RavingLEARNatics

Your world, your learning responsibility

"We’re entering a world that increasingly rewards individual aspiration and persistence and can measure precisely who is contributing and who is not."  -- Thomas Friedman, NYT columnist, It’s a 401(k) World.

The Learning Democracy taught us that due to a work environment and workforce that are both changing dramatically, learners want/need more responsibility and control over their learning. We want autonomy and personalization too. Let us decide when, where and how.

Shifting responsibility . . .
This changing world means, according to Friedman, "Government will do less for you. Companies will do less for you. Unions can do less for you. There will be fewer limits, but also fewer guarantees. Your specific contribution will define your specific benefits much more. Just showing up will not cut it." He continues . . . "If you are self-motivated, wow, this world is tailored for you. The boundaries are all gone. But if you’re not self-motivated, this world will be a challenge because the walls, ceilings and floors that protected people are also disappearing."

Accepting responsibility for the education you need to succeed and being self-motivated to shape, consume and apply the learning is more critical now than ever. We must ask ourselves probing questions like this one from Byron Auguste, a director at McKinsey and one of the founders of Hope Street Group "how do I build my own competencies to be attractive to employers and flourish in this world?” If we don't, we fall behind, we fall through the cracks.

So the learning responsibility shifts to learner, but companies have a responsibility too. Leadership must inspire "individuals to act on their own" according to Friedman, and companies/employers must do a better job of identifying and articulating the competencies that best enable their employees to achieve success. As Friedman says in his column,“for students and workers to take advantage of the opportunities open to them in a ‘defined contribution’ world, they will need much better information to inform their decisions. Right now it’s much easier to evaluate a choice about buying a car or picking a mutual fund” than to find the competencies employers are looking for and the best cost-effective way to obtain them." 

 

 

 

 

The capacity to innovate

The article Need a Job? Invent It by Thomas Friedman is fantastic, very Learning Democracy relevant and a must read. Some excerpts . . . 

“because knowledge is available on every Internet-connected device, what you know matters far less than what you can do with what you know. The capacity to innovate — the ability to solve problems creatively or bring new possibilities to life — and skills like critical thinking, communication and collaboration are far more important than academic knowledge. As one executive told me, ‘We can teach new hires the content, and we will have to because it continues to change, but we can’t teach them how to think — to ask the right questions — and to take initiative.’ ”

“We teach and test things most students have no interest in and will never need, and facts that they can Google and will forget as soon as the test is over, . . .”

“Every young person will continue to need basic knowledge, of course,” he said. “But they will need skills and motivation even more. Of these three education goals, motivation is the most critical. Young people who are intrinsically motivated — curious, persistent, and willing to take risks — will learn new knowledge and skills continuously. They will be able to find new opportunities or create their own — a disposition that will be increasingly important as many traditional careers disappear.”

“Finland is one of the most innovative economies in the world,” he said, “and it is the only country where students leave high school ‘innovation-ready.’  They learn concepts and creativity more than facts, and have a choice of many electives — all with a shorter school day, little homework, and almost no testing. 

Google - Rapid learning

What makes a workplace innovative? That's a question that NPR's All Tech Considered asked. This is something that companies like Google and Facebook have spent a lot of time studying. According to Fortune magazine, Google attracts some of the best minds, is ranked by as the best place to work in the country, and earns close to $1 million in revenue for each person it employs. Google uses a data-driven approach to manage its workplace and so does Facebook. According to John Sullivan, a management professor at San Francisco State University and workplace consultant "Google and Facebook are metrics machines. So if you ask them what's the average time for a promotion, what's the percentage of women being promoted, they have it to a dime."

Sullivan lists three factors to that set innovative companies apart:

1. Rapid learning - not structured classroom but self learning by casual interaction. 
2. Collaborations 
3. Fun 

"Most people just don't get that," Sullivan says. Below is the NPR piece . . . 

 

 

MOOCs

Below is a link to a great column by Thomas Friedman on massive open online courses (MOOCs) and how they are changing education . . .

"Institutions of higher learning must move, as the historian Walter Russell Mead puts it, from a model of “time served” to a model of “stuff learned.” Because increasingly the world does not care what you know. Everything is on Google. The world only cares, and will only pay for, what you can do with what you know."

"Therefore, we have to get beyond the current system of information and delivery — the professorial “sage on the stage” and students taking notes, followed by a superficial assessment, to one in which students are asked and empowered to master more basic material online at their own pace, and the classroom becomes a place where the application of that knowledge can be honed through lab experiments and discussions with the professor." 

Check it out at http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/06/opinion/friedman-the-professors-big-stage.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&_r=0

 

Are you making a pitch or starting a conversation?

Below is a great 4 minute synopsis of of one chapter - titled "Pitch" from Dan Pink's latest book, To Sell is Human. As Dan says, rather than tossing a sales pitch, you now must say "here is an intriguing invitation to have a conversation."

The 6 pitches are:

1. Pixar - the story pitch
2. Email subject line
3. Rhyme
4. Questions
5. Twitter
6. One-word pitch

 

fun + fast = How to tie a bow tie

Here is a funny, brief video lesson on how to tie a bow tie, with of course a bigger message. The instructor is Jesse tyler Ferguson from Modern Family. How many times have you seen content like this turned into a 20 minute lesson? For so many topics fun + fast is a great formula. 

