In his article, Taylor describes three habits of mind that turn leaders into learners. Substitute the word “instructional designer” for the word “leader” and I think you also have three habits that can help us up our game in our own profession.

• Always be on the lookout for new sources of information
• Stuck for new ideas? Check out old ideas in unrelated fields.
• Tap into diverse human resources for inspiration— people at all levels of an organization (and in different fields)  have something to teach you

So with this in mind, my next posts are going to be about  lessons from other fields that can help us as instructional designers.

The technology (or what are my powers?)

Registration is free for individual users of SlateBox. If you belong to an organization or educational institution, you’ll want to check into some of the plans described here. Still, the free option is pretty nice. You have the ability to create unlimited mindmaps (“slates”) which can be private or public.

SlateBox relies on HTML5 and Javascript, which means that slate creation is fast. You start off with a prompt to get you on your way and you really can probably figure out most tricks to SlateBox just by clicking around, but I’ll point out some of the doh! issues I experienced.

First one….Don’t forget to close the welcome screen so that you can access more of the menu. Save that slate!

The menu’s fairly self-explanatory as you poke around. Accessing “Properties” allows you to make the slate public or private. Even with the individual option, you can collaborate with one person by sharing a provided link. The premium versions of SlateBox will give you more flexibility as edits can be made and viewed in real-time by multiple collaborators.

Similarly, node options are fairly intuitive. Click on the gear icon to edit the look of your node and access additional features of SlateBox.

For example, you can add text, either by double clicking on a node or by accessing the text option using the gear icon. (If you add urls, they will not be functional.)

Clicking on the arrow on the side on the node creates another node that’s free-standing. (I really like this in a mindmapping tool because you can create compare-and-contrast maps this way.)

Clicking on the “plug” icon gives you the ability to connect nodes.

If you click on the down arrow to create a node, you’ll automatically get a connected node. You can move it around easily to reposition it.

You can add images or patterns to nodes by accessing the magnifying glass icon via the gear icon.

When using the image search option, you can filter according to a desired image size.

You can add text directly to an image, but a particularly nice feature of SlateBox is the ability to overlay nodes which gives you a bit more versatility.

Unfortunately, you can’t search for a specific link to an image (for example, one you’ve previously identified on Flickr) or upload an image from your hard drive. However, nits aside, SlateBox is a fun visualization tool that’s easy to use.

Diffusion innovation as a model for change

The game’s underlying model is the diffusion innovation theory. “Diffusion is the process by which an innovation is communicated through certain channels over time among the members of a social system” (Rogers, 2003, p.11).  According to this theory, each member in the social system follows a certain process in adopting innovation.

1. Knowledge: The member learns of the innovation and its attributes
2. Persuasion: The member adopts either a favorable or unfavorable view of the innovation
3. Decision: The member engages in activities that lead either to adoption or rejection of the innovation
4. Implementation:  The member adopts and uses the innovation
5. Confirmation: The member evaluates the results of innovation implementation and integrates it into his/her life

Within a given social system, there will be different innovation adopter types: innovators, early adopters, late majority, and laggards. Opinion leaders and gatekeepers will also influence the uptake of innovation by a social group. When a certain number of members of the social group become adopters, innovation begins to spread rapidly.

How to influence people

Not surprisingly, there’s a certain calculus that informs adoption—primarily a cost-benefit analysis. Do members of the group perceive that the innovation has value? What are the costs of the innovation? How disruptive will it be? Is it compatible with existing values and work flows? How hard is it to use? The likelihood of adoption also is influenced by a group’s tolerance for ambiguity and uncertainty and different stakeholders will have different views of costs and benefits.

Implications

The Diffusion Simulation Game illustrates the practical impact of innovation diffusion. Innovation requires both a change agent (you, in this game) and the willingness of a particular social group (the stakeholders in a high school) to  adopt innovation. This willingness can be manifested in all sorts of practical ways—just see how difficult it is to even schedule an interview with the prinicipal in this game! Individual members of this social group will be more or less receptive to the idea of change and can be change agents in their own right.

Why should instructional designers care about this?

Instructional designers design learning experiences with change in mind (or they should). This typically implicates stakeholders at multiple levels:

• To obtain  initial buy-in  for the learning experience
• To make sure that what’s bought into includes integrating the learning experience into the larger organizational framework so that change  is sustainable
• To perform the  analysis required to make sure that the learning experience can be a vehicle for this change
• To connect to learners in a meaningful way so that change is valued and recognized as a participatory effort

Even if you’re not likely to ever try to influence the members of a high school to implement change, the game is worth playing for the more far-reaching lessons it offers.

References

Diffusion simulation game. (2009). Retrieved fromhttps://www.indiana.edu/~simed/istdemo/guest.html

Rogers, E. M. (2003). Diffusion of Innovations (5th ed.). New York: The Free Press

2011 trends

In collecting my blogging resources, I noticed some topics I blogged most often about included:

• Games for learning and social impact
• Performance improvement
• Health literacy
• Collaboration principles and tools
• Using scenarios and stories for learning

In reviewing my posts, I noticed a lot of “crossover” articles that could easily fit into multiple categories–mobile learning intersected quite often with games. Informal learning and performance improvement are always partners, but became increasingly tied together in 2011. This was the year of Google + (yes, I am a fan) and collaboration, curation, and technology merged as we increasingly had to grapple with an onslaught of information and technological change. Some technologies, like augmented reality, showed exciting promise but aren’t yet user friendly enough (from a DIY perspective) to become mainstream learning tools in 2011.

From a personal standpoint, I increasingly realized that, as an instructional designer, it’s critical to keep a generalist’s mindset–looking to a variety of disciplines as I try to improve my craft. That gave me a great excuse to find eclectic circles on Google + and hashtags on Twitter to keep up with .

Looking forward

I think 2012 will continue to be a “fusion” year as more and more people recognize that an interdisciplinary approach is needed to solve “wicked problems” and unfortunately education  and health literacy, continue to fall into this category  in tough economic times. But if I learned anything in 2011, it’s that passion makes a difference and can spark whole movements for change. So here’s to staying passionate in 2012.

The technology (or what are my powers?)

In beta, registration to Grockit is free. To start, you simply add a link to a YouTube video. (You can also search using keywords if you don’t have a particular video in mind.)

Your video appears and you have the option to view the public Q&A or start a private one as a moderator.

Adding questions is simple and guided by prompts.

The only “tricky” thing is that you can’t go back and edit times when questions appear. You’ll have to delete a question and reinsert it if you decided that you didn’t exactly place it correctly. As a moderator, however, you also have the power to remove answers that might be inappropriate.

An interesting feature of Grokit is that it prompts viewers to comment on the questions themselves, which might in turn prompt other questions and answers at particular points in the video.

When you’re finished you can share your video and questions via a link (which you can also post to Edmodo, Twitter, Facebook, or Google +) or by inserting a provided embed code into your website.

You can also embed a search list of videos with their associated Q&A’s on your website, allowing you to invite students to compare and contrast different viewpoints.

A how-to video of Grokit is shown below.

Instructional strategies

Grokit provides a platform for making video viewing more than a passive experience, but how much of a learning experience it is all depends on your questions. One particularly nice feature of Grokit is that answers now update in real-time so you can get something a synchronous discussion going. Learners can add their own questions as they come up with them.  Although you may think of Grokit as a tool for schools (and Grokit is being used as a platform for test prep), I think it’s also great way to enhance videos for workplace learning.

(And just in case you’re not a fan of classic sci-fi, here’s more about the meaning of grok.)

From a performance improvement/organizational development standpoint:

• Robinson, D. G. & Robinson, J. D., (2008). Performance consulting: A practical guide for HR and learning professionals  (2nd ed.). San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers.
• Rossett, A. (1999). First things fast A handbook for performance analysis. SF: Jossey Bass/Pfeiffer. (A decade later, it’s still very relevant)
• Wick, C., Pollock, R., Jefferson, A., Flanagan, R., (2006). Six disciplines of breakthrough learning: How to turn training and development into business results. San Francisco: Pfeiffer.

Considering game design:

• Braithwaite B., & Schreiber, I. (2009). Challenges for game designers. Boston, MA: Charles River Media
• Prensky, M. (2001). Digital game-based learning. New York: McGraw Hill.
• Schell, J. (2008). The art of game design: A book of lenses. San Francisco: Morgan Kaufmann.

Considering e-learning, more generally:

• Allen, M. W. (2003). Michael Allen’s guide to e-learning building interactive, fun, and effective learning programs for any company. New York: John Wiley.
• Clark, R. C., Nguyen, F., & Sweller, J. (2006). Efficiency in learning: Evidence-based guidelines to manage cognitive load. San Francisco: Pfeiffer.
• Keller, J. M. (2010). Motivational design for learning and performance: The ARCS model approach. New York, NY: Springer.
• Shank, P. (ed.) (2007). The 0nline learning idea book: Proven ways to enhance technology-based and blended learning. San Francisco: John Wiley & Sons.

Considering design, more generally:

• Visocky-O’Grady, K. & J.  (2008). The information design handbook. Cincinatti: How Books.
• Baer, K., 2008. Information design workbook: graphic approaches, solutions, and inspiration + 30 case studies. Beverly (Mass): Rockport.

For some other favorites (and classics), you may want to check out this post:

• Ten-Plus-One Must-Read Books for Instructional Designers

The technology (or what are my powers?)

In beta, Themeefy is free though you do have to register to use the service.  Click on “+Themeefy” to get started.

You can add or link to a variety of different content types including:

• Web pages (using the Themeefy bookmarklet)
• Wikipedia content
• YouTube videos
• Google search results
• WordPress
• Flickr
• Facebook
• Twitter

You can also add text and images to pages. The video below walks you through the basic “how-to” of Themeefy.

As mentioned, this tool is in beta, so it will be evolving. Some things on my wish list:

• Provide an ability to do some basic text formatting
• Provide clearer directions on publishing –when you get to the last step “Themeefy,” you have to click on “+Themeefy” to access sharing options. The icon “+Themeefy” is also used at the initial registration step so it’s not immediately clear that you’ll get to these options by clicking this button. Try a “Share” button instead.
• Make the link to the linked resource the first thing you can click. Right now, the most prominent link takes you to the resource home page. This snafu is illustrated below.

To address this, I wound up adding a page of directions to my e-magazine.

You can find a link to my Themeefy experiment here as well as resources for optimizing the performance of cross-functional teams.

Instructional strategies

As Themeefy develops, I see this as a very useful tool. As an instructor you can use it to create modules of learning materials or study guides (take a look at the Themeefy library for ideas). For a more discovery-based learning approach, consider using it to create Web Quests or to incorporate scenarios with questions, as I did in my example.

You can also encourage learners to use Themeefy to:

• Create research reports
• Prepare book reports
• Create digital stories
• Develop an eportfolio
• Curate and reflect on multimedia content related to a topic

This is definitely a tool to watch.

Parker describes four basic types of team members, illustrated in my Slideshare below.

I think what’s often not appreciated is that it’s necessary to have all four types of team members (the contributor, collaborator, communicator, and challenger) to make a functional cross-functional team.

In Parker’s book, he notes that:

The diversity of cross-functional team players creates a new culture. Therefore, it is important to understand that in creating a cross-functional team, you are fashioning a potentially powerful organizational vehicle. Although it lacks the simplicity of a functional team composed of, for example, six engineers all reporting to the engineering manager, a cross-functional team has a greater chance of realizing the potential synergy of that old axiom: the whole is greater than the sum or its parts. This group of allies, enemies, and strangers can weave together a cross-functional design that is an amalgam of many cultures.

How can we, as learning developers, support workplace learning that connects these different cultures? More about that in the next post.

For more resources, and generally harmonious discussions on team performance and workplace learning, please consider joining our group on PINOT.

Reference

Parker, G. M. (2002). Cross- functional teams: Working with allies, enemies, and other strangers. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

My colleagues (Erika Romanesko, B.J. Haddad, and Bobby McCon) and I just started a  group on PINOT called “Harmonious Cross-Functional Teams.“

Why a focus on cross-functional teams?

All teams have performance challenges, but cross-functional teams are symbolic of the shift from a command-and-control style of organizational structure to the matrix model you’ll increasingly find at many organizations. Cross-functional teams include members who report to different managers. These team members can have significantly different approaches and perspectives, shaped by the unique communities of practice to which they belong. Cross-functional teams are analogous to a band (or orchestra, if you prefer), where individuals play different instruments. They must work together to create harmony. These types of teams can differ in how formalized their leadership structure is. Sometimes there’s a defined leader dictated by an organizational position (think maestro), but sometimes the structure’s much looser and leaders spring up as the occasion demands (like the leader of a rock band—it’s not always the guitarist).

Drawing on different perspectives

In developing our group, we considered that our audience would have different needs based on their unique perspectives. With this in mind,  we structured our site to provided resources and discussion opportunities tied to three different points of view:

• An individual team member’s perspective
• A team leader’s perspective
• An organizational perspective

You’ll find discussion postings organized by these general categories. So please join in and add your own. But don’t feel limited by the categories—there are many aspects of cross-functional team performance and workplace learning that need to be explored. For example, we’ve added a post on ice breakers and the more horrifying team building activities we’ve seen. We’re also asking people to weigh in on their favorite tools for team work and collaboration. Every month, we’ll showcase the top tools selected by readers and highlight them in our Web 2.0 tools for teams page.

And speaking of pages…

In addition to discussion forums we invite people to join, we’ve provided resources on our group’s pages you may find useful.

These include:

• Case studies: Learn how different organizations tackle team issues
• Websites and media you’ll want to return to again and again
• Web 2.0 tools for teams: As mentioned this will be changing every month
• Books and articles for your library
• People to follow who are influential on various aspects of team building and workplace learning
• RSS feeds of blogs and useful websites you may want to add to your collection

We invite you to help us build these resource collections. See anything missing?  Add a comment. We’d love to hear from you.

 Connecting to a larger community

We built this site to serve a larger audience than our little group, so we hope you’ll join and share your wisdom, experiences, and stories. The site’s only a few days old so we’ll be adding posts and resources. In creating the site, we conducted a review of the literature, tapped into our own experiences, and connected to others in our own personal learning networks. But of course the whole point of building a group like this is to expand our learning networks. And although you may be experiencing social network fatigue, we hope you join us, because:

1. Odds are you won’t find another group quite like this
2. We’re a friendly sort
3. Whether you’re in a corporation, a non-profit, or even in education, you’ve probably experienced both the rewards and challenges of working in a cross-functional team—You have something to say, and we’d like to hear it.

A roundup of postings

These are some of the topics you’ll find in our discussion forum.

• An individual team member’s perspective (find out about the “terror at the team meeting”)
• Challenges and rewards for effective team leadership
• What makes for a high performance team?
• Games for team building
• Does your team have a psychological safety net?
• The 9 types of collaborators
• How does organization culture affect team success?
• Setting team expectations and objectives
• Non-traditional team-building programs and activities
• Breaking down silos: Fighting resistance to cross-functional teams
• Share your top 3 team tools
• Making team work rewarding
• Let’s talk about our ice-breaker experiences

Join our group and start your own discussions! Help us discover best practices and work on solving challenges relating to cross-functional teams.

To learn more about PINOT visit the Welcome Center and browse the site. There’s something for everyone interested in non-training solutions to workplace challenges or looking to complement their training efforts.

In 1994, Strayer and Rossett articulated the TIM model, a three-pronged approach to coaching, illustrated in the figure below.

Training = creating a learning experience

In 1994, training was not quite the dirty word it is today so keep an open-mind. You can substitute the words “teaching” or “mentoring” if it makes you more comfortable. What Strayer and Rossett were advocating for was not a rigid, formalized approach, but one in which the coach is responsible for creating a learning experience for the person being coached in which that person was not left with vacuous statements but actually shown a way of doing something, invited to do it under a watchful eye, and then provided with feedback and an opportunity for further exploration.

