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?

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

Perfect for a learning experience! Here’s a domain where you have to know a lot of terms, be able to distinguish between the terms, and then be able to establish a point-of-view of your wine preferences — as opposed to Robert Parker’s wine preferences, or the Wine Spectator’s wine preferences. Yes, and then there’s understanding all these wine point guides.

So let’s just reiterate these key points:

• Audience – novice wine drinkers who want to learn more about wine, who are intimidated by the language of wine, and who may position themselves as anti-wine or anti-elitist.
• Outcomes - establish a point-of-view on what wine one likes to drink – wine preferences; be able to “defend” or speak-to that POV.
• Learning Tasks – some initial thoughts
  • Distinguish red from white (hey! an easy win, no?)
  • Understand fortified wines are, blends vs. single varietals, old world vs. new
  • Distinguish main varietals – Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, Riesling, Pinot Grigo, Cabernet Sauvignon, Pinot Noir, Syrah, Merlot, common blends (Bordeaux)
  • Know some of the lesser varietals/blends
  • Pair wine with foods – the basics, more complex
  • Going into a wine store and buying wine for:
    • a drinking party
    • a special occasion
    • for your cellar – collecting wines

Distinguishing is both a visual task (red/white, etc.), cognitive task – knowing the terms, and being able to taste the difference. It’s also about being able to understand the mental models in the wine world (such as old world vs. new world). It may also be possible to define some cognitive strategies: systematic approaches to problem solving in this domain or rules of thumb (especially when it comes to wine pairings). Developing a cognitive strategy for oneself and a POV is about creating an approach to answering the question – “What wine do I want to drink?” To this end, a tool such as a wine journal, is a good start.

Methods

• This could be done as an extremely long PowerPoint presentation (save me now…put me out of my misery!) – or maybe just some part of it….
• It could be an in-person learning experience — in fact, some of it *has* to be!!! Virtual wine is just no fun. Self-directed, in-person learning experience — include a guide to wine bars, wine tasting, or do-it-yourself tryouts
• It could be a game – stay with me. If you have a group of people who are resistant to wine, one could create a game (part-task practice) on suggesting wine to a particular type of wine drinker. The more “right” suggestions you make, the more the will drink (although not P.C., it would be fun to see how much you could get people to drink…. creating drunks…. hmmm…sub-goal)

So these are just some initial thoughts on creating a learning experience about wine. I have to thank my friend Paul for all his years of encouragement on experimenting with wine. More next week.

p.s. If you have thoughts or experiences on who you learned about wine, please share!

Personas - courtesy galiciaCAD.com

Having been on the job market for several months now, I’ve noticed that Captivate and Articulate are required for almost every e-learning or instructional design position that I see posted. Having used Captivate, and having seen Articulate being used – I now understand why so many consider e-learning boring. These two software tools are designed to rapidly convert PowerPoint presentations into e-Learning. They also make it easy to tack a quiz onto the end of the learning. The metaphor behind the software design is “book”, is “page-turner”. The result is boring e-Learning.

Now hold on, am I just blaming the tools — especially since I haven’t really used Articulate? Am I limited by my own vision of what these tools are capable of? Possibly. Am I asking too much of e-Learning designers? Maybe. It is hard to create engaging e-Learning. Just look at my own portfolio — can’t say the learning is *that* engaging.

Research, Think, Write, Design

So here I come to my tag-line: research, write, think, design. Will this make learning more engaging? Perhaps, perhaps not. But it might make it more relevant.

