Book Review – ‘Remote. Office Not Required’

Remote – Office not required

Regulars Twitter followers will know the fun and games I’ve had since October of last year with my daily Peacehaven – London commutes to undertake a 6 month contract.

Since then I’ve picked up the book ‘Remote – Office Not Required’ and have been (rather ironically) dipping in and out of it on my commutes into London.

Over the next few posts I plan to share with you some elements of the book, if you simply can’t wait, you can find it here. (Amazon UK store)

Gotta dash….. Train to catch…

View the original article here

Designing #mlearning Book Review – Chapter 4

As I mentioned in a previous blog post, I intend to provide a brief synopsis of each chapter of ‘Designing mlearning‘, but more importantly I intend to answer the questions that Clark poses at the end of each chapter and then pose those same questions back to you ‘Dear Reader‘

Chapter 4 – The technology it’s not about

We start this chapter with a nod to the fact that the iPad (1) was announced during the writing of this book. Given that this is still considered a ‘recent’ book, this shows very clearly how dynamic this market is.

From looking forward we take a look back at a brief history of mobile devices commencing at the Palm Pilot, skipping ahead to mobile phones, through media players to smartphones. From there we review the advent of handheld games, tablets and recording devices, before acknowledging that by the time many readers pick up this book some of the descriptions will already be out of date.

We then take a look at a trend that gives a fairly clear indication of how things are going at the moment – “convergence”. More and more devices are providing a 1-stop shop for much (if not all) of the functionality that we used to associate with multiple devices.

Towards the end of the chapter we are reminded just how quickly this field is developing as Clark suggests that we may even be moving towards wearing glasses with a Heads Up Display - imagine that!

We finish off the chapter with these questions being posed (along with my responses):

How can you take advantage of any of the dedicated devices (media player, camera, PDA, phone)?I’m not sure that we really need to go out of our way to take advantage of the plethora of dedicated devices, after all our learners are already using them within their day-to-day lives to take pictures, record video, access the web, read novels etc. Given that dedicated devices are in my opinion “High Street” what I think we need to do is to tap into learner’s familiarity with them and start to drip-feed examples of how they can use them within a workplace environment. Why not model some good examples using dedicated devices? Often when I facilitate face-to-face activities, I make a point of recording audio feedback, video voxpops and photographs of interactivity using dedicated devices in order to model good practice for the attendees to (hopefully) follow.How can you capitalize the increasing ubiquity of the converged devices?Let’s be honest most organisations (even now) are not providing converged devices (read phones and tablets) to support learning programmes or ‘overtly’ to maximise performance. I believe they are providing them so that you have little or no excuse for not responding to emails! But let’s not let this worry us, instead let’s leverage the growing distribution of mobile devices for our own ends and start to offer resources, assets etc that can benefit from the functionality of the converged device.Have you considered the tradeoffs of providing (devices) versus supporting devices ?I guess the provision of devices ensures (to a certain degree) greater control and in turn ‘peace of mind’ (wrongly in my opinion) to organisations, but hey, if it  increases the chances of mobile uptake then maybe it’s worth it? Of course, this approach no doubt brings significant expense with it in terms of providing the devices, however I’ve no doubt that it is easier to support 1 x device type as opposed to trying to support learners own devices. Of course allowing learners to use their own device means that they will be familiar with it and therefore more likely to use it and quite possibly less likely to need support, although the cost and logistics involved in trying to support multiple device types cannot be ignored.So folks, why not take a look at the questions above and provide your own responses in the comments below?

View the original article here

Designing #mLearning Book Review – Chapter 1

As I mentioned in my previous blog post, I intend to provide a brief synopsis of each chapter of ‘Designing mlearning‘, but more importantly I intend to answer the questions that Clark poses at the end of each chapter and then pose those same questions back to you ‘Dear Reader‘

;

Chapter 1 – Overview

OK, so I’m off to something of a false start here as I’ve just realised that there are no questions asked of ‘The Reader’ at the end of this short introductory chapter, but we are provided with a list of very realistic and pragmatic situations in which a range of ‘everyday’ roles and occupations can/could/do harness the benefits of a mobile device to increase their performance and value.