Integration=connecting the learner to the real-world experience

The integration prong of the model is one that’s often ignored. Providing a learning experience and telling the learner to “have at it” is an approach that sets a learner up for failure. Yes, many learners will survive the “have at it” phase because of their own prior learning, resilience, and adaptability, but it wastes the previous coaching efforts. Helping learners to create needed relationships and providing an introduction to this real-world they’re supposed to be proficient in, is the true value-add that coaching should provide.

Motivation = share stories and put power in the hands of learners

Many coaches who advertise their services are not short of charisma, but that’s not what the motivation prong of TIM is about. It’s about making the value of the coaching challenge transparent, sharing authentic stories, and providing learners with opportunities for success. Motivation is part and parcel of the training  and the integration prongs of TIM; all three prongs work in concert.

E-coaching

E-coaching uses technology to deliver coaching services. While e-coaching might be mediated by a system, don’t get ready to call your LMS an “e-coach”—in my opinion, that’s antithetical to the TIM model. E-coaching might be better positioned as  ”blended coaching” with some coaching functions distributed to peers, so long as these peers can provide the needed expertise and connecting opportunities.

Systems do provide an opportunity to automate “push” (Goldsmith, n.d.). Another word that’s gone out of favor this year, “push” in this case doesn’t mean an information dump; it means providing reminders and cues to help learners access and implement the coaching they’ve been provided. Goldsmith notes that today’s learners are drowning in information and one of the roles of the e-coach is to help learners identify valuable tools and opportunities.

Speaking of opportunities…

As the Slideshare by Allison Rossett below  indicates, in 2010, e-coaching was rarely used as a tool in the L&D arsenal of organizations.

Is this a missed opportunity? I think it’s in part a reflection of the fundamental challenge presented by the need to make a human touch a visible part of an e-coaching “system.” We have no shortage of collaboration tools. We have no shortage of experts (though some are self-proclaimed). What we do have is a shortage of people who can connect the two and who can make individuals feel as if they matter and that their development is unique and important. We talk a lot about the power of technology to create individualized learning experiences, but often we put all of the onus of creating this learning experience on the learner. We say (and are told) that learners should pull the information they need when and where they need it and that’s true. But isn’t this also a bit of a cop-out? Are we, in effect, telling our learners to “have at it”?  Does this give us an out to provide canned content to learners in the expectation that it’s their responsibility to find and use what they need? This is the age of Web 2.0, after all.

Perhaps our role as learning and development specialists is neither to push content at learners nor to create systems that provide every conceivable resource to every conceivable learner. Instead, maybe our role is to be the human voice that guides problem-solving. In an online course, we have a responsibility to make our voice part of the multitude of voices that learners have access to. We’re neither the “sage on the stage” nor “the guide on the side,” we’re part of the fray. For me, this is the essence of the TIM model.

References

Goldsmith, M. (n.d.) E-coaching roles. retrieved November 9, 2011 from www.marshallgoldsmithlibrary.com/docs/EEP/E-Coaching Roles.doc

Strayer, J., & Rossett, A. (1994). Coaching sales performance: A case study. Performance Improvement Quarterly, Vol 7(4), 1994, 39-53.

Edmonson (2008) says that an atmosphere of psychological safety can help teams to take risks while minimizing negative conflict (not all conflict is bad after all). Psychological safety, in turn, is impacted by the level of trust in a team—”When there is a low level of trust in a group, contributions of group members are limited to achieving personal rather than cooperative goals” (Edmonson, citing Dirks, 1999, p. 18).

A clear vision of cooperative goals is a powerful motivating force that impacts perceptions of psychological safety and trust. A good team leader makes these goals transparent from the start. But you don’t have to be an “official” leader to help lead your team. If you don’t see clear goals, ask about the mission. Sometimes, when a team’s in crisis management mode, team members haven’t taken a pause to think about this.

Consider the dancing guy–we can learn from him.

Reference

Edmonson, A.C. (2008).  Managing the risk of learning: Psychological safety in work teams. In M. West & D. Tjosvold & K. Smith (Eds.), International Handbook of Organizational Teamwork and Cooperative Working. NY: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Retrieved from   http://www.hbs.edu/research/facpubs/workingpapers/papers2/0102/02-0…

The technology (or what are my powers?)

When you register for free at Simple Booklet you get access to a dashboard that allows you to  create booklets in a variety of sizes and formats. You can start from a blank booklet or choose a style from a diverse selection of templates that are available.

Your dashboard
Once you’ve created a booklet, you gain access to easy-to-use drag and drop  tools that allow you to add and format different multimedia content. Just drag and drop pages using the Table of Contents to rearrange them.

Media types include images, files, text, video, and audio, to start.

Since you can add code and web pages you can also add quite a bit of interactivity to your booklet pages.

Additionally, because you can embed Google Forms into your page(s) you can include polls and surveys on booklet pages. As an added perk, the widget option allows you to add Google translate capability to pages as well as a calendar.

You can also add social tools which include a Tweet button and Facebook share button. Web resources will take you to other sites which can guide you to create more elaborate booklets.

Publishing and sharing
There are many publishing and sharing options. You can embed a booklet on your website or a self-hosted blog, for example.

Finally, you can turn booklet creation into a collaborative affair.

You can learn more about Simple Booklet features here and more about plus features here.

Instructional strategies

There are many educational uses for Simple Booklets. Learners can use them for:

• A multimedia book report or book review
• Research reports
• An eportfolio
• A digital story

Social learning is built into Simple Booklet  because learners can:

• Share with study groups
• Comment on shared note pages and books using collaboration features
• Embed booklets in personal blogs

I’d like to share this YouTube video of an interview with Dr. John Keller, the developer of the model, by Dr. Bernie Dodge.

As noted by Dr. Keller, the model is not a prescriptive one. It’s  designed to integrate a large field of research on motivation and cognition. The result is not an abstract, ivory tower-bound perspective, but a practical,  systematic way to integrate motivational design with instructional design.

To learn about ARCS and to access many useful worksheets that can be applied to your design methods, you might be interested in Dr. Keller’s recent book, Motivational design for learning and performance: the ARCS model approach.

Games 101 with Scott Nicolson

This is your gateway to Scott Nicolson’s excellent collection of board game reviews. These aren’t necessarily educational but expose you to the many different mechanics found in board games. Scott Nicolson is a professor at the University of Syracuse School of Information Studies so he has a deep interest in games for education as well.

Board games for learning

You also might take a look at SDSU’s EDTEC 670 wiki which posts board game projects  by Masters students in their Educational Technology Program. These aren’t commercial games but they can provide inspiration and some are quite sophisticated. (There are also many other great game resources on this site.)

A related site (also with contributions by SDSU EDTEC students) is Cardboard Cognition, which includes links to treatments of board games and card games.

Get your geek on

You’ll also want to check out Boardgamegeek.com which includes links to board game descriptions (a great resource for accessing game rules you might be inspired by) and forums (including a forum for games in the classroom).

As an update: Thanks to Kevin Eagles on Google Plus, I learned of the Board Game Designers Forum (BDGF), which includes design forums, as well as resources and links to game journals and blogs by board game designers.

Board games and the 21st century learner

In this article by Brian Mayer, you’ll learn how board games connect to the American Association of School Librarians (AALS)  Standards for the 21st Century Learner.  Board games provide opportunities for

• reading
• decoding
• analyzing
• assessing
• taking action on information

Based on results from the survey (from those in the field)  and the views of those in a separate round of questioning,  so far it seems that very few of us are drinking the certification Kool-Aid. Given the small numbers weighing in thus far (n=21) , I’m presenting this as the perceptions of this group only. I’m still running the survey, so you can add your point of view to the mix!

Valued competences, a less valued piece of paper

It’s not that  people don’t value the competences set by organizations like ISPI and ASTD (most generally do), but there’s a distinction between the business value of the certification and its personal value.

The hype and the actuals

There isn’t a certifying body out there that doesn’t promise its certification will:

• set performance standards for the field
• help you be more competitive
• distinguish your work to employers

Yet there’s little evidence that any of these aspirations hold true. In the experience of colleagues weighing in on this subject, most say that their organizations and clients don’t value certification (“It’s hard enough explaining what instructional design is, much less certification!”). A review of job boards, reveals that only a few positions list certifications as a plus (3 of 60 in a search of performance-improvement positions on indeed.com; 1 of 50 in a search of training and development positions).  Most agree that hiring managers prefer to weigh the value of portfolios and work experiences for themselves.

While many do value the resources certifying organizations provide since they allow  self-directed learners to hone professional skills, in this sample, they’re generally not being swayed to spend the time and money on certification. A fact that certifying bodies might take note of—many are a bit cynical about the motives of these bodies.  Most seem to see these organizations as driven by less than noble goals  (to increase membership, promote sales of services, increase attendance at conferences, etc) versus being focused on a real need defined by the field. Whether  right or wrong in this perspective, certifying bodies have a bit of work to do to convince professionals in the field that certification is actually beneficial/affords a competitive advantage. Those selected testimonials on the organizations’ websites just aren’t doing the job.

Want to weigh in on this discussion? Leave a comment and/or add your thoughts to the survey.

You do have to request a guest login to access the game and you should plan to spend at least an hour investigating the game world.

Attention: Sensory bling  (the right kind) and a good story
Rigglefish grabs your attention from first with a bit of sensory allure in the form of a video that introduces a mystery. You’re Dr. Waters, sent to an underwater lab to breed a superior race of fish that can produce the lipid, Omega-X, a protectant against a deadly bioweapon. That’s the emotional hook that adds to your perceptual arousal, but that’s not all you’ll need to do. There are other desired genetic traits you need to select for— like pressure insensitivity, spikelessness, and less wriggle—in order obtain a fish that’s easier to handle in the lab.

These multiple thinking challenges sustain your attention, along with the different tasks you need to complete as you:

• Catch fish for breeding (use your trusty bathysphere!)
• Characterize them in the sample lab
• Breed them and then characterize their offspring

Confidence building: Help when you want it 
Although genetics can be a daunting subject, there’s lots of ways to build confidence in the game. The introductory video (which can be skipped) sets the stage for what you need to do to succeed in the game. Additionally, you can access a help icon at any point and pull the information you need (versus being forced to proceed linearly through a tutorial).

While your fish sampling can be a matter of luck (not all genetic traits are readily connected to visual cues or phenotypes), your breeding outcomes can be stacked in your favor by your own skill in picking the right types of fish to breed, enhancing your feeling of satisfaction.

Conclusion
This is one of those rare educational games that’s engaging, fun, and manages to achieve some learning objectives along the way. I think this is because the learning objectives are integrated with the mechanics of the game (versus being tacked on as an afterthought).  The only downside is that you only have access to the game for 24 hours at a time so give yourself a bit of continuous time to enjoy it.  It’s worth it!

(This post was cross-posted on EdGames, where the task was to evaluate the motivational “punch” of a game or website  using John Keller’s ARCS model.)

The technology (or what are my powers?)

Registration is free and you can log in using your Open ID, Google or Yahoo account.

You get started with a central node and can add additional nodes and text information. Selecting a node gives you access to editing tools.

Double clicking on a node gives you access to a text field. There are limited options here, so you won’t be able to add live links or images.

An example of a mind map on motivational design is shown below.

(You can read more about motivational design in this great book by John M. Keller, Motivational Design for Learning and Performance: The ARCS Model Approach.)

Instructional Strategies

Think is not a power tool in the sense that you can’t add images and other assets to nodes but you don’t always need a power tool. I like that it’s web-based; the nodes are easy to manipulate ,and you aren’t stuck with a focus on a central node since you can sever connections and create multiple mini-maps on a single page as shown below.

You can use Think to:

• Brainstorm a course outline, learning module, or research project
• Develop story ideas
• Develop a mental model of a subject
• Map the steps of a procedure
• Map the relationships between elements of a process

1. The entry of competitors
2. The threat of substitutes
3. The bargaining power of buyers
4. The bargaining power of suppliers
5. The rivalry among existing players

You can learn more about these forces and how they impact business strategies here.

Why a business video on an instructional design blog?

Why am I posting this on this blog? As noted in the previous post, if you design learning solutions for businesses they have to be connected to business goals and to understand business goals you have to understand the business, including its competitive context. I’m also including this because the video reiterates an issue I mentioned in the previous  post—organizations have to do more to communicate their strategies to their workers to increase their learning and doing capabilities.  As Porter notes, “The purpose of strategy is alignment…{Communication is necessary] so workers can make good choices.”  You don’t get alignment without communication. By familiarizing themselves with the strategies of a business, performance technologists and  learning experience developers can help workers make those good choices.

Connecting learning and doing to business values

It’s a central premise of performance analysis that what the performer does or should be doing must connect to business goals. Start with the end—the business needs—then move to what workers need to be able to do. However, often missing from solutions that involve formal and/or informal learning  are links that connect skill acquisition to an understanding of the business relevance of the skills acquired. A worker may understand how the skill helps her on the job but not how it makes her a more valued part of the company.

Indeed, the worker may have little idea of the overarching goals of the business. For example, how many employees in a given workplace actually understand the brand messages of a company? The strategies the company has for staying competitive? Managers may feel that sharing such information creates risks of disclosure—after all, employees leave and even with non-competes, start working for other companies, and this information is valuable. Yet  absent an understanding of basic company values and strategies, the worker can feel like a commodity.

Yet assuming that there’s a willing to be somewhat transparent about company strategies, a willingness to share doesn’t always imply an ability to share. For example, in some organizations, management itself isn’t able to clearly articulate  the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats that the company faces. Companies are often reactive and managers may not feel they have the time to assess the long-term “bigger picture.”

Performance technologists: linking strategies to learning and doing

A performance technologist partners with clients to align performance solutions to business goals. (I’m using “technologist” here not in the sense of one who uses tech tools but to describe someone who applies a systematic approach to the analysis of performance problems.)  To do this effectively, the performance technologist has to actually understand the business’ goals —not just where the company is now but where it wants to be. When organizational strategies are vague, sometimes it’s the task of the performance consultant to ask the questions that may drive some clarity. Performance technologists can thus sometimes act as mediators and interpreters of company strategies.  In this role, the performance technologist can help the business see itself as “a portfolio of competencies” versus as a “portfolio of businesses” (Prahalad & Hamel, 1990).

What are core competencies?

Prahalad and Hamel (1990) describe three features  of core competencies. They…

• Provide access to a variety of markets
• Make a significant contribution to customer values
• Are difficult for competitors to imitate

Core competencies derive from an ability to integrate and make use of the tacit knowledge in the entire organization, not just within communities of practice. Prahalad and Hamel note that “if core competencies are not recognized, individual  SBUs  [strategic business units ] will pursue only those innovation opportunities that are close at hand…”  (p. 89).  Thus, identifying and nurturing core competencies can be essential for an organization’s success.

The potential and challenge of enterprise social networks

The power of enterprise informal learning solutions is  the potential of connections and the power to reach for what’s not close at hand. Sharing systems afford the  ability to efficiently find and share knowledge (when the system is set up with the actual users in mind).  However, access to knowledge doesn’t imply use. Like most technically supported solutions, the human factor is what drives success.

A particular challenge in building informal learning solutions in the workplace is the same challenge that faces external social networks: How do we move workers from passive lurking on a shared network of information (which still can be a valuable learning experience) to actual engagement and boundary crossing?

