e-Clippings (Learning As Art)

Pech* Kuch* (evidently Japanese for "full of yourself")

Holy crap. Seriously people. So evidently I'm a bit behind the curve. My friend Ellen Wagner recently did a presentation at the Learning Solutions conference (along with Cammy Bean and Koreen Olbrish). Part of that presentation included a wonderful piece entitled the "Secret Handshakes of Instructional Designers"

This is one of those presentations where you do 20 slides and only use 20 seconds talking about each one. Ellen has a whole post on using this Pecha Kucha format for talking about instructional design here. I was there for the presentation and it went over like gangbusters. Evidently though, in doing it, Ellen joined the ranks of lawbreakers, rebels and general neer-do-wells...

Maybe Ellen will comment here on the email she got from the Pecha Kucha Foundation but I saw this post today that seems to run along similar lines. Quoting from that post by Lorenz Khazaleh: 

"This is Jean from PechaKucha HQ here in Tokyo. It has come to our attention that you recently organized a PechaKucha event without our consent.

The PechaKucha name, logo, and format are all trademarked concepts, and as we clearly indicate on our site, we ask that anyone who is interested in running a PK event get in touch, as we have a review and agreement process that we go through."

Yeah, I know. My head almost exploded too. I mean...this is a format people!! So then I decided to take a look at the Pecha Kucha web site. Sheesh. Rarely have I seen a site so full of whining pretensions. 

Like (from Aims of the Pecha Kucha Foundation):

"To keep the global PechaKucha movement -- now in close to 300 cities with over 60 events a month -- growing in a sustainable manner, reviewing city applications and granting handshake agreements."

How about getting out of your own way? How's that for managing growth? Why does a format either for a presentation or an event, have to be managed for sustainability?

"With revenue from sponsorship, donations and advertising the Foundation will start and support global initiatives such as the PechaKucha website "Presentations" section -- a global city archive of presentations -- and the Marc Hoekstra PechaKucha Award."

You're kidding right? You need to donations to host presentations? Have you heard of YouTube? SlideShare? And I love the idea of an award and Marc sounds like a tremendous human but if you believe in it so much, set up a PayPal account and let the world contribute.

"Klein Dytham architecture has sponsored PechaKucha since its inception in 2003, paying for all website development and staffing costs. As the number of cities and events have grown so have costs and staffing. In 2008, Autodesk, the world's leading architectural and creative sofware company, came on board as a sponsor and helped cover some of the running costs. Klein Dytham architecture still sponsor the movement by covering the considerable shortfall."

That's huge kudos for Klein Dytham but sheesh don't cover the costs of something like this out of the goodness of your heart and then come whining about it and about shortfalls. And while we're on the topic, "staffing costs"? I guess that not trying to make people apply for PK permits and having to review those applications would dramatically cut down on your staffing costs. 

So...since PK and 20x20 are both trademarked...I'm recommending we start a new movement...I'm torn between 19x19 and 21x21...can't decide right now. I do promise though to keep web site development costs low (if only there were some kind of free service for hosting a web site) and staffing costs down (my salary will be reasonable I promise).  So there you go people...what's next? A patent on starting your talk with a joke?

Social Media Growth Counter

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

Live Coverage of the eLearning Guild's, Learning Solutions 2010

Facebook vs The LMS: Can Someone explain this to me?

Here are some numbers from the Facebook press room:

• More than 400 million active users
• 50% of our active users log on to Facebook in any given day
• More than 35 million users update their status each day
• More than 60 million status updates posted each day
• More than 3 billion photos uploaded to the site each month
• More than 5 billion pieces of content (web links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photo albums, etc.) shared each week
• More than 3.5 million events created each month
• More than 3 million active Pages on Facebook
• More than 20 million people become fans of Pages each day
• Pages have created more than 5.3 billion fans
• Every month, more than 70% of Facebook users engage with Platform applications
• More than 250 applications have more than one million monthly active users
• More than 60 million Facebook users engage with Facebook Connect on external websites every month
• There are more than 100 million active users currently accessing Facebook through their mobile devices.
• People that use Facebook on their mobile devices are twice more active on Facebook than non-mobile users.

Wow. That's a lot of people and data isn't it?

How many users on your LMS?

How many LMSs out there also support 3rd party applications?

So please, someone, help a guy out...tell me why more companies aren't like Udutu? Fine, I'll accept for the time being that security is key, privacy...whatever...ok fine...but tell me, what is different about the data that Facebook handles and the kind of data that our LMSs handle? Start an app? Got it. Finish an app? Got it. Report a score? Done.

