General Motors has announced an initiative to develop a line of hybrid vehicles that use less gas and more electricity. In part to catch up to hybrid leaders Toyota and Honda, and in part to build its image as a "green" company, GM says it will develop "plug-in" hybrid technology over the next several years. As the name suggests, plug-in hybrids plug into a regular electrical outlet to charge, and have more powerful batteries than regular hybrids. However, economical batteries are still under development, and GM might not have a marketable plug-in hybrid vehicle until the end of the decade.
Source: Washington Post
Monday, December 4, 2006
Friday, December 1, 2006
Significant Work Needed to Help Instructional Designers
The November LCB Big Question was "Are ISD / ADDIE / HPT relevant in a world of rapid elearning, faster time-to-performance, and informal learning?" I was planning to try to write up a summary at some point (similar to last month's eLearning Technology: Top Ten Reasons To Blog and Top Ten Not to Blog), but I must say this month it was a lot harder. My personal summary is very briefly (more below):
- There’s general consensus that ISD, ADDIE, HPT provide a good foundation, but that they need to evolve.
- There’s little practical advice that can assist Instructional Designers in what the evolved forms really are.
- There are a few skeptics.
And I find that second bullet especially troubling given that the crux of the question as Mark Oehlert from e-Clippings put it:
If the question of whether or not your job is relevant fails to stir up some considerable heat - then I despair for us.
Well Mark start despairing for us...
I’m beginning to wonder if we are expected to just wing it until we become marginalized. As a Forbes article stated –
One thing is clear: In two decades, your job probably won't exist, at least not in the same form.
So let me step back and give some foundation for my summary. Oh and before I go any farther, I should point out that, as is always the case, there is general consensus that as Jay Cross put it:
This is the wrong question.
And as Russ Crumley put it:
we’ve already answered that.
So, again, Dave Lee and I are continuing our consistency in asking bad questions.
Also as background, there were quite a few people who said, ISD/ADDIE/HPT – huh? That was actually quite a big surprise to me. Maybe they are already irrelevant?
ISD, ADDIE, HPT are Good Foundations
There was general consensus that they provide a good foundation for the future.
More models will emerge, but they'll only be improvements on existing models. We'll always take shortcuts, but it's important to know what the original route was in case you get lost.
SAT, ISD and ADDIE are excellent methods to develop training that is stable ... The Internet is forcing us out of our self-constructed disciplinary boxes. ... As work and learning become connected online, the barriers are blurring between organisational development, HR, training, education, HPT, etc. A new, amalgamated field of practice requires better tools and integrated theories from which to base our practice.
The challenge we now face is not the creation of more tools, but better use of the tools we have, while applying the fundamentals of human behavior and performance, including the role of emotion, curiosity, discovery, and the desire to improve.
The role of the instructional designer will be to use the ADDIE model to determine what baseline structure can be built into the formal piece of the learning and what parts of the knowledge base are fluid and need to maintained delivered in an informal venue, be it a blog, a podcast, or talking points delivered by a project manager to his or her team.
We need these models now more than ever ... Would you ask a builder to skip the design step for a building? No need for the architect, just build the building.
We need to be reminded of this discipline to avoid jumping to solutions, without having a proper understanding of the problem.
ISD, ADDIE, HPT need to Change
There was also general consensus that while they provide a foundation, they need to change.
Jacob McNulty:
In a world where products, targets and strategies adjust constantly the application of these models (ISD, ADDIE, HPT) will be greatly diminished. As the roles of knowledge workers expand and require them to use information that changes quickly it will be more important for the workforce to have easy access to information rather than them be required to retain it as the result of a well-designed course.
I use the term ‘greatly diminished’ because I don’t feel the models will become obsolete or completely irrelevant.
The models listed in this month’s Big Question were designed for a type of training that was relevant for the needs of an environment different from today’s.
my argument: A, D, D, I, and E are relevant. ADDIE may not be
some method still needs to be applied to decide what features to provide and the look and feel of the vehicle -if we are completely without strategy, we are likely to wind up with a resource like Homer's car
Little Practical Advice
While the consensus was that the models were changing, I found myself wondering what that really means in practice. How will they change? What do I need to do differently? And I didn’t see a lot of advice. Here's a few of the things I saw...