The approach requires a coordinated effort and can include:

• Modeling social sharing behaviors (managers, superior performers, learning and development departments, can all play a role in this)
• Modeling good corporate communications—careful, concise, yet still engaging
• Making the system easy to learn and use and making  sure  it affords connections across teams as well as within teams (e.g.,  R&D folk need to have some visibility into what customer service folks are facing)
• Integrating use of the system  into an employee’s workflow (e.g., require that project completion include  a debriefing that’s shared with others, describing  lessons learned as well as successes)
• Rewarding sharing behaviors with meaningful rewards (not necessarily with monetary compensation but certainly with recognition on performance reviews and with talent development and personal feedback)
• Making  sure sharing behaviors are not punished (Are superior performers “rewarded” by extra weekend work because they’ve become “go to” resources? Is boundary crossing punished because it violates perceptions of corporate hierarchies?)
• Creating a sense of  fun (and no, I do not mean tacking on badges for more posting). For example, management and the L&D department can:
• Provide opportunities to engage in brainstorming challenges and virtual innovation workshops
•  Provide opportunities for “competence carriers” to come together and even work together (Prahalad and Hamel, p 91)
• Create white space (aka time) for innovative thinking –even if it’s just once a quarter

Despite a lot of social learning evangelism these days, none of these efforts are easy or afford magical solutions. They require understanding the unique social dynamics in each company and a willingness to proceed with baby steps and continual process improvement.  But these are critical efforts so we should be thoughtfully optimistic about the power of social networks. They’re the glue that holds companies together. We just have to work at making them “stickier.”

Reference

Prahalad, C.K. and Hamel, G. (1990) The core competence of the corporation, Harvard Business Review, 68 (3), 79–91.

You’ll find the survey here  and I’ll post results next week. Feel free to add comments in the blog comments field if you’d prefer.

And for a quick diversion….

What makes for a successful COI?

According to Garrison, Anderson, & Archer (2000), three intersecting presences combine in a successful COI:

Cognitive presence: Learners construct meaning through critical discourse and metacognitve approaches (Anderson, 2007).  It requires students to:

• Recognize a problem (a triggering event)
• Explore possible solutions (through brainstorming, communication, divergent thinking)
• Integrate findings (convergent thinking)
• Resolve the problem (by applying, testing, and defending possible solutions)

Social presence: “The ability of participants in the [COI] to project their personal characteristics into the community, thereby presenting themselves to the other participants as ‘real people’” through the means of communication utilized” (Garrison et al., 2000, p.4).

Social presence:

• Requires “social-emotional literacy” (Anderson 2007, citing Fisher, 2004)
• Is impacted by culture
• Is reflected in online interactions and affective behaviors (sharing personal information, expressing emotions)

Teaching presence:  Teachers and students  act to design and facilitate cognitive and social experiences to enhance learning outcomes  (Anderson, Rourke, Garrison, & Archer, 2001).  Teachers and/or students:

• Develop learning activities/experiences
• Facilitate discussions
• Act as subject matter experts

An important aspect of the COI model is a recognition that:

• Both problems and their solutions can be complex and ambiguous
• Problem-solving requires interdisciplinary approaches and learning is less about information gathering and more about recognizing relationships
• Teachers can be fallible

(Anderson, 2007).

 Impact of technology

Web 2.0 tools can have important impacts on the effectiveness of COI-mediated learning (Anderson, 2007).

• Cognitive presence
  • A large variety of triggering events exist given the explosion of content sources
  • Exploration can be distributed across multiple domains using Web 2.0 tools
  • Integration can be facilitated through use of technology (concept mapping, digital storytelling tools)
  • Solutions can be achieved any time, any place (e.g., through use of mobile technology).
• Social presence
  • Multimedia transforms our ability to reveal ourselves online
  • Social interactions can occur in real-time or asynchronously
• Teaching presence
  • Multimedia transforms the ability of teachers (who can also be students) to connect
  • Versatile tools exist for creating learning experiences and for facilitating communications (which must be used thoughtfully)
  • Learning analytics can be used to assess learning

Downes has suggested replacing the term “presence” with “network”  to reflect the interconnected web of learning mediators facilitated by Web 2.0 tools (Anderson 2007, citing Downes 2006).

COI in the workplace

The COI model has great potential as a model for workplace learning. It can encourage participants to apply a critical thinking approach to workplace challenges and is grounded in the pragmatic recognition that most problems are ambiguous and will not have perfect solutions. The COI’s task is to identify the best solution at the time (Shields, 2003).

In the workplace, cognitive presence or networks would involve:

• Triggering events that represent priority workplace challenges as well as opportunities
• Reflective practices that lead to continuous process improvement
• Exploration, supported through opportunities for divergent and convergent thinking
• Exploration supported through distributed personal learning networks that can include networks outside the organization (e.g., social media platforms)
• Resolutions that are data-driven

Social presence is a challenging aspect of COI in a globally distributed workplace. COI practices can create a culture of “participatory democracy”  (Shields, 2003) that needs to be nurtured by management and may conflict with command and control styles. However, enterprise 2.0 systems can support social presence as well as external social networks. Human intervention (aka learning and development departments) can help foster social presence in the workplace, which leads to….

“Teaching presence” in the workplace
In the workplace, “teachers” can be learning development specialists, business leaders, and every individual in the organization. However, the learning development team can have an important role in:

• Helping participants identify/focus problem or opportunity statements
• Modeling and developing listening behaviors
• Mediating and facilitating cooperation and collaboration
• Helping support a data-driven work culture (e.g., showing how data collection can be used to improve processes and develop better workplace solutions)
• Showing that the voices of those in the COI are an integral part of learning experiences that are created (and indeed that COI members can create their own learning solutions)

An important aspect of the COI model that’s critical to workplace success is the interdisciplinary approaches it fosters. It can encourage individuals to cross the boundaries of their traditional communities of practice to focus on the challenges as well as the opportunities that can unify them.

References

Anderson, T. Rourke, L., Garrison, D.  R., & Archer, W. (2001). Assessing teaching presence in a computer conferencing context. Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks, 5(2), 1-17.  Retrieved September 6, 2011 from  http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.95.9117&rep=rep1&type=pdf

Anderson, T. (2007).  Social and cognitive presence in virtual learning environments. [PowerPoint slides]. Retrieved September 6, 2011 from http://www.slideshare.net/terrya/social-and-cognitive-presence-in-virtual-learning-environments

Garrison, D. R., T. Anderson, & Archer, W. (2000). Critical inquiry in a text-based environment: Computer Conferencing in Higher Education. The Internet and Higher Education, 2(2-3), 87–105.

Garrison, D. R., & Anderson, T. (2003). E-learning in the 21st century: A framework for research and practice. London: Routledge/Falmer.

Lipman, M. (1991). Thinking in education.  New York: Cambridge University Press.

Shields, P. (2003). The community of inquiry: Classical pragmatism and public administration. Faculty Publications-Political Science. Paper 8.  Retrieved September 5, 2011 from http://ecommons.txstate.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1007&context=polsfacp

For more resources on COI, check out the Community of Inquiry website.

The Gilbert Behavior Engineering Model (BEM) was developed by Thomas Gilbert (1978) as a way to systematically attack the barriers to employee performance in organizations. Although the name “Behavior Engineering” conjures up a science fiction tableau of bending workers to an über corporate will,  its  premise is respect for individuals and the value they bring to organizations, a value that needs to be bolstered to thrive. Wisely, Gilbert recognized that workplace performance usually requires both individual and environmental interventions.

Behavior Engineering Model (Gilbert, 1978, p. 88)

An updated model

Chevalier (2003) updated Gilbert’s  model to emphasize:

• The importance of the physical and psychological work environment on employee performance
• The need for assessment and reward systems that emphasize positive behaviors
• The need for an overall atmosphere that leads employees to believe that they can succeed in the organization

The individual repertory was modified to highlight the importance of cross-training and matching employees to the right job. The updated table also stresses that the motives of employees need to be aligned to the work required of them and to the work environment (Chevalier, 2003, Figure 3) . Employees not only need to have the necessary knowledge and skills to perform a job (i.e., their placement in a position needs to be appropriate), they also need to have the right emotional skill set.

Solutions to performance problems require leveraging solutions “based on the potential impact that a change [will] make and the cost associated with that change” (Chevalier, p. 10) . While timely, constructive feedback is a relatively low-cost solution that can have a large impact, Chevalier notes that no amount of individual improvement will be successful if the environmental issues (information, materials, tools, time and process issues) are not addressed (p. 9).

Chevalier’s updated BEM provides a checklist which can be used to evaluate gaps between optimal and actual performances in the workplace. But if you already feel daunted by the need to confront organizational inertia (particularly when it comes to issues of time and the need to revise processes), there’s always force-field analysis.

Force field analysis

Pioneered by  Kurt Lewin (1947), force field analysis is a technique that requires assessing the balance between driving forces, which initiate and propel change,  and restraining forces, which resist change,  in an organization. Since both these forces work together, net change can be achieved by tilting the balance in favor of driving forces.

It’s important to note that change isn’t always positive and is influenced by perspective, so  driving forces have to be evaluated carefully. For example, a manager may drive productivity by overworking employees. Productivity can be a driving force that  benefits the organization in the short-run, but it can drain  employees, which can result in higher turnover. High turnover can be a  long-term restraint on productivity. Your view of whether a driver is ultimately positive depends on whether you are focused on the short term or the long term.

Force field analysis and the BEM

Given these caveats, force field analysis provides a way to assess gaps in the environmental and individual needs identified by the BEM model and as well as a way to gauge their net impact. Closing gaps requires strengthening driving forces (BEM needs that are being, at least partially, met) and reducing restraining forces (BEM needs that are not being met). Chevalier reported a case where providing an illustration of these gaps and the interplay of forces helped an organization to see the larger context in which training was required and that a complete solution would be necessary. (“As a result of the systematic cause analysis with the sales manager and his salespeople, everyone involved could see that training was necessary, but only as part of a more comprehensive solution” (p.13).) See Figure 7 in Chevalier (not reproduced here because of copyright reasons).

Lessons learned

There are a number of lessons we can draw from seeing BEM in action as described in the Chevalier article.

• Thoughtful analysis is important to effect thoughtful change
• The benefits of analysis to the organization have to be clearly articulated/illustrated to get buy-in for a comprehensive solution
• You can not separate individuals from their environment so it’s critical for individuals 1) to see themselves as valuable contributors to the health of the organization; 2) to feel that the organization recognizes this value (i.e., don’t skimp on the affective components of workplace performance)

While instructional designers and trainers face increasing pressure to skimp on analyses (and we can always strive for increased efficiency), it’s worthwhile to remember Chevalier’s admonition that “prescription without diagnosis is malpractice.”

References

Chevaliar, R. (2003). Updating the behavior engineering model. Performance Improvement, 42(5), 8-14. Retrieved from http://www.pignc-ispi.com/articles/Vol42_05_08.pdf

Gilbert, T.F. (1978). Human competence: Engineering worthy performance. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Lewin, K. (1947). Frontiers in group dynamics: Concept, method, and reality in social science, equilibria, and change. Human Relations, 1(1), 5-4.

A  pinboard by Pinterest user Sha, collecting design inspiration for his work at Trulia.

The technology (or what are my powers?)

Pinterest is in beta, so the tool is evolving. Registration is free and currently requires an invitation. When you first login to Pinterest, you’ll be asked to identify interest topics from a group of possibilities. Based on the interests you select, you’ll automatically start following people who’ve made pinboards matching your interests. You can delete any of these people or choose to follow only a subset of their pinboards. You can also suggest pins to people you follow.

As you begin pinning, you’re guided by suggestions about possible pinboards you might want to create. These are standard and not based on the interests you identified. It’s easy to add or subtract from these

Even after you’ve created your first board(s), you’ll continue to receive prompts each time you create a board. I’m showing these to give you a feel for the number of uses a pinboard can have. None of these categories are locked in; you can make liberal use of “other.” You can also make curation a social affair if you check the “multiple people” option under who can pin.

You can pin Web pages while you’re in the Pinterest site or while you’re browsing the Web. In the latter case, you make use of  a Pinterest bookmarklet. The bookmarklet prompts are shown below. You can select which image on a Web page will be displayed on your pinboard.

You can share immediately to Twitter, but you’ll also have an additional option to do this when you receive a success message. At this point you can share to Facebook as well.

When adding pins while in the Pinterest site, your prompt will look something like this:

You can select the image on the Web page you want to post, share the pin immediately on Twitter and add a description, just as you could when pinning via the bookmarklet. You’ll also be given the option to add a comment once you’ve pinned your item and additional sharing options (via Twitter, Facebook, or StumbleUpon or via email).

Finally, you have the option to obtain code that will allow you to embed a pin on your website or blog, as I did below.

My final pinboard looks like this (right now).

You can access it here: Digital Storytelling Resources.

Note that because Pinterest is designed to curate objects associated with visual artefacts, there will be some pages you can’t pin (pages without large enough images or Slideshare pages, for example).

You can find more tips and tricks for using Pinterest on their help page and on their blog. (My current wish for the developers is that they offer a way to move pinned items around on a pinboard.)

Instructional strategies

I look at curation platforms as tools for metacognition, helping the curator to make sense of information through opportunities for organization and reflection. Pinterest, like other social curation tools, allows you to share curated items, pages, and to comment on others’ pages.  By finding and following other curators, you can expand your personal learning network.  A particularly nice feature of Pinterest, is the ability to mashup Web page pins with uploaded images on the same pinboard and the ability to allow groups of curators/learners to work together to develop a pinboard.

You may be tempted to compare Pinterest to Scoop.it (which is a highly lovely tool and probably further along in the development process). However, Pinterest has a different focus and one that I didn’t fully exploit in my first pinboard. Pinterest is especially suited for curating visual artefacts. You can use Pinterest as a tool to collect artefacts illustrating particular concepts and to encourage learners to create their own pinboards to demonstrate their own understanding/interpretation of particular concepts. Some examples of pinboards created by adept Pinterest users are shown below.

I think Pinterest has its own niche among curation tools, and it will be interesting to watch this platform develop.

The will to learn is an intrinsic motive, one that finds both its source and its reward in its own exercise. The will to learn becomes a ‘problem’ only under specialized circumstances like those of a school, where a curriculum is set, students confined and a path fixed. The problem exists not so much in learning itself, but in the fact that what the school imposes often fails to enlist the natural energies that sustain spontaneous learning (Bruner, 1966, p. 127).

As noted by Bruner, intrinsic motivation means that people act even when they’re not driven by external rewards or an absence of punishments. It’s the kind of motivation that drives deep versus shallow learning (Biggs,1987, p.12). Sustaining intrinsic motivation is not a trivial task.

Making learning fun

In 1987, Thomas Malone and Mark Lepper published”Making learning fun: A taxonomy of intrinsic motivation.”  They  tried to craft a systematic framework for intrinsic motivation in order to understand how we might avoid the dampening effect that tends to happen in schools. Their theories, of course, are more broadly applicable to any instructional “system” (aka training programs, elearning modules, distance learning programs, etc).

Because Malone and Lepper observed, as many have, that games appear to strongly motivate players to engage in problem solving and critical thinking, they used the lens of games to conduct their research.

They compared eight different versions of a mathematical  game called “Darts.” In the original form of the game, players who solved math puzzles correctly would be able to pop balloons displayed on a screen.  Popping all the balloons in the shortest possible number of turns would result in a triumphant musical riff being played. The variant forms of the game included the same instructional content but differed in elements that might impact motivation  (e.g., graphics, music, rewards, etc). Malone and Lepper’s study subjects were 80 fifth graders. While you can certainly poke holes in the experimental system they used,  I think that the conclusions they drew are still worth exploring and aren’t restricted to the arena of games.

Based on their research and a bit of hypothesizing after the fact, Malone and Lepper divided motivating factors into individual (self-directed) and interpersonal factors.

Individual intrinsic motivation

Malone and Lepper described four individual motivating factors:

• Challenge
• Curiosity
• Control
• Fantasy

Challenge
Learners prefer the right level of challenge. In order for an activity to be challenging in a good way, goal statements have to be clear and performance feedback has to be provided to engage and increase the learner’s confidence (i.e., it has to be constructive, clear, and encouraging). Proximal goals are better than distal goals. In other words, the statement that “You will feel better immediately” is much more motivating than in  the statement that  ”In four  weeks, with continuous diet and exercise, you’ll feel better.” A mix of proximal and distal goals should be provided to keep learners immediately engaged with an eye on  a future “prize.” Additionally, goals have to be personally meaningful. Factors that influence perceptions of relevance include:

• Whether achieving the goal allows the learner to do something she could not do before (the goal is “functionally useful”)
• Whether the learner feels emotionally connected to the outcome (“fantasy relevance”)
• Whether there’s social relevance (the goals trigger interpersonal motivators, described further below)

Goals are necessary but not sufficient for challenge. There has to be a level of uncertainty. After all, why engage in the activity, if the conclusion is already given? If you know you will triumph, you stop caring.

