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The shortest book review, ever.

The New Social Learning - book cover

The New Social Learning: A Guide to Transforming Organizations Through Social Media by Tony Bingham and Marcia Conner is a good book. It does exactly what it purports to do — provide a comprehensive guide to social learning. It’s one of those books that is going to become a must-have for learning folks — for the next couple years anyways before it all changes again. But by then, perhaps they will have built it into a franchise, bringing out a new book every year.

This book covers: workplace trends, online communities, making the case for social learning, micro-sharing (aka twitter and Facebook), collective intelligence (wikis, blogging), immersive environments, and blended learning.

Good points: it’s easy to read, it has nice tidbits (“Microsharing is an serendipity engine”, p.98). I can easily imagine it as a reference when making a game-plan for social learning in your workplace. A great place to start if you’re learning about social learning.

Downside: It didn’t inspire me. Perhaps it’s just me — I’m familiar with most of the stuff in the book and I’m looking for something else. It talks about nuts and bolts, and it has quotes from people who implement, people who manage it, there are many interesting stories, but not compelling stories. I wanted to hear more about how that small group of guys changed the culture of the CIA, FBI and the rest of the intelligence community and got them to use social media.

If you’re working at the intersection of social media and learning, you need this book in your shelf. End of story. So I’ll make it easy: here is where you can buy it. And don’t worry, I don’t get a cut, not even through Google ads.

But if you’re looking for the in-depth story of how social media creates cultural change in organizations, you won’t find it here.

Check out the New Social Learning website for more info.

Maybe not the shortest book review ever, but close.

Posted in book reviews, learning profession, social media, tools.

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By Rani H. Gill – September 12, 2010

Don’t call it a learning game

Working away in the consulting world, I occasionally have time to dream about what I’d rather be doing — namely designing learning games. Not that I’ve had a ton of experience doing this, but I keep dreaming about it. The problem is — not many people in the corporate world are wanting it, and that’s a tough sell.

Two things happened that piqued my interest: a friend shared a TEDx talk by Seth Priebatsch: the game layer on top of the world; and I talked to another friend about the difficulty of selling anything called a “game” into corporations. As many others have concluded, you have to change the name of the game. Call it anything but a game. Which begs the question — what do we call games?

What are games?

What are games? What are some of their characteristics? Learners are actively engaged in a simulation/fantasy or solving a problem, where they will fail multiple times in order to succeed. The game is filled with feedback mechanisms. It’s about getting the points, not so much having the points (for most people anyways). It’s about status in the game, and often about playing amongst a community of gamers, whether that be in a multi-player game or in a single player game where you compete with your friends.

Sounds kind of like….

Discovery learning

What is discovery learning? Here’s a quick introduction.

  • Basedon theories of  Dewey, Piaget, and Vygotsky.
    • Dewey – primary premise was learning by doing, learning is experiential and social; experiential was often defined as “using your hands” — building a house, taking apart a radio, with a group of peers.
    • Piaget – showed that a child is not an empty vessel, but is an active participant in learning about the world; assimilation and accommodation are means of adjusting the understanding of the world. Created the idea that children learn differently from adults and go through “stages of development” — not all of his theories have stood the test of research.
    • Vygotsky – best known for Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) and the bringing out the social and cultural influences on cognitive development. ZPD is the zone between what an individual can learn on their own versus what they can learn with guidance or social interaction. In a sense, it is the optimal learning zone. Related ideas include scaffolding and situated learning.
  • Architectures for discovery learning
    • case-based learning
    • incidental learning – results incidentally from an interaction, such as a crossword puzzle.
    • learning by exploring/conversing – asking questions to solve a mystery, discover an object
    • learning by reflection – a teacher never gives a direct answer, but instead answers questions with questions, forcing the students to reflect.
    • simulation-based learning
  • How discovery learning is different
    • active rather than passive
    • process-orientated rather than content-oriented
    • failure is important
    • opportunity for feedback in learning process

Sound familiar?