So let me hear it - why is the architecture underlying Facebook, insufficient for our organizations' "learning management" system needs? I'm serious. Please. There must be a reason right? I am totally assuming I am just missing something.

You know, I might just start watching this every morning :-)

History, ISD and the Texas Textbook Massacre

I'm a historian. Servant of Clio. Got a Master's in it. Did Doctoral work in it (ABD all the way man!). I have actually read Washington's diaries, The Federalist Papers, Cato's Letter's, Royster, Wood, Bailyn, Maier, et al ad infinitum and I keep rewinding that scene from Good Will Hunting like a million times! I've actually also been paid to teach history to college students and even to conduct paid historical research. So yeah, I'm a historian.

I actually regard that title with respect. Did you know that PhD in history is one of the toughest and longest PhDs to get? Try coming up with "an original contribution to the body of knowledge" when that body of knowledge has been around for a couple of thousand years. History as a discipline is also one tough taskmaster? Wanna talk reading loads? Writing loads? Please. Maybe, just maybe something like first-year law school may hold a candle but it'd be close (I'll probably hear from you Lit majors and that's cool too). Did you know we have a whole sub-field dedicated to attacking our own methods and conclusions? (its historiography but more on that in another post). What other field is crazy enough to do that?

So I actually threw up a little bit in my mouth when I read all the articles about what the Texas School Board just did. (1,2,3,4) Actually I think I screamed and cursed a bunch too. Seriously. I swear sometimes I think that everyone who's had a history class or seen National Treasure thinks they are a historian. Drives me freakin crazy. You know what? Don't tell me what you know about 'the Founders' until you've spent time with them. I mean original sources. Because that's what historians do. We go to original sources and from there we build up. So when I see a bunch of partisan, amateur hacks tearing up the tracks of history for their own bullshit, political purposes it drives me mad. Have you dumbasses actually read Locke, Hume, Rousseau? I'm gonna bet not but yet you somehow feel qualified to make curriculum changes with regard to the Enlightenment. I've read 'em you Texas punks...you wanna go a couple of rounds? Why don't you show up and try to pass a doctoral comprehensive exam?

The problem is that this disease will not stay in Texas by sheer dint of the size of the state, this will affect what textbooks will be offered all over the country. I shudder for the future of our children.

Now as I'm writing this rant - I'm also wondering if people who actually have degrees in Instructional Design, or Curriculum Design, or Education feel the same way about some of us in the learning/training field? Now, I've taken grad classes in ISD (shout out to Boise State!) but I also never hold myself out to be an ISD. So now I wonder, history has a fairly well-developed sense of itself - our methodologies, our philosophies on how to "do" history (not to say that there isn't ongoing, heated debate but that is actually a good thing)...does the field of instructional design have a sufficiently coherent sense of 'self' to conjur up such a pure rage as I feel toward the TSBOE? If not, then what's the difference? Is it just a matter of time? Hmmm...I do sense another post coming....

How can we make conferences stay relevant?

So I just got back from GDC and before that it was Learning Technologies 2010, DevLearn before that and next it'll be Learning Solutions, IITSEC, LEEF (supposed to be REALLY good this year), maybe throw in some KMWorld, a little OGI and Gov2.0 and there you go. I could also include past years when I've gone to ISPI or ASTD and so on...but there are a lot of conferences in my past and in all probability, a lot more in my future.

Now, don't get me wrong- I love a good conference. I love the interaction w/ the other attendees, maybe seeing a really smart/funny/inspirational speaker maybe meeting some cool new company with a really interesting new product. <insert other shoe dropping>

...but it also gets old. I've been to a lot of shows, spoken at a lot of shows but at some point you find yourself (or at least I do) starting to skip some of the sessions and look for actual, authentic conversations. This happens more I find at conferences that I've been to multiple times. Then you start to question why you're there in the first place - think Up In The Air but for conferences. 

So I've started to really wonder, how can re-engineer conferences so that they stay relevant for people like myself (and the others like me - you know who you are - we can all make lovely quilts out of our name tags and badges). Then I read Jeff Hurt's really nice post on this topic and I liked it but I think its interesting that he and I are coming at the same problem from different angles (I think). 

I think that Jeff is focusing on fundamentally re-wiring the conference experience at a level that is probably much deeper than what I am thinking of but also maybe harder to get to - maybe I can offer a potential signpost to Jeff's ultimate destination.

I am thinking about this kind of neo-nomadic conference crowd that moves from event to event. The ones who have been there before, who are speaking, who are considering just flying into town to give their session and then hopping right back out again. What are we Master Storytellers? Veterans of the Conference Wars? Whatever you call us (annoying know-it-alls?) we're out there and we're taking time away from home, work, etc to be there and we'd probably like to get something out of it. I also realize that we are a small percentage compared to the rest of the conference so we can't expect everything to be catered toward us. That being said...what if anything can we propose to conference organizers to keep us interested, engaged and excited about their events?