Karl Kapp
You can do the model in an abbreviated format. For example, for the analysis phase of ADDIE, hold a one hour focus group. Yes, one hour for analysis. Now, will you get the best analysis in the world? No, but you will get some insightful information. Instead this step gets skipped, even just doing a one hour analysis can save learners hours of time in terms of focusing the instruction.
Figure out Rapid HPT, ISD, ADDIE Increase the Breadth and Improve Your Understanding of New Models / Tools Become Meta-learning Experts Learn to become guides, aggregators
Don’t work in Silos – integrate with learners, produce rapid prototypes - the content development team work in silos and deliver the final product to the ‘client’ for evaluation.
Without knowing what we’re trying to achieve, metrics that let us know how we’re doing, and ownership of the outcomes, among other things, you don’t have any idea what you’re doing.
the problem lies not with the models, but in how we approach them and what we take out of them. models like ISD, if used creatively, can help produce highly effective learning programs.
I would recommend anyone interested in the design and development of learning experiences to explore the various models relating to instructional design and to develop their own views on the strengths, weaknesses and general applicability of these models.Jay Cross
Think like a great chef. - Great designers use the models as a great chef uses a recipe.
Skeptics Among Us
There were several notable comments that suggested that we should move away from these models and these terms:
Wendy Wickham:
Even in the classroom these models disconnect from reality ... The longer I work, the more I realize that the old roles of "Trainer" and "Instructional Designer" are becoming irrelevant.
This Leaves Me With More Questions Than When I Startedtraining and instructional design don’t cut the mustard ... Keeping the labels is not good ... It’s not going to fall into a course or job aid.
I’m questioning whether we really know what the next generation of ISD, ADDIE, HPT really looks like. I’m being told to not just do D & I, but I’m also not given time to do A, D, E like the models suggest. I’m told to at least spend an hour with the learners or in a focus group. Is that enough? How do I know if that’s enough? When should I demand more?
The kinds of interventions I’m using are changing. How does informal learning change what I do in A&D? How about in E? How does Rapid Learning change it?
I’m personally surprised at the lack of depth in the responses. I’m also surprised that some of the real visionaries such as Allison Rossett doesn’t have better suggestions. Do the experts really just think we should learn the models as a good foundation and wing it from there? That is what we are doing, but is that it?
I hope this isn't the end of the discussion.
Thursday, November 30, 2006
Peer Review vs. Search Engine Places - Quality of Information in a Web 2.0 Sources
Interesting article from EDUCAUSE Review, vol. 41, no. 6 (November/December 2006): 12–13 - Scholarly Reputations: Who's Got Buzz? that discusses whether:
Having gone through a PhD process and having been in academia for 11 years where you needed to "publish" - this is a really interesting question to me. I often argued with (older) colleagues at the university that it would be better to have open, fast publishing sources than the very slow, peer review process associated with most publications. But what really caught my eye was the statement:
My gut tells me that this is pretty accurate which argues that its possibly more important to be high up in Google search results than to be published in peer reviewed publications. Of course sometimes, both things happen such as in the case of Stephen Downes' article on eLearning 2.0 which comes up first in the Google search of eLearning 2.0. Of course this is a self-serving example, because looking at the list you'll see that I'm listed second and Stephen comes up again third. I'm grateful to be listed second but a few other scholarly articles on the subject are quite buried.
It's interesting that being ranked second and in-between two things by Stephen (who coined the term), definitely lends a mark of quality and high expert ranking for me on the topic. Is that right? Is it appropriate? Well as the authors point out, that's almost no longer the point - it simply is what it is.
But that's not always the case, even in a Web 2.0 world and even with the same term. Consider what happened around the definition of eLearning 2.0 on Wikipedia. I contributed the original definition using a combination of writing from Stephen, myself and a few other folks (mostly bloggers). I also included links to articles and posts that I thought were relevant - and who influenced the definition. About 3 months later, a Wikipedian came along and edited the article and selectively deleted links to some of the sources I had cited but not to others. Okay, I admit it, I'm a bit sore because links to my posts were deleted. The comment I received on how it was decided was that my posts were in a blog not in a peer-reviewed publication. I almost responded, "but there are other links to blog posts" but luckily realized that might mean deleting links to other "good sources" (in my opinion) and loss of all links to sources that are critical of the term. Don't worry though - I have an article coming out at some point and then I can add another link to something that has more credibility than my blog. :)
The point of this is that while the Educause article says:
that's not quite right given that within some Web 2.0 domains there is still a form of review even if it shows up second. Ratings are often used. And all of this together is a form of review. What Web 2.0 does is distribute "review" more broadly and makes it much, much faster. The authors of the article clearly favor old-school peer review's quality filter. And, while I guess I'd agree that maybe not every vote should be equal, I don't necessarily agree that old-school peer-review is all that great. Maybe it's old scars in how peer review processes often work (political, old-boy network).