Techniques that can be used to vary certainty include:

• Goals that vary in difficulty level
• Hidden information
• Randomness

Curiosity
Curiosity is the element of surprise. It can arise from the fascinating complexity of a subject we need to unravel or from elements that challenge our preconceived notions. Malone and Lepper distinguished between curiosity arising from bling,  (e.g., the novelty of technical trappings), which they called “sensory curiosity” and “cognitive curiosity” (that primal urge to organize our knowledge structures more efficiently). Although a slick interface will attract attention, learners will experience sustained engagement when exploring learning environments that help them to be more productive, a better information filter, a better creator, etc.

Control
Malone and Lepper noted that  people  find games compelling because games give them a sense of control. In the game world, player decisions have consequences; winning isn’t dependent on completely random factors (although there can be an element of randomness as noted above). Similarly, empowering learning environments will be those in which options are dependent on the learner’s choices. Further, choices have to be tied to significant and meaningful outcomes. However, for control to be motivating, it has to be tied to a learner’s belief that she is capable of succeeding: too many choices and the learner is unable to distinguish between them and becomes frustrated.

Fantasy
Malone and Lepper defined a fantasy environment as “one that evokes mental images of physical or social situations not actually present” (p.241). The optimal learning environment might be ones in which learners can create their own fantasies (e.g., create imaginary characters, locations, objects).

They distinguished between fantasies that depend on the skill being learned (e.g., as in Hangman, where the hanged man appears as correct letters are not identified) and situations where the skill being learned and the fantasy depend on one another (e.g., as in a simulation or role playing game). They hypothesized that the latter fantasies are richer learning experiences, allowing learners to connect new learning to prior knowledge through their narrative structure. In addition, fantasies often address the emotional needs of learners, allowing them to experiment with new constructs in a low-risk environment.

 Interpersonal motivators

 Malone and Lepper described three  interpersonal motivating factors:

• Cooperation
• Competition
• Recognition

Cooperation
Here again, Malone and Lepper distinguish between external and intrinsic motivating factors. They considered motivating cooperation through a group scoring system a weak  extrinsic motivator. In contrast, they believed that learners would be much more highly motivated if the success of independent tasks (highly desired) would be dependent on the efforts of group members.

Competition
Similarly, Malone and Lepper noted that exogenous competition (e.g., motivated by leaderboards, class rankings, etc.) is a far weaker motivating force than endogenous competition, where people with conflicting goals work on dependent tasks. This doesn’t necessarily translate to positive outcomes, which in my opinion requires that cooperation motivators are stronger than competition motivators.

Recognition 
In order for recognition to be a motivator, the results of a learner’s efforts have to be visible.  Malone and Lepper again describe differences between exogenous  and endogenous forms of recognition. They equated the former with honor rolls and the latter with situations in which the learners’ creative efforts are part of enduring artefacts (e.g., school newsletters, posters, wikis, blogs, etc.). Scenarios that foster endogenous recognition also foster additional learning as viewers of these artefacts will reflect on and learn from them.

In summarizing their ideas, Malone and Lepper noted that motivators are individual—what’s challenging or an interesting fantasy, will necessarily vary from person to person. Further, it will vary at different time points in a person’s “learning life.”  Optimal learning environments are those that can accommodate these individual differences and the varying states of a  learner’s growth.

Back to the present: Games and learning

Today, we see many worthwhile efforts to bring motivation back into instructional systems like schools and training programs and often games are invoked. We observe that children and adults are willing to spend hours at games that require problem-solving and critical thinking and we’d like to divert some of that love into learning efforts. This has led to some great results as well as to some less fortunate results—what Bruckman (1999) dubbed the “chocolate covered broccoli approach” where either game mechanics are tacked onto curriculum-based objectives or where learning objectives are crammed into games not designed to accommodate them. Often, as in some poorly thought-out gamification efforts, extrinsic motivators are slavishly used while intrinsic motivators are neglected or completely ignored.

Good learning games, in contrast, not only focus on intrinsic motivation, they attempt to achieve “intrinsic integration,”— the effective integration of a game idea with its learning content (Habgood, 2007, citing Kafai, 2001). How you achieve this intrinsic integration is still a debated topic (Habgood, 2007).

Habgood (2005), quoted below, proposed that well-designed learning games:

1. Deliver  learning materials through the parts of the game that are the most fun to play, riding on the back of the flow experience  produced by the game and not interrupting or diminishing its impact;
2. Embody the learning material within the structure of the gaming world and the player’s interactions with it, providing an external representation of the learning content through the game’s core mechanics. 

I think it’s less important to  pick either game mechanics (the underlying rules systems of the game) or fantasy as your driver since, arguably,  fantasy can be an integral component of the rules system of a game. But I think that Habgood’s rules of thumb are important: Don’t design a game with added-on learning components or a learning experience that’s gamified, design a learning game that’s  a learning experience because it’s a game and design a game that achieves specific learning goals because these are embedded in the mechanics of the game.  I’ll add that these mechanics can certainly include elements of fantasy and that Malone and Lepper’s taxonomy still offers a useful, but non-prescriptive checklist to gauge your engagement levels throughout your design process.

References

Biggs, J. B. (1987). Student approaches to learning and studying. Melbourne: Australian Council for Educational Research.

Bruner, J. S. (1966). Towards a theory of instruction. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Czikszentmihalyi, M. (1975). Play and intrinsic rewards. Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 15 (3), 41-63.

Habgood, M. P. J., Ainsworth, S., &  Benford, S. (2005). Endogenous fantasy and learning in digital games. Simulation and Gaming, 36(4), 483-498.

Habgood, M. P. J. (2007). The effective integration of digital games and learning content.  [Doctoral Dissertation]. University of Nottingham, United Kingdom. Retrieved August 20, 2011 from http://etheses.nottingham.ac.uk/385/1/Habgood_2007_Final.pdf

Malone, T. W., & Lepper, M. R. (1987). Making learning fun: A taxonomy of intrinsic motivations for learning. In R. E. Snow & M. J. Farr (Eds.), Aptitude, Learning and Instruction III:Conative and affective process analyses (pp. 223-253). Hilsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

Yometa
Yometa‘s more of a comparison engine than a search engine and what you’ll see in a Yometa search is how search results are ranked on Google, Yahoo, and Bing, using a Venn Diagram to display the output.  If you’re interested in search engine rankings, the areas of overlap will be very interesting. If you’re interested in research, the areas of disparity might be interesting.

Yometa’s a good reminder that search engines are not all alike.

Blitter
Blitter is a clinical search engine with content highlighted or commented on by clinicians who blog or tweet. It’s brought to you by the same folks who’ve developed the Trip Database, a clinical search engine whose results aren’t influenced by human curation. In Blitter, each contributor is identified by his or her clinical interest allowing users to filter results based on the speciality of the contributor. This allows the search to see the human perspectives at play in shaping the search results.

It’s an interesting way of searching, at once enhanced and diminished by the fact that clinicians are the only source of health information.

Oskope
Oskope is a visual search engine so its focus is on searches where images matter, i.e., photos, products, and videos. You can search Flickr, fotolia, YouTube, eBay, and Amazon using this search engine.  A nice feature of Oskope is its drag and drop interface which allows you to place images of interest into a folder for later review. If you register on Oskope, you’ll be able to save these folders.

A drawback for Flickr searching is that you can’t filter by license so you have to go to the original link to determine if the image is available under a Creative Commons license.

Compfight
If you’re particularly interested in Creative Commons images on Flickr, Compfight is a good search engine to use. Though you won’t be able to zoom in on images, you will be able to quickly search through an image collection identified by tags, for example, and then go to the original source page to find out more about permissions (remember, not all Creative Commons licenses are created equal). A selection of royalty-free images is presented in a column on the right.

.

Simploos
Simploos  displays search results from Google or Yahoo in a graphic format (think large thumbnails). Searchers use horizontal scrolling versus vertical scrolling to quickly scan for Web pages that interest them. It takes quite a while to render images, but the left-to-right scanning feels very natural. (I’m not sure if it’s worth the wait though.)

Conclusion
Although it’s increasingly a Google world,  resist assimilation when it comes to doing any sort of serious research and mix up your search engines!

Aditional articles on search engines

• Keeping your eye on the search
• Expand your search with new search engines
• Talkminder
• PLN’s for health care professionals
• Blekko, a new search engine aiming to slash spam
• Keeping an eye on education and innovation with education eye
• Ambiently: exploring your search neighborhood
• Stirring up your searches
• Searching for numerical data with Zanran
• Search engines to explore (Fastoise and Duckduckgo)

What’s in an acronym?

ICARE stands for Introduction, Connect, Apply, Reflect, and Extend. ICARE principles are applied to each module or lesson in a course, and often, a different Web page is associated with each ICARE element. For example, a course with ten modules might have 50 Web pages associated with it, five pages per module.

Introduction: This section puts the module in context and typically includes learning outcomes for the module. You can also identify module prerequisites, readings,  and necessary equipment/software for module activities here. This section gives students an opportunity to orient to the module.

Connect: This section introduces necessary facts, concepts, principles, and/or processes to students or provides them with scaffolds allowing them to discover these for themselves (a better approach).

Consider:

• Dividing information into manageable chunks using information design principles
• Connecting information to real-world tasks and prior knowledge
• Using multimedia (judiciously)
• Keeping this section lean (What’s need to know vs nice to know?)

Apply: This section provides challenges and activities that allow students to apply the knowledge they gained in Connect to real-world tasks. Using action-mapping in your analysis phase makes this section fairly straightforward, since you’ll have identified important learning activities first and then identified the necessary content to support these.

If the approach seems mechanical, then it’s time to get out of the rut! Although relevance can be a great way to engage students, creating a sense that experimentation and some amount of failure is perfectly fine can help students immerse themselves in activities and take on greater challenges. Simulations, games, and web quests can work well in this section.

Reflect: You guessed it; this section asks students to take some time to reflect about what they’ve learned as they’ve moved from Connect to Apply sections of the module. Activities/questions here should help students apply metacognitive processes as they articulate what they’ve learned/experienced. This section can include appropriate discussion  questions, journal activities, self-evaluations, etc.

Extend: As the name suggests, the extend section offers opportunities to individualize learning experiences with additional, optional learning materials and activities. Extend activities/materials are for enrichment and are not part of the assessment schema (i.e., they’re not graded).  This is a challenge because adult students (and all students, really) have multiple competing interests. In order to keep students from blowing past this section, it should be particularly engaging and personalized to create a sticky page that students will actually look twice at (or even once at).

ICARE and the whole-course view

As with any approach where you look at components (ICARE focuses on individual modules of a course), you have to step back and place modules in the context of the whole course.  Which should come first? Your whole-course outline or the ICARE modules? I found I needed to draft the course structure (e.g., via action-mapping, assessment creation, etc) and then go back and forth between looking at the whole course and the individual modules.

As I developed the course structure, I found Joan van Duzer’s Instructional Design Tips for Online Learning and the Rubric for online learning developed by California State University (Chico) (2002) extremely useful as guides. All of these checklists and rubrics are worth looking at before, during, and after you’ve developed your course. The place of technology in these rubrics?  ”To engage students in learning, not just for viewing but for interacting with other students or with the course content.”  Thus, questioning why you are using a particular technology/multimedia resource is part of your development process. The ICARE model and Chico Rubrics can be used to develop courses that are purely asynchronous or blended, with both synchronous and asynchronous components.

Both the ICARE model and the Chico rubrics provide a systematic way to tackle course design. These aren’t cookie-cutter approaches or necessarily prescriptive, but they do require you to think about the course from a bottom-up and top-down perspective when combined. I’m still working on efficiencies.

Reference

Hoffman, B., & Ritchie, D. C. (1998). Teaching and learning online: Tools, templates, and training. Technology and Teacher Educational Annual, 1998. [CD ROM]. Charlottesville, VA: Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education.

Moore, C. (2008, May 12). Be an elearning action hero!  In Making change blog. Retrieved from http://blog.cathy-moore.com/2008/05/be-an-elearning-action-hero/

1. What role is technology playing in educating young people on health topics? What health topics do they seek?
2. What are the pros and cons of people seeking health information through new technology and online channels?
3. How can we use popular social media to reach young people with important & accurate health info? Google+ opportunities?
4. Online games are popular; what issues matter most when developing games designed to improve health literacy?
5. What kinds of health games have resonated with youth? Why? How do these games encourage behavior change in real life?

Unique affordances

As noted by Benjamin Stokes at the Games for Change 2011 Conference, “More than 90% of the world population is covered by mobile networks.” The widespread nature of mobile devices and the pervasiveness of games means that there can be significant opportunities for engagement through these devices—when learning games are designed well.

Mobile learning games offer opportunities for:

• Mapping:  games that require players to  notice and interact with their communities and physical spaces
• Touring: games that connect people to organizations (e.g., non-profits, neighborhood organizations) and  people who work there.  These games tell a story through a space, not necessarily about a space.
• Performing: games that immerse players in role-playing, simulations, and alternative and/or augmented realities

(Stokes, 2011)

Additionally, mobile learning games can balance on- and off-screen time, which means that learning activities are not necessarily dependent on what learners see on their game displays. Mobile learning games can also be designed for “temporal flexibility” and can be played in short bursts  (Woodill, 2011, p. 135).

The social connectiveness that mobile devices offer should not be neglected. Mobile games can incorporate conversations and activities in real-time as well as asynchronous activities through the use of physical and virtual social networks. Further, learners can communicate with both their bodies and their devices in certain types of games (Woodill, 2011, p. 135). Thus, mobile learning games are more likely to connect learners to physical and social spaces than online games played on personal computers  or using video consoles.

Types of content and game mechanics 

The optimal content of mobile learning games is very dependent on needs of target learners. In general, mobile learning games need to have simple rules and displays need to be easy to understand and manipulate because of time constraints. In addition, games should be interruptible and/or game goals should be achievable in a brief period of time (e.g., under 10 minutes.) As noted by Maxi and Tarkus (n.d.), content should “focus on core information without redundancy.” Further, mobile learning games should have simpler graphics than their PC/console counterparts: the types of graphics necessary to create 3D immersive environments may not port well to smaller devices. Platform idiosyncrasies may also dictate the types of media that can be used. For example, Flash is still a non-starter for iOS-based devices (though the advent of HTML5 may make this a non-concern).

Mobile learning game mechanics should connect to social experiences and tap into all of the affordances of mobile devices, such as the ability to:

• Take pictures
• Record audio and video
• Obtain location-based information (e.g., via GPS),
• Text
• Communicate through social media
• Communicate via phones (probably the least utilized potential of these devices)

Additionally, activities should be tied to locations that are relevant to the learners (e.g., schools, popular clubs, relevant workplace environments) (Maxl & Tarkus, n.d.).

Challenges

Challenges to mobile learning games include many of the challenges faced by non-mobile games: a need to link game goals to learning goals without destroying the emotional resonance of the game.

Stokes, B. (2011, June). Trends in gaming: rethinking mobile. Presented at the 8th Annual Games for Change Festival. New York, NY.

Mobile learning: Not about delivering learning

During the talk, Dodge notes that mobile learning is less about the technology than about the experiences it can mediate. Devices don’t deliver learning; that’s constructed by the learner. Instead, mobile devices are conduits for stimulating curiosity and active learning.  I’d add that because of the ubiquity of mobile devices in our lives, this means that learning can also be a ubiquitous, more conscious process. This means that mlearning “is about understanding and knowing how to utilise our everyday life-worlds as learning spaces” (Pachler, Bachmair & Cook, 2010, p6).

