The 21st century LMS

I recently read a report compiled by eLearning Network from their Next Generation Learning Management Event held in September, 2009. It is an interesting report.

Personalization of content is a base expectation with an element of learner’s control or choice over what she wants to learn coupled with added intelligence from the system to provide relevant content.

Access, to the degree of ubiquity, seems to also come up as a key requirement with pressure on LMS vendors to resolve user experience and tracking challenges across devices.

Search, to make content available easily, and the corresponding improvements in taxonomies, is a key requirement. So are classroom management tools.

A key shift is from the learing management system from an administrative and management function to a communications function, lowering barriers to knowledge flow within the organization.

Competency definitions and links to HR systems for a variety of tasks (such as talent development) find their way as other key requirements. Similar to the IMS standards for Reusable Competency Definitions and Learner Information Package, a need is voiced to make transcripts transferable (from organization to organization).

The report ends by stating:

At first glance this may just seem like a long wish list, but a more detailed reading demonstrates two things. Firstly, pretty much everything here is already available elsewhere in some form, and LMS vendors need to catch up with wider developments. Secondly, long development cycles and expensive development resource are not acceptable. It seems that LMS still has a key role to play for many organisations, but the terms of their engagement with vendors needs to change.

This report is interesting because it provides an insight into how the participants were trying to accomodate recent developments in social networking, talent management, Web 2.0 and technology with specific bottlenecks that they have experienced using an LMS. They are also seeing the LMS as part of a wider ecosystem with closer linkages between learning, talent development and performance. They are seeing the roles of the vendors changing to more proactive and technologically updated levels.

My personal opinion, though, is that we are flogging a dead horse. The changes we are seeing around content, personalization, search, collaboration, learning experiences, ubiquity, mobility (just to name a few), pronounce the need for LMS vendors to fundamentally re-architect their systems, not just technologically. Mere addition of social networking or Web 2.0 features does not cut any ice for me. 

A key shift in perspective could be the one from “management” to “facilitation” or from “courses” to rich “experiences” or from “common structure” to a much more delegated, learner led self organized environments.

Brandon-Hall 2009 Award!

Winning a Silver at the recently concluded Brandon-Hall 2009 Awards is something special! We were nominated along with our fantastic partners at ICICI Bank in the Best Use of Games for Learning category. Our “work of art” was a game that allows sales people to sell banking products to a set of customers. What was great was this was something built over a framework that we specially created for the bank. This framework has been leveraged to create more games and simulations since we created it.

All in all, I don’t think we could have done it without the support, vision and encouragement of the brilliant team at the bank. Kudos!

LMS and SNS

Interesting contribution and ensuing discussion from George Siemens post on the Future of Learning: LMS or SNS. Had this brief discussion not long ago on Wilko’s blog.

What has Facebook taught us? That “social connections and information sharing” is the model that will be “successful in the long run”? I am sure George is not saying that it will be the ONLY successful model there is going to be. Also,  George lets out a fear of not using a Google service, for fear of it being revoked by Google if not successful – are we to worry too?

Was also really interesting to follow Ulises Mejias’ post on the tyranny of nodes. Ulises argues that “network undermines productive forms of sociality by over-privileging the node.” That is, by focusing on the nodes, we are obscuring the spaces that lie between nodes. Context is important, the ability to make connections and explore these dark spaces is what is important.

I am forever confused, though, why discussions on tools should precede discussion on the model. The tools will follow if the model or framework is defined, should not be the other way around. Janet does point out the amazing work around social media that some vendors are putting in to their LMS systems in her reviews and the challenges they face running both in parallel in an organization.

But to get into a discussion of whether ELGG is the best way or Moodle is really it is bringing the tools before the concept. The concept is NOT fleshed out yet. We do not have a working understanding of an implementation of networked learning beyond the collaboration tools we have today, much less an appreciation of how organizations can really implement it. For example, we do not know how to reconcile or present in alternative ways the nouns and verbs of a traditional LMS (and processes).

Medium – the Massage

Reading Marshall mcLuhan’s the medium is the MASSAGE. Deep. The impact of media - the wheel as an extension of the leg, clothes as an extension of the body, electronic circuitry as an extension of the brain - has powerful impacts on the way we are.

He makes the point about “electric technology” presenting a unifying force, “recreating in us the multidimensional space orientation of the ‘primitive’” unconstrained by the dictates of the primarily visual and pushing us to become aware of the integration of time and space – “an acoustic, horizonless, boundless, olfactory space”.

“Environments are not passive wrappings, but are, rather, active processes which are invisible.”  This is crucial to us when we think about creation of learning environments. To be able to use “multiple models for exploration – the technique of suspended judgment” is key to these environments.

We cannot approach now by looking into the rearview mirror or use new media to do old things or things the old way. We need to understand how that impacts the way we “do learning”.

Writing in 1967, mcLuhan exhorts us – “it is a matter of the greatest urgency that our educational institutions realize that we now have civil war among these environments created by media other than the printed word”.

The book, and the wonderful visualization by Quentin Fiore, is a call to action. And action it should provoke among us!

Network Analysis

This is getting to be very interesting. I was just trying to get up to speed with Graph theory and networks, ended up reading a great article by Valdis Krebs and going through other related articles.

One of the things I was able to put a finger on as I read through the mass of statistical measures on networks/graphs, was that nodes in a social network are not the same e.g. boundary spanners may be critical in a network because they connect groups of nodes, however, they may often be the limiting factor in the growth of the network itself.

I am guessing that perhaps no two neurons would ever behave in the absolutely the same way. But this is perhaps a question left for future research.

But, importantly, think of communication and knowledge flow being inhibited by many frictions. These frictions could be at the nodes or “in the pipes” and play an important role in the efