What is / will be the next intersection of education, creativity and community development? As Barack Obama takes office, I wonder how a variety of funding and initiatives across siloed governmental departments could possibly be connected to create the kind of outcomes that can radically change the way we work, learn and interact.

Free and nifty development tools thrown around in workshop discussions:

Wirecast (video capture and cleanup)
Pagesucker (grab anything and tag it)
CAM Studio
Audacity (audio recording & editing)
Percourse (web development)
Fullshot (screen capture)
Tiddly Wiki (easy wiki creation)

...and these, provided by the LDS Church:

A photo from DevCon by Mark.

Here's the key nugget from my July keynote presentation: as learners and the web evolve, how do our strategies and tactics evolve with them? The LMS is dead, long live the LMS.

Here's an image of how the web may (or may not) evolve. From Web 1.0 to 4.0 and a more artificial intelligent agent.

My thoughts: our current approach to the Internet is akin to monks trying to track all printed material after the invention of the movable type printing press: first, overwhelming, then, impossible. Likewise, even the creators of the Internet think there is so much out there, even the best search engines like Google barely capture a fraction of it all. We feel overwhelmed by information; it is impossible to predict where learners will go and what they will learn.

So...

Let's work WITH the web and our students as they evolve, not against the change. Like monks trying to put our arms around a river of printed information, our efforts to "control" or manage Internet-based learning experiences is futile. They are ubiquitous, unplanned, informal, and virtually on every device. Perhaps we should begin by planning to track our learners' experiences, as opposed to pre-planning their every online experience or locking them into small, contained, and predictable Internet experiences.

In 1933, a mechanic simplified the complexity of the London Tube map. The same schema is still used to this day because it simplifies a very complex system. We need a revolution in learning; we need a way of mapping online learning that helps learners map their online experiences, not by planning their every move, but by creating a more "simplexic*" and less "sage on a stage" way of placing learners at the center of the learning experience.

* see "Symplexity"

At DevCon 2008, I facilitated a workshop where about 67 of us tried to nail down specific challenges in creating the type of work we want to do, and opportunities for working around them. I asked everyone to focus on the first of 4 parts to successful projects: the global project strategy.

Here are some project Challenges and Opportunities we discovered through our C.O.P.E. strategy session:

Challenge / Group Defined Opportunities

Challenge: Defining Success
Group Opportunities: focus on desired business results, identify technical and soft skills to be used/developed, create incentives for learners, use collaborative tools and sites, share lessons learned after each project, align PO’s with strategic goals, use a robust PM tool and documentation tools

Challenge: Defining Effectiveness
Group Opportunities: Create a consortium of experts, justify requests (process), compare LOE / tools / projects with competition or other projects

Challenge: SME Participation and Performance
Group Opportunities: create a course “charter”, finding and documenting SME needs, create a written commitments, set clear expectations at kickoff, confirm LOE/buy-in, create course-level incentives for SMEs, define role and expectations (days/ways)

Challenge: Time Required or Invested in Projects
Group Opportunities: Bring training into planning sessions, define deliverable (possible) within time allocated, document level of effort expended on every project - by role

Challenge: Unrealistic Project Expectations
Group Opportunities: Always create a baseline of team performance through good documentation of previous projects, know when to add/amend time on project, confirm LO’s and PO’s follow-up evaluations on every project

The next day, I shared my Project Strategy: general opportunities using a COPE approach as step one of four in key steps toward better courses:

Agreement: every learning project has its share of ups and downs. We can reduce the highs and lows by creating a set of useful tools that can support our efforts and provide a little due diligence on every project. Here are some project-level C.O.P.E. tools my team uses on a general (varies by project) basis:

Tool/Technique: Reason:

Policies & Procedures: defining the practices/tools you will or will not use
R.E.D. Paper: Roles, expectations, and definitions for each role/stakeholder
BaseCamp (or other): a project management tool that helps individuals collaborate
MS Project (or other): some method to track time and effort on very large projects
Weekly reports: essential for maintaining communications
Change orders: essential for keeping projects within scope (as defined by client)
QA process: (MS, AP and organizational style guides) assures that projects meet style and usability guidelines, as well as basic spelling and grammar.

Go Bold and Leave the Rest Behind!

Course design is a balancing act between proven instructional techniques, content designed to be on-target with the audience, and delivery that facilitates effective learning and performance, with irrelevant material left behind. We also need an approach that can set the stage for more powerful learning moments within every topic / online event.

Basic thought here: strip out irrelevance and make the content you use BOLD: meaningful, impactful, and designed to create an emotional response in our learners. The trick? Convincing first time clients and SME's of the value of this approach. Tactics were discussed...

We all know that e-Learning combines internet technology with adult learning principles and problem-solving methodology. As e-learning has gained a reputation for enhancing learner competency and knowledge, and in many cases task performance, the resulting positive changes in worker behavior and improved job performance enable us to expand our us of online resources.

Recognizing the enormity of the e-Learning universe, and the need for a focused, disciplined approach to this process, PLG (my team) employs accepted and proven methods for producing learning content. We have also created a document which consolidates basic information and processes we use within client engagements. Although the process is customized for each client engagement, it is never ignored or overlooked. This ensures that client teams make informed choices about evaluating future content, determining the appropriate modalities for delivery, and how to work with outside experts and developers. 

I will post this document here to make it accessible for all of our clients.

I occasionally write satire for a local magazine. I wanted to post one of them here...

Debtor Nation

Recently flipping through the mail, I opened Time Magazine to read an article regarding the sad state of real estate and the ballooning mortgage crisis (yawn). Suddenly the article tossed out the hard-to-believe fact the over 60% of our population is in debt. Really?

The article nattered on about economic facts and fears, but frankly it could have gone on to announce the discovery of free gasoline. My brain was stuck on that darn statistic. As a product of the Florida public school system, I instinctively reached for a calculator and a beer.

If 60% of my neighbors are swimming in debt… tap, tap, tap...and the remainder is not… that leaves… Damn! If only I had learned how to use the percent function on my calculator. Even with my limited math skills, I could understand that bunches and bunches of people have very little debt.

Who are these wealthy, unfettered people? Are they newly arrived immigrants from Free-Cash Island, unaware of our long tradition of credit card spending and a culture of “buy now, foreclose later”? Welcome to America, strangers. We are a proud shopper nation!

I could picture them huddled quasi-naked in darkened (but debt-free) alleys, with their empty pockets, blissfully unaware of the seduction of Whole Foods, Calvin Klein, or Jimmy Choo. Oh, the humanity! Hopefully, they had cobbled together some sort of lifestyle from dusty thrift bins and local shelters. At least they could meet their investment bankers with heads held high. Even so, had this mythical 40% never encountered the money-mafia? Debt dealers like Bright House, AutoNation, or (shudder) Countrywide Home Mortgage? Even a brief fling with one of these titans could reduce Melinda Gates to a twitching payday-advance addict.

Then the answer hit me like a bad credit score.

This strange minority of Americans is… older people. They are practically an entire civilization! They don’t need credit cards. Pension payments and dividends land on their shoulder like bluebirds. They nibble on little plates of food. They clip coupons while watching Jeopardy on tiny screens. Worst of all - they save money.

Glory! I don’t have to worry about my personal volcano of debt because I’m still relatively young. I can eat out, chat with my Five Favs, and pay-per-view myself into a stupor every night.

I dropped the magazine and glanced at the next piece of mail: a cheerful red, white and blue envelope. It was an invitation to join AARP.