• Research the business outcome. Why are you creating this learning course/widget/thing? What business outcomes are you trying to effect? What behaviors are you trying to change? What do you want people to do?!? Not just “We want people to learn this new financial software” — but “We want people to increase their efficiency and accuracy in expense reporting (or budget planning or budget management)”. This leads the question: “Well, heck, what are they doing now? Who are THEY?”
• Research the learners. Are they novices? experts? do they have different roles/needs? can you create personas from these needs? Is it possible to actually collect data on them? How technically savvy are they? How do they get their information? How do they interact with their LMS? Do they interact with the LMS? Examples of defining personas and how to use personas can be found on the Cooper Journal website. One can think of personas as meaningful customer segmentation made real by colorful descriptions — see the description of how Best Buy uses personas in designing their stores and interacting with their customers in my review of The Deciding Factor.
• Think about the research – well, can we just call this analysis? Sure, analyze you data. Concept. Examine the correlations. What can we learn from these data patterns, without making correlation errors. Clearly this is one of the areas that I need to address, in addition to designing better research.
• Write about it – does it seem redundant to write about your research and analysis? I think not. The process of writing and having to explain your research analysis is key to communication and deepening the understanding. The writing process forces the assumptions to the surface. It exposes the flaws in your argument. Writing is also key to the design process.
• Design – for me this is where you begin to explore methodologies, tools, techniques. This is where you think about learning outcomes, the learning experience. I also strongly believe that the basis of good learning design is good writing — understanding the subject matter, finding good examples, writing good scripts. The quality of the discourse matters. The writing underlying the learning design is often where it all falls apart — maybe the writer can’t imagine the learner persona. Maybe they do not fully understand the subject matter or business outcome. Good research and analysis don’t always lead to good design, but directs the design, channels the creative energies.

Yes, then we have development, where we use whatever toolset (choosing of which is part of the design process) or perhaps organizational constraints dictate what tools to use. Then the implementation, then the evaluation. Well, the evaluation should actually be a part of the research phase — if we know the business outcome, how will we know when we got there? Define success at the beginning and figure out how to effectively measure it.

For example, “We want people to increase their efficiency and accuracy in expense reporting (or budget planning or budget management)” — well there may be measurements in time required to do X, or accuracy in X (how many times to redo), or how many people to do X, what is the cost of doing X — then see if these metrics change after/during the learning. Of course, this assumes these metrics were collected in the first place for you to measure change against.

A role that incorporates this level of thinking, research, design would be ideal. Writing this down helps.

My question – Are Training & Development departments  thinking this way? Are organizations thinking this way? Is it that people just “don’t have time!” to do this level of research? You know, I don’t think so. I think much of the information is there, easy to get, is we ask the right questions. User-experience designers are already doing this. Product Management is already doing this. Let’s do it internally and not just for clients/customers. This is low-hanging fruit – but a big mental adjustment.

Upon reading the first chapter of this book I wanted to jump with joy — here was someone articulating my ideas about the kind of skills, mindsets and thinking that is needed in a newly competitive, flat world — where anything that can be digitized will be outsourced.

This new kind of thinking – what he calls “right-brain” thinking has six key aptitudes as described in the Introduction:

1. Design – “to create artistic and emotional beauty”
2. Story – “to craft a satisfying narrative”
3. Symphony – “to combine unrelated ideas into a novel invention” & “to detect patterns and opportunities”
4. Empathy – “ability to understand the subtleties of human interaction”
5. Play – “find joy in one’s self and elicit joy in others”
6. Meaning – “to stretch beyond the quotidian in pursuit of purpose and meaning”

Part of this book is focused on describing, defining and supporting each of these definitions. Half of each chapter on aptitudes is devoted to describing the skills to practice in order to become this kind of person – how to create a Portfolio to become more of a right-brain thinker.

What’s important to understand is that Pink does not advocate that we lose our analytical, left-brain thinking in order to become completely creative, right-brain thinkers — but rather we must be both and find an equilibrium between the two.

In the argument for right-brain thinking, there were a couple of  research/studies that I found of interest:

• (25) UCSF Professor Paul Ekman, famous for creating the Facial Action Coding System (FACS) – tested facial expressions all over the world, and these expressions were interpreted similarly by a majority of the people in a group, whether that was in New Guinea or amongst Bay Area college students.
• (52) students who study painting excel at noticing subtle details about a patients condition (from the Yale School of Medicine). So yes, a student has to know their medical stuff, but studying painting makes them better doctors.

What was also insightful was his description of design – that good design is a combination of utility and significance (76). The iPhone designers, of course, got this right. They realized that the cellphone had changed from being a logical device about speed and specialized functions, to being an emotional device — about being able to be expressive and customize, fanciful (81).