Engagement = Interaction

Dodge describes engagement as the sum total (over time) of interactions the learner experiences:

• Between the learner and a teacher guide/facilitator
• Between a learner and her own mental processes
• Between a learner and her peers
• Between a learner and information

While the web exposes a learner to abstractions of reality, mobile devices are unique in focusing learners’ attentions on physical realities as well (e.g., on locations,  events, people,  and communities). So while we think of mobile devices as global connectors (which they are), they also make our local environments “stickier” as we craft questions and our own answers in a location- and time-specific way.

Using mobile devices to create richer learning experiences

Dodge describes four approaches to mlearning engagement generated through the learners’ own questions.

Event capture
Event capture aims to enhance field trips or conferences through the use of mobile devices. Learners (who may be teachers) use mobile devices to create and share knowledge (e.g., through photographs, audio interviews, note-taking, etc). An important aspect of this process is that learners develop their own questions as a way of focusing their experiences (versus having questions fed to them).

Web Quest 3.0
Adding handheld devices to traditional webquests can be used to foster community interactions. In one example described, students examined misperceptions in  about HIV/AIDS in their City Heights community to find out where beliefs diverged from fact and to create an enduring resource informed by what they’d learned. In another, learners used Joseph Campbell’s idea of a hero’s journey to explore what being a hero meant to individuals in their own communities.

WHex
WHex is a quiz game based on questions. Sound familiar? There’s a twist. Instead of teachers posing the questions, students derive their own after exploring learning materials using handheld devices and working in teams. Part of the exercise is to create “test-wiseness” and to improve students’ confidence (e.g., if students understood how questions are crafted they would be more confident of their own abilities to answer them). The experience is also designed to foster positive competition and collaboration. The six basic questions of WHex are who, what, where, when, why, and how.

WonderPoints
Unlike Event Capture, which is focused on a particular time, WonderPoints is focused on geography.  Students are encouraged to identify a location of interest, capture voice notes and geotagged photos, propose interesting questions, post them, rate them for interestingness, and then find answers.  Points are awarded based on the quality of questions generated and for the speed and accuracy of the answers found. Unlike field trips, students can select locations for study that haven’t been designed for traditional educational activities (e.g., such as zoos, museums, historical sites). Students can find their own sense of wonder through the questions they ask and the answers they discover.  Because questions are complex, there’s no right answer and students are allowed to enjoy and celebrate the act of questioning itself.

All of these activities are designed to foster an attitude of inquiry that remains even after the learning event is over.  Learners are very much in control of crafting their own learning experience and I think this is a critical part of the mobile engagement (mGage) model that Dodge proposes.

Reference
Pachler, N., Bachmair, B., & Cook, J. (2010). Mobile Learning. Structures, Agency, Practices. New York USA: Springer.

Photo credit

kringamorphosis by Shannon Kringen

In this post, I’d like to share some of the Google extensions I’m finding handy and the bookmarklets and other learning tools I’ve grown fond of in Firefox that also work well in Google Chrome (aka, my personal learning environment or PLE).

Symbaloo
Symbaloo is  a tool I use that’s browser agnostic and I immediately pinned it to my homepage and added it to my bookmark bar. It’s a great way to keep track of and share your PLN and PLE tools.

I keep my PLN as the first tab (only a portion is shown) and remaining tabs are various resources I’ve also shared.

• elearning tools
• mlearning and mhealth
• search engines (general, visual, health-related)
• serious games
• health literacy programs (state and local resources)

To create your own Symbaloo resources, read this post.

 Scoop.it
Scoop.it is my current favorite curating tool which allows me to find and share a collection of resources that relate to topics I’m interested in. I like the visual look of Scoop.it which allows me to quickly remember why I’ve posted items and I can also annotate what I’ve shared. Others can also comment on and share various items in this resource and suggest items to me.

I was happy to find that the Scoop.it bookmarklet works quite well in Chrome.

My Scoop.it resources

• Games: Serious and Social
• QR codes for learning
• Health literacy
• Innovative instructional design
• Augmented Reality in Education and Training
• Digital storytelling
• Narrative medicine
• Google Plus for learning

Vi.sualiz.us
Vi.sualize.us is a social bookmarking service specifically designed for bookmarking images. Happily, it also works on Chrome and I find it very useful as a way of bookmarking images associated with abstract and not-so-abstract concepts. It inspires me as I develop learning materials.

Diigo
Diigo is my favorite social bookmarking site. It allows me to bookmark, tag, add sticky notes and highlight portions of a Web page. The bookmarklet works fine on Google Chrome.

You can find out more about Diigo here.

• Using Diigo for intentional learning and sharing
• Importing bookmarks from delicious to Diigo
• Using Diigo webslides to access and interact with learning resources

Google Books
I added Google Books to my bookmark bar because I keep forgetting how many useful resources are included in this site. From fiction classics to textbooks, free stuff abounds.  You can also keep track of your books using toolbars, add them to your library and mark them as favorites or to-be-read.

Google +
Google Plus: It’s new! It’s trendy! Is it worth it? More about that in another post! It does have a learning curve, but an immediate “like” I have is an ability to carve out interaction spaces based on my interests and what I think are the interests of my peers/friends/colleagues ( though that’s a challenge as well, since I’m not always sure about the latter).

As I’m learning more about this tool, I’m collecting resources here:

• Google Plus for learning

I can certainly see carving out Google circles and hangouts for classroom and training activities.

Now for the extensions!

Spiffy Google Chrome Extensions

 Awesome screenshot
There are times when you want a full-page screenshot of a Web page and Awesome screenshot does the trick.

Web developer tool
One of the best ways you can learn about Web development is from other Websites. The Web developer tool is a useful extension that allows you to peer behind the scenes to view the workings of a Web site.

Firebug Lite 
Firebug Lite has less bells and whistles than Web Developer but in my opinion it’s easier to grapple with the things you want to see most often (e.g., the CSS code a website is using).

Remember to use these tools for good and not for evil. The point is to learn from other Web sites not to violate copyrights.

Eyedropper
Both a Web development and graphic design tool, Eyedropper lets you learn from those color schemes you’re inspired by.
Once you’ve identified a Web color, you can learn all about its attributes, including its hexadecimal value.

Google Dictionary
Pretty much what it sounds like, Google Dictionary lets you quickly find the definitions you need.

Goo.gl url shortener
Goo.gl is a handy url shortener that automatically creates QR codes while it’s at it. You can keep track of the viewers who scan the url/QR code using this tool.

Symtica

Symtica makes it easy  to find and access all of your Google apps.

Why not live in a completely Google world?

With all the Google tools available, you might be tempted to stay in a Google world.  But the (at least) one place, where I’m not Google-fied is when it comes to searching. I absolutely hate all the sponsored ads that are appearing on Google search pages and I’m a firm believer in doing research using multiple search engines to get different perspectives of the world. Still, have to say I’m liking Google Chrome even though I’ll continue to resist using Google search exclusively. Goodbye (for the most part), Firefox.

What are your favorite productivity tools on Google Chrome?

Expanding the range of contextual learning

The idea of learning as context-dependent is at least a decade old but mobile devices add new meaning to the term “situated learning” (Lave & Wenger, 1991).

Connecting to external, location-relevant content
By linking to external content, learners have at-need access to information that can enrich their experiences. For example, WikiMe, is an iPhone application that merges the location-sensing capabilities of the iPhone with Wikipedia.

Google Googles is an Android application that allows users to use pictures taken with a mobile phone to search the web.

Google Goggles

And of course, QR codes represent a low-tech,  user-friendly way of connecting to location-based information (0nce you have smartphone and a few tips for getting started).

Platforms for learner-generated content
An important aspect of location-based learning  is the opportunity for learners to create their own location- and time- relevant content. Examples of platforms which provide opportunities for learner-content creation include:

• Woices which allows users to create and explore audio tours
• Graffitio which allows learners to leave comments on virtual walls associated with locations
• Project Noah which allows learners to accomplish ecological missions and record their observations of local wildlife and plants.

Project Noah

Learners can use such platforms to reflect on their experiences, document their observations (encouraging citizen scientists), and connect with others as they explore a location, creating enduring but dynamic materials that others can use. Mobile platforms  offer the opportunity to link learners to social networks of friends and peers with similar contexts as they find, explore, and share content.

Location-based learning games

Location-based learning can also be integrated in learning games that involve geocaching or scavenger hunts tied to challenge questions (see, e.g., SCVNGR).

In a previous post, I described an interesting application of location-based mobile learning embodied in the Citizens Commons game. Here,  New York City players were given the task of finding solutions to community problems.  Players took photos and added a description of their ideas. The entry was uploaded to the Commons system with GPS coordinates pulled from the players’  phones. Other players voted on entries and suggested their own ideas for improvement. Although the game could be performed solo, players often teamed up to create their own social experience.

Additionally, mobile devices can be part of larger transmedia games such as Alternate Reality Games (ARG) as this infographic by Gary Hayes illustrates.

Ken Eklund, the creator of World Without Oil and Ruby’s Bequest  has described ARG games as having the “potential of a massive campfire”  where listeners participate in the story and the game is centered on  collaboration, action, and change. (He spoke at the Games for Change 2011 conference, described further here.)

Location-based simulations

Mobile devices have also been used as part of emergency response simulations to prepare learners to deal with fictional crisis situations. Newer, more expensive technology, augmented reality (AR) platforms, have also been used to create situated learning experiences as described in Gunnar, 2011, and in this post.

On a more low-tech note, mobile devices can also be used to transfer learning from such experiences to real-world practice by providing decision-support systems and performance support tools.

Mobile learning for health

Location-sensing devices can be used to combine learning with mobile health applications that sense biometric responses. In one example, researchers at the University of Wisconsin distributed location-aware asthma inhalers to track when and where users had asthma attacks to help patients and physicians better manage the disease and understand asthma triggers.

In another approach,  Futurelab‘s Fizzees project explored providing children with a digital pet embedded in a wristwatch and responsive to the wearer’s heart rate. When the child was more active, the pet would smile. Although this application does not require sensing the learner’s geographic location, it does involve sensing the learner’s physical “presence” in a location.

Fizzees

Additionally, although not requiring the tracking functions of such devices, mobile devices can certainly be used to provide point-of-care patient education and support as described in this article and this post.

Challenges

Challenges of location-based learning include:

• The cost of smartphones
• Privacy and security issues (learners must be made aware that they can be uniquely identified, understand who has access to their  data, and the potential ramifications of this)
• A “tech-first approach,”  i.e., content that’s not developed with  learner experiences and goals in mind

Conclusion

Mobile devices offer a powerful way to enhance situated learning. As the technology advances, we hope that costs come down, but of course access to mobile devices doesn’t guarantee mobile learning. But these are problems that good design can overcome and it’s a challenge that we, as instructional designers, can embrace.

References

Gunnar, L. (2011).  Learning through situated simulations: Exploring mobile augmented Reality. ECAR Research Bulletin 1. Retrieved from http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ERB1101.pdf

Lave, J., & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation.  Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Fastoise

Fastoise dubs itself as a “multiple instant search engine.” You can search YAHOO!, YouTube, bing, and Twitter at the same time and view search results from each of these sources on a single screen.

You don’t have to click endless next pages; just keep scrolling as results will continue to populate your screen.

Some less likeable features of fastoise: you can’t do anything to customize your results page, so you won’t be able to eliminate the image strip on the top of the page or do any filtering operations. The YAHOO! track is also inexplicably larger than the bing track. Additionally, sometimes the engine is a bit too smart and automatically makes assumptions about what you are searching for. For example, enter the keywords “comparative genomic hybridization” and you’ll quickly pull up results about computers so you need to wait a few seconds for the search engine to “see” all the keywords your interested in (vs reacting to the “comp” of the first keyword).

Features that make fastoise worthwhile:

• Speed
• Minimal sponsored ads (there are some but not as much as Google)
• You can scan multiple sources of information at the same time
• No next pages

Duckduckgo

In contrast, Duckduckgo has a very clean-looking, easy-to read search results page with a large number of tools that allow you to customize your searches.

Duckduckgo features:

• Little spam
• Respect for privacy (Duckduckgo does not collect or share search information)
• Relevant information in red boxes above links (e.g., definitions, instant answers to some questions)
• An ability to customize many search settings (including displaying your favorite types of sites at the tops of search results using the !Bang feature)
• Special searches
• Suggested filters at the right of search results

You can also avail yourself of additional filters using the dropdown menu by the search field.

Conclusion

Fastoise and Duckduckgo are very different search engines that are likely to appeal to you at different phases of searching. You might prefer fastoise when you are just trying to get a quick lay of the land and Duckduckgo when you are doing deeper dives (and as an alternative to Google’s more invasive search engine). The compelling reason for using either in my view: They’re not Google. Use them to mix up your search results so you don’t develop a Google view of the world.

For additional search engines to explore, take a look at this Symbaloo  search engine webmix.

Additional resources on search engines:

• Keeping your eye on the search
• Expand your search with new search engines
• Talkminder
• PLN’s for health care professionals
• Blekko, a new search engine aiming to slash spam
• Keeping an eye on education and innovation with education eye
• Ambiently: exploring your search neighborhood
• Stirring up your searches
• Searching for numerical data with Zanran

The technology (or what are my powers?)

iJourney presents timeline events as a slideshow.

While you won’t see the entire timeline at a glance, iJourney gives you more content flexibility. At any point on a timeline, you can add  multiple text elements, notes, videos, images, links, and doodles.

Additionally, you have control of which elements are private, shared with friends, or public. So for any given day, you can make a subset of elements public, share other elements only with friends, and keep other elements completely private.

The image below shows your options for image posting.

Use “Settings” to set default privacy settings which you can adjust for each item you add to your timeline.

Using the “Settings” tool, you can also connect your journey to social media sites including: Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, Vimeo, and YouTube.

When you’re done, you can share your journey.

Instructional strategies

Students can use iJourney to create:

• Personal diaries (e.g., as a metacognitive tool)
• Shared digital journals
• Time-centered digital stories
• Biographies of significant public figures
• Timelines of historical events

As an instructor, you can also use the platform for many of the same purposes. Because you can add links, you can connect students to forums, chat rooms, quiz questions, etc. Additionally, you can use iJourney to create a time-centered webquest.

Other timeline creation tools you might be interested in:

• Stories About Time: Interactive Timeline Tools
• Linehive
• Tiki-Toki: An Interactive Timeline Tool

Youth designing games

Jessy Jo Gomez,  an incoming student from Parsons The New School For Design, shared her insights in this panel.

• Learning can emerge from games not specifically designed to be educational
• Younger gamers may shy away from games with an educational label (in contrast to adults who may shy away from games designed for entertainment)
• Creative programs, such as those including game design, can reach youths who otherwise feel marginalized and disengaged from their communities
• Reach Final Fantasy game fanboys and you might be able to save the world! (Tap into existing passions.)
• If you are in a tough situation, you grow up thinking you can’t make change in the world, but if you feel you can make change for yourself you tend to expand your view

Game-making tools

Alan Gershenfeld, Founder and President of E-Line Media, stated he did not come from the education sector, and was influenced by learning about the high attrition rates of kids from high school and the dramatic social and economic impact of this. The perceived lack of relevancy of school is an important factor: competing social issues will necessarily win if perceived relevancy is low.

He discussed two approaches to games for learning.

• Pathway products: What are kids’ natural interests? How can you connect this interest to a core curriculum and build a learning pathway?
• Core curriculum based: Start from the core curriculum (which the child may not naturally be interested in) and improve engagement through inquiry-based learning (more difficult)

To design good game tools, you need to think systemically.  Can you map game system thinking to other systems?  Game tools require 21st century skills but kids are happy to engage in hard fun.

Gershenfeld urged the audience to think about game development software for kids as a gateway to further natural interests and to connect kids to other products that are more inquiry-based.  These software products should be high touch, high tech, free to play, and ideally web-based. Consider how  you can connect kids to mentors  (peers or teachers). Gershenfeld cited “Global Kids” as a “phenomenal program.” “Building an expert network is key” and game designers/developers should be involved.

