life and examine how it can nurture and motivate students to think-out-loud in such environments. In short, I would use more online learning tools to facilitate thinking beyond the physical classroom.More Videos - Although, I did use a few YouTube videos to stimulate thinking during the first round, I would probably embed more short videos this time around to engage the mind and bring the class to life. New Dream Thinking Team - Although, I would probably keep Master Yoda and Mr. Bean in my team, I would try to include local cartoons, such as LAT (if possible). To improve my coaching or facilitation skills I would explore, study and reflect videos of well-known educators in formal and informal education around the world, which can today be easily accessed for free through YouTube channels (Stanford, MIT, Berkeley, etc.) or other video sharing sites (e.g. VIDEOLECTURES.net). In short, the only thing stopping us from becoming a good educator is our reluctance to learn, explore and challenge ourselves continuously (and a good Internet connection!).In short, the ‘Critical Thinking’ course would be revamped again to meet the challenges of the 21st century.CONCLUSIONOh man, you are still reading! Alright, I will have to say a few more things before I take off to my next learning adventure. First, if you ask me, I would not get so obsessed in trying to differentiate critical, creative, innovative or inventive thinking (learning and thinking prefers no human constructed borders!) during class, but instead focus increasingly on finding new ways to nurture and infuse more thinking into the students’ learning process for all courses, so that when they graduate it has become a habit for life.Also, I would strongly recommend that we continue to have at least one or two courses that explore thinking and thinking tools intensively, enabling us to flex our imaginative, creative and analytical thinking muscles (e.g. using six thinking hats, SWOT, Disney Creativity Strategy, and ‘Five Ws and H’). In addition, we could always use our analytical imagination to create new thinking tools.If you ask me, I would argue that the essence of all thinking boils down to asking QUESTIONS. And we all can do that, and therefore we all have the ability to think. Which fallacy did I just commit? If we can encourage students to ask more questions, going beyond the compartments of their disciplines, and increasingly nurture the courage in them to explore new ideas, we are probably on the right track.I remember way back in 1992, I had just finished my high school certificate (similar to A-Levels) at Ullern Gymnas (Oslo, Norway), and had just managed to scrape through. I was so sick of formal education that I made a promise to myself to never study again.Here I am in 2008, sharing my experiences on facilitating "Critical Thinking’ to undergraduate students at UNITAR, in Malaysia. You just never know :)

Link to ZaidLearn's YouTube (Channel) CollectionPersonal Learning (Stephen Downes) + Slides (SlideShare)A World Without Courses (George Siemens) FreeRice (Word Game)FREE RICE? Did you know that you can give free rice to hungry people by simply playing a cool word game? FreeRice has two goals:Provide English vocabulary to everyone for free. Help end world hunger by providing rice to hungry people for free (Made possible by the sponsors who advertise on the site). While learning and stimulating your own brain, you are also helping hungry people! What a brilliant idea! Hopefully, it works!A WORLD WITHOUT COURSES?George Siemens provides us a glimpse into a potential future world without courses, in a mind stimulating Articulate presentation. "The function of education - in serving its stakeholders and in how it creates value - can be duplicated in a distributed manner. We're still missing the final piece of accreditation (though we're making progress on that) and we're missing the piece on how we will tie these pieces together. But, I imagine that will be on the horizon shortly. (with tying together, I don't mean tying content together - we can do that with RSS, PageFlakes, etc. I mean a conceptual tying together so we can say, "yes, Susan has achieved those learning targets"). Treat it as a conversation starter, not a declaration of belief ..." (Source)It wasn't long ago when some learning experts were talking about a world without lectures (or even lecturers! Courseware + Artificial Intelligence = Learning). Today I watch more lectures than ever online (if I had more opportunities offline I would, too)! Whether online or offline, I simply love lectures, if they are interesting, engaging, useful, and relevant to my learning (E.g. George Siemens Articulate presentation). If you ask me to choose between a typical page-clicking courseware (eBook?) over watching a lecture, I would 99 out of 100 times choose a lecture (especially if it allows me to easily navigate and skip the boring/knowing parts). I suppose I prefer watching and listening to subject matter experts (if so!) reflecting-it-out-loud if possible (learning beyond the content)! But then again, everyone has their own preferences, which we should try to cater to one way or the other. If you can blend reading, listening, watching, presenting, sharing, playing, reflecting, individual/group activities, and creating new stuff into a course effectively, I will be inspired!Although, I like learning whatever I want, anytime I want in an informal way, I do also like learning through courses. So, I hope and envision a world where both can co-exist effectively and that we can increasingly recognize and find ways to measure the value of informal learning (or no-course learning!) before making our judgments about a person's expertise (or competence level) in terms of knowledge, skills, experience and wisdom. Coming to think of it, the problem might not lie with the 'course model', but how we define, deliver, assess and rigidly package courses (according to credit hours). With a bit of creativity, innovation and flexibility, we might be able to revive to true value of learning through courses! Also, wouldn't it be nice if we could have more flexibility in how we package our degrees (self-directed). We are free to choose courses according to our needs and interests (with prerequisite or warning signs if any!). In such a course learning world, I suppose Steve Jobs would have completed his degree!UNIVERSITY YOUTUBE COLLECTIONSDan Coleman shares on his super smart media blog 50+ Smart Video Collections on YouTube (and growing!), which is simply an amazing collection. Although, YouTube unfortunately makes these collections difficult to find, Dan Coleman comes to the rescue!Here are a few University YouTube Channels to keep you busy for life: University of California (Berkeley)MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) University of Southern California (USC)Indian Institute of Technology/Indian Institute of Science (India) BerkmanCenter's Channel (Harvard Law