Stories help us make sense of the world — and in a world full of facts, what matters is putting these facts in context with emotional impact (101). A wonderful quote from this section is from Alan Kay (famous interface designer) – “scratch the surface in a typical boardroom and we’re all just caveman with briefcases, hungry for a wise person to tell us stories” (107).

Being able to blend concepts to put together two existing ideas non one else thought to create, being a systems thinker, a pattern recognizer is the essence of the symphony aptitude. Techniques to enhance this skill include keeping a metaphor log (what metaphors do you hear daily) or trying to create a 5-line self-portrait.

On the importance of Empathy I’ve written about before in this blog. Research of interest – one study of aphasics (those with damage to the left-side or analytical side of the brain) are exceptionally good lie-detectors, getting about 70% of the lies. In the Porfolio section, he directs us to a website to practice our EQ = empathy quotient.

When writing about Play and Meaning, Pink’s writing seems to become shallower as nothing he writes really grabbed me in these two sections other than we should play and have meaning in our lives. Perhaps I became tired of the writing, or perhaps I’d read too many book on play and meaningful work that nothing seemed new here.

My main criticism of the book is that it peters out toward the end. And the organization of the book breaks the narrative of the reading (he really is a good writer). The Portfolio or skill-building reference sections are disruptive to the reading. Overall though, I find this a good book, quick read and useful. The Portfolio sections contain many good techniques to jump start your creativity. For this alone, I think the book is worth reading. And without a doubt, what Pink gets right is that anything that can be outsourced cheaper and more efficiently will — what stays will be those who can be imaginative and unique  in the world.

Whether the world will reward the skill sets of creative wonks remains to be seen. I think we are still very much in transition from the Information Age of knowledge workers, to what he calls the Conceptual Age of creators and empathizers. All I can do is keep true to my path of trying to create works of beauty, empathy, utility and significance and hope that others are also moving in the same direction.

Second definitions of aptitudes (65-66):

1. Not just function but also DESIGN
2. Not just argument but also a STORY
3. Not just focus but also SYMPHONY
4. Not just logic but also EMPATHY
5. Not just seriousness but also PLAY
6. Not just accumulation but also MEANING

At the halfway  point I thought it was a good read. Being an innovative company requires changing the way we work – can most companies do that? Letting go of authority and creative, “hot”, teams is essential. The descriptions of the work environment and culture at IDEO had me thinking about where I wanted to work next. If you want to imagine a place that is hardworking and respects creativity — read this book.

After finishing the book I think the best parts are in the first half — descriptions of how to do brainstorming and how to create hot teams. A good read for those 2 sections.

A couple insightful quotes:

• “too much square footage, like too large a budget can dissipate energy and discourage more immediate emotional connection.” (p.82)
  
• “success at innovation is like putting together the perfect golf swing” – there are 17 things to get right, each one simple on its own, but it’s complex to put together in real time.(p.293)

Overall I enjoyed reading this book, though I found many of the stories repetitive — as if they were cobbled together from many different essays and presentations. It needed a good edit.

Brainstorming Rules:

1. Sharpen the Focus – ask edgy, tangible questions that focus on the customer need
2. Playful Rules – don’t critique or debate ideas, go for quantity, encourage wild ideas, be visual
3. Number Your Ideas – help to set a goal for quantity (i.e., go for 100)
4. Build and Jump – keep the energy up, jump back to an earlier path, encourage small variation
5. The Space Remembers – power of spatial memory, process of capturing ideas (facilitator whiteboard), physical movement around the space
6. Stretch Mental Models – warm-ups, content-related homework (background lecture, toy stores)
7. Get Physical – sketching, mind mapping, diagrams, stick figures, bring in objects, build things, bodystorming

Hot Groups: groups at IDEO are often ad-hoc, often come together on a project-basis and availability. Below are listed types of characters that can be key to “hot” teams.

1. Visionary
2. Troubleshooter – doesn’t suffer fools gladly, fix-it person
3. Iconoclast – contrarian
4. Pulse-Taker – heart person, making a personal connections
5. Craftsman
6. Technologist – a maven
7. Entrepreneur – often goes off and creates sub-teams or companies
8. Cross-Dresser – self-educated, self-motivated, enthusiastic

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