The real point is that even within a distributed, fast review model of Web 2.0, there are examples of old-school type review such as in the case of Wikipedia. And that felt even worse than the journal peer review process because the expectation is equal treatment.
scholars would choose (1) to have their work published in the premier journal in their field or (2) to have that work regularly come up on the first screen in an appropriate Google search
Having gone through a PhD process and having been in academia for 11 years where you needed to "publish" - this is a really interesting question to me. I often argued with (older) colleagues at the university that it would be better to have open, fast publishing sources than the very slow, peer review process associated with most publications. But what really caught my eye was the statement:
For information-seekers using their favorite search engine, quality is simple to define. If a result displayed on the first screen seems to be clearly objective in perspective, if it is not part of some commercial scheme (e.g., a link to buy this book at zzz.com), and if it is immediately available for full-file use, then it is deemed to be of high quality. Moreover, because the seeker has quickly been successful in obtaining a work of high quality, there is a transferal of quality to the work's authors, who receive a high "expert" ranking. The effect may not be rational but it is increasingly true, regardless of whether the work is otherwise associated with any peer-reviewed process. New graduate students in physics can be taught to begin research with review articles such as those in the highly respected Reviews of Modern Physics. Yet it is increasingly likely that they will first search Google; the article that shows up on the first page of results will be a winner no matter what its published pedigree.
My gut tells me that this is pretty accurate which argues that its possibly more important to be high up in Google search results than to be published in peer reviewed publications. Of course sometimes, both things happen such as in the case of Stephen Downes' article on eLearning 2.0 which comes up first in the Google search of eLearning 2.0. Of course this is a self-serving example, because looking at the list you'll see that I'm listed second and Stephen comes up again third. I'm grateful to be listed second but a few other scholarly articles on the subject are quite buried.
It's interesting that being ranked second and in-between two things by Stephen (who coined the term), definitely lends a mark of quality and high expert ranking for me on the topic. Is that right? Is it appropriate? Well as the authors point out, that's almost no longer the point - it simply is what it is.
But that's not always the case, even in a Web 2.0 world and even with the same term. Consider what happened around the definition of eLearning 2.0 on Wikipedia. I contributed the original definition using a combination of writing from Stephen, myself and a few other folks (mostly bloggers). I also included links to articles and posts that I thought were relevant - and who influenced the definition. About 3 months later, a Wikipedian came along and edited the article and selectively deleted links to some of the sources I had cited but not to others. Okay, I admit it, I'm a bit sore because links to my posts were deleted. The comment I received on how it was decided was that my posts were in a blog not in a peer-reviewed publication. I almost responded, "but there are other links to blog posts" but luckily realized that might mean deleting links to other "good sources" (in my opinion) and loss of all links to sources that are critical of the term. Don't worry though - I have an article coming out at some point and then I can add another link to something that has more credibility than my blog. :)
The point of this is that while the Educause article says:
In the Web 2.0 world, the quality of a resource is determined by the intensity of its use. What is rated as "the best" is what is used the most and what shows up first.
that's not quite right given that within some Web 2.0 domains there is still a form of review even if it shows up second. Ratings are often used. And all of this together is a form of review. What Web 2.0 does is distribute "review" more broadly and makes it much, much faster. The authors of the article clearly favor old-school peer review's quality filter. And, while I guess I'd agree that maybe not every vote should be equal, I don't necessarily agree that old-school peer-review is all that great. Maybe it's old scars in how peer review processes often work (political, old-boy network).
The real point is that even within a distributed, fast review model of Web 2.0, there are examples of old-school type review such as in the case of Wikipedia. And that felt even worse than the journal peer review process because the expectation is equal treatment.