Do we create some kind of event-within-an-event that you have to be allowed into? A secret club of attendees and speakers who are weary to their souls about seeing another presentation of rapid-template-based development or another buzzword-turned-product vendor presentation. We want deeper thinking. Conversations. Community. I mean of course we want free WiFi and power strips at every table but who doesn't?

Since I was just out at GDC, I was also hearing a lot about how to keep users coming back to social games - subscriptions, premium content - maybe there is something there that conference organizers can use. Some dynamic that can be drawn out from Farmville or Epic Pet Wars that can be used to keep us grizzled old veterans excited about next year's iteration of your conference. 

Unless of course you don't want us around. That's cool too. I said before, we're a small population, maybe it just makes economic sense for you to ignore us and just work for new, fresh attendees. Maybe though we're getting to be the ones approving peoples' travel to these events and we'd be more likely to approve things that we were going to or at least still interested in. Whichever way - I do understand that there is an ROI consideration to be done here.

Let's talk about it though- I look forward to seeing what Jeff Hurt's ideas are on this and all of you.

Thanks, now please remember your lunch tickets and move along to pick up your conference bag.....

Headed to Game Developers Conf - and a couple of thoughts...

Thought #1: Why will Opera 10 STILL not display the Typepad editor correctly? Srsly.

Thought #2: SUPER excited to be headed to Game Developers Conference. If you are in the learning/training field, head over to the GDC site and take a look at the schedule. In fact, I'd argue that as soon as you finish attending EVERY event that the eLearning Guild puts on, you should make it a point to attend at least once conference 'outside' the field on a regular basis. 

Thought #3: CONGRATS to the eLearning Guild for creating a very good iPhone app for the conference schedule. Srsly, conference organizers, we know that printed conference schedules are a source of advertising revenue but the waste of paper is getting a offensive. Offer a PDF that people can download and then make a freakin app like the Guild did for the rest of us.

Thought #4: LOVE the free WiFi at the Virgin America gate. FTW!!

Thought #5: More thoughts coming from the inflight WiFi on Virgin America. The coolest airline (not that I dodn't love me some Southwest)

"Learning in3D" Karl Kapp and Tony O'Driscoll

Learning in 3D: Adding a New Dimension to Enterprise Learning and Collaboration

First an apology - I was supposed to write this review weeks ago and seriously dropped the ball. That in no way should take away from the fact that I think this is actually a very important book. I actually think it is important in a way that has very little to do with any underlying technology or set of technologies. 

So I should add that my undergrad degree was in management. That means that anytime someone quotes Peter Drucker, I have to sit up straighter and pay attention. So when Tony and Karl quote Drucker and the idea of "rountinization" - that new technologies are most often employed early on to do old tasks faster - I latched onto that one. 
 
Don't believe it? Really? Think about e-learning for a minute. How long have we been doing that? 10 -15 years? How many times are we still confronted with that design choice of which corner to put the "next" button in? That's awesome design evolution isn't it? Why do we still have page-turners? Because we've just automated them. Tony and Karl assert: 

"Trainers appear to be wrapped up in some strange form of unconscious collusion wherein their dogged adherence to the classroom paradigm has rendered them oblivious to the incredible potential that the webvolution holds to revolutionize learning for both businesses and educational institutions."

 Man, you ain't kidding. Not just trainers. I don't want to cast too small a net here. Schools. Colleges. The classroom has trapped a lot of people. Gary Woodill has a great piece on the history of the classroom as instructional technology. So Karl and Tony might not want me to say this, but the virtual world stuff in their book is top notch - you should read it word by word, but its not the most important thing in the book. Passages like the one below are:

"In short, just as business has had to change dramatically as a result of  dynamic market economics, so too must the learning function. Critical to successfully navigating this change is recognizing that the path to strategic leverage within the firm lies in cultivating a generative learning culture. Creating a true learning organization will require significant and systemic changes to the learning function practice, not merely the automation of training processes and the digitization of training content, but a wholesale redefinition of how learning adds value to organizations."

So do yourself a favor and pick up this important book and read it. Then think about what you need to do as a learning/training professional with this amazingly rich set of tools and platforms called virtual worlds and consider the challenge that Tony and Karl have so powerfully laid out - don't use these tools to create the world's best 3D "next" button. Think past classrooms. If you don't then what a waste we'll be looking at in 10 years.