Recently I got to chat to Tom Harte of imcreative.co.uk. Tom is an Interactive Incentive and Performance Management solutions provider.
A what?
Tom designs interactive games that enable employers to drive productivity in a creative and competitive way. These games enable workers to compete against each other at work.
Tom demo'd some of his solutions for me. By rewarding productivity with real-life rewards - anything from extra holidays to cash bonuses - his games increase motivation levels. Workers can view their performance on their PC, or on a big screen on the operational floor. They can even compete individually or as a team against co-workers across the globe. And it turns out that harnessing the basic human urge to win is very good news for productivity and profits.
From the instant Tom showed me his solutions, I knew they work. Because one summer I worked in a shirt factory. We did a 10 hour day with one half hour break for dinner. I was at the end of the factory line - ironing shirts before they were packaged for delivery. I had to iron a minimum of 80 shirts an hour to earn my basic wage.
Everyone had their minimum number of pockets to sew, sleeves to cut out, or collars to fit. And all we did all day long was mentally compute whether or not we'd done enough work to make a bonus. And if we had made our bonus, how much it was. And whether we'd earned more than the person sitting nearest you.
If only Tom's games had been around then! Providing workers with incentives makes them perform better. And providing learners with incentives makes them learn better.
It's long been known that a Hogwart's style 'house' system helps children in schools achieve more. In a house system, pupils belong to one of a number of houses, and these houses compete over the year to win points.
But we only have Performance League tables, pored over retrospectively by anxious parents and governors. These tables report on how pupils have performed - they don't actually help the pupils perform.
So is it about time that our Government perhaps invests in an Interactive Incentive solution for our schools? Perhaps a nationwide performance board that reflects who's doing what well, when and where?
Imagine a system where the houses in each school compete internally for points, then the highest performing house goes on to compete locally, then nationally. Couldn't this really motivate all types of learning performance - from sport and academia through to social action?
Incentives like education-related trips or scholarships could be awarded. Top houses could be profiled. And instead of an empty facebook-style chattering space, we could have an educational space that rewards, connects and motivates learners.
In schools, obesity levels are rapidly rising and teachers face pupils hostile to traditional competitive sports.
The solution? Dance Revolution!
According to the BBC, this computer dance programme has got teenage girls in Luton into the gym and working out.
I can't see how the actual idea is all that different from me following my yoga dvd at home, rather than in a guru-directed class, except that the pupils dance on individual mats, that score their performance.
Students can compete against each other, or simply work towards a personal best.
Now, wouldn't it be interesting if we could create a great big touch-sensitive gym floor, that enabled us to load a variety of exercise programmes into its system, rather than using a series of dance mats?
Or if we could create an interactive multi-angled camera system that films and interprets your 3D performance, rather than just your foot position?
Although, I'm not sure I really need the computer saying 'Michelle, you need to stretch 22% more into the Plough Pose to achieve maximum flexibility'.
I've recently had to attend some workshops on business skills. I learned best in the workshops where the facilitators were humourous. This made me curious about how I learn...so I've been reading more of my How the Brain Learns book (David Sousa). Here are a few laughter and learning facts:
- Laughing gets more oxygen into the bloodstream...oxygen is pure brain fuel.
- Laughing causes a surge in endorphins - these are the body's natural painkillers, and they give you a feeling of euphoria.
- Endorphins stimulate your brain's frontal lobes. This can lead to increased focus and attention span.
So laughing not only gives you a physical feel-good effect, it makes you feel better mentally.
Laughter also decreases stress, boosts your immune system and relaxes muscle tension.
I don't usually associate training or teaching with laughter. I'd say most people are the same. But I do know that my favourite teachers at school were the funny ones. Children like to laugh. School is boring. The funny teachers were popular.
I'm not an ideal training candidate. I'm not used to spending a day at a table, listening to other people's presentations. I get bored if the content is too familiar or badly presented...I need to get up and walk about, or sit on the floor, or 'get away' to focus myself...I need to eat something frequently - not just a biscuit with a coffee break - I mean I need chocolate and nuts and something to drink just about every hour...
So seeing how some trainers and presenters have managed to keep me engaged during all-day presentations has been interesting. And I've found that even if I can't get up and move around, eat or break away, I can still stay focussed if the trainers are funny.
Two trainers who made a great impact were a classic double act - Martin York and Peter Miller from G4H - a UK firm who specialise in sales and marketing execution.
Martin and Peter jokingly introduced themselves as Ant and Dec. Throughout their extremely well-polished workshop, they punctuated theory with insider anecdotes and humour.
I stayed engaged because I didn't want to miss the jokes or anecdotes, but the laughter meant the learning experience was powerful, positive and memorable. It also helped that their content was strong and concise.
And Aidan Harte of Optimum Results, Ireland was also good trainer. I'd a bad start to this workshop, having not had enough food and no nibbles with me. I then missed the mid-morning snack and ended up having to go until lunch without food...not good!