On assessment
Game systems can capture aggregate data on where players are struggling. Reviews are also informative. Both qualitative and quantitative feedback is weighed. However, to add a different level, bring kids into the mix and allow them to review games. When a child publishes a game, the child can see game analytics (e.g., a heat map of where players may have “died”) and this provides engagement and opportunities for learning.

Some kids want to go from design and systems thinking into programming; others become fascinated by art and others by marketing. The take-home is that games provide an entry into multiple career paths. Children can naturally progress  from learning 21st century skills to practical vocations. Considering  how these paths map to learning ecologies is critical. Tools and game design should be grounded in the context of  how kids live their lives.

Tools mentioned included:

• Gamestar Mechanics
• Gamesalad
• Gamemaker
• Modding programs (e.g., Little Big Planet)
• Unity (more advanced)

“When kids are motivated they can do almost anything.”

Direct Impact

Jamison Selby, Senior Producer at TimePlay Entertainment discussed opportunities for in-game economies to facilitate donations to real world causes. Jason Behr, Designer at 343 Industries, continued this discussion by proposing  game incentive systems. Can games like Halo have a positive impact? How can you create impactful games that have “retention” for less money and less time? (Sound familiar learning developers?)  Behr urges teaming with big development companies that may not have social impact as an initial primary focus.

What if you modified mechanics of existing popular games to achieve social impact? For example, in Halo, you shoot aliens and collect points to buy virtual goods. Modifying the game challenges might be used to introduce social goals and data sharing could be used to understand and tune the impact. What if in-game rewards could be tied to real-world volunteer efforts? For example, after verifying volunteer hours, the game platform might provide rewards  tied to the existing game narrative (and economic model).

Behr proposed that virtual incentives and streamlined choices would make community activism easier. “Start small, dream big” so that mainstream games become more than about escape. Use achievements to effect change.

ARG games

Ken Eklund, the creator of World Without Oil and Ruby’s Bequest, spoke about ARG games and noted that his task was not to demystify ARG games  (it’s too early in their evolution) but to explore them as ways to reach serious goals. ARG games have the “potential of a massive campfire”  where listeners participate in the story and the game is centered on  collaboration, action, and change. “When games resonate they change us.” He noted that ARG stories don’t have to be highly realistic. “Fictional stories are the ones that enter the realm of myth.

Eklund commented that although ARGs sounds complex from the designers’ point of view but from the players’ view they’re  quite simple, focused on “What if?”

Player requirements:

• If I connect with the story, the story should connect with me.
• I should be able to impact the story; I know stuff too.

He outlined an approach to ARG game design. Start with a hard-hitting question. Start with someone suffering needlessly. Take ideas to logical and extreme conclusions and then let go. You won’t know how the story ends. Focus on the resonance between fiction and reality.  “The platform is not the game. Get the horse going first then decide how much cart you need.” Take home: ARG games can have both reach and depth. “In your games, always leave room for the infinite.”

Rethinking Mobile

Benjamin Stokes talked about games that take place in the real world and led a discussion with members from Mobile Active. “More than 90% of the world population is covered by mobile networks” Mobile allows more people to access services and programs. For example, Nokia mobile phones are available widely throughout Africa for about twenty dollars and Android phones are becoming increasingly accessible. With that being said,  many still don’t have access to Smartphones and data plans.

Some basic tool examples (not necessarily games)

• Dr. Math is a game tied to a social network called “Mix It” which allows people to connect to a social media platform by SMS.
• IVR or interactive voice response (think menus) can be used as a resource to deliver news. People in the community can call in and report news of their community and others can access based on their interests.

Stokes stated: “We need a global perspective when considering game mechanics.” Mobile may be most helpful in situated learning (not an “any place any time” view, but  an “I’m here now, what can I do in my environment?” view).

Stokes discussed genres in activism, encouraging us not to overlook existing “civic genres.” What genres let us do is to have short cuts; we tap into certain mental models; however, currently we don’t have existing genres in the mobile space. What are the civic genres that we can connect to?

Some of the genres he proposed:

• Mapping:  Involve people in noticing and interacting with their communities and physical spaces
• Touring: Connect people to organizations (e.g., non-profits, neighborhood organizations) and  people who work there. Tell a story through the space, not necessarily about the space.
• Performing (he did not speak much about this)

Facebook

Non-profits are beginning to explore Facebook to spread their causes. Mallika Dutt, President and CEO of Breakthrough, discussed using Facebook as a platform as the base for the company’s alternate reality game, America 2049.

As noted by Dutt, gaming allows a conversation about problems to occur in a very different way.  Facebook. as a platform, was attractive because it provides a built-in growing, global community which can be leveraged to bring people together in a game space.

The game is based on four-part structure: view, discuss, make, and act. It’s important that players become active participants versus just passive consumers of the game content. A message system in the platform creates a space for dialog (players share knowledge and solutions).  The challenge is to keep game engagement going past the game, but the hope is that public forums and celebrity involvement (a humanizing effect) will drive continued participation.

Games in International Aid Programs

Colleen Macklin, Associate Professor, Design and Technology at Parsons the New School for Design spoke of PetLab, a game lab for social games and games for learning. In partnership with the Red Cross and Red Crescent, they developed a game for Senegal using pervasive, solar-powered, platform-agnostic technology. The game goal: How to translate scientific forecasts into action. The game is low tech (a card game). Take home: High tech is not necessary to create an engaging game, nor is social media necessary to create a social game.

Emer Beamer, Co-Founder and Research and Development Director, Butterfly Works stated that there’s a revolution occurring in the Middle East and Africa in education and games can be part of a playful, homegrown, revolution. It’s important to focus on existing realities…e.g., long, three-hour commutes might be a great opportunity for  mobile gaming that’s also educational. Beamer commented that adapting Western content is a mistake; you need to consider culturally relevant content, starting from graphics.

Subhi Quraishi, CEO of ZMQ Software Systems, said that “There’s a gamer in everybody.”  Mobile technology is reaching the common man and must be used wisely. “The future of democracy is mobile.”

His company’s approach is to create tools first and then invite partnerships. Recognizing the low literacy levels of game players in some communities, ZMQ has created a pre-natal game solution involving iconic messaging, minimizing the amount of reading and writing involved.

Comments in the discussion:

• Integrate social networks in game mechanics
• There is hype to gaming, but change has occurred through gaming
• Social media is huge but it is only a part of the picture
• There’s an increasing need for game designers and without more designers, game quality will suffer
• Games have the potential to unite people with diverse skill sets to attack a challenge
• Natural networks in a community (and data derived from these networks)  should be part of game design
• Human capital, financial capital, and social capital are all needed
• Don’t decouple access and applications: If you build the cool widget, your players need to be able to access it. Democratization of information technology is needed. Be innovative in building capacity but recognize what’s at hand.

This (hasty) posting is on the “Games For Change Around the World: Global Inspiration and Interpretations” panel.

Simon Egenfeldt-Nielsen, CEO, Serious Games Interactive, described three major trends in the design/development of social impact games.

• It’s not enough to create awareness games; need to have real impact (e.g., change behavior,  raise funds)
• “Gamification” term is sticky and attracting needed attention. Even if you disagree with the approach, it’s bringing together diverse groups who might not have heard much about, or thought about, serious games.
• Marketing needs to be considered and the impact of multiple distribution channels since different types of technology are being used (tablets, TV, mobile, PCs, etc)

The speaker noted that Nordic schools don’t grade students for first couple of years and emphasis is on learning by play. He commented that there’s great potential in looking to other countries to tap their experiences in developing games.

Examples of games being developed by Serrious Games Interactives

• The City that Shouldn’t Exist (ECHO)
• Against All Odds
• The Christmas Calender (not sure if the title is right): Kids learn about other cultures
• Global Conflicts (an upcoming title)

Gilson Schwartz, Director, Games for Change Latin America, spoke next and said that  economic development in Latin America is changing rapidly. Democratization of telecommunications is progressing but access to education remains a challenge. Low literacy means a need to focus on audiovisual media in games. Popular culture is “culture of the poor” and this creates opportunity to do good and provide educational games. When describing different game platforms, Schwartz stated that mobile games offer an opportunity not just to be mobile in space but in society.

Suzanna Samstag, Chapter Leader, Games for Change Korea, noted that gaming is an important part of Korean culture but games about social issues are tricky. Social issues in one country are not necessarily the same in different countries (For example, games about the environment and immigration, popular in Western cultures, don’t “translate.”)

Samstag spoke of bringing the “iCivics” game to  South Korea in conjunction with the Ministry of Justice (represented in this session by Mr. Kim Hee Kwan). The game focuses on the issues that a family may have. Because the members of a family represent different age groups they have very different experiences with the law. Different games (levels of the game??) are targeted to different age groups. The game(s) are set in the context of a theme park, “Adventures in Law Land,” and the objective of the game is to create awareness in players of their roles as citizens.

The “Green  Grim” game is a game that addresses tension on the border between North and South Korea. The purpose of the game is to raise awareness of methods of approaching conflict. The game is designed to help players see the consequences of dealing with conflicts in peaceful or violent ways. The project will be launched this summer.

Samstag acknowledged challenges and potential culture clashes in:

• Identifying the origins of a problem
• Focusing on process versus product
• Resolving whether learning should be fun
• Designing for interactions or information transfer
• Should appropriate technology or high technology be used
• People don’t always budget for evaluation as part of the development process
• Computer literacy may be high but communication literacy may be a lot lower (can use games to increase other types of literacy)

Comments during the discussion

• In Latin America, access to the internet is still problematic and far from universal—absence of familiarity creates resistance to social impact games
• In South Korea, older teachers resist games and “feel threatened”; seminars are used to get teachers on board. Involving Korean moms is a strategy being explored.

I’m posting links to slide decks as people are kindly sharing them and as I come across them on:  Games: Serious and Social.

Games for philanthropy

This morning’s session of the Game for Change 2011 festival started with a Keynote on philanthropy.

Increasingly, casual social games  (Zynga, Farmville, Cityville, etc) are participating in fund raising for chronic and acute crises (chronic hunger, disaster relief respectively).

The right venue?
An audience member asked: Do casual games gives the impression that serious issues are actionable through simple actions? (e.g., get vocabulary questions right and give a bowl of rice to people). The speaker answered that it’s just a first step and this opens a door to an opportunity that allows greater engagement and provides some people an entryway that is very easy-a first step for people who might not otherwise participate. Raising awareness is still valuable and raising funds can have an impact. The FreeRice 100K players generate 2,500 meals/day and  Zynga has raised >10 million for non-profits according to the speakers. (I haven’t checked these numbers.)

On a different level there are serious games like Darfur is Dying designed to create empathy and understanding by direct, interactive experiences. Which type of game is capable of having more of a direct impact? The take-home seems to be there are multiple avenues into these problems and if people are going to play casual games anyway why not provide them with an opportunity to do something meaningful.

The second panel was entitled: “Engaging the News”
How can we use games to raise awareness of current events and social issues?

Andrew DeVigal, multimedia editor at The New York Times, started his talk by an often repeated quote: “Tell me something I will forget, show me something and I will remember.” He modified this by saying “Involve me and I will understand.” DeVigal spoke about how interactive storytelling can be used to create such involvement.

Engagement interactives:

• Distracted driving simulations-simulated driving while texting
• You vs computer: AI simulation as you play rock, paper, scissors.
• Fix your budget: Users become involved in scenarios to fix the budget

Andrew DeVigal commented that we need to leverage a culture of innovation to engage news readers. Lessons learned: The challenge is finding the sweet spot between journalist truth and accuracy and game play.

Rudy Bednar, Executive Producer, ABC News All Media, described how his group is partnering with USC to develop a game, “1000 Days” to spur interest in global health, including maternal health. (The first 1000 days are the most important days for an individual to develop properly.)

The game is based on the observation that four main leadership groups  affect a country’s health:

• industry
• NGOs
• community leaders
• government

Leadership groups react to intervention ideas based on their individual perspectives. The game interface in 1000 Days brings proposed interventions to a particular group which responds.

Game design challenges:

• What are the core messages/learning objectives?
• How to make this idea fun and easy to understand?
• How to create good interactions with the appropriate feedback

The speaker urged designers to change their approach and to put their initial focus on the objectives (a weakness in the current game field is that the focus is first on mechanics).

As noted by Chris Swain, CEO and Founder, Talkie, games for change are challenging and you need a diversity of organizations/partners to get a broad reach. The mechanics of the game need to communicate the message. He talked about the importance of being able to take good social impact games to create models for other games given the amount of effort required to create them.

As noted by Tom Scott, Director, Global Brand & Innovation – Communications, The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the starting point needs to be to start by asking: “What do we need to achieve?” and then ask are games the right way to do this?

Misc comments in response to questions:

• Want players to have a good interactions but still portray the complexity of situations
• Why games? Complex global issues are not getting covered. Games create more engagement among people who don’t have the engagement of those who work in the field.
• If learning is the objective, calls to action, etc., we have to look at complexities of game design: How best to accomplish learning and impact?
• Games can offer opportunity for data collection, using social media to share game solutions

To achieve measurable impact on social causes beyond awareness, establish a metric for your impact. Can the activity of your game player create an impact?

To create a meaningful impact, you need to achieve  mass reach.

To do this a game needs to…

• be entertaining
• be distributed online
• leverage a social graph
• be free but….marketed for a mass reach (controversial; “free to play business” with small numbers of players paying, creating profit)

Swain notes that social games get primetime TV-size audiences. “More people play Farmville than watch CSI.”  Creators of social impact games should try to leverage this.

How do you measure the average impact of the player by using built-in game metrics?

Swain’s game platform is Ecotopia:  “a free-to-play game with a social conscience, advances the popular city-building game model as it aims to wrap fun and compelling gameplay with philanthropy and real-world involvement” (quote from MMOABC).
.

Some panels of Games for Change are being livestreamed,

From this afternoon’s Games for Change Panel: A great talk by James Shelton, Department of Education.

When asked what his definition of innovation is, James Shelton responds that meaningful innovation requires:

1. Significant difference in outcomes
2. Scalability
3. Sustainability

The U.S. government is the largest source of education funding and should be intentional about both incentives and effectiveness. “Last year was the 1st time that ‘cost-effective’ was among criteria in Department of Education  innovations – think about that.”

Why the focus on STEM?

• Lack of understanding of science reduces discussions of critical issues to ideology.
• Many jobs of the future relate to the sciences
• Many children start off with interest in science and are turned off…We need to recapture their passion and wonder.

Evidence-based policies and gaming

We need to move more things into category of moderate to strong evidence to drive policy decisions but most decisions are not made in response to such evidence but in response to compelling stories. Because of the pace we need to move, getting people to see opportunity and best cases is important to transform the decisions of policy makers in the context of what’s going on right now.

On adding a pervasive game layer to everything and gamification

We are so close to achieving saturation, we should focus on moving forward quickly rather than on terminology. The economic opportunity of the long-tail is very real. The biggest issue is to sort quality from quantity. “Programs must be aware of the incentives they create in the marketplace” bc these can be both helpful and harmful.”

Other questions/comments

On risk
How to balance experimentation with the need for developed products.
“The risk of being risk averse is only surpassed by being overly formulaic.” It’s a difficult but necessary balance.

On teaching to the test
One of the biggest flawed hypotheses is that the best way to achieve on tests is to practice standard test questions.  Rote practice is not the solution. Great schools are separated from mediocre ones by being well-rounded.  That being said, there needs to be innovation in assessment. The pressure on resources is driving the need for games/learning that extends past the end of the school day.

On motivation
There isn’t enough focus on affective issues that impact education and motivation in learning.  We can use games to create a broader/richer set of interventions than achieving traditional academic success.

Tangential learning opportunities in learning.

Using media not designed to be educational as educational tool: Use things that kids already care about and are engaged in is a powerful tool.  “You’ve already won the battle.”

Teachers need to have the tools required to create truly differentiated learning experiences.

(I was taking notes quickly, so these may not be exact quotes, but I hope I captured the spirit of this great talk.)

In the first panel which I caught the tail end of,  PBS’s Silvia Lovato noted the important of scaffolding in games. “You can’t just throw content” at kids. Panelists also commented on the importance of using games to foster an appreciation for art and the creative process. When asked about the evolution of games, panelists predicted that games would be increasingly cross-platform/transmedia with players generating game content.

Winner of the Come Out and Play Festival

Problem: 311 calls are often duplicated. 311 is  just not a social experience. The proposed solution— the Commons game, a mobile game for citizen stewardship. The Commons game was designed to bring people together to solve problems in their community.  Players suggested improvements and other players voted on the ideas and suggested more enhancements. The  game was tested in Lower Manhattan.

Players were given location-based tasks (e.g., What would you give tourists at South Street Seaport?). Options for players included:  show appreciation, suggest improvement,  or report a problem.

Findings:

• People appreciated guided versus open-ended experiences (e.g., preferred a map and some orientation regarding tasks/questions vs coming up with questions/challenges on their own)
• Players wanted constant feedback: an alert system solution was devised
• Players wanted simple, quick voting
• Social=fun; players often teamed up
• Players appreciated getting votes of approval more than points
• Players with smartphones could help those without smartphones to get involved
• In the future: Web-based solutions at libraries could involve more people from lower income groups

Games and Cultural Spaces

Elaine Charnov,  Director for Education at the New York Public Library, described using a game to get people interested in using the 42nd street library (“Find the Future, the Game“)  to celebrate their centennial effort. Five hundred  players were locked in overnight at The New York Public Library on May 20, 2011 and participated in quests and ultimately  wrote a book together, including narrative, poetry, and illustration which will reside in the special collections of the library.  QR codes were used throughout the exhibition. The project brought together diverse social groups and brought many first-time visitors to the library.

A speaker from the  American Museum of Natural History described games for “learning science by design.” The goal of these games…

• Learning made personal
• Extension of the museum experience, on site and online
• Access for all

In one exhibit (Brain: The Inside Story), players simulate neurons and interact to learn about and simulate how the brain functions. Other gameful projects include an iPhone explorer app and the Ology project, which allows kids to explore being different types of …’ologists (e.g., anthropologists, zoologists, etc). The Urban Biodiversity Project developed in coordination with the Bronx Zoo, allows children to learn about ecosystems around the city and the zoo.  Virtual Worlds Camp allows students to understand marine science and use Blue Mars and Scratch to develop a game. As the speaker noted: “We can’t avoid the digital and technology space because this is how science works…”

Jason Eppink of the  Museum of Living Image spoke of projects at the museum
including RMB, an “online virtual art community developed within Second Life and projected onto curved screen with customized 3-D mouse interface, Flash-based video game projected onto curved screen with custom body board interface, [and] three single-channel videos ,”  exploring both the history and modern culture of China. (The museum provides many educational programs.)

Syed Salahuddin spoke of Baby Castles: New York’s first independent video game arcade is a space where people can come together and talk about games. The objective is to create physical games spaces in diverse places. The speaker notes the social nature of an arcade (as opposed to a museum or gallery setting). However, they will be opening a location in the MOMA and use the arcade to involve children in art.

Some interesting speaker comments:

• Why are these spaces live vs online? Because the experience of culture is interpersonal.
• A challenge is to engage people in the real thing while being expansive and translating the real thing using cooperative play (vs competitive play) to get folks excited and passionate
• Game play is about subverting a system so the inclusion of games in museum spaces is appropriate
• The traditional museum model (which creates a distance between observer and object) may require rethinking if games are incorporated. Museum settings may discourage inexperienced players who may feel shy about failing and so game spaces have to be carefully designed.

That’s it for the morning session and thanks to the Games for Change organizers for making the conference accessible to folks via livestreaming!

• The skills learners need (what they need to be able to do)
• The activities that will help learners develop these skills
• The scaffolds that will help support these activities

Your next step is to develop a narrative or story to tie these activities and scaffolds together.  Should this story and the characters in it be highly realistic in their look and feel? What’s the impact of a more cartoony setting? What if you used a story that takes place in a different world where you need to use the same problem-solving skills and tools but the characters are fantastical and the stakes, in addition to including real-world stakes,  include mythical ones like slaying a dragon or finding a treasure? Is there a value in creating some distance from the real world?

On the one hand, research has shown that high levels of authenticity in learning scenarios result in better retrieval from long-term retrieval memory (Thalheimer, 2009). As noted by Thalheimer (p. 10), “[W]hen learners encounter real world cues on the job, they will be successful in memory retrieval to the extent that they have practiced retrieval with cues analogous to those on the job.”

On the other hand, are there pitfalls to highly realistic scenarios? Do we run the risk of locking learners into a less receptive state because the scenario triggers emotions like fear of failure and a desire to second-guess choices to do what’s approved of versus what’s needed?  Does too much realism  deprive us of a sense that we’re free to experiment and fail as we learn? Would  a less realistic setting help learners to think outside of the box?

I think that the answer probably lies in the execution of the scenario and the debriefing that’s associated with it. Highly realistic scenarios can be made less stressful  by allowing learners to gain appropriate constructive feedback at each step where they might stumble, with the option to repeat scenario steps as they desire. But whimsy can also be an option if you provide learning cues that are sufficiently realistic and tied to what needs to be done in a real world setting. You may want to build in more opportunities for reflection to allow learners to connect the scenario setting to their real world setting to allow them to construct the most helpful mental models. Under the right circumstances, the fun, gameful aspect of the scenario might create a more more lasting impression.

Of course, since the whole point of developing elearning scenarios is to develop a learner-centered experience, feedback from your target audience is the ultimate test of whether the execution/debriefing works or not. Involving learners early and often is the ideal design/development process.

After saying all this, I am curious about learner preferences among instructional designers and educators who might read this blog, so please participate in this single question poll.

Go to poll: Do you prefer realism or whimsy in elearning scenarios?

Reference

Thalheimer, W. (2009, April). Using Linguistically, Culturally, and Situationally Appropriate Scenarios to Support Real-World Remembering. Retrieved June 15. 2011, from
http://www.work-learning.com/catalog/

The technology (or what are my powers?)

SpiderScribe is a browser-based tool that lets you create mindmaps and organize content and concepts. You can connect text, images, files, Google maps, and calendar events. Your maps can be private or public.

Just register for an account and click “Create New Map” to get started.

You’ll be prompted to give your map a title and a description.

Your map dashboard provides icons for text, files, images, maps, and calendar events. Click and drag an icon to the map to place it there.

When content is being added to the map, you’ll see property options related to that content. For example, you have the option to modify font type, weight, and color for text. You can also modify the background color of the “box” surrounding it. To link one content node to another, just drag from the “+” sign at the bottom of that node (yellow arrow in illustration above). Although there isn’t a short cut way of linking to an external website, you can simply copy a url into a text box to create a functional link.

What’s nice about SpiderScribe, in my opinion, is the  ability to easily control how nodes are connected. For example, you can have free floating nodes or nodes connected to multiple other nodes. It’s also easy to move content around on the map (i.e., if you don’t want your content to be radially distributed around a central node, it doesn’t have to be). I’m also a fan of having an option of uploading images rather than linking to a photosharing site, like Flickr, since I keep quite a number of image assets on my hard drive. (My ideal mindmapping tool would have both options for free.)

You also have some versatile sharing options.

You can find out more about SpiderScribe in this video and keep up with new developments by reading their blog.

Instructional strategies

SpiderScribe can be used to:

• Brainstorm a course outline or learning module
• Collect assets for projects and storyboards
• Develop story ideas
• Illustrate a mental model of a subject
• Illustrate the steps of a procedure
• Illustrate the relationships between elements of a process

Other mindmapping/content mapping tools to explore include:

• VUE
• Mindomo
• Popplet
• SpicyNodes
• Compendium

• A sense of “being there”
• The involvement of many senses (e.g., visual, aural, tactile)
• The perception that VLE elements are real and that interactions with these elements are natural
• An experience that blocks out sensory cues from the real world

The factors that optimize immersion are not completely understood. For example, it’s often assumed a first-person perspective is a critical element in creating a sense of immersion.  However, a recent study by Scoresby and Shelton (2011) suggests that other factors are equally, if not more important.

Shaping an immersive experience

Scoresby and Shelton examined the effect of viewing perspective on immersion and also evaluated the impact of presence and flow on learning strategies when players played a learning game. They followed the activities of 18 volunteer students (13 males and 5 females, ranging in age from 18 to 36) as they played computer learning games teaching critical thinking skills to evaluate poetry. Students also played a “kill or be killed” game.

Students played the non-educational game first from a given perspective (e.g., first person, third person, or no perspective) and then played the educational game from a different perspective. Players were interviewed after each game to gauge their sense of presence and flow and to determine what they learned from the educational game.

The researchers identified four related factors central to creating an immersive experience in virtual game worlds.

• Content: The genre and actions in a game were critical to creating a sense of presence and flow. If content did not match personal interest, players lost the desire to play the game. However, experienced players were less influenced by content than inexperienced players (i.e., they were more willing to accept content if the genre was one they generally liked).
• Emotion: Players who felt empathy with game characters were more likely to achieve a sense of presence and flow. Emotional connections spurred continued action. (For inexperienced gamers, interest in content was critical to get to this stage.)
• Motivation: Inexperienced and experienced gamers who did not like the content or who were unable to establish an emotional connection rarely found intrinsic motivation to play the game(s).
• Engagement (the stage where players want to keep playing):  Players reported engagement when they liked the content, had an emotional experience, and were motivated to play.

Presence not ensured by perspective

Interestingly, the researchers found that a sense of presence was not ensured by a first-person perspective. Players who did not like the game content and did not feel a sense of empathy towards game characters were unlikely to report a sense of presence regardless of their perspective.

Presence is not required for flow

A sense of flow is an element of immersion. It’s that state of being deeply involved in an activity to the extent that you loss awareness of time. A state of flow in a game is usually associated with a sense of balance between difficulty and mastery—although the game is challenging, you believe that success is possible (Csikszentmihalyi 1988, 1997).

Some participants reported achieving flow  even when they did not achieve a sense of presence. Players who reported achieving flow also reported  liking game content and experiencing a sense of emotional connectedness, motivation, and engagement. However, passing through these four stages wasn’t sufficient to ensure flow. For example, flow could be perturbed by distractions from the real world or from graphical elements that appeared to contradict a perception of reality (e.g., a missing horizon in one game). Perspective did appear to play a role in achieving flow: fewer players who played from a third person perspective or no perspective reported achieving flow.

Influences on learning performance

In this and other studies of learning games based on virtual worlds, factors associated with the learning success of players included:

• Ease in using the game interface
• Greater use of virtual tools
• More metacognitive awareness (e.g., a tendency of players to comment on their own progress)
• A more systematic approach to observing the game world and checking observations
• More physical activity while playing a game

(Winn & Windschitl, 2002; .Scoresby & Shelton, 2011)

The amount of engagement also affected the extent to which players completed learning-based activities within the game. If players did not become engaged with a game they usually did not care about what they were supposed to learn from the game. As noted, engagement is also dependent on content, emotional connections, and motivation (Scoresby & Shelton, 2011).

Take-homes

• Three-dimensional, rich graphics are not the be-all and end-all of creating an immersive experience in learning games.
• While perspective is a part of creating a sense of immersion, it is not the only part.
• Perceptions of the content of a game (game genre and actions) can have an important  influence on a learner’s sense of presence and flow in a game and may ultimately affect the learnability of the game.
• Emotional connection, motivation, and engagement may be strongly influenced by the content of a game.
• The impact of content may have more of an effect on inexperienced players, who may never feel motivated or engaged by the game if they dislike the game’s genre and actions.
• Finally, the learnability of games is intimately tied to a learner’s sense of engagement in the game.

I think this study makes the important point that learning games can’t simply be assessments gussied up with a point system and a leaderboard. Really, that’s business as usual—it’s just a disguised report card system. Adding 3D graphics to the mix won’t help. There’s a more holistic approach that needs to be taken and that includes considering what content and actions work best in a game world to provide engagement and to create learning.

References

Azuma, R. T., Baillot, Y., Behringer, R., Feiner, S., Julier, S., & MacIntyre, B. (2001). Recent advances in augmented reality. IEEE Computers and Graphics, 21, 34–47.

Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1988). The flow experience and human psychology. In M. Csikszentmihalyi & I. S. Csikszentmihalyi (Eds.), Optimal experience (pp. 364–383). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University.

Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1997). Finding flow. New York: Basic Books.

Hedley, N. R., Billinghurst, M., Postner, L., May, R., & Kato, H. (2002). Explorations in the use of augmented reality for geographic visualization. Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments.

Scoresby, J., & Shelton, B. E. (2011). Visual perspectives within educational computer games: effects on presence and flow within virtual immersive learning environments. Instructional Science, 39, 227-254.

Winn, W., & Windschitl, M. (2002, April). Strategies used by university students to learn aspects of physical oceanography in a virtual environment. Paper presented at the American Educational
Research Association, New Orleans, LA.

Witmer, B. G., & Singer, M. J. (1998). Measuring presence in virtual environments: A presence questionnaire. Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments, 7, 225–240.

The technology (or what are my powers?)

NOTA allows you to add different media types to a note page which you can work on by yourself or in collaboration with others you designate as editors. Just register and login to start.

When you access your note page, you access text and drawing tools.

You can also add links to external resources.

Additionally, you can add text directly from Wikipedia.

A particularly nice feature of NOTA is the ability to upload a variety of different file types to a note page (e.g., pdf, WORD, PowerPoint files).

It’s easy to add images. You can upload images from your hard drive, add image urls, or search image sharing sites like Flickr, Picasa, and Facebook.

You also have a variety of clipart selections to choose from, including parts from animated characters (a fox and hippo) you can mix and match to create more dynamic images.

You can add multiple videos (e.g., from YouTube) to a page in any orientation you desire and annotate these with text.

Finally, you can share NOTA in a variety of ways.

When you embed a NOTA, the system automatically updates your content as you change it.

You also can share a link: My NOTA experiment.

Instructional strategies

Learners can  use NOTA to take notes and can update their notes later with multimedia.

Learners can also use NOTA:

• To storyboard
• To journal
• To write stories
• To reflect on research they’ve done

Social learning is built into NOTA because learners can:

• Share with study groups
• Comment on shared note pages and books
• Embed notebook pages in personal blogs

As an instructor, you can take  advantage of the multimedia elements of NOTA (e.g., images, videos, and file sharing features) to quickly create virtual worksheets and information organizers. For example, you can use the text features to pose questions and direct learners to different media resources for their answers.

Other tools you might want to explore include:

• Springnote
• Zoho Notebook

The technology (or what are my powers)

Compendium has an easy-to-use drag-and-drop interface that allows you to create map nodes connecting files (pdfs, images, PowerPoint documents, WORD documents, etc) and/or folders.

In addition to creating links between items you can also name links to define relationships.

An interesting feature of Compendium is the ability to drag and drop urls and even text snippets from the web onto your map dashboard. If the text is too large, you can always move it into a note  or “detail”  associated with your map node.

Finally, Compendium is also built to facilitate reflection and dialogue. You can add text questions, ideas, and responses to discussion nodes and use the tool’s built-in icons to distinguish these nodes.

To learn more about Compendium, view this  video introduction.

Instructional strategies

Compendium offers many of the bells and whistles that other mind mapping programs offer, but it’s built around the idea that your documents/files as well as web information and images are all part of your mental schema, so it’s integrated with your desktop.

You can use Compendium to:

• Brainstorm a course outline
• Collect assets for projects and storyboards
• Develop story ideas
• Illustrate a mental model of a subject
• Show relationships between concepts and their defining characteristics and connect concepts to examples
• Illustrate the steps of a procedure
• Illustrate the relationships between elements of a process
• Depict the components of an ecosystem or biological process and link these components to additional information

Other mindmapping/content mapping tools to explore:

• VUE
• Mindomo
• Popplet
• SpicyNodes

This great Common Craft video provides an overview of the technology.

As noted in a previous post, AR has been around for a while, but what’s changed is increased visibility in the public eye, integration into a variety of mobile platforms, and recognition that AR can be a powerful way to layer dynamic, interactive learning experiences onto real-world objects.

As noted in the 2011 Horizon Report:

Augmented reality is an active, not a passive technology; students can use it to construct new understanding based on interactions with virtual objects that bring underlying data to life. Dynamic processes, extensive datasets, and objects too large or too small to be manipulated can be brought into a student’s personal space at a scale and in a form easy to understand and work with. In a broader context of education, augmented reality is appealing because it aligns with situated learning.

The AR applications that owners of smartphones may be growing accustomed to  include platforms such as LAYAR, Wikitude, and Junaio, which allow users to connect data and images to GPS information.

More recent applications of AR include:

• Incorporation in video
• Augmented books such as WondLA vision and Zooburst
• Incorporation into games, such as ARG games (e.g.,  MITAR,  ARIS, and the ROAR project)
• Extensions of Google Earth with AR functionalities (e.g., ARSights)
• Extensions of Google SketchUp (e.g., via ARSights)
• Use in Flashcards (e.g., Smash Cards)
• Medical education applications (such as provided by LearnAR and Vuzix® AR Education Group)
• Performance support tools in medical procedures (such as medical imaging procedures)
• Use in simulations (e.g., in emergency preparedness training)

In my opinion, a tipping point will occur as more people learn how to create their own layered experiences. Some tools to explore include:

• Augmented Reality Scratch
• BuildAR
•  Tagwhat
• Poistr
• Hoppala
• Poiz

These applications differ quite a bit in their definitions of AR but I’m erring on the side of including a broad range of tools.

You can find more resources on my Diigo augmented reality list and on Scoop.it (Augmented Reality for Education and Training).

Related posts

• Augmented reality goes mobile
• QR codes, augmented reality, and learning for health
• Augmented reality and mlearning

The technology (or what are my powers?)

Currently in beta, Zanran is a search engine that looks for semi-structured data. That’s data in the form of images (e.g., charts, graphs) and tables. Zanran then takes  text near the image/table and focuses its search engine on that text. In its current form, Zanran extracts images and tables from HTML, PDF and Excel files. Future incarnations of the search engine will also be able to extract data from PowerPoint and Word documents.

What does this look like in practice?

Compare the results page for a search using “mobile learning statistics” as keywords in Zanran and Google.

Zanran results page for mobile learning statistics.

Google results page for mobile learning statistics

Zanran currently picks up pdfs for this search and the results are quite different from what  Google’s search engine identifies (not necessarily better, but the differences are worth exploring).

A particular value-add of Zanran is the ability to hover over the pdf icon associated with a particular search result to get a clear view of the image(s) associated with it.

Using this feature, you can quickly hone in on the actual data that’s in the article.

Compare this to Google’s “hover” feature, which primarily focuses on text. (It’s not really a hover feature; you have to click on the magnifying glass icon by an article.)

Instructional strategies

If you read this blog, you know I don’t encourage reliance on a single search engine. Zanran is a useful tool for expanding searches, particularly when numerical data are important. It’s not 100% accurate in its ability to find images with numbers in them so you will get some non-numerical images in your mix. However, you’ll be able to quickly cull through these and you may find these articles interesting in any case. Most importantly, Zanran identifies articles you just won’t find readily using a Google search.

I’m definitely adding this search engine to my search engine collection on Symbaloo.

Boundaries as opportunities

As described by Akkerman and Bakker (2011, p. 132), a boundary is “a sociocultural difference leading to discontinuity in action or interaction.” It’s  that psychological fence that consists of perceived and real behavioral requirements, rules, and divisions of labor—perceptions of the “way things should be done,” and the “way things have always been done.”

Crossing boundaries requires a certain activation energy since the new  territory we’re trying to gain access to is unfamiliar and we may be moving  from a domain in which we’re an expert to one in which we are a novice. Yet crossing boundaries is essential if we want to achieve  both cohesiveness and the innovation that comes from blending approaches in organizations. Boundary-crossing is not just one person dipping a toe into the other person’s community of practice; it requires an ongoing, two-way interaction to be of any use. Although this seems daunting, we should view boundary crossing as a learning opportunity rather than an insurmountable barrier.

Technology: A people-powered bridge

There’s a dangerous tendency to assume that technology will provide magical boundary objects, bridges between one community of practice and another. However, technology platforms are only tools for communication which “can never fully displace communication and collaboration….They are never self-contained” (Akkerman and Bakker, p. 141). The diverse and often fractious voices of humanity dictate how these tools are used. That being said, technology can be useful for mediating learning at boundaries.

Learning at Boundaries

Akkerman and Bakker describe four mechanisms for learning at boundaries and in this post, I’ll consider how IDs/LDs can use technology to support these mechanisms.

Identification
Learning at boundaries does not require abolishing differences, but understanding and valuing them. Consider tools such as blogs to make different approaches more transparent (e.g., through interviews and story-sharing). By making approaches and challenges more transparent, we can begin to consider our own approaches and the ways in which we’ve successfully, and unsuccessfully, met opportunities and obstacles. We can consider recasting these approaches in light of what others have done.

Coordination
If sharing information was enough, technology should be able to solve the problem of boundaries once and for all. It’s just a matter of shared access right? But we know that creating a content management system and assuming learners/workers will just be able to dive in and retrieve what they need doesn’t work.

Coordination also requires a process of translation to create efficiencies.  We have to create ways to surface how information can be used, whether by explicit modeling or by facilitating discussion forums where learners/workers share their own views of the applicability of different approaches. These communication practices need to be relatively seamless and without bureaucratic intervention. Communication occurs without the need to call a meeting, reserve a conference room, or create an action request.  (Though these processes have their place, informal communication can allow workers to explore what’s possible in advance of deciding what should or shouldn’t be done.)

Reflection
Boundary crossing requires thinking about other approaches and your own approaches and making knowledge and assumptions explicit. While this seems to be a highly individualized task, as IDs/LDs, we can help learners/workers develop metacognitive skills, using tools such as mind-mapping, blogs, microblogs, and wikis. There does have to be an organizational culture that supports this kind of sharing. While we as  IDs/LDs can’t create this culture, we can demonstrate the value of sharing and show how it can improve and naturally fit into existing work flows.

Transformation
If the preceding paragraphs have led you to perceive boundary crossing as something of a utopian phenomenon, rest assured that it isn’t. It requires confronting problems,  questioning, and seeing  that business as usual isn’t working or at least can work better. However, confrontation doesn’t have to be negative. It can lead to recognition that there’s a shared problem space and common goals. It can lead to the satisfaction that comes from blending approaches and deploying tools to create something innovative and useful.

Transformation is not a discrete and permanent state. It requires what Akkerman and Bakker refer to as”continuous joint work at the boundary” (p. 148). If coordination is the process of making boundary crossing appear seamless, this work requires acknowledging that boundaries exist and are challenges. Thoughtful and sustained effort is required to  maintain boundaries as positive learning opportunities. Absent this effort, boundaries  devolve into the dysfunctional barriers that separate one workplace silo from another—in other words, business as usual.

Clearly, work at the boundary requires numerous  interactions between diverse players and IDs/LDs are both participants and liaisons in this work. Our task is not to break down boundaries but to reveal them and to demonstrate the value of connecting. We can facilitate connection and use technology to mediate connections but transformation is ultimately a social process. This may not be a satisfying answer but it’s a real one and there’s some creativity to be found is exploring the boundaries of own efforts.

Reference

Akkerman, S. F., & Bakker, A. Boundary crossing and boundary objects. (2011). Review of Educational Research, 81, 132-169.

The role of technology

In the distributed cognition model, technology has a number of critical functions:

• Aiding memory
• Promoting more efficient decision-making
• Changing the nature of tasks by making actions more efficient
• Creating short-cuts for the creation of mental models
• Limiting abstraction

(Zhang, 1997).

Consider how important technology is to your personal learning network. It helps you to find, filter, organize, and  annotate large volumes of data. Perhaps, most importantly, it allows you to create mashups between different media platforms. Technology can be transformative (with more than a little human intervention).

The role of community

As you’re probably already noting, people are also integral parts of personal learning networks and in distributed cognition, social structures are as critical as technological structures.

But social interactions can have both beneficial and detrimental effects. On the positive side, groups can increase individual efficiencies by:

• Providing more resources
• Distributing task load
• Reducing errors (provide more eyes to cross-check)
• Bringing new approaches to bear on a task

However, in some instances individual efficiencies can be lost because of:

• Lack of sharing
• Time constraints
• Communication barriers

In other words, two minds aren’t always better than one (Zhang & Patel, 2006). Similarly, culture both enriches and restricts knowledge acquisition and transformation. You gain the benefit of a world view that is as big as the world you allow yourself to be in.

An Ecosystem of Balanced Elements

Given that technology isn’t transformative without the innovative perspectives of those who use it and social groups aren’t perfect conduits of knowledge,  another opportunity arises for the instructional designer. The instructional designer must consider how technology can be used, not just to engage individuals but to support more productive environments in which social and cultural interactions can take place.

These supports must balance perceptions of creative autonomy, shared  goals, and a sense of interdependence (which includes valuing the contributions of other members in a social group). These are pretty lofty outcomes and certainly not achievable through technology alone. Providing collaborative software does little to ensure that collaboration occurs.

While technology is just a mediator of collaboration, it does extend the range of communication opportunities available both in terms of space and time. The evolving role of the instructional designer is perhaps to model boundary-crossing interactions (Lipnack & Stamps, 2000), in which the emphasis is not on authority or on social identity but on trust.

More about boundary-crossing interactions in the next post.

References

Hutchins, E. (1995). Cognition in the Wild. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.

Lipnack, J., & Stamps, J. (2000). Virtual teams: People working across boundaries with technology (2nd ed.). New York: John Wiley & Sons.

Zhang, J. (1997). The nature of external representations in problem solving. Cognitive Science, 21, 179–217.

Zhang, J., & Patel, V. L. (2006). Distributed cognition, representation, and affordance. Pragmatics & Cognition, 14(2), 333–34.

Photo credit

Social media dataflows by Anne Helmond

Achievement in the game world and in learning

In  gaming, achievements often become synonymous with rewards and the latter are often made synonymous with points. Similarly, in learning, achievements are often conflated with grades and test scores.  However, a better framework might be to consider achievements as the outward markers of feelings. For example, achievements should herald the sense of pride and accomplishment you gain when you’ve “got it!“— some new knowledge or skill—and you’ve internalized this new knowledge/skill to such a degree that you can provide your own transformative spin.

The more connected an achievement is  to this “Aha!” feeling, the more rewarding it will actually be. So, just as games fail when points are the only trappings of achievements, so too does instructional design fail when you hand out that certificate of course completion that does little more that note that a learner has  slogged through the course. As Blair notes, measurement achievement, given to players (learners) for completing a task in a certain way and with a certain level of competence is far more valuable than completion achievement. Achievements in learning (and in gaming) should create a sense of confidence and increase intrinsic motivation.

Making learning compelling: Boring versus interesting tasks

Your learners have to take a compliance class. You, as an instructional designer, may be groaning, “This will hurt me as much as it hurts you” because you know that your learners will be arriving at your training session/digital learning module with a feeling of being put upon. You may be scratching your head trying to figure out how to motivate your learners.

As noted by Blair, “Because players are not inclined to do [boring] tasks on their own, intrinsic motivation is unaffected by the use of rewards as an incentive.”

Therefore, there are a number of nonexclusive strategies to address  learning tasks that are perceived as boring:

• Make the learner aware of the value of the task
• Connect the task to an engaging story
• Use extrinsic motivators

The first two bullets relate to altering the learner’s perception of the learning as boring. The third bullet is a more  iffy proposition if used by itself, since different  learners will  value extrinsic motivators differently.

What if learners arrive interested in the subject? Can you assume that the same strategies will work on them? Blair writes  that you shouldn’t overdo the rewards when a task is already intrinsically motivating. Instead of “focusing artificial interest in a task the achievements should be attentional,” i.e., focused on helping players/learners see strategies. Feedback can be more important than rewards when it comes to an inherently interesting task.

Of course, perceptions of tasks as boring or interesting are highly individual, so it can be challenging to provide a range of achievements that are adapted to the personal needs of your learners. It might be a worthwhile approach to create learning modules that branch based on motivation on arrival/perceptions of personal relevance of the learning topic.

Creating a sense of flow in learning

Just as a game player can achieve flow, that state of balance between a challenge and belief that success is possible (Csíkszentmihályi, 1990), achieving flow is an important part of learning.

Blair outlines four approaches for creating flow in games:

1. Provide alternative objectives
2. Make achievements available for players at all skill levels
3. Demonstrate that others have succeeded (e.g., make the leaderboard visible)
4. Provide an avenue for social persuasion(e.g., forums that provide players with social support and encouragement)

You can readily see the parallels to instructional design. We can provide goals and subgoals that are tailored to individual strengths and intrinsic motivations, as well as scaffolded learning modules that address the needs of novices and experts. The benefits of supporting learning through social networks are also not hard to sell.

I think the value of point 3, the idea of surfacing a learning leaderboard, is probably more questionable. Do learners benefit from knowing that others are mastering skills/knowledge while they are struggling? Even if  not struggling, does a learner’s perceptions of the value of his/her learning depend on measuring this value against the  successes of others?  While this may be a cultural construct we’ve grown up accepting, I’d place this strategy pretty low on the list. However, a different spin might be placed on a learning leaderboard that celebrates not points/grades/scores but unique achievements and provides a way to model learning approaches. Rather than the sterile leaderboard, consider the blog or forum that celebrates creative efforts and allows leaders to articulate their way of tackling problems. Create a leaderboard that identifies potential mentors rather than one that suggests a hierarchy of achievements.

Reference
Csíkszentmihályi, Mihály (1990). Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, New York: Harper and Row, ISBN 0-06-092043-2.

The technology (or what are my powers?)

Scoop.it allows users to gather and display content in an appealing format and publish it on the Web.

Creating a page for a topic you want to curate is easy. You just follow a series of prompts. Define your keywords with some care since Scoop.it will suggest content based on these.

You can add the suggested content to your page, discard the content, or remove the source (if you don’t view it as reliable, for example).

However, you also can add content you find on the internet using the Scoop.it bookmarklet. You can add a description or reflection and post this to your page. You can use an image already on the Web page or you can add your own.

Content can be shared on a variety of social media sites including:

• Twitter
• Facebook
• LinkedIn
• Tumblr
• WordPress

Don’t forget to scroll to the bottom of the page to find the link to   “Goodies.” You’ll be able to grab code for widgets to embed a slideshow of your curated content on your Web page.

There are also widgets that allow you to  provide links to your Scoop.it profile.

You can learn more about Scoop.it by watching this video.

This Slideshare also highlights some new developments.

Instructional strategies

Scoop.it makes it easy to curate content and the prompts provided by the bookmarklet reminds you to add a reflection rather than merely posting a page as is  (although you can always do that as well). It allows you to post content to your personal social learning network (e.g., Twitter, Facebook, etc). It also allows you to expand your personal social network by making it easy to follow other curators and obtain RSS feeds to their content.

If you are using Scoop.it as an instructional tool, the ease of posting to Scoop.it can  almost be too seductive, so you should encourage learners to personalize their Scoop.it pages in a way that requires them to read and think about the content they’re posting.

Scoop.it pages can allow learners to tell stories in a number of ways:

• By the types of content they share
• By the reflections they post
• By images they share

You can find a few of my Scoop.it pages here:

• Games: Serious and Social
• QR codes for learning
• Health literacy
• Innovative instructional design
• Augmented Reality in Education and Training

I’ll be adding more!