And guess what?

Only one of the examples is to undertake a compliance ‘course’! This (thankfully) fleeting mention of a ‘course’ provides me with a warm, fuzzy feeling that the rest of the book won’t be trying to convince me of the benefits of shrinking down desktop learning onto a smaller screen.

He also provides us with a definition for mlearning that he admits the eLearning Guild mobile learning research team struggled to come up with:

“Any activity that allows individuals to be more productive when consuming, interacting with, or creating information, mediated through a compact digital portable device that the individual carries on a regular basis, has reliable connectivity, and fits into a pocket or purse”

(eLearning Guild 360 Mobile Learning Research Report, 2007)

He finally reminds us that the pace of change in this area is so fast that any suggested, specific solutions would be unlikely to stand the test of the publishing process time, so instead explains what the book is really about; preparing the reader to take advantage of the mobile revolution.

I’m hooked.

I’m reading on…..

View the original article here

Designing #mlearning Book Review – Chapter 3

As I mentioned in a previous blog post, I intend to provide a brief synopsis of each chapter of ‘Designing mlearning‘, but more importantly I intend to answer the questions that Clark poses at the end of each chapter and then pose those same questions back to you ‘Dear Reader‘

Chapter 3 – A brief history of learning and cognition

Confession time!

I’ve struggled somewhat with this chapter, having had to read it 3 or 4 times in order to be able to internally process its content for this review. I’m not saying that this is a bad thing at all, but it did feel a little awkward for me having breezed through the first 2 chapters and seeing them as confirmation of my current thinking.

In chapter 3 Clark starts off by reminding us (I’m liking the fact that he is drumming this into the reader) that mLearning is, by and large, not about learning, but about augmentation. About letting us as human beings get on with what our brains do well and providing support for what our brains struggle with (rote learning), rather than trying to ‘drill’ the information into our/others heads! Let the mobile device remember the facts and allow yourself to make decisions or detect nuances in the many variables we base our decisions every day.

In case we haven’t got the point yet, he reminds us that mLearning is not about putting courses on a phone (I’m hoping he raises this point again, as it seems to be something of a common misconception in my opinion)

Clarke then takes us on a whistle-stop tour of media psychology, that I’ve got to be honest, wasn’t any clearer on the 4th reading as it was on the 1st – perhaps I’m not of the target academic demographic for this book, perhaps I’m reading it at the wrong time of day; I don’t know.  What I’m hoping is that this lack of comprehension doesn’t impact upon my understanding of the rest of the book….. we’ll see….

We finish off the chapter with these questions being posed (along with my responses):

Are you considering more than just courses and including performance support?As a member of the vendor community, I have seen a fairly respectable number of mobile solutions being provided to clients and I have to say that the vast majority fall into the ‘course on a phone/tablet’ category. We could go into the whole “who’s to blame for this?” debate, that we’ve all no doubt contributed to in some way, shape or form in the past, but on this occasion I’m not going to, maybe you’d like to in the comments section? What I will say is that I’ve seen a few good examples of performance support apps for the NHS (detailing drug dose calculations) and for some areas of retail (providing ‘just-in-time’ support for a new season range of products), as yet I’ve still to see any solutions that make use of the phones native functionality.Is your pedagogy advanced beyond the basic “event” and content presentation learning approach?I think the answer above goes somewhere towards answering this question. Some organisations are obviously only seeing mobile as a portable desktop solution, whilst others are grasping the potential for it to ‘augment’ their people. I’d say that it’s probably (based upon a Sophisticated Wild Arsed Guess) less than 3% who have spotted this.Do you include social learning as part of your learning solution?I’ve seen a growing number of clients who are currently/planning to include social learning as part of their solution. My fear is the assumption that people will flock to it, just because organisations have built it. I also see a number of organisation building internal platforms as opposed to using existing ‘public’ platforms for these conversations to take place. I know from experience in a previous role that the ‘doomers and gloomers’ will cite commercial sensitivity or security for reasons not to engage in ‘public’ conversations and there are a growing number of collaborative platforms to circumvent this, but I can’t help but feel that this approach is only papering over the cracks of a bigger problem.So folks, why not take a look at the questions above and provide your own responses in the comments below?