But Aidan's use of anecdotes and humour to underline points got us all laughing and bonding, contributing more stories and facts to the shared pool.
Laughter enhances Learning. Now where can I learn how to be funny?
I'm a book fiend. Ever since I was a child, I've been sneaking over to a strange bookcases, and quickly reading as much as possible of what interests me.
This can lead you to some fairly interesting discoveries. As I mostly buy my books from Amazon these days, I don't browse so much. I specifically purchase what I was recommended or intended to purchase. Online I don't go in with one book in mind and come out with three.
But still other people's bookshelves lead me to interesting new material. Having worked my way through all the things I wanted to read on my boyfriend's shelf, I was left last night with Fermat's Last Theorem, by Simon Singh.
I am not a maths fiend. I had avoided this book, which describes the solution of Fermat's Last Theorem, the World's Most Famous Mathematical Problem.
*snore*
But last night I wanted to read myself to sleep, so I figured the book would serve its purpose.
Except it kept me awake. 77 pages into the paperback and I had to force myself to put the book down and put the light off.
Apart from the fact the book is well written and explains maths in a way that even my father (a maths teacher) never did, it contains so much of the story of knowledge. It describes the building of the library at Alexandria, and its destruction. It describes scholars fleeing the flames clutching anything they could find. And it describes how these precious manuscripts and books were protected and persecuted throughout the following centuries.
What struck me most was the fact that the books stored knowledge. And normal people, whose brains can't contain all that knowledge, went to the libraries, to the books to access what they needed when they needed it.
The destruction and dissipation of the knowledge set the development of mathematics and other disciplines back by centuries.
Today so much useful information is stored across the world on servers. One rare book in a hallowed library in Trinity College Dublin can be scanned in and put online, where thousands of people can access it simultaneously. On a smaller scale, I have documents that I never print, that exist only on my laptop or Google documents space.
Microsoft is buying old bean fields in the US. They're not going to be planting seeds. They plan to build the huge data centres that will be needed to cope with our data storage and processing demands. Google operates scores of data centres, and is building more (read more at the Guardian).
As more and more information goes on line, and more and more information is just created and only exists online, it feels like we're creating the digital equivalent of the library of Alexandria. Something huge and precious, only this time it's accessible to millions across the globe, 24/7/365.
But this worries me. I don't really understand data storage. I once had my laptop and 3 year's of work fried in a matter of seconds. This taught me the value of back-up systems. But a back-up is just as vulnerable to corruption or destruction as the original.
Our access to information and the world's knowledge has never been so widespread. But what systems do we have in place to protect online knowledge? Can we expect to see modern-day barbarians - knowledge terrorists - attack the world's data centres in an attempt to destroy the information they disagree with? Have we strategies for data conservation and protection?
I suspect my 1GB memory stick isn't quite up to the job.
When I was growing up, I learned what I knew from these main sources:
- people teaching me things they knew (like how to tie your shoelaces, where to get the sweetest blackberries in Autumn - a limited number of books (purchased in bookstores, or borrowed from libraries) - TV (both educational and entertainment) - newspapers - school
I read a book a day as a child. I read anything I could get my hands on, mostly because the supply was so limited. And I learned what I could where I could.
But now the Internet gives us 24/7/365 access to almost any information in a bewildering array of formats. And Christian has asked said that the challenge is not now in getting information to people, but rather in making sure information is "being continuously accessed and kept alive in the minds of individuals...to create the conditions which sustain a dimension of human capital which results in the data being continually accessed and "embedded" in living humans."
I don't think that this is a new problem...we've had this problem for centuries. We've always had information...but have we always embedded it, shared it and used it?
And I feel this issue now compounded by new problems. Our digital information formats haven't been around long - we're still learning how best to use them. We have to figure out how to get people to read and understand our digital information. And once they've read it, how do we get them to remember it?
The way I work now, when I read any information, I make a decision about whether or not I need to store the fact. If it's something I know I can access on the Internet via mobile or my laptop, I often make a decision not to remember the information. If it's something I've read in a book, I often make digital notes so I can quickly access the information later on my trusty laptop, rather than trying to find the book. But this information is just data. It stays on my PC. I can come back and find it, but it doesn't feel like part of the knowledge I carry in my head.
However, some information is so amazing, so sticky, so exciting or so interesting it just embeds itself in my head. I don't get a choice. And this then becomes part of my knowledge.
I agree with Christian - Libraries or the Internet can contain infinite amounts of information. But it's how we use that information, the connections and deductions we make, that create knowledge. I guess data/information are like building blocks. But knowledge is what enables us draw up the architect's plans.
Recently I got to chat to Tom Harte of imcreative.co.uk. Tom is an Interactive Incentive and Performance Management solutions provider.
A what?
Tom designs interactive games that enable employers to drive productivity in a creative and competitive way. These games enable workers to compete against each other at work.
Tom demo'd some of his solutions for me. By rewarding productivity with real-life rewards - anything from extra holidays to cash bonuses - his games increase motivation levels. Workers can view their performance on their PC, or on a big screen on the operational floor. They can even compete individually or as a team against co-workers across the globe. And it turns out that harnessing the basic human urge to win is very good news for productivity and profits.
From the instant Tom showed me his solutions, I knew they work. Because one summer I worked in a shirt factory. We did a 10 hour day with one half hour break for dinner. I was at the end of the factory line - ironing shirts before they were packaged for delivery. I had to iron a minimum of 80 shirts an hour to earn my basic wage.
Everyone had their minimum number of pockets to sew, sleeves to cut out, or collars to fit. And all we did all day long was mentally compute whether or not we'd done enough work to make a bonus. And if we had made our bonus, how much it was. And whether we'd earned more than the person sitting nearest you.
If only Tom's games had been around then! Providing workers with incentives makes them perform better. And providing learners with incentives makes them learn better.
It's long been known that a Hogwart's style 'house' system helps children in schools achieve more. In a house system, pupils belong to one of a number of houses, and these houses compete over the year to win points.
But we only have Performance League tables, pored over retrospectively by anxious parents and governors. These tables report on how pupils have performed - they don't actually help the pupils perform.
So is it about time that our Government perhaps invests in an Interactive Incentive solution for our schools? Perhaps a nationwide performance board that reflects who's doing what well, when and where?
Imagine a system where the houses in each school compete internally for points, then the highest performing house goes on to compete locally, then nationally. Couldn't this really motivate all types of learning performance - from sport and academia through to social action?
Incentives like education-related trips or scholarships could be awarded. Top houses could be profiled. And instead of an empty facebook-style chattering space, we could have an educational space that rewards, connects and motivates learners.
In 2003 I read this BBC article on teaching children to write using computers, rather than pencils and paper. I haven't heard much about the practice since, but following a conversation with my mother (an ex-primary school teacher) on how myself and my brothers and sisters learned to read and write, I became interested in it again.
In Norway, 18 schools decided to teach children how to write just by using PCs. So instead of spending hours and hours being taught how to draw the 26 letters of the alphabet using one hand, the children are taught how to type using all ten fingers. This makes the act of writing a lot easier for children.
Arne Trageton, the associate professor in education at Stord/Haugesund College says he is not opposed to handwriting. But points out that in the 'real' world, hardly anyone writes by hand anymore. Yet in our schools small children are forced to handwrite at a time when it is a challenge to their developing motorskills.
Traditional hand-writing skills are taught in the Norwegian schools - but they are introduced at the age of 8, when the children pick the skill up much more quickly.
The director of the school district, Vidar Aarhus, describes the practice as 'learning by playing' and believes that the children become better writers because they avoid 'technical difficulties' of mastering the physical act of writing.
Handwriting still matters in today's school system. Despite the fact that most pupils will graduate into a world where the occasional scribbled post-it note is likely to be the most they will have to hand-write, they must take exams by hand. Research has shown that pupils with faster handwriting get better exam results. The researchers who discovered this have recommended that we teach handwriting throughout school. Why? Why not teach children the keyboard skills they're going to need - the skills that will give them an advantage in the 'real' world? And why not let them take exams by PC?
But back to Writing without Pencils. I really like the idea that children can spend time becoming creators at an early age, rather than consumers. And instead of making small children sweat over recreating a legible 'q', you can free them to explore creating words and sentences, to expressing themselves.
Has anyone experienced this method of teaching a child to write?
I've been taking a bit of time out to get my place in Belfast redecorated and as near to finished as I'll be able to do, so I've not been focusing on my e-learning work. But I have been thinking about some discussions I've read on the left-brain, right-brain theory. It started with Donald Clarke's reaction to Clive Shepherd's Neuromyths post.
I only know the basics of how the brain works, although I've bought some books and bookmarked some sites so I can read up on the subject when my DIY torture is over. My interest in how the brain learns isn't just academic or professional. In my early 20s I acquired a brain injury. The first thing I was told about my brain injury is that brain damage is permanent. That what has been destroyed will never come back. That I might be able to 'compensate' for my losses, but I would never get anything 'back'.
This is a frightening situation to be in when you can't remember your second name, what you did five minutes previously, or how to finish the sentence you have started. When you don't know how to tie your shoelaces, how to make a cup of tea or even feed yourself. I didn't know the names of objects like a cooker, fridge or chair. At 23 I was bedbound, feeling like a toddler with a whole world of learning in front of me. Except my brain wasn't the information-hungry tabula rasa of a child. It was full of holes. Damaged.
Recovery has taken years. And in the event I feel I have learned a lot about how I learn, how I retain information and how you it's possible not just to 'compensate' for brain damage, but how you can overcome it.
