(originally posted by Clark Quinn)Well, I really want to reply to Peter, but right now I've got a bee up my bonnet, and I want to vent (how's that for mixing my metaphors?). I'll get to Peter's comments in a moment...In recent work, I've reliably been coming up against a requirement for a pre-test. And I can't for the life of me figure out why, they're not using the data to do anything but compare it to the post-test! This didn't make any sense to me, so, I did a Google search to see what came up. In "Going Beyond Smile Sheets... How Do We Know If Training Is Effective?" by Jeanie McKay, NOVA Quality Communications, I came across this quote: [Level Two] To evaluate learning, each participant should be measured by quantitative means. A pre-test and post-test should be administered so that any learning that takes place gets attributed to the training program. Without a baseline for comparison of the as-is, you will never be able to reveal exactly how much knowledge has been obtained.Now I don't blame Jeanie here, I'm sure this is the received wisdom, but I want to suggest two reasons why this is ridiculous. First, from the learner's point of view, having to do a pre-test for content you're going to have to complete anyway is just cruel. Particularly if the test is long (in a particular case, it's 20 items). The *only* reason I can see to do this is if you use that information to drop out any content that the learner already knows. That would make sense, but it's not happening in this case, and probably in too many others.Second, it's misleading to claim that the pre-test is necessary to assess learning. In the first place, you should have done the work to justify that this training is needed, and know your audience, so you should have already established that they require this material. Then, you should design your post-test so that it adequately measures whether they know the material at the end. Consequently, it doesn't matter how well they knew it beforehand. It might make sense to justify the quality of the content, but even that's falacious. We expect improvement in pre-post test designs (this is forbidden in psychology as a mechanism to determine the effectiveness of an intervention, without a control group), so it doesn't really measure the quality of the content. Though it could be considered a benefit to the learning outcome, there are better ways to accomplish this. There is no value of the pre-test in these situations, and consequently it's cruel and unusual punishment for the learner and should be considered unlawful.OK, I feel better now, having gotten that off my chest. So, on to Peter's comments. I agree that we want rich content, but if we have the current redundancy to address all learners, we risk being boring to all to make sure everyone's learning style is covered. We *could* provide navigation support through the different components of content to allow learners to choose their own path (and I have). That works fine with empowered learners, but that currently characterizes no more than about half the population. The rest want hand-holding (and that's what we did), but that leaves the redundancy.Which, frankly, is better than most content (although UNext had/has a similar scheme). However, I'm suggesting that we optimize the learning to the learner. I'm not arguing to assess their cultural identity, but to understand the full set of capabilities they bring to bear as a learner (my cultural point is that we're better off understanding them as individuals, not using a broad cultural stereotype to assume we understand them). That is, for some we might start with an example, rather than the 'rule' or 'concept'. For some we might even start with practice. We might also present some with stories, others with comic strips or videos. Morever, we drop out bits and pieces. A rallying cry: Use what we know to choose what to show. Yes, additional steps in content development are required to do this (see my IFETS paper), but the argument is that the payoff is huge...The assessment is indeed a significant task, but in a long-term relationship with the learner, we can do something particularly valuable. If we know what their strengths and weaknesses are, as a learner, we can use the former to accelerate their learning, and we can also take time and address the latter. A simple approach would be to present 'difficult' content with some support that, over time, would be internalized and improve the learner's capabilities. Improving the learner as a learner, now THAT's a worthwhile goal!I strongly support Peter's suggestion that using a rich world as a source for embedding (or extracting) learning to make it meaningful is ultimately valid, and the base of much of my work on making learning engaging. We may be agreeing furiously, except that I may not have made what I meant by learner assessment clear.In answer to Peter's query, I'm sad to report that we have not, and can not, publish on the 31 dimensions. I can only suggest the path we took: using Jonassen & Grabowski's Handbook of Individual Differences as an uncritical survey of potential candidates, as well as other likely suspects from any other source your research uncovers, then to make some sensible inferences to remove redundancies (much as the 'Big 5' personality factor work attempts to make sense of personality constructs). Make sure you cover the gamut of things that might influence learning, including cognitive, affective, and personality factors.

(originally posted by Peter Isackson)Curiously, Clark and I don't seem to know for certain whether we "furiously" agree or not. This seems rather typical of the whole learning business. I tend to agree with Clark that we do agree! The problem is that at different times we are probably referring to different phenomena. My suggestions were very general, pointing towards the overall strategy for handling a variety of content, which I see as process (transforming input into output). I also glanced at questions of content selection in the light of cultural variation. When we focus on specific content needs, particularly the "learning objects" we hope to find somewhere or need to produce ourselves, we are faced with these cultural problems, which, as Clark points out, constitute helps or hindrances depending on 1) the profile of the individual learner 2) the trainer's awareness or even real knowledge of that profile. I think a lot of work needs to be done on both at the same time. I don't believe we have any valid human models yet for dealing with this efficiently (i.e. converting information into effective strategy) and everyone else (i.e. the knowledge management specialists) seems to be focused on structuring the information. I believe that this is only the first step and may need some guidance from the strategy side to develop the right structural models.A new theme occurred to me today and I have no idea what it's worth or how far it can be taken, so for the sake of my own ongoing reflection I'll state it here (I need to set it down somewhere!) and await any constructive or, why not, destructive criticism. It is curiously linked to the bee in Clark's bonnet, but inverted (the stinger is on the other end!). The notion has to do with the teacher’s or trainer’s state of knowledge -- not the learner’s -- before and after a course. I am not, however, suggesting pre- and post-testing! I am suggesting that it should evolve, almost as much as the learner’s state of knowledge and that we should take an interest in tracking this evolution. The context I am referring to is that of collaborative online learning. This wouldn’t be the same thing for traditional face-to-face teaching (but see my final remarks below), and even less so for pre-programmed eLearning (which I see increasingly as isolated or modular learning objects, whose meaning and impact derive from the variable contexts in which they are used more than from their internal merits).My notion is that of a kind of open or "improvisational teaching", a strategy that specifically aims at learning to teach a particular course by teaching it, after defining its overall structure and logic. It proceeds from two observations:1) no one can fully anticipate what will happen in the learning process, particularly in distance learning,2) we do not necessarily know in advance what resources, among all that are available, will prove the most productive for real learners (in all their cultural variety).My notion of improvisation is borrowed from jazz, one of my previous occupations*. To be good at improvising, you have to learn not only the art of soloing (which you at least partly invent), but you must also know the chord changes (+ variations) of the tunes you are playing, the chosen style for each number, your precise role in the ensemble sections and, especially if you are accompanying rather than just soloing, have a good idea of the style and system of each of the other players. These multiple constraints nevertheless leave you free to discover through playing the things that work and don’t work both in general and specifically with regard to each type of musical event. The most interesting thing about working with other musicians is what you learn from them each time you rehearse or play. And of course the more you play a particular tune, the easier it gets to keep it going and to find ways of innovating and surprising without upsetting the underlying logic and the other musicians.In short, I’m in favor of under-planning one’s course strategies and leaving room to for us to learn from the learners themselves. Actually it’s less under-planning than avoiding over-planning. This means, without sacrificing one’s "authority", learning how to encourage the learners to bring things to you (discovery of appropriate resources you may not have been aware of, new ideas or ways of looking at the material, patterns or sequences of behavior that produce learning more effectively than your initial game plan). In other words, we should seek to be instructional co-designers rather than instructional designers.It might be said that what I’m describing is a form of beta testing. But its implications are very different. You beta test something that is fully designed down to the last detail. What I’m suggesting is a system in which we as trainers and designers are actively concerned, at least the first time around, to integrate elements that come from the learners, or rather our own interaction with the learners. This can obviously only apply to collaborative training. But it can lead to strategies for producing learning objects. Much needs to be said on how to conduct this approach (how to create the overall model, how to manage events, how to communicate with learners, how to react to embarrassing mistakes, how to make permanent or replicable everything one learns, etc.).After a brief search on the web, I found that David Hammer of the University of Maryland, in a context of traditional face-to-face instruction, calls a similar approach "discovery teaching" and identifies some of the areas of resistance to it by teachers. My contention is that it is less risky and more appropriate in an online environment. It is also easier to structure, plan and capitalize on.* I ended up living in Paris because, after participating in a free-for-all jam session organized by Steve Lacy at the American Center nearly 30 years ago, I was offered a permanent job as a pianist (accompanying dance classes at the Université de Paris) and accepted it in order to become fluent in French!

Hi everyone. Some of you may have caught glimpses of some work I'm doing behind the scenes of LCB. If you had a chance to see Peter Isackson's post on improvisational learning from May of 2002 that accidentally was at the top of this page for the last 24 hours or so, you got a glimpse of the future by seeing the past.I've begun the process of consolidating all of the posts of LCB from 2002 to the present into one environment. This effort is in anticipation of a migration to a new environment sometime in the near future.If your the type to volunteer to do some grunt work, keep your eyes on this space. As I get a bit more organized and have a feel for the tasks that will need to be completed to achieve the transformation of LCB, I'll be looking for some help. If you can't wait to volunteer, please let me know by commenting on this post and I'll be sure to find something for you to do!Now, back to the Big Question for now Dorothy, the balloon's not ready to depart for Kansas quite yet!

The February Big Question goes to the root of what The Big Question is all about. It is a topic that has bothered Tony for a while. In a session on Informal Learning by Jay Cross, Harold Jarche and Judy Brown at ASTD TechKnowledge, you could easily see great questions getting raised by both the presenters and the audience. "How can I help my organization improve the quality and quantity of conversations?" and "How can I create informal learning experiences for new managers in my organization?" These questions offered a fantastic opportunity for discussion and understanding of the subject.Tony’s revelation was that one of/if not THE biggest questions facing us is that we don't know the right questions to ask in a given situation. Sometimes we’re asking a question when we should be asking a different one.So, this month, The Big Question is...What Questions Should We Be Asking?Please answer this question by posting to your own blog or commenting on this post.(For further help in how to participate via blog posts, see the side bar.)Point to Consider:Feel free to list questions from lots of different perspectives and at lots of different levels. One last note. Don’t worry about answering the questions you suggest. Perhaps we’ll do that in future.Participating Blogs:The form for February's Big Question has been closed. If you have a post in response to the February Big Question, please contact the Blogmeister by using the Dear Blogmeister form which can be linked to from the top of the sidebar.NOTE: If the forms do not appear below, please hit your browser’s refresh button. If the forms still do not appear, please use the Dear Blogmeister form which can be linked to from the top of the sidebar.Comments FeedUnfortunately, it seems that the "New Blogger" handles the metadata regarding comments differently than the "Old Blogger." The new way is not compatible with CoComment - at least for the time being. Since so many of our wonderful Big Question participants are using Blogger, this has rendered the process I've been using to create the comments feed pretty much useless unless I do a tremendous amount of handwork once I get the CoComment feeds over to MySyndicaat.Since I've got far too much on my plate already, I'm opting to search for a new solution to incorporate into the "new LCB" that's being worked on. So please accept my apologies, but there won't be a comments feed as a part of The Big Question for the next few months. - Dave, your humble blogmeister.

I’m not a great believer in leadership training, even though it’s very much the trend. But the fact that such training exists means that there is a problem to be solved. I notice that some of the manuals like to quote the 10 leadership principles of Jack Welch. I’ve copied below the first five: 1. There is only one way - the straight way. It sets the tone of the organisation. 2. Be open to the best of what everyone, everywhere, has to offer; transfer learning across your organisation. 3. Get the right people in the right jobs - it is more important than developing a strategy. 4. An informal atmosphere is a competitive advantage. 5. Make sure everybody counts and everybody knows they count. Three of them I find vitally interesting for the rethinking of learning. Forget the first, which is there as a kind of shocker, asserting the authority of the leader (what better way to say "I’m Jack Welch, shut up and listen"?). If I wanted to quibble, I’d say that just as there’s no such thing as a free lunch, there’s no such thing as a straight way. All viable ways follow the relief of the land and are therefore not straight, but rather as straight as possible or as straight as management can make them… which means that professional life doesn’t end up looking like a series of right angles. It starts getting interesting with number 2. Learning is as close to the top as you can get (once you get the phantom straight line out of the way). And notice what it says: learning is everywhere. It doesn’t come from trainers and SMEs. Everyone’s involved. And the need is to transfer, not to teach. Skip to point 4. What do we find? A celebration of informality, not as a method of learning (who in the organization really cares about learning besides Jack Welch?*) but as a factor of competitive advantage! Put 2 and 4 together and we begin to see how learning organizations may develop. Point 5 is equally important. How do people show they count and know they count for others? I don’t think Welch is talking about pay packages and brownie points. It’s rather that their voice is heard because they have something to contribute and a forum for making it heard. That forum is the ongoing informal dialogue of an organization where "everyone, everywhere" has something "to offer". Maybe we should be concentrating on giving shape to that forum by encouraging communities where the dialogue is real and authentic, not polluted by too many "learning points". Anyway, it's a great honor to welcome Jack Welch to the exclusive club of promoters of informal learning. He deserves to be one of us! * To answer my own question, I’d say "nobody except the CEO" because everyone else, including the CLO, has a job to do and they all know the criteria on which they will be judged. And it ain’t learning - which is oriented towards the future -- but keeping the machinery going with as few hiccups as possible - which means having one's eye fixed on the present and quarterly results. Having worked closely with a direct disciple of Jack Welch, I know how focused those objectives are.

I recently posted an article on this blog, Investing in Informal Learning. Seeing more in it that what I originally posted, I used it as part of a larger posting on trdev, State of the Learning Industry. Tony Karrer urged me to post it to Learning Circuits as trdev is semi-public in that you have to join the group to view any of the postings (it is free however). For those of you who are not members of trdev, I urge you to join as it is one of the more dynamic and critical T&D discussion groups on the web. However, simply cross-posting the same material holds no real interest to me, so I delved into the subject and thought about it some more. . .I'm sure most readers of this blog have seen charts similar to this posted throughout the web:Which of course makes informal learning look like a better investment than formal learning. However, in Training in America, the cost of formal and informal that they give ($30 billion for formal learning and $180 billion for informal learning) means that the true investment for learning should look more like this:The second chart suggests that "formalizing" the informal learning would now be the better investment in order to make it more efficient. However, in the trdev discussion, Tony suggested that the second chart is not counting the payroll expenditures (soft costs) of the students in the formal learning classes. Thus the formal learning expenditures should be higher. We could argue back and forth about what costs should be included in each one, but we would only be second guessing what the authors actually counted under each form of learning. Then it dawned on me what the numbers really mean; we are using the government's term of informal and formal learning -- if the money invested in learning falls under a training department's budget, it is counted as formal learning; if it falls only under payroll, then it is being counted as informal learning. We are using monetary terms to define informal and formal learning. However, I think that most of us would define it more or less as Stephen Downes views it -- if it is managed by the learner it is informal, if it is managed by someone else it is formal. The government defines OJT and apprenticeship programs as "informal" simply because they normally fall directly under payroll's budget, rather than training's. Yet for the most part, learners are not walking into the workplace and deciding what and how they will learn their job. Rather they are being directed or managed by supervisors and coworkers. The OJT programs are often under the guidance of the training department.Thus the numbers thrown at us that 80% of the learning in the workplace is informal and 20% is formal is totally misleading, unless of course you want to define formal and informal learning in dollar terms. So what is the real percentage? I doubt if anyone really knows. Besides, I think it would totally depend on the type of workplace itself.

UPDATE 2/19/07: After an error then a typo, the link below goes to the correct page. Just to be sure, it's http://learningcircuitblog.pbwiki.com/bigquestions and the list is now 112 questions long.Since I'm not tracking comments this month for The Big Question, I thought I'd do something that I hope will be valuable. I've aggregated all of the questions that have been proposed in the participating blogs. You can find the list, which at the moment stands at 102 questions, on the LCB Discussion Wiki on the Big Questions page.On the wiki page I describe a few things that I needed to make educated guesses at. If you don't care for how I've presented your question(s), please feel free to edit the table.Dave Leeyour humble blogmeister

I’d like to follow up on my last post and also weigh in on the question of investment in formal training and informal learning. I tend to see the world through my own professional lens, which is that of culture. Although usually taken to be about the behavioral differences between people of different national, geographical, ethnic, religious origins, culture is everywhere and constitutes a property of all groups. This idea isn’t new to the industrial world, since for the past 20 years or so we have talked about "corporate culture", which for many more decades has been pro-actively practiced by companies such as IBM (with its now abandoned dress code and "IBMer" identity) or HP, with the "HP Way". Jack Welch used a much softer and holistic approach at GE, where, as we now know, there was a strong emphasis on informal communication and bottom-up creativity, aiming at creating a learning culture. Defining or imposing a culture and disseminating its principles aren’t enough to make it effective. The key reason for this is organizational inertia. And consistent with it is the relatively short tenure of CEOs, whose promotion of culture is essential if we wish to maintain any hope for cultural change. Alas, though essential, it isn’t enough, partly because the permanent management -- from divisional directors to line managers, the ones who have to deal with human performance -- see the CEOs as living in a stratosphere that has nothing to do with their lives and their professional objectives (i.e., in most cases, maintaining their jobs). Have any of you tried inviting a group of people in a "teaching situation" to be creative? Even though - depending on the group -- a few voices will inevitably speak up, it generally isn’t creativity that’s expressed but rather "competitive personality". And its effect is usually to silence the others (the same thing happens in discussion groups, by the way). Department heads live essentially in a world of competitive personality. I began working on the subject of professional culture when it became a mission critical issue in the 1980s as companies here in Europe began the revolutionary step of introducing the PC into their workspace. This was a major paradigm shift, especially concerning the distribution of power and the status of staff autonomy. It wasn’t an easy ride, but it certainly was an interesting one, and possibly more important in terms of world culture and even geo-politics than the collapse of the Soviet Union. I did a lot of work with one company in the Thomson group where the CEO was on a mission of mondernization. Nobody knew at the time, but he was asked by Thomson’s CEO to prepare this subsidiary of a state-owned company, which possessed a largely military culture and thrived on defense contracts, to be sold to a privately-owned Canadian competitor and to be more active in the civil sphere. My small training/consulting company was asked to prepare the entire staff on two fronts: intercultural (dealing commercially with other countries, including speaking the same language) and adoption of PCs (the machine, the keyboard, DOS, spreadsheets, databases, word processing, etc.). To my surprise, the biggest challenge was getting French males to use a keyboard! This was an exciting mission and, knowing the CEO had clearly stated his goals, I began by interviewing the department heads whose staff was concerned by the "new culture". Imagine my disappointment to discover their attitude was unanimously blasé and even dubitative. In the following months, we had some fun and achieved some significant but limited success, until the CEO resigned 18 months later and the great experiment was abandoned (and they never managed to sell off the company). In the meantime I had been co-opted to create a new department of engineering services around training technology (basically, interactive video) to be proposed to the company's clients, so I was no longer involved in the internal training challenge. We all know now that the teething problems of introducing the PC lasted as long as teething problems tend to last and that, among other things, within three years French males started massively accepting the use of a keyboard. There is little doubt that this happened not because of a massive increase in training (which actually did take place), but because there was a deep cultural shift leading to a much more massive amount of informal exchange. Training helped, but it remained blissfully ignorant of the cultural reality around it. The question we can now ask is, "could it have happened more quickly, more efficiently and at less cost had training departments taken into account the informal?". The answer should be resoundingly "yes", but as Don Clark points out, there are no "objective statistics" to cite, so that a classic resource management approach is incapable of taking the issue on board.How could informal learning have been encouraged? First of all, by concentrating the formal training less on the technical skills of the staff and more on the human skills of department heads. It could have included things like group dynamics and communication training, to say nothing of corporate culture itself (which I still don’t see as a significant item in training course catalogues). Although this type of action is formal, it represents a direct investment in informal learning and could be added to the column of strategic investment rather than "just in time" fixes. They could have encouraged rather than neglected the potential of the expensive and hard to deploy groupware (Lotus Notes) they began investing in during the 90s. They could have looked at questions of corporate architecture (some did, by the way, but not necessarily with the conscious idea of stimulating informal professional exchange). They could have adopted an attitude of "visionary evolution" focused on the long term, taking into account human behavior; but of course the obsession with quarterly results still makes that difficult. Executives with long-term vision write books rather than struggling to impose their vision in the real corporate environment they work in. As this is turning into an essay, I’ll stop here, for reasons of inappropriate length. But I’m sure others will have many things to say to keep the discussion going and tease out the meaning of these issues, including the "how to invest in informal learning". If we could situate the "how to", we might be able to clarify the "how much?".

Ok, so it looks like Learning Circuits Blog is not a spam blog after all. And that means that we can ask this month's big question - a few days late.This month's big question actually was a question asked by an attendee at Jay Cross' presentation on informal learning at ASTD TechKnowledge. She was in charge of designing training and support systems to help people transition into management roles throughout the organization (customer service, sales, operations, etc.). She told us that her organization was used to doing this with instructor-led training, but that she wanted to explore a combination of instructor-led, online and informal learning. She wanted suggestions on things she could do, what she needed to consider, and how to balance what approaches were taken.So, this month, The Big Question is...What Would You Do to Support New Managers?Please answer this question by posting to your own blog or commenting on this post.(For further help in how to participate via blog posts, see the side bar.)Points to Consider:As much as possible please provide specific suggestions to this person.Since dialog with her is possible at this point, if there are key forks in the road - you just have to tell us about them and the options that exist.Participating Blogs:The form for March's Big Question has been closed. If you have a post in response to the March Big Question, please contact the Blogmeister by using the Dear Blogmeister form which can be linked to from the top of the sidebar.NOTE: If the forms do not appear below, please hit your browser’s refresh button. If the forms still do not appear, please use the Dear Blogmeister form which can be linked to from the top of the sidebar.

Well in the spirit of community building and the voice of Jay Cross in my head ("just post it to the blog") I'm asking the community what happened this month with The Big Question. For the first five months of The Big Question we've averaged 24 post per month. Currently, March stands at 7 posts.Help Tony and I examine the situation so we can make The Big Question as vibrant as possible. Did everyone just get busy with other things at the same time? Did you forget about TBQ this month? Did we forget to remind you? Was the question just not of interest to you? Did the Blogger "spam blog" snafu and resulting delay at the beginning of the month throw you off? Are those of you in northern climes suffering from seasonal duldrums (he asks from Palm Springs)?I'd love to get feedback from as many of you as possible - whether you've contributed to TBQ in the past or not. TBQ has been a great feature to this point and this March sag may just be a blip. But why not discuss it. Process is a part of community building after all.So in the words of Linda Richmond, "Alright, I'll will give you a topic. The March Big Question: Came in like a Lion and out like a Lamb. What's up with that? Talk amongst yourselves."

Like many industries today, there are significant changes going on for Instructor-Led Training (ILT) and Off-the-Shelf Content Vendors today. In recent conversations with different vendors, they cited a variety of pressures that are making their situations increasingly difficult:On Demand: Customers want to have both up-front training and on-demand materials. However, on-demand materials are perceived to be similar in form to what’s freely available through search.Smaller Increments: Customers want to purchase training in smaller increments to minimize time away for learning. This causes several problems for ILT and Content Vendors. Scheduling courses in smaller sessions distributed over days or weeks often interferes with a vendors' ability to delivery ILT on-site because the trainer is booked for consecutive days in class. It’s also not clear what pricing models work for these kinds of approaches.Rates: Rates for people continue to go up, while price points do not. Vendor prices are not likely to increase as additional training options continue to increase ways in which people can learn.Courseware Quality: Higher quality courseware (simulations, interactive, referenceable, etc.) is more expensive to produce and it is hard to get that expense back from customers unless there’s significant volume. Further, it is often more out of sync with customer demand because of time-to-market issues. This environment makes it easier to justify PowerPoint plus audio type courseware, but customers are never satisfied with the quality.New Competitors: If you're in IT - Microsoft and other vendors like to give away training, or bundle it with their software sales. If you are in productivity training, there are excellent resources available for free online around systems like "Getting Things Done" (GTD).The bottom line is that many vendors are struggling to determine their direction moving forward. And likely, this is not that far away from some of the same struggles faced by services groups inside organizations.So, this month, The Big Question is...ILT and Off-the-Shelf Vendors - What Should They Do?Please answer this question by posting to your own blog or commenting on this post.(For further help in how to participate via blog posts, see the side bar.)Points to Consider:What do you believe will be blends that will be succsseful both for learners and from a business model standpoint? In other words, what’s the mix of offerings that can command a high enough price and produced at a cost where the vendor can be profitable?How can ILT providers integrate alternative delivery methods for live training when their trainer resources are often on the road or "in-class" during business hours?Are there other business opportunities to leverage the core competencies and assets of these providers? In today’s world when many referenceable resources are available online to the learner, what is the right model?Is this all hopeless in a Do-It-Yourself world? Should they all get out of the business now?Participating Blogs: The Big Question for April has been closed. If you'd still like to submit your post to the April Big Question, please contact the Blogmeister by using the Dear Blogmeister form found at the link at the top of the sidebar or by clicking here.

Simple Example (click to enlarge the two pictures) Here is a great, simple example ofPedagogical Elements. Take two, almost identical pictures of Earth. The first is made up just of accurate simulation elements (if you ignore the corners). Click on it and see if you can make out the details. The second picture adds just a bit of pedagogy. Now click on it, and see how much richness a little pedagogy adds.

I think we are going to be using these more for formal learning programs, so I thought I would share a quick overview and, better, some examples:Mini games: small, easy-to-access games built to be simple and addictive. Mini games are "one-note" in terms of gameplay, often focusing on mastering an action, sometimes with a desired message as a backdrop.Mini-games are typically for:marketing (such as [Dr. Pepper Speedway Rush] or [Monster.com Climbing the Corporate Ladder]),editorial (such as [Take Back Illinois]),explanation (such as [Dean for America game], or this [Cisco example]).commerce (where players will play a few free levels, and then buy the full game).Mini games can sometimes provide an awareness of some more complicated issue, such as fit.Mini games are often created in Adobe Flash, sometimes in less than three weeks.

In light of the stunning news of Kathy Sierra's terrifying experience with death threats and other horrid comments made on her blog, Creating Passionate Users, I'd like to raise the question of whether we need to draft and post a code of conduct. Some time ago, I posted some basic guidelines for commentors in the FAQ under the question "What can or can't be posted to a comment?". I'd love feedback from any and everyone. Is this statement strong enough?Does it include everything it should?Is is alright to leave it in the FAQ?Should I put a link to it from the sidebar?Are there codes of conduct for other blogs we should consider? (I've seen and like Blogher's and the O'Reilly proposed blogging code of conduct)Should I just wait for the O'Reilly code of conduct to be finalized and use it?Is this a tempest in a teapot and I should just forget about it?To date, because we have had an invitation-only author team, posts have not been a problem regarding inappropriate language or threats to others. I have pulled down two posts written by authors for content that was misaligned with LCB's purpose (but unoffensive) and another for being more "novel" in length than "blog post". The only comments I have removed from LCB have been obvious spam or inadvertent duplicate comments.But as we move toward a more open contribution model, (i.e., The Big Question) the chance of conduct offenses will rise. As blogmeister, it's helpful to have a previously published policy to point to when informing a contributor that they are in violation of that policy and I'm taking down their contribution.I look forward to reading your thoughts. (I promise, none will be pulled down!)

I have an unpopular suggestion for rebooting the formal learning industries. Let's put a one-year ban on "inspirational stories." You know what I am talking about: these are the pithy, well rehearsed, well honed, fiction-presented-as-truth stories by "experts/gurus." In these stories, a variation of the hero's journey, an unlikely person is given a daunting task. They are first overcome by the weight of the responsibility, but then rise to the occasion, apply cleverness and fortitude, and end up with a surprising result. They are as accurate to reality as Frank Miller's Spartan story of "300."Conferences and executive programs are chock full of "inspirational stories." And don't get me wrong - I love them. They are intellectually delightful concoctions, the equivalent of a buttery croissant with fresh preserves - so unbelievably tasty going down, and yet so useless to the system craving nourishment. They make us feel good and full of hope for just long enough to fill out the speaker survey.I noted in 1999 that corporations were making e-learning content decisions based on bulk (the more courses, with a lower cost-per-course, the better). Then, in 2002, the same corporations complained that e-learning was vacuous. D'oh!Likewise, we are currently demanding, through buying their books and praising their speeches, some of the smartest people in business to constantly take real-world anecdotes, fluff them up with some best practices, toss in some faux humility, hone their structure and humor in their delivery, and create a steady stream of "inspirational stories." Then we complain when organizations, after digesting a diet of this white bread from both conferences and management training programs, don't do anything different. Double d'oh!There seems to a group of "story-fanatics" that fit mostly the same, general description.About 45 to 60Love story-telling, and may have studied it, or theater, as a major.Fascinated by the "hero-journey."Don't play computer games or engage in social networking, or have minimally so they can say they have.Adore the medium of video, the constructs of cinema, and, if pushed, will reluctantly agree to the effectiveness of a branching story type of simulation.View the story as the most effective form of learning.Have reams of studies at their fingertips to "validate" their passion.I am more excited and intrigued by the double aspect of user participation and non-linear content as the cornerstones of effective content. Perhaps the most pithy research for the first, user participation and activity, not just exposure, is cognitively necessary for learning, comes from an old study:In a famous experiment, Held and Hein (1963) exposed two kittens to nearly identical visual information. This was done by placing one of the kittens (the passive kitten) in a little gondola, and linking it up to a harness worn by the other (active) kitten so that as the active kitten moved about and explored its environment, the passive kitten was moved in exactly the same manner. The result was that only the active kitten developed normal depth perception. The passive kitten, even though its sensory input was nearly identical, did not. (http://mind.ucsd.edu/papers/pisml/pismlhtml/pisml-text.html)Stories are always a good start. They are critical for building caring. We are as genetically predispositioned to listening to good stories as seeking fire and shelter. But they are just a first, tiny step, the appetizers to real learning's main course. So, let's go a year without any inspirational stories. Let's push ourselves as the formal learning industries to give up our golden crutch. Let's carefully study the works of people like Thiagi. There are some people who just can't imagine a learning program without a steady stream of inspirational stories. To these, this very post will get their blood pumping with righteous anger. I have, in their view of the world, slapped my white glove across their face. It is these addicts that most of all need to go without, if only for 12 months.

I travel all over the world presenting research and ideas on simulations (typically to a larger group, before working more closely with a smaller group). But I am constantly stuck with the same conundrum - how do you capture the spirit of simulations while presenting material? (And just to say, I am no Thiagi. I cannot engage and delight anywhere near his level, if at all).I was at the Army War College on Friday, and tried something for the first time that was really great. I loaded up a copy of my wiki-like blog on each of the student computers. I gave them free permission to unabashedly explore the material while I was talking. I told them they could go straight to the sim Examples (everything in [brackets] took them to real, outside examples), if they wanted. Or they could explore theory and concepts. They could even drift off to tangential areas like Social Networking. When I was talking, probably a third didn't hear a word I said - they were off exploring THE SAME MATERIAL, but in a self-directed and more open-ended way. Probably a third did what I would have done - drifted back and forth. And a third actually listened to me.Clearly, this is a work in progress. But it felt like a major step, at least in my own view of what formal learning can and should be.

How many of you knew Lucinda Roy? (I didn’t). How many of you know her now? Probably a lot more. Our educational institutions were already in a deep crisis and didn’t need a mass killing to help sort things out. But in the midst of a senseless, heart-breaking and deeply troubling tragedy, Lucinda Roy, black, British and a successful writer is the "professor" who out of concern volunteered to handle Cho Seung-Hui face to face in an attempt to penetrate his shell. Her heroism, which unfortunately took her only as far as the system would allow (raising major questions and boding ill for the future) is matched by her wisdom concerning the use of technology. I refer all of you to this delightful interview about technology in education: Here are just a few of the key points: One thing I've learned from this online interaction is that the ways in which we speak to each other [online] are very different from the way we would speak if we were face to face. Students working online are often much more informal early in the semester. Most teachers who love tutorials really love online interaction if it's designed well. You can have the kinds of dialogue you would not normally have in a public space. We can all draw our own conclusions (and probably already have) about the value of informality! You cannot learn to write unless you write. When the only channel of communication you have is the online channel, it is amazing how much people will write. Expression and output are the principal means of learning, not listening and taking notes. If you have a class of 300 to 400, you cannot teach well using all this interactive technology unless you are also going to build in some personal support behind it. You cannot imagine that you can answer all those queries well and improve the quality of education if you're the only person doing it. It's very frustrating. We do need to think about how anyone experimenting with this new environment has the kind of personnel support that they need. I don't think we do very well at it. It’s all about organization and responsibility in encouraging and orientating dialogue. I throw in the next point because I thought it culturally significant and worth reflecting on. Why doesn’t education help us to see what we ingest? One of the things I see is people selecting from this menu in the cafeteria and making a plate that's so ugly, you really wouldn't want to eat it. The last one I think no one has any trouble recognizing. It's confusing also because there are a lot of people suddenly involved in the education process who have their own agendas. Some are from the corporate world and really want to push a particular kind of software as the answer to everything. Read the interview. And be like me: try to find out more about this amazing woman!P.S. The interview dates from 1998. She was a pioneer.

How often have you been in a situation where the training was absolutely wrong for the participant? I don't mean wrong as in, person will never use these skills, or wrong as in, person should be out selling instead of being in a formal learning program, or wrong as in, this is a very basic program for a very senior person, but wrong as in if a person applies the skills, they will do much worse at their job?This might be because the program was not fully tested, or the wrong skills for the person. If the answer is no, that training has never been harmful, then is the corollary true: that training can't do much good? Is training just warm tea and tic tacs to make participants a little better?I look for evidence that training is getting stronger. Paradoxically, the thing that will be most convincing is a story of a training program actually being disasterously harmful.

I've been having some connection challenges the past few days, so I'm almost belated with this post but not quite - I've still got an hour until midnight here on the US Pacific Coast.Five years ago, today - April 29, 2002, Jay Cross made the first official post to Learning Circuits Blog. Welcome to the Learning Circuits Blog! A blog (short for web-log) lets you post a few sentences -- you don't have to puff up an observation into an article to post it. Blogs are spontaneous and informal. Also, there's no delay between writing an item and posting it on the web. A group of us are experimenting here, dropping thought-fragments and opinions into our group blog. If we're successful, you'll begin coming to the Learning Circuits Blog for late-breaking news. For more about blogs, here's the article about learning blogs that appeared in Learning Circuits last week.I'll ask our initial bloggers to begin by telling us who they are, what interests them, and their URLs. The list of Jay's friends who joined him on his experiment with a new technology included Clark Aldrich, Peter Isackson, Tom Barron, Kevin Wheeler, Ellen Wagner, Clark Quinn, and Margaret Driscoll.  Both Clarks, Peter and Jay are still consistent contributors to Learning Circuits Blog five years later.  LCB was an outgrowth of Jay's person website and blog efforts.  He linked up with ASTD's Learning Circuits Magazine to experiment with a new technology.  LCB's affiliation with Learning Circuits continues to this day.  It's been a unique relationship as we draw upon each other's connections and knowledge but ASTD has allowed LCB 100% freedom in editorial direction - allowing it to truly be a blog.LCB has seen some lean times and some great successes.  Sam Adkins' We Are the Problem:  We're Selling Snake Oil post on November 17, 2003 rocked the elearning world.  It drew 60 comments when LCB had been averaging just over 2 per post at that point.   In January of 2005, it was my great fortune to have Jay ask me to take over the reins of  Learning Circuits Blog.  It's been great experience thus far and only promises to be just as stimulating and exciting as we move forward.We will begin our 6th year of publishing thought provoking content on the internet by trying to expand on the success of the feature Tony Karrer guided into existence last October - The Big Question.  With The Big Question, we found a way to involve more of our community and make LCB a dynamic hub of networked activity.  It's been exciting to see over 60 learning professionals step forward and publish posts as part of The Big Question in our first 7 months of the feature.  The conversations have been stimulating and authentic.You'll read in the next few days how we're planning to change LCB and how you can help.  By 2012 and our tenth anniversary, LCB will be radically different than it is today, just as those first few posts seem archaic in light of today's blogosphere.But then it wouldn't be true to the experimental nature of LCB's birth if we didn't pursue change, now would it?Thank you to everyone who's been a part of the first five years of Learning Circuits Blog!Dave, your humble blogmeisterTags: learning-circuits-blog, thebigquestion, lcbPowered by Qumana

I had a high school teacher who observed that the male students seemed to spend a lot of time trying to figure out how to be male students, and the female students seemed to spend a lot of time trying figure out how to get male students.As I work with companies implementing both social networking and simulation technology, I have observed a new hierarchy of needs. 1. Learning to BePeople strive to know who they are. What do they like to do, and what do they hate to do? With whom are they most comfortable, or motivated, or depressed? Who are their role models? How can they get satisfaction and sustainability out of life? What are their priorities? What is a good day and what is a bad day? Where do they fall on the issues of the day? Is it better to be directive or participative?As people figure this out, they want to test this new personality out on the world. They make comments online, and post pictures. They speak up at meetings. They give suggestions and then orders of their co-workers, friends, and subordinates. They strive understanding and validation.To a large degree, this has been the drive of much of social networking and web 2.0, as well as pop culture, and "Cosmo" and Match.com self-tests. People today strive for self definition increasingly globally, not just defining themselves by where they live, where they work, or as a friend or enemy of the next door neighbor.2. Learning to DoPeople then want to have a impact on the flow of their world - to change the course of activity in a positive way because of what they do.This is where the big skills, such as leadership, stewardship, project management, and innovation come in. This is where people put forth some blood, sweat, and tears, and experience ownershipThis is where simulations play a critical role. Immersive learning simulations, especially practiceware, have the ability to give people ten years of distilled experience in 15 hours. Sims develop an awareness of the all-critical "active knoweldge" trinity of: actions; results; and the hidden system that too often counter-intuitively connect the two.3. Learning to KnowAt this point comes the learning to know. This might be cultural literacy/history, or organizational history, or trivia. This is where we try to make sense of the world we inherited - to piece together the giant puzzle. This is where books and the History Channel become so interesting. It is around this third category that academics has built both their curricula and their research process, one of the reasons I have so little hope for the role of Ph.d dominated Foundations to add significantly to the first two.I say again that what we teach is limited by what we can teach. The exciting thing about this new media order is that we have more power at our fingertips for development than ever before.

Due to some new research, the appropriate use of PowerPoint is again a topic of discussion. I went back to look at different opinions expressed in the past, and I'm not sure that there's much consensus on whether we should use PowerPoint, how to use it appropriately, when it makes sense or when it doesn't and why.So, this month, The Big Question is...PowerPoint - What is Appropriate, When and Why?Please answer this question by posting to your own blog or commenting on this post.(For further help in how to participate via blog posts, see the side bar.)Points to Consider: As you write your answer, please consider some of the following aspects:How should you use PowerPoint differently for different kinds of presentations? Are there times when PowerPoint (or slides in general) are just wrong to use? Conversely, are there times when it's wrong not to use slides?Are reinforcing bullet points (in text) good in some context? What governs their use?Is there research that supports any of these opinions or is it based on our beliefs having sat through good and bad presentations?If you find good resources on this topic, please tag them in del.icio.us with lcbPowerPoint. You can find tagged pages at: http://del.icio.us/tag/lcbpowerpointExamples of bad slides and improved versions for particular kinds of presentations would be fantastic to see?Claudia Escribano LifeLongLearningLab A Big Question on PowerPoint 30-May-2007 20:58:36Tom Crawford thcrawford PowerPoint - What is Appropriate, When and Why? 30-May-2007 07:52:35Wendy in-the-middle-of-the-curve More Thoughts on PowerPoint 16-May-2007 15:44:51Dave Lee eelearning there they go with the powerpoint thing, again! 16-May-2007 00:00:00LCB Learning Circuits Blog Big Question - PowerPoint 14-May-2007 09:44:15Jim MacLennan cazh1: on Business, Information, and Technology Five Under-Emphasized PowerPoint Best Practices 13-May-2007 12:38:56Keith Peter bodmas.org PowerPoint Big Question 12-May-2007 02:59:43Jacob McNulty Revolutions What’s the Point of Power Point? Or…what’s the Power? 15-May-2007 14:30:15Shilpa Patwardhan Closed World Presentation Tool? Yes. Teaching Tool? No. 11-May-2007 06:46:18Geetha Krishnan Simply Speaking Making Presentations 11-May-2007 06:25:10Dave F. Dave's Whiteboard The power's in the point 10-May-2007 20:48:29Tony Karrer eLearning Technology PowerPoint - A Question 10-May-2007 15:05:59Gary Hegenbart eLearning Development News The Value of PowerPoint 10-May-2007 12:51:52Giulia Calfapietro La Community di LTEver P.P.: What is Appropriate? 10-May-2007 12:17:55Giulia Calfapietro La Community di LTEver Power Point: What is appropriate? 10-May-2007 12:12:28Giulia Calfapietro La Community di LTEver Power Point: What is Appropriate, when and why? 10-May-2007 12:10:35Lanny Arvan Lanny on Learning Technology PowerPoint - Again 10-May-2007 11:45:11Gabe Anderson Articulate - Word of Mouth Blog 7 Quick Tips for Spicing up Your PowerPoint Design 11-May-2007 09:27:38Dennis McDonald All Kind Food PowerPoint: The Tool People Love to Hate 11-May-2007 03:31:14Clive Shepherd Clive on Learning The Big Question: PowerPoint 11-May-2007 01:49:31TATA INTERACTIVE SYSTEMS TIS Corporate Blog Evil Tools or Evil Uses? 10-May-2007 06:29:07Karl Kapp Kapp Notes Avoiding Death by PowerPoint 09-May-2007 19:53:55Wendy in-the-middle-of-the-curve PowerPoint - My Thoughts 09-May-2007 13:40:43Clark Quinn Learnlets PowerPoint, evil or just a tool? 08-May-2007 09:18:16Owen Ferguson Learning and Development PowerPoint - What is Appropriate, When and Why? 09-May-2007 08:25:26Tony Karrer eLearning Technology PowerPoint - Seth's Booklet 08-May-2007 17:05:11Dennis McDonald All Kind Food Using a Blog for a "Web 2.0" Presentation instead of PowerPoint 08-May-2007 10:45:19Guy W Wallace The Pursuing Performance Blog The Big Question is... 08-May-2007 07:38:52Tony Karrer eLearning Technology PowerPoint Preparation is Good 08-May-2007 07:17:18Jay Cross Internet Time Blog The Big PowerPoint Question 07-May-2007 21:21:14Mitch Owen Lead2020 Powerpoint: Should you use it? 07-May-2007 19:24:27Karyn Romeis Karyn's blog This month's big question: PowerPoint 08-May-2007 03:57:23Mark Frank Learning in Context PowerPoint 09-May-2007 04:40:08Dennis Coxe Sailing by the Sound Cognitive Load and PowerPoint 08-May-2007 11:57:36Tony Karrer eLearning Technology Background Reading - Use of PowerPoint 07-May-2007 08:39:55

