Here is the second part of the interview series I did with Jon Aleckson. We dig into the pieces of simulation models and how to rethink interviewing subject matter experts. The second part of this interview gets to one of my favorite topics, that of the invisible systems that connect actions and results. Enjoy!
The Change In The Eight C's of Formal Learning: (Content * Curricula * Coaching * Certification * Community * Calling * day Care) / Cost
One could argue that at the end of this Age of Linear Content (roughly spanning from Gutenberg to Google), the value of traditional content has plummeted. Almost anything, in theory, I could learn at Brown University (or more specifically, on which I could be tested at Brown), I could "pick up" on my own, probably on the web or maybe a book.
On almost any subject, the collection of videos, podcasts, and blogs provide access to a wealth of content richer than the content in any single formal learning experience. And that trend will only continue. So as the value of linear content declines, where does that leave schools and other formal learning programs?
Of course, content is only one part of the value proposition of formal learning programs. The full equation looks something like: (Content * Curricula * Coaching * Certification * Community * Calling *day Care) / Cost, where:
- Content: The material supporting any learning objective.
- Curricula: How the content is chosen, validated, organized, and presented.
- Coaching: The individual attention helping each student overcome their individual weaknesses, answer specific questions, and leverage their individual strengths, as well as provide motivation.
- Certification: Proof and documentation that a level of competency has been reached (which also provides motivation).
- Community: A group of peers that both make learning more effective and engaging.
- Calling: The vision and mission of the learning organization; what it aspires to be, and on what the smartest people of the organization are working.
- day Care: The ability to house students for a specific time.
- Cost: The amount of resources, including student time, a program requires.
Today, in the short run, schools will have to either lower their own costs dramatically or increase the value of the other components to maintain the same value proposition. But that is only a short term step, as more services such as social networking sites eat away at other C's.
In the long run, schools will have to re-invent content. Schools will have to stop their addiction to linear "learning to know" content, and think more of "learning to do." This dynamic content is not only more powerful and relevant, but it also requires and benefits from the other C's more than linear.
Interview (Part 1) with Clark Aldrich, author of Complete Guide to Simulations and Serious Games
Here is the first of a series of podcast interviews I am doing with Jon Aleckson. Highlighted Jon from the interview:
I was intrigued with Clark’s views on how the book could help build communication loops and collaboration between game sponsors, subject matter experts, and designers/ developers. As Clark notes, his new book should provide a basis for “common ground.”
Given how much of my life I spend writing prose, design documents, and code, to be able to talk about my favorite topic is quite a treat. I hope, if you listen to it, you enjoy it as well.
10 Weeks to The Complete Guide to Simulations and Serious Games
It is now officially ten weeks until Amazon will have The Complete Guide available. I am, to put it mildly, excited. This book is my magnum opus, the capstone of all of my thinking, and the intellectual product of which I am the most proud.
My other books, including Simulations and the Future of Learning to Learning By Doing, nipped around the edges of this transformation that simulations and serious games represents. Now The Complete Guide finally gets to the heart of this topic. It hits everything, from the big ideas to the comprehensive cataloging of the mechanics.
These ideas are the DNA to change how we all record and develop wisdom through media. It contains the path to change schools, research, libraries, and so, civilization. Anyone who delves into this book will not be able to look at any other media, from books to computer games to research reports to movies, the same way again.
So thank you for your continued comments and support. And please forgive my own unbridled exuberance! Having said that, if you are interested in education, including making much more effective programs now and its long range evolution and manifest destiny, you are going to love this too. And it will be something that you may find useful to share with your community, be it co-workers, students, fellow teachers and professors, sponsors, customers, deans, commanding officers, headmasters, and/or investors.
Here are some comments so far:
“Yes, this is an encyclopedic overview of the simulations and serious gaming world, but it’s far more important than a ‘how-to’ book. Aldrich is signaling the end of the age of Gutenberg. Aldrich takes direct aim at why the K-12 and higher education system are failing—myopically trapped in a nineteenth-century world of ‘learning to know’ in a twenty-first century world that requires the judgment and skills of ‘learning to do.’ Aldrich’s revolution transforms the way we learn.”—Jeff Sandefer, founder, the Acton School of Business
“Clark Aldrich provides his clear vision of how ‘learning to do’ will liberate us from our industrial education legacy that has for too long been shaped by outdated, linear, passive instruction.”—Don Williams, manager, global learning research, Microsoft Corporation
“This exhaustive guide to computer gaming and simulation points the way to a new, more powerful way of learning by doing. It is a must-read—a must-read and study—for those involved in education.”—Bill Kovach, former Washington bureau chief of the New York Times, and former editor of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution
"It manages to blend deep insights, entertainment, light-hearted humor, and literary virtuosity." - Dr. Michael Allen, Michael Allen's Guide to E-Learning
Is fifteen minutes the new hour of corporate training?
It used to be that formal learning programs in a corporate environment could be a week long. People would pack up and spend an intensive five days in a dedicated facility and immerse themselves in a new skill set.
Then the tolerance by employees and middle managers for a formal learning program shifted to two days. Then one day. Then half a day. Then one hour. Now it is probably about fifteen minutes.
This has a bunch of implications. Courses have to be immediately available whenever the student wants a break. Students can't be bogged down with passwords and long loading times. This signing in and hunting for courses as a percent of an hour course was acceptable but of fifteen minutes is not.
Then, because there still has to be an intellectual pay-off for engaging a program, so the content also has to be rich. Very rich. We have to, as designers, deliver more content in fifteen minutes than could be delivered in a four hours by instructional designers twenty years ago. We have to use motion capture, rich interaction, interesting systems, dense feedback (all techniques covered in this blog, in fact). The production values of courses have to be very high.
We as designers also have to get smarter about linking these fifteen minute windows together. We have to think more about seamless chapters and prerequisites. One fifteen-minute easy course could lead to three fifteen-minute intermediate courses.
If we do this right (and denser content and better linking are just two example), this approach has a lot of advantages over the old model.
First, learning truly becomes integrated into life. I can take a mini-sim on negotiating, and then pick up the phone and actually practice the skills the moment the course is over, rather than returning to my office after two days away. Over time, designers will think more about creating an immediate payoff, using first person, action centric content.
Second, students can actually look forward to formal learning content as breaks from their work. A bouncy, engaging sim that requires both mind and actions can easily be a valued change of pace after an hour of filling out expense reports.
Third, through the intelligent use of linking, students could, over weeks and months, acquire a huge amount of productivity enriching content. Without realizing it, students could cover the equivalent of an MBA, but more flexibly and in a way that is more relevant to their work-life. Meanwhile the decay of learning inherent in the old model of big events could be replaced by a gradual increase in knowledge honed against real-life.
Shorter attention spans present a huge challenge to traditional training models. But they may just be the context for evolving the next great model of formal learning.