One of the things i feel very strongly is that my brain has two very different basic modes, which may be labelled as 'left' and 'right', but would probably be more usefully described for me as 'verbal' and 'non-verbal'.
After my brain injury I had difficulty in perceiving depth. I would walk into a shop or down a street, and if I was unfamiliar with the space, I could not see any depth - it was as if a poster was in front of my nose, and I could not tell what was 2D or 3D. Every step felt like a step into an abyss. I overcame this simply by forcing myself to enter spaces and making my brain work. A lot of early recovery felt like this. Brute force. Making my brain work but not understanding how it was working.
Prior to the injury I was a very good portrait artist. Afterwards my depth-perception problem meant I could copy from a 2-D picture, but really struggled with drawing from life. After several frustrating years of trying to recapture my drawing skills, I found a book called 'Drawing on the Right-Hand side of the Brain'.
This book is full of the cheap pop-psychology of left-hand, right-hand brain...but the book works. It will teach you how to switch your brain into the non-verbal mode that best helps you draw. It taught me how to switch consciously into the mode best suited for the activity I was doing. It also taught me how to draw again, a skill I thought I'd lost forever.
Learning to drive was one of the last big achievements I've made since my illness. I've posted earlier about how I found this a difficult process, as it felt to me like a 'right' brain activity - non-verbal, but I felt my brain to be in constant conflict as I was being taught how to drive verbally. Since getting my licence my driving has improved leaps and bounds, because when I'm in the car, my learning is not interrupted by having to talk or listen. I simply drive and absorb what I'm doing without words. This mode is non-verbal or 'right-brain'.
The brain is an incredibly complex organ - we can't pretend to understand much more than the basics. And as humans, we like simplifications. What could be nicer than pretending that this mysterious mass of nerves and neurons can be divided into two parts and easily understood? After all, don't we have men and women, darkness and light, rain and sun?
Left-brain, right-brain isn't correct. The advances in neurology we're currently seeing will of course reveal to us a much more complex picture - after all, it wasn't so long ago that we were taught that we only use 10% of our brains.
But for me, I found that the simplification of left-brain, right-brain helped me recover from my brain injury. It has helped me immeasurably since. Of course it doesn't help any learner to apply a strict theory to how they should learn - an intuitive approach is best.
When I was a wee thing, I was lucky enough to have a father who was both a maths teacher and a gadget lover. He liked any new technology, which is why we had a radio/cassette/mini tv player at a time when we couldn't afford a new roof for the house.
It's also how we got a BBC Micro computer when I was just a tot. These were great educational machines, and we spent hours in front of it. I remember learning about grids in a game that we called 'Find the Rhino', which consisted of an 8x8 grid, somewhere in which a rhino was hiding. We all took turns in keying in a co-ordinate, and eventually someone would find the rhino, which would flash up large and green on the 2-colour screen. We LOVED our BBC micro, and used to spend hours coding and debugging games for it.
But all that was just fun...the first learning experience I remember identifying as a formal learning experience was trying out a demo copy of Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing. The demo only taught one row of the keyboard - asdfghjkl; - but we were hooked. Why did it work so well? It was simple, repetitive and visual. The programme had the feel of an arcade game, so the six of us would sit around and compete at who was fastest and most accurate at typing.
When I went to secondary school I had to take typing classes. How did we learn? On manual typewriters. The teacher had a book from which she'd shout out the letters we were to type. We had a keyboard diagram stuck on the blackboard. Everyone was stuck at the same pace. And it took years for us to learn what we'd learned at home in just hours.
I was frustrated then. I felt slowed down and held up. I wonder how today's students - with access to a huge range of online learning materials - feel? Perhaps like the student who explained that 'Whenever I go into class, I have to power down'.
In this digital age, will home schooling become the choice of education for tech-savvy, informed parents?
Did you know that when you sit down for more than 20 minutes your blood pools in your behind and feet?
If you get up and move around your blood recirculates, and inside a minute, your brain gets a hit of about 15% more blood. This helps you think.
So to learn better, we should get out of the seat and onto our feet...which is not necessarily good news for e-learning, which often requires physical inactivity in front of a PC.
I haven't seen any e-learning that incorporates physical movement into the learning experience (send me links if you know of anything!), but it's something I'd love to try out...particularly using mobile technologies.
If it makes financial sense, it'll be adopted in the business world...which is why more and more employers are mobilising their workforce. Mobile phones, smart phones, PDAs, Blackberrys and other devices are changing the way in which we work, communicate and learn. And businesses everywhere are interested the knock-on effects of a mobilised workforce: more effective working hours and greater team efficiency.
- Blackberry users produce an extra 56 minutes of effective work a day (that's an extra 196 working hours a year) - work teams with mobile communications found themselves to be 29% more effective
So what about use of mobile phones in education? Well, not all educationalists view mobile phones as a great learning opportunity, with mobile phones being lambasted as Offensive Weapons that should be banned from the classroom.
But there are some interesting things happening. In the ALPS project, 900 students in the north of England are using T-Mobile MDA Varios for mobile learning and assessments during work placements. Using T-Mobile’s Web’n’walk service, students can access learning resources from a central virtual learning repository and blog their work experience as part of their assessment. And this project will roll out to 9,000 students in the next three years.
I've been crawling through different language-learning websites on the Internet. It was a pretty samey experience...I'd click on a link that promises to teach me a language online, get delivered to a site that would let me download a few pdfs, half-hearted podcasts, but really just wanted me to buy their book (first authored in the 80s, but Newly Updated!) with accompanying audio CD-ROM. If I was really lucky, I'd get a website offering me the chance to purchase an interactive language learning programme...which would be posted to me on CD-ROM.
The global market for language-learning products and services is estimated to be in excess of $100 billion. So with web 2.0 in overdrive all around, I was beginning to wonder just what's the story with language learning?
But then I found Ken Carroll's ChinesePod. Sigh :)
Don't get me wrong, this educational offering isn't perfect, but they're head and shoulders against the other language-learning sites I've been on.
ChinesePod starts by offering a free podcast every day. And thanks to their buy-in to the Creative Commons licence, you can download the podcast, cut it up, play with it, share it, and even republish it (apparently a French guy has been going through some podcasts replacing the English instructions with French). As long as you credit ChinesePod, they're happy for you to play with their content. A very good start.
But ChinesePod isn't just podcasts. It's split into three environments: 'explore', 'study' and 'connect'. In explore you can check out over 500 lessons at 6 different levels. Topics include 'I've lost my keys' and 'closing a meeting'. You can assess your level of learning with a free listening test, or you can arrange to speak with a real live teacher who will perform a needs analysis. You can pick and choose your own lessons, add them to a calendar and get them delivered by rss to your PC.
When you're ready to study, you can print transcripts or view them on your mp3 player. And online you can get consolidation with interactive lessons and games.
The connect section makes use of social networking principles to provide learners with a well-designed space in which they can ask and answer questions and connect with other learners with the same interests or in the same geographical location.
So what's the revenue model? There are no ads. So once you've exhausted the free content, or when you fancy a bit more, you can subscribe. $9 a month gets you access to PDF transcripts and other bits and bobs. $30 gets you an additional range of guides, exercises, games and tests. And if you fancy the human touch and you've cash to burn, for $200 you can get a needs analysis, a personalised study plan and someone to practise with for 10 minutes every single day of the week.
So it's all good, right? Well I think it's mostly good, if not fantastic. But I've not explored ChinesePod in depth. I have no interest in learning Chinese, but I will be checking out Spanish Sense, Ken Carroll's new baby.
So without having tried hard to learn I'm not the right person to make an informed critique...but I will admit that I have shades of doubt over the instructional design of the content. This is not to say that the ChinesePod team aren't paying their fullest attention to this matter. I think there's room for improvement in how the learning is presented and structured. But ChinesePod seem keen to explore and improve not just the web 2.0 technologies that drive this site but also their learning content.
As a language-learning model, ChinesePod is so different to the rest, I'm delighted and amazed they've got so much right in such a short space of time...just six months after setting up they had 20,000 people subscribing to their free podcasts...and 3,000 people had subscribed to receive a fuller service. But a year ago, interest in ChinesePod exploded...and they had notched up more than 10,000,000 lesson downloads.
ChinesePod and Spanish Sense now have a mobile site which enables language-learning on the go. Oh for the new iPhone...
I just came across this well-received post and presentation by Leisa Reichelt, who is a User Experience Consultant (someone who creates customer experiences that are both pleasurable and effective).
She's an advocate of a non-linear, user-centred approach to design and build of anything from a retail space or a phone call, to a website.
She's posted a presentation which explains the pros of the washing machine approach (an iterative design process) versus the cons of a traditional 'waterfall' approach (used often in advertising, broadcasting, and much corporate e-learning solutions) where the design and build cycle follow a strict and linear process of
SCOPE DESIGN BUILD TEST
Although I'm not convinced by the washing machine metaphor*, the presentation is worth a watch for an compare/contrast between the two design styles.
*in my experience, you open a washing machine, put stuff in, click on and leave it until it's finished...not much scope for opening it halfway and adding another pair of jeans or switching cycles...
I've been thinking about how an immersive 3D environment could help language learning. I've worked on a project where we created an entire house and garden as an environment for learning Irish. The learner could click and explore all the objects in the house, and clicking certain objects opened up language learning games or activities.
This worked well for the average learner - they could see an object, click to hear how to pronounce the name of the object, and also see a text label.
But we decided what went in the house, what was placed where, what the learner had to learn.