View the original article here

How humor helps + Powtoon review

I recently created a funny (I hope!) cartoon to motivate people to learn more, and it motivated me to learn more about how humor can improve learning.

If you don’t see the cartoon below, you can watch it here.

(If you’re a blog subscriber and are reading this in your email or RSS reader, you should see a link to the ebook at the bottom of this post.)

The cartoon is a trailer more than a “teaching” tool, since it just touches on the main points. Its design comes straight from marketing: Remind them of the pain they’re feeling, tell them they can get the cure, and ask them to act. The same pattern would probably work in any training trailer to boost enrollments.

In a recent LinkedIn discussion about the cartoon, Megan Torrance reported that in one of her projects, elearning modules with a funny cartoon trailer had twice as many signups as modules without the trailer.

The same type of cartoon could be used when a client wants “awareness” but can’t identify any behaviors that actually require that awareness. When a “course” must be created regardless of its usefulness, a cartoon would at least be more fun than an information dump.

What research says about humor

I poked around Google Scholar and found studies that seem to agree that (relevant!) humor in teaching can increase retention, motivation, and comprehension.

The use of positive humor can also increase the likeability of the instructor. This could be especially helpful in corporate elearning, where the “presenter” is often faceless and personality-free.

The article “How Laughing Leads to Learning” offers a readable summary of some research and makes several points that are relevant to corporate training. Thanks, Matthias Herrmann, for pointing it out. My main takeaways from the article:

Humor appears to reduce anxiety by decreasing the effects of stress hormones.It appears to improve motivation and recall.It should be appropriate to the audience and sprinkled here and there rather than applied with a firehose.

I’d add that humor is surprising, and surprises are memorable. As Julie Dirksen explains in her (funny!) book Design for How People Learn, “If something is exactly the way we thought it would be, there’s really no reason to allocate mental resources to reinforcing that thought or idea.”

Finally, humor often uses analogy, exaggeration, emotion, vivid imagery, and unique sounds, all of which probably make the content more memorable.

Design decisions for the cartoon

Narration: I could have uploaded narration to the tool I used, but I thought, why? What would it add? So I didn’t add it. Plus, I’m not a fan of narration, as I’ve probably made clear in this blog (like in this post).

Pacing: The quick pacing is more marketing style than training style. Even when it’s just offering the high points, training tends to be a lot slower because … why? I actually wish that elearning developers would speed up, which is another reason for my burning hatred dislike of narration. It’s ironic that we easily digest quick messages from marketing but then design elearning that plods.

Powtoon review

I made the cartoon with Powtoon, a web app. You edit and save your work online and export the files as MP4s. Although you can upload audio and visuals, all the content of my cartoon is provided by Powtoon.

Pros:

It’s intuitive — the timeline is simple; it’s easy to change entrances and exits.The stock characters and animations inspire you to use humor.There’s a decent supply of images within each “style” of images.It’s easy to preview and export your cartoon.Non-artists like me can easily create cartoons.

Cons:

You can’t change music files in the middle of a cartoon or fade the audio. I had to make two cartoons and join them in iMovie, where I also edited the audio.The shortest interval on the timeline is one second.The range of character styles is limited but will likely grow.Other users report that it’s hard to sync narration. If I wanted to add narration to the cartoon (when pigs fly), I’d record it separately while watching the cartoon and then connect the cartoon and audio in a video editor.I noticed some visual artifacts when editing, and when I exported a cartoon, it often had a random audio glitch that re-exporting usually fixed.

More thoughts on humor

I think we have a bajillion opportunities to make things lighter and more memorable without offending someone somewhere, but all I hear when I mention humor is fear. I’ve got some tips for incorporating humor in this early blog post (along with the dramatic front page of the tabloid Elearning Informer).

What do you think? Is this kind of cartoon too risky? Why don’t we use humor more often?

View the original article here

In the news...Learning Magazine personal impact course review

Sorry, I could not read the content fromt this page.

View the original article here