Dear Hollywood,I bring you tidings from the Corporate training world. I hope you are doing well, and am looking forward to your summer fare.I just have two pieces of bad news for you, and as a friend, I thought I would break it to you directly. Here is the first: your movies are just too long. Here are just a few examples:Hot Fuzz: 2 hr. 1 min. Spiderman 3: 2 hr. 20 minPirates of the Caribbean - Dead Man's Chest: 2 hr. 20 minPlus, when you add driving, parking, and previews, we are talking about a 3 to 4 hour commitment or longer. Who are you trying to kid? WAKE UP!I can tell as a fact that no one has 3 hours anymore. No one. It is IMPOSSIBLE to find 3 hours in people's schedules. People are just too busy.Learn from me. If I propose any program, I make sure it takes less than 30 minutes, and maybe even less than 15 minutes of a person's time. My motto is deliver a bit of information exactly when they need it and move on. My ultimate goal is to be a faint, useful smell wafting through the corridors. That is, after all, the easiest conversation to have with my business colleagues. Now granted, that means I can't actually develop any new capabilities. But I can, using this "wafting" strategy, get enough funds to scrape together program pilots, as long as I only put one group through it of less than twenty people. I know, I know, you are producing blockbusters, and I am facing another budget cut. But that's just because your audiences don't get the new realities, and mine do. I just thought of another great example. YouTube is doing so well because it provides short movies. My IT people tell me that employees entertain themselves for hours at work watching these clips and.. (oh, wait. Never mind. Bad example.)The second piece of bad news is actually worse. Your movies take too long to produce. Two years? You have got to be kidding me. Ask any "expert" from the training world (and we have a lot of them). THERE IS NO WAY OF PREDICTING THINGS that far in advance. We have to react constantly. Wait... hold on.... THERE! Everything changed. Did you feel it? Entire social orders were up ended. Old models fell apart. Things change every second. The fact that you actually think you can know what people will like and need two years from now if frankly, a little embarrassing. (And the best part is, "embracing" constant change really means that you always have an excuse for not doing anything very well. Why research anything when you can "gut check?" Why design a program when you can just use Google? Why take responsibility or ownership at all?)So, I thought I would give you the two pieces of bad news, and please accept my deep, deep condolences. And, of yeah, my resume.Sincerely,The Training Community

Phd: I heard you think you have a great program.Me: I do. I have this great program to develop people.PhD: Why is it so good?Me: Because it makes people more productive in the workplace.PhD: So it's vocational? That's not really my thing.Me: No, it's around leadership.PhD.: If it is about doing anything work-related, it is by definition vocational. Me: Well, you could use it to lead in a non-profit organization. Or a lab. Or run a university.PhD: Well, I guess THAT wouldn't be vocational. What theories of leadership and education are you using?Me: I can dig some up, but more importantly, I have stacks of results.PhD: I like theories a lot more. Besides, why should I trust your results? You are a vendor.Me: Because all of the research was done by third parties.PhD: Sure, but the research was done by someone.Me: Ah, yes. PhD: And that person was no doubt proud of their results.Me: I guess.PhD: Well, those people were all bias towards success. Research invalid. QED.Me: Ah, okay.PhD: You are thinking about this all wrong. What you need is a firm foundation of theory. Either use an existing theory, or pose a question, and then find the evidence to support it or refute it.Me: Why?PhD: That will increase your chances of success.Me: But I already have success!PhD: But not repeatable success. Your type of success requires people who care about the results. Your programs require ownership. Me: I guess...Phd: But if you build an academic case, then the results just happen, even if no one cares. It's like physcis.Me: Do your projects work?PhD: Hardly ever. But that's the best part. First, it's not my fault, it's the theories'. Second, obviously, we feedback that knowledge of failure into the process, and refine our knowledge base. We end up with better theories, not just one off successes.Me: Hmmm.PhD: You just don't get it, do you? Where's another PhD? They get it.

One of the things that has always been somewhat surprising to me is that there seem to be relatively few examples of different kinds of eLearning available out there. So, this month I wanted to ask a slightly different kind of question that hopefully can produce something of value.The Big Question is...Where are the Examples of eLearning?Please answer this question by posting to your own blog or commenting on this post.(For further help in how to participate via blog posts, see the side bar.)Points to Consider:Please point us to all sorts of examples.Good examples, bad examples are welcome.Please give us a few thoughts of why you think this is an example that we should give some attention.Val Evans Social Software Research Knowledge Sharing Case Studies 16-Jul-2007 13:25:50Val Evans Social Software Research Teaching and Learning Case Studies 16-Jul-2007 13:20:36e-Learning Tyro e-Learning Tyro e-Learning Demos 28-Jun-2007 23:29:45Claudia Escribano LifeLongLearningLab Examples of E-Learning 27-Jun-2007 19:17:02Gabe Anderson Articulate - Word of Mouth Blog Where are Examples of eLearning? Lots Right Here! 26-Jun-2007 11:30:51Dave Lee eelearning exemplary elearning solutions 14-Jun-2007 13:43:59Dave Lee eelearning what is a "good example"? 13-Jun-2007 00:00:00Adele Lim learning & development LCB Big Q for June: Eg of e-Learning 11-Jun-2007 03:17:57Tony Whittingham Fantastic Resources for Students The Power of Three 11-Jun-2007 02:37:24Quintus Joubert eLearning Blog Where are the Examples of eLearning? 11-Jun-2007 12:50:52Peter Isackson Learning Circuits Blog Example of eLearning 09-Jun-2007 10:33:33Kevin Vaughan Flexible Learning Network Designing e-learning 09-Jun-2007 08:34:26Karl M. Kapp Kapp Notes Show Me the Examples! ASTD Big Question for June 07-Jun-2007 14:41:56Mark Frank Learning in Context Two examples of elearning 07-Jun-2007 02:26:24Tony Karrer eLearning Technology Creating a Blog in Blogger 07-Jun-2007 07:04:40Piotr elearning-20 Best Examples of eLearning 05-Jun-2007 11:06:22Clark Aldrich Clark Aldrich's Blog: The Elements of Interactivity [Examples] of simulations: a dynamic list of entries with playable examples 05-Jun-2007 08:33:21