What I'd love to experiment with is a 3D environment that has nothing in it. Just a big white space that the learner enters with an avatar.
The idea is that as the learner learns words, the objects appear in the 3D world. So if they learn the colours of the rainbow, a rainbow appears in the empty space. If they learn the words for sky and grass and trees, these appear. As the learner progresses in the language, the world fills out. The learner makes the world. If they discover how to say 'I have a blue dog and five friendly sisters' then a blue dog and five friendly sisters appear in the world.
And learners could connect with each other via text chat or audio...populating their world with real conversations.
But learning a language isn't just about learning a word and ticking a box. It's also about retention...so in this 3D world, objects could begin to fade if the learner doesn't use the vocabulary...every time they log in they could be presented with a list of endangered objects that they must 'save'.
Right. Who's got a few million in development funding for me?
So Chris Keates, general secretary of teaching union NASUWT wants mobile phones banned from school premises because they're being used as 'offensive weapons'.
Now I understand that mobile phones can be used by students in the classroom for all the wrong reasons - for student and teacher bullying, for covert recordings of teacher performance (which can subsequently be shared on sites like bebo or youtube), for distraction, for cheating, or just for entertaining students bored out of their skulls.
And I do understand that today's hugely pressured teachers can do without the potential for harrassment, ridicule or attack that mobile phones can present. But to classify mobiles as 'offensive weapons' that should be banned from the classroom is just plain wrong.
When I was at school, pupils used pen and paper or chalk and a blackboard to effectively humiliate, bully or ridicule both staff and pupils. Nobody suggested banning these 'offensive weapons'.
Instead of demonising the mobile technologies that are changing the way today's pupils interact with the world they will have to work in, we should be exploring how mobile phones offer teachers and educationalists a fantastic way to connect with pupils. To deliver, create and receive content. To engage and challenge pupils.
Mobile phones are not potential weapons of mass destruction. Used wisely and used creatively, they are potential tools of mass education.
I'm reading How the Brain Learns by David Sousa. It's an introduction to what parts of the brain are used for what function, and is written specifically for teachers and trainers.
At the moment I'm particularly interested in language learning. According to David, a newborn baby's brain is not a blank slate. Certain areas are specialised for specific stimuli, including spoken language.
And apparently the window for acquiring spoken language opens soon after birth (although I suspect it happens even earlier - in the womb). The ability to acquire spoken language tapers off around the ages of 10-12 years. Beyond that age, learning any language becomes more difficult.
In the UK, educators tend to provide language learning only at the age where the ability to learn is decreasing.
In the Republic of Ireland, Irish-language learning is provided from the first years of school, and has been since the earliest years of the Republic's inception. Yet the Irish language has been in steady decline.
So not only must we introduce language learning early so we can take advantage of the developing brain, we really need to analyse what kind of language learning works.
David points out that the genetic impulse to learn language is so strong that children found in feral environments often make up their own language. Children's brains are wired for learning quickly and effectively. As teachers and educators, we need to learn how to best deliver the information they need, when they're most receptive.
I said yesterday in my Liquid e-Learning: Laptops and Mobile Phones as Thinking Prosthetics post that I know how the American college student who carries his laptop around everywhere feels. I sometimes feel like Google is my second brain. I frequently don't make any attempt to memorise facts as I know I can access them when I need them - why waste my brain space?
On a personal level though, Google sometimes scares me. In the olden days (The Dial-up Connection Era) if I needed to know something (like A Good Pancake Recipe or How Do I Clean my Leather Jacket?) I'd ring my mother. And I would always get great advice (it helped that I knew not to ring her for advice on Cheap and Effective Cocktail Recipes or Useful Lies for Uncomfortable Situations).
But along with the great advice I might also have to get other information - my mother's equivalent of Google Ads. So I'd move along from How To Clean my Leather Jacket to hearing about Your Man up the road who had his leather jacket destroyed that time he was hit by lightning, and from there onto Josey Meehan's cows that Got Loose and went running into...you get the picture.
Google ads are elective information - I can choose whether or not to explore them. And more often than not, I don't have time to check them out.
My mother's information always comes with context, and often with years or generations of experience. And when I make the time to connect with this source of information, it really makes me appreciate the fact that information has always been hard won. That it's taken generations to get things right. That things that make a big difference to me could have so easily been lost. Will there be a whole generation growing up now who will not appreciate the effort behind the information? Who won't have time to listen to the context behind the facts?
An American college student was asked why he lugs his laptop around everywhere with him in a rucksack, instead of just logging into college PC for a few hours. He answered
"It's part of my brain. Why would I want to leave it behind in a computer lab?"
I understand where this student is coming from. If I have to function without my laptop or mobile phone I don't feel like I'm missing a limb. I feel like I'm missing my second brain.