Games as discovery learning

So let’s call games what they are — guided discovery learning. Games are guided by the rules of the game, where you get feedback on how you perform, instantaneously.

Change the name of the game to “guided discovery learning.”

Hmmmm…. I think I can sell that.

But what about…

The fear with guided discovery learning (aka games) is that you will not cover the course content and it will take to long or will be too expensive to create. I’ve been struggling with these questions — how do I design a game so people learn the ‘right content’? Well, it’s about the process, not the content, so that’s the wrong question. I’m not selling a learning PRODUCT, I’m selling a learning SERVICE. Games are a type of learning service. That means coming up with a business model that works in the service economy. OK, some more thinking to do here.

We don’t need to learn how to play games — games are already a part of our world. (Seriously go listen to Seth’s TEDx talk.) The problem is that they are just not fun yet. The bigger problem is that we just haven’t figured out a business model for adult learning games that works yet. How do we create and sell guided discovery learning that’s relevant and cost-effective?

References:

Castronova, J. (2002). “Discovery Learning for the 21st Century: What is it and How Does it Compare to Traditional Learning in Effectiveness in the 21st Century?” Action Research Exchange 1 (1)

Bicknell-Holmes and Hoffman (2000) Engage, Elicit, Experience, Explore: Applying Discovery learning to Library Instruction – LOEX. Presentation.

Social Development Theory: Vygotsky. TIPS website – http://tip.psychology.org/vygotsky.html

Posted in games.

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By Rani H. Gill – August 22, 2010

3 tips for avoiding design failure

Have you ever experienced learning design failure? It’s pretty easy to spot — the primary “tell” being the utterly confused or disgusted looks on the faces of your learners. Or it’s when your stakeholders or learners actively start sabotaging the design and doing whatever they want. Or they just get up and leave. That is a failure of learning design.

Having recently gone through a design failure, here’s some tips for avoiding this gut-wrenching experience.

Tip #1 – Make sure there is ONE owner/sponsor

The hardest thing for an outside consultant (or an inside L&D employee for that matter), is to make sure there is ONE person who owns the design. One person who will give you the sign-off, the go-ahead, the buy-in, the responsibility. If you find yourself in a situation where the owner or sponsor isn’t really owning the project — RUN, don’t walk, in the other direction. Ease your way out, or find a way to address the situation. To be honest, by the time you realize this, it’s often too late.

Tip #2 – Get your stakeholders’ attention

We all lead busy lives and our working lives seem to never let up. Learning initiatives often take a backseat to making the end-of-quarter numbers. So when you have your stakeholders review the information, make sure you are getting them at a point where they can pay attention and really try to understand what’s going on. Otherwise, you’ll end up with a nasty surprise just as you’re ready to launch, and where they will claim to have never been consulted.

Tip #3 – Make sure they understand the what the learning experience will feel like

Remember Tip #2 above — first get people’s attention. In addition, if people don’t do learning stuff every day, they will not easily understand the learning experience. Once you have their attention, do whatever it takes to help them understand the what the learners will be doing in the module, what it will feel like, what they will be doing, how the learning sequence ties together. Help them enter into the experience in your head. Then they will be able to give you honest, and grounded feedback on whether or not your learning design will work.

Don’t design alone

The hardest thing to do is do design alone without feedback. Do whatever it takes to get that feedback from your owner/sponsor, your stakeholders, your learners. Consult other learning designers if available. Do whatever it takes to get involvement and avoid surprises.

But sometimes, you just make mistakes. You make errors and there is no one to catch them. Or your design doesn’t quite fit expectations. Admit your problems and if there’s time and money, fix them. Otherwise, take a deep breath, do some meditation, and move on — and don’t forget the lesson you’ve learned.

Posted in guidelines, instructional design, learning profession.

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By Rani H. Gill – August 10, 2010