School) University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill Vanderbilt University University of Chicago Press University of California Television (UCTV) University of Arizona UChannel (Princeton) Tulane University Purdue University Old Dominion (US) Duke University News European Graduate School (EGS)AuburnUniversity's Videos Oxford University Saïd Business SchoolBokTube - BokCenter's YouTube Channel (Harvard)PERSONAL LEARNINGStephen Downes is working on a new personal learning tool (soon to be launched, if I am not mistaken), and has some great ideas about what personal learning is all about. Personal learning (in a nut shell!):To teach is to MODEL and to DEMONSTRATETo Learn is to PRACTICE and REFLECTCLICK HERE to enjoy and reflect his slides :)WHAT DOES ALL THIS MEAN?Besides learning, I don't have a clue! However, if you want to enjoy my learning as I discover new learning resources and tools, please take advantage and use my growing juicy del.icio.us collection. Currently, I am still trying to index my old super learning discoveries (No time!), and hopefully by early April, I will increasingly focus more on exploring new galaxies of resources and tools.In the meantime, have fun feeding poor people while playing games, and please dream about a world without courses (and share your reflections with George Siemens). Also, have fun exploring 1000s of YouTube lectures! Hopefully, we can soon use Stephen Downes new personal learning tool to manage our learning more efficiently. We certainly need it now!I suppose I will be back in a week or two with some more juicy updates from my learning adventures :)

Link to Professor Bajunid's Keynote AddressChristopher's Corner (Blog)"In one session, Zaid himself shared that he recorded one session of a professor (if I can remember correctly), just the voice and then he added a powerpoint presentation of the talk which I thought was brilliant and at no extra cost." - Christopher ChewSometimes in life you need to be reminded indirectly by others that you have an interesting story to share (on your blog). Thanks to Christopher, I have one (I think)! Let's try to recap what really happened (True story!)...Once upon a time (August 2005), UNITAR was conducting a facilitation workshop for their academic staff, and I was not officially invited. Did that stop me from crashing the workshop?NOT INVITED!Although, I was not an academic, I had great interest in attending this event to learn and get some more ideas on a special project I was working on. At that time I was preparing a proposal on how we could improve our existing teaching and learning approach. Since a few of UNITAR's great educators were also giving talks on how UNITAR should move forward, attending this workshop made a whole lot of sense! RECORDINGInterestingly, I had just discovered and bought an audio recorder thumb drive (128Mb. 1st generation!), which could record up to eight (8) hours. So, not only was I planning to attend, but I was also thinking about recording the whole event, so that I could recap and reflect it later. Also, UNITAR had a couple months back invested in a rapid e-learning authoring tool called Macromedia Breeze (which today is Adobe Presenter), which I thought was perfect for this learning adventure.Since the speakers were using microphones, I was hoping that we could record directly to a computer device, but that was not possible thanks to my limited knowledge about Audacity. They did record some of the talks with a video camera, but the video/audio quality was simply a disaster. Luckily, I had my new thumb size audio recorder, but the question was where to place it to get the best possible output. After a bit of non-scientific exploration, I simply placed the audio recorder close to a speaker (which was located out of reach from the audience) and recorded all the four (4) speakers that day. Although, the audio recordings were not really clear, you could hear what the speaker was saying, and that was positive. BREEZE All the four talks were great, but Professor Dato' Dr. Ibrahim Ahmad Bajunid's one was something special worth taking extra efforts to preserve for mankind. Interestingly, he did not prepare any PowerPoint slides, while the other three (3) did. And anyone who knows Prof. Bajunid, knows he will switch on his multiple thinking processor and wonder into multiple dimensions while giving a talk, shooting nuggets of wisdom here and there. I suppose more structured thinkers might find that very annoying, but I am not one of them. So, for the other three (3) speakers it was simply to beef up their slides a bit, and then synchronize the audio (and delete a few 'ahs' and 'ums' in the audio editor in Breeze) with the slides, and voila we had three Breeze presentations.However, for Professor Bajunid's talk it was a bit more complicated since I did not have any slides to refer to. So, I had to listen to his great but wondering talk (a few times!) and cook up a few slides to visualize and chunk it. Click here to know what I am talking about. PERMISSION & FEEDBACKAfter completing my little experiment, I shared what I did with all the four speakers, and they were all surprised and happy about it. Interestingly, one of them discovered (speech therapy!) that he kept on repeating a particular word (I think it was 'Right') a lot of times during his 30 minute speech, which he asked me to take out. I did (easy with the audio editor) and discovered that he was right! He managed to say 'Right' more than 60 times in 30 minutes. LESSONS LEARNEDAlright, with today's technologies you can actually record a lecture (audio/video) and synchronize the slides on-the-fly, which is kind of cool. But for compression/downloading/streaming sake, if all you see is a talking head, you might want to consider simply having a picture of the speaker. Also, a bit of editing might be useful, especially if the lecturer visits the toilet frequently.If you can't afford commercial tools like Adobe Presenter or Articulate, you could for example use a free tool such as Slideshare, which allows you to add audio, too. Whatever tool you use, what is important is to capture great learning events such as Professor Bajunid's talk about teaching and learning, and make it conveniently available to anyone around the world (compressed, chunked, engaging and juicy!). Although, Professor Bajunid is no longer with UNITAR (neither am I!), I do hope that UNITAR continue to make his presentation available to mankind (at least for their own branding sake!).If you ask me (who are you!), this talk is a treasure that can engage our learning minds for another century (at least a decade!). Hmm, I do apologize for some of the grammar bloopers in the slides, but who cares when Professor Bajunid engages your mind to think."...Lecturers who know nothing else except their PowerPoint slides...They are just PowerPoint notes, not process. They have no stories, no biographies, no histories..." - Professor Bajunid If you are wondering what this means, click here :)