Check out Donald Philip's article The Knowledge Building Paradigm: A Model of Learning for Net Generation Students. The article is worth a read despite the uncatchy title and the hassle of registration for access. You'll find out more about how technology is not just a desirable addition to the educational experience, but is essential - providing us with thinking prosthetics or mind tools.
The article explores the idea that schools must move from the industrial model of classrooms (which also reflects the traditional broadcast media) to a more interactive, elective model of learning.
Find out how learners are moving from linear to 'hypermedia' learning. How we're moving from 'instruction' to construction and discovery. From just learning material by rote to learning how to discover and filter information. Discover how teachers will have to evolve from being transmitters to facilitators (an analogy that should guide those broadcasters with an educational remit...).
VideoJug's tagline is 'Life Explained. On Film.' No small claims for this beta website then. But VideoJug do cover some of the basics, even if they don't quite constitute the "definitive online encyclopedia of life".
They've produced a jug-full of professionally-produced, high definition video content, covering everything from leisure, beauty, and style right through to health, money, and my favourite - DIY. It's kind-of a youtube for 'How do I do this thing?'
The videos are a mix of informative "How To" and "Ask The Expert" clips that take users through what VideoJug's experts think they need to know, step-by-step. I've been through quite a few of them...from the 'How to Ace a Job Interview' and 'Epilepsy Basics' through to 'How to Get a Last-minute Date for Valentine's Day'. Some of the content is good, informative and simple. It is always basic. Text captions reinforce important points. The experts range from the energised career empowerment lady to the Ross-From-Friends clone who talks about epilepsy. And himself.
But all this content is free (apart from the Google ads sprinkled around the place, of course). And there is user-generated content as well - but VideoJug are quick to say that all UGC is carefully screened and accepted. I didn't manage to find any UGC apart from some obscure DIY practices.
Anyway. VideoJug. Free online video learning on a scale we didn't imagine 5 years ago, with our narrowband restrictions and libraries locked up tight in LMSs...so get in there and have a nosey.
The BBC have launched a new project utilising Microsoft's Photosynth technology. They aim to create 3D representations of some Britain's most interesting buildings by combining hundreds of different photographs. Most of the featured buildings have been filmed for a new BBC series 'How we Built Britain', which explores Britain's past through its buildings.
Microsoft describe the venture as being an 'exciting 'research and development' project', which is an interesting definition of a new nation-wide online project.
I'm interested in this project as it contravenes what I know of several BBC technical guidelines - not least the use of Flickr. And the relative speed at which the BBC has moved to utilise the Photosynth technology is impressive. A sign of things to come?
I've just watched this video from the TED talks (after reading Donald Clark's post). It's Microsoft's Blaise Aguera y Arcas explaining a fantastic new technology - Photosynth, which is described as 'a monumental piece of software capable of assembling static photos into a synergy of zoomable, navigatable spaces'.
Watch it. You must. It's amazing! (and yes it's Microsoft. And Blaise is described as an 'acquisition').
But think about the implications of such an amazing technology...OK...it's so cool that we can create a virtual Notre Dame cathedral just from the knowledge scraped from Flickr photos...but it does make me wonder what sort of creations it might make of me...let's say if someone scraped all known digital photographs of me, taken at every wedding, leaving do, birthday party and reunion from the 21st century, I'd say a fairly interesting but utterly unrepresentative portrait might emerge. I guess buildings don't tend to wobble, no matter how much red wine they contain...
Interesting thing I'd like to see...a photo portrait of a famous dead person, scraped from every public photo ever taken...let's see Kurt Cobain, Marilyn Monroe and Princess Diana please.
But all this is 2D and 3D interpretations of our seen world. If we can snap it digitally, it seems we can make it cool, sexy, interesting.
So what happens all our world's invisible stuff? Our emotions? How we think? The ways we learn? How we speak, communicate? Watch the video. You'll get a brief glimpse of Bleak House as a novel laid out in columns of data...we can zoom right into the tiny pixels of the print. It made me think...
What I'd love to see a language montage...a way of identifying words according to how, when and where they're used. A way of charting the emotion, the usage, the power of language. A way of zooming into the 'pixels' of meaning and nuance.
I guess though that a language montage is particular to each person. We don't use the same words or phrases to express the same things.
This links (tenuously I know) into an idea I had about recording a language learner's conversations for a week or month or so, and analysing the results to provide the learner with the language they need and use.
When I was playing around in Scratch yesterday, I couldn't help but think (again) that it's possible to develop a visual approach to learning a second language. When working on BBC Jam Irish, I developed a visual sentence builder to help a learner build he/she/me/they sentences that involved like/love/hate and an object (pizza/school/hairy caterpillar). Using lego people and objects (what else?) the learner could select any subject, object and emotion and then generate a text and audio sentence.