Blogs, Automated Translations, and a Better Site Feed
I ran into a little utility this morning - Snap - that let's you add previews of any link on your site as a quick little pop-up. It's kinda cool. You'll have to visit my blog to see this in action.
While you are there, definitely check out the new translation capability that can be found at the bottom of each post. This is provided by Yahoo's, AltaVista's, BabelFish - aren't acquisitions fun? Since I've found that about 30% of the links to my posts come from blogs in other languages, maybe this will be of value. I've certainly been using it to translate from other languages to English so I can see what people are saying relative to the topics in my blog. I'm actually surprised at how much you can understand from automated translation. It makes me wonder if this isn't something that we should all be doing with our content whenever we have a multilingual workforce?
Of course, this then raised the question - can't I add this to my feeds? Well, I blew it a long time ago and didn't point everyone to my feedburner feed. Using FeedBurner, I can add lots of fun stuff to the feed and I've turned on publishing a daily summary of my del.icio.us links.
I would suggest that readers of this blog might want to change over to the FeedBurner feed to get these added functions: http://feeds.feedburner.com/eLearningTechnology
While you are there, definitely check out the new translation capability that can be found at the bottom of each post. This is provided by Yahoo's, AltaVista's, BabelFish - aren't acquisitions fun? Since I've found that about 30% of the links to my posts come from blogs in other languages, maybe this will be of value. I've certainly been using it to translate from other languages to English so I can see what people are saying relative to the topics in my blog. I'm actually surprised at how much you can understand from automated translation. It makes me wonder if this isn't something that we should all be doing with our content whenever we have a multilingual workforce?
Of course, this then raised the question - can't I add this to my feeds? Well, I blew it a long time ago and didn't point everyone to my feedburner feed. Using FeedBurner, I can add lots of fun stuff to the feed and I've turned on publishing a daily summary of my del.icio.us links.
I would suggest that readers of this blog might want to change over to the FeedBurner feed to get these added functions: http://feeds.feedburner.com/eLearningTechnology
Tuesday, November 28, 2006
Web 3.0 - eLearning 3.0?
First let me apologize for talking about Web 3.0 and eLearning 3.0 when we don't really understand much less have digested eLearning 2.0, but there's so much buzz, I can't help myself.
Will Thalheimer posted about Web 3.0 and Learning where he is discussing what is being called Web 3.0. In particular he cites a recent NY Times article. But Web 3.0 has been getting lots of attention for a while now. The basic idea is to use the knowledge embedded within the web and include possible semantic web elements on top to begin to extract greater meaning so that we would be able to answer questions like:
I'm in the middle of grappling with similar questions for a particular client. They have very rich information with lots of meta-data and the question is not only what can we answer with the information, but what questions can we help to formulate. How much structure do we want to provide?
I think Stephen is onto something when he says that the web will warp itself to "my needs", "my interests" - but that's exactly the contextual stuff that he's saying that people often forget to add themselves. The web of the future will know that I'm not rich or poor (so $3000 is probably an okay number) and that I have an 11 year old. I shouldn't need to tell it again.
But there's also an aspect of the web providing suggestions that you wouldn't have thought to ask for ... and that's where I'm finding value today. Suggest potentially related results. Like more expensive vacations that are a little better. Or, if you'd only leave your child home you could go here.
I agree completely with Stephen that we are generally pretty bad about formulating questions. And I still believe this is a bigger stumbling block than formulating answers. See: finding answers and power of questions, better questions for learning professionals, and be an insanely great professional conference attendee. Because we aren't good at formulating questions, a big part of Web 3.0 has to be helping to:
Will Thalheimer posted about Web 3.0 and Learning where he is discussing what is being called Web 3.0. In particular he cites a recent NY Times article. But Web 3.0 has been getting lots of attention for a while now. The basic idea is to use the knowledge embedded within the web and include possible semantic web elements on top to begin to extract greater meaning so that we would be able to answer questions like:
"I'm looking for a warm place to vacation and I have a budget of $3,000. Oh, and I have an 11-year-old child."