 

 

12 Cognitive Processes of Learning

I've followed Roger Schank (retired professor, consultant, education revolutionary) for many years and have read a couple of his books Coloring Outside the Lines and Lessons in Learning, e-Learning, and Training, along with countless articles, blog posts, etc. His recent blog post Teaching Minds: How cognitive science can save our schools inspired my latest cartoon the 12 Cognitive Processes of Learning . . . Click on the image to see a larger version of the cartoon. 

Instructional Designers - Exercise your Creativity

I've done enough instructional design over the years to know that occasionally when you are looking at content like SEC Rules and Regulations Updates you sometimes get a creative mental block on how to present the information. As actor/comedian John Cleese says . . . "Creativity is not a talent, it is a way of operating." 

In an effort to help pump up your creativity/imagination, I put some tips from folks like John Cleese, Dan Pink, Scott McCloud, Pixar, Seth Godin, Hugh MacLeod into a learning toon . . . Click the image to see a larger version of the cartoon and the resources supporting the information.

 

Also, here are a couple of good video clips on creativity to check out . . . 

John Cleese on Creativity (36 mins)

 

Daniel Pink: Exercise Creativity at Your Job (36 mins)

 

 

Content + Animation does not equal engagement

I recently created a 5 minute lesson on information security titled Digital Indiscretion, designed as a 25 page cartoon and delivered as a pdf file. It's been a great learning experience for me. I shared it with colleagues and most liked the concept and the content . . . "this is great, but it would be more engaging if it were animated" . . . "Very cool. It would be dynamite and very engaging if it were a video. The pdf format is more like a storyboard" . . . "Great overview of information security, but maybe add more depth to the content you present." Those comments above were exactly why I have been on a mission to better understand the science behind learning and engagement for the past 5 years, and why I decided to experiement a bit and develop a brief, visual, story-based, cartoon-style lesson. 

We all know that adding animation or turning static content into a video does not ensure engagement. Good content that is not animated is still good content, and bad content that is animated is still bad content. I've been guilty of animating bad content. At one point in my career animating content was my go to. Now I know better. I learned from personal experience as well as knowledged gained from other professionals, both learning and non-learning. Here's what I've learned . . . leaving some room for interpretation, leaving some things out, allowing the viewer to use their imagination to piece things together is impactful and a catalyst for engagement. According to e-Learning and the Science of Instruction: Proven Guidelines for Consumers and Designers of Multimedia Learning by Ruth Clark and Richard Mayer, "static images with words seems to foster active processing because learner has to mentally animate changes from frame to frame and are able to control order and pace of their processing. --- They mentally fill in the blanks. Animation with narration fosters passive learning because learner did not have to mentally animate (fill in the blanks) and could not control pace or order."

In the article Want To Spark Innovation? Think Like A Cartoonist, Matthew May shares some insights of comics theorist Scott McCloud . . . "the magic and mystery of comics does not live in what is drawn. Rather, it is the 'gutter'--the white space between the frames--that holds the secret. There is nothing in the space between, yet it’s here where the real action occurs. It’s here that the reader is drawn in and engaged, because it’s here that the story is left open to interpretation. It’s here that attention is focused, here that the imagination is sparked. So it’s here that the real story takes place." McCloud calls it "closure" and it is what he finds most interesting. In his book Understanding Comics,McCloud says . . . "The phenomenon of observing the parts but perceiving the whole is called closure. Comics use closure like no other medium. A medium where the audience is a willing and conscious collaborator and closure is the agent of change, time and motion. The space between two comic panels is where human imagination takes two separate images and transforms them to a single idea. Nothing is seen between panels, but experience tells you something must be there. Comic panels fracture both time and space, but closure allows us to connect these moments and mentally construct a continuous, unified reality. Participation – allowing the viewers to use their imaginations- is a powerful force in any medium." He goes on to say that theatre also uses the idea that less is more. "Finding balance between too much and too little is crucial. Comics rely on only one of the senses to convey a world of experience. Within the panels we can only convey information visually. Between panels, none of our senses are required at all, which is why all of our senses are engaged. The reader is released into the open air of imagination, then caught by the next panel."

May closes his article with "The art of limiting information is really about letting people write their own story, which becomes much more engaging and powerful because they’ve invested their own intelligence and imagination and emotion." McCloud feels that when people have the opportunity to "create their own narratives" it becomes "much more natural, much more organic, and much more like our childhood experiences of imagining, and playing. 

So my mission is to make the learner use their imagination more by leaving room for interpretation, and though the style of Digital Indiscretion isn't the final answer, I'm confident it is a springboard toward a more impactful experience and a catalyst for engagement.

 

The Wild Bunch - Texas Marauders

I've been living in Austin, TX for 7 years. I love the city, the people, the vibe. It's home. But along with the good comes a lot of dubious distinctions for Texas, when it comes to environment, education, health, and employment.

Two "bandits" have been riding roughshod over the great state since 1995. Ultimately these last two governors own the responsibilty of the poor rankings, just as they should receive credit for the good. 

Click the image to see a larger version and the resources supporting the information.