But this was a Flash-based game with a limited number of objects and possible sentences. What would be really interesting is taking a language and categorising its components much like Scratch has done, so that a learner can snap together blocks of language to create sentences that are visually rendered. If I've created a sentence that says I am riding a bike in the rain, then a visual animation of me, riding a bike in the rain, is played out.
A site called lingualgamers.com briefly touches upon the idea of language learning using blocks in this article, having taken inspiration from MIT's StarLogo TNG - another visual programming application.
I've another, stranger idea for visual language learning that's currently bubbling away in my head...I'll try and get around to it next week.
Need to introduce kids to concept of programming? Then check out MIT's Scratch - a free programming tool that doesn't require users to have any knowledge of code.
Instead Scratch uses a simple graphical interface which enables users to create programs by assembling them - much like Lego blocks.
Users can select objects and characters from the scratch menu, or create their own in a paint program or even cut and paste items from the web. Movement is added by snapping "action" blocks into stacks.
Scratch is currently being used by kids to create animated stories, interactive art and video games. You can check out MIT's introduction to Scratch here:
I have to say, Scratch reminds me of Douglas Coupland's novel Microserfs, where the characters are developing OOP! - what appears to be a software version of Lego. Lego is often discussed, and the characters sometimes try to analyse the influence of Lego on their coding skills...
"When I was young, if I built a house out of Lego, the house had to be all in one color. I used to play Lego with Ian Ball who lived up the street, back in Bellingham. He used to make his house out of whatever color brick he happened to grab. Can you imagine the sort of code someone like that would write?"
So universities are moving into Second Life. Up to 15 UK universities are known to have purchased land there. Why?
There are advantages to studying in a virtual world. For one, interaction in Second Life gets beyond the stale and limited 'communication technologies' of chat rooms, message boards and texts. Which is why Harvard has set up a Second Life courtroom where law students can practice their advocacy skills.
And you get to look how you want - because when you create your Second Life avatar, you can choose your gender, age, race and shape. Handicaps in real life - whether real or imagined - do not show on Second Life. It's your mind that matters.
Physical space doesn't matter - you can visit anywhere anytime. You can build 3-d structures to explore architectural or engineering features. And if you're interested in a niche subject that has limited face-to-face learning opportunities, you can connect online with other learners scattered across the First Life globe.
Lecturers like the fact they can actually 'see' who's involved in the learning, and who's snoozing at the back of the class (although the idea of recreating the not awfully successful lecturing model in Second Life wouldn't be the first learning model I'd choose).
Of course it's not all straightfoward - there are the usual technological constraints at the moment (you'll have get yourself some powerful computer kit and a whole lot of bandwidth).
Under current thinking, it's probable that universities will create their own worlds, where learning can happen under their control (just what are the copyright laws in Second Life?). And I think that this will negate one of the most important aspects of Second Life - sheer scale of people from all across the world sharing one space.
And of course we have to wonder will we end up with a group of Second Lifers whose social skills in the virtual world are impeccable, but who can't remember how to shake someone's hand in real life?
I'm reading Mark Hughes' Buzzmarketing right now. He's the guy who took the number of Half.com users from zero to eight million in just three years, without a huge marketing budget. The secret? Make your company a magnet for media attention and word of mouth, by any means necessary.
I began reading the book out of interest - how do people create massively successful websites? How do producers generate the 'buzz' that gets people talking about their content or product?
Then I started wondering how we can create e-learning with buzz.
Education isn't a field that's expert at marketing. Based on our Industrial model of education, students have to go to school. It's the law. We don't bother 'selling' the idea of school or education to them - we force them to do it. Kids spend an average of 7 hours a day in the classroom, 'learning'.
So what do they talk about in the playground or at home? What's got them buzzing? Strangely enough, it's not the curriculum. It's new music. New games. New technologies. New news. The things they're finding out for themselves in their own time. They're teaching each other how to do stuff. They're trying new things out. They're deciding what's got buzz, and what doesn't.
Ok. So subjects like Irish language or Victorian history just aren't as sexy as Paris Hilton's Jail Saga. But it's not just the content that keeps learning from being as buzzworthy as possible - it's also how it's presented.
In a traditional online learning experience, the learner is asked to log-in. They're either given a linear path to follow through set content, or they can select which modules of content they want to learn. The learning experience can range from the passive consumption of text, graphics, audio and video to truly interactive games that surprise and engage.
At the end, achievement is usually scored, and the learner congratulated. Some websites even personalise a little certificate you can print out and stick up on your fridge.
No-one's buzzing...because not only is there no opportunity to share knowledge or achievement in the ways they share informal knowledge or achievement, the stuff they're studying isn't what they see as relevant to their lives.
We all need to show off a bit. To explore or make things. Try things out and comment. Sure we have learning supported message boards and chatrooms, but I've not seen an e-learning shared space buzz the way youtube does. And we're not giving learners the choice of exploring what they want to learn, when they want to learn it.