Will (and I would agree) says that there will be big impact on learning if the web could answer these kinds of queries. However, Stephen Downes says:
OK, now, think about that. Do we ask questions like that? Well - no. First of all, we tend to forget to add the qualifiers (such as the budget and the child) when we ask. But even more importantly, we don't want to include some of this information in the question. It's an old rule - never tell the sales person what you're willing to spend. But also - I don't want to limit what I'm looking for. I'll spend more than $3000 if the trip is worth it, and I'll find a sitter for the child if I have to. What this means, then, is that whatever we're looking at, it won't be set up like a search or a query. It has to be much more subtle, much more interpretive, much more dynamic, much more immersive. The Web 3.0 people are talking about is the old Web 1.0 - we deliver content, you listen. But the next generation web will be more like Web 2.0 on steroids - the web itself will warp according my needs, my interests, my contributions.
I'm in the middle of grappling with similar questions for a particular client. They have very rich information with lots of meta-data and the question is not only what can we answer with the information, but what questions can we help to formulate. How much structure do we want to provide?
I think Stephen is onto something when he says that the web will warp itself to "my needs", "my interests" - but that's exactly the contextual stuff that he's saying that people often forget to add themselves. The web of the future will know that I'm not rich or poor (so $3000 is probably an okay number) and that I have an 11 year old. I shouldn't need to tell it again.
But there's also an aspect of the web providing suggestions that you wouldn't have thought to ask for ... and that's where I'm finding value today. Suggest potentially related results. Like more expensive vacations that are a little better. Or, if you'd only leave your child home you could go here.
I agree completely with Stephen that we are generally pretty bad about formulating questions. And I still believe this is a bigger stumbling block than formulating answers. See: finding answers and power of questions, better questions for learning professionals, and be an insanely great professional conference attendee. Because we aren't good at formulating questions, a big part of Web 3.0 has to be helping to:
find the right question to ask!
Web 2.0 Tool - Great Collaboration Example
Andrew McAfee has posted about Avenue A Razorfish's (AARF) Intranet that uses Web 2.0 tools as part of information sharing:
Andrew has followed up on his original post with some concerns around security. Because the tags are visible globally, then other folks can see what is being tagged with AARF. This can be problematic. With some tools, e.g., Yahoo MyWeb, you can limit the visibility of your pages (or your tags) and I'd expect that to start happening with other tools as well. This is something I've discussed before: Yahoo MyWeb better than del.icio.us, rollyo, et.al. for Personal / Group Learning.
Both of Andrew's posts are definitely worth reading.
This is similar to what I suggested in eLearning Technology: Personal and Group Learning Using Web 2.0 Tools and eLearning Technology: Social Bookmarking Tricks for Group LearningAARF has built interfaces to the bookmarking site del.icio.us, the photo sharing site Flickr, and Digg, a site where members vote on the importance of news stories. All three use tags, or something close.
AARF employees have learned to add the tag 'AARF' when they come across a web page (using del.icio.us), a photo (Flickr), or a news story (Digg) that they think will be of interest to their colleagues. Shortly after they add this tag, the bookmark (look at the top of the box), thumbnail of the photo (middle) or headline and description of the story (bottom) show up within the AARF E2.0 Intranet. So AARF has found a fast and low-overhead way to let its employees share Internet content with each other. It's also free; these interfaces with del.icio.us, Flickr, and Digg require no fees and no permissions. I find this simply brilliant.
Andrew has followed up on his original post with some concerns around security. Because the tags are visible globally, then other folks can see what is being tagged with AARF. This can be problematic. With some tools, e.g., Yahoo MyWeb, you can limit the visibility of your pages (or your tags) and I'd expect that to start happening with other tools as well. This is something I've discussed before: Yahoo MyWeb better than del.icio.us, rollyo, et.al. for Personal / Group Learning.
Both of Andrew's posts are definitely worth reading.
Saturday, November 25, 2006
Google Alerts
Google has so many services these days that it is hard to keep up with them all. However, one of their new services is called Google Alerts which allows you to create a customized search on a particular topic of your choice. Just go to www.google.com/alerts and register for the service. After you register you can create an alert and Google will then deliver to your email address a list of URL's that have your search keyword in it. You can determine how often you would like Google to deliver these alerts. This service is helpful if you are tracking companies, products or services on the web. Give it a try and let me know what you think about the service. I for one find it to be helpful to track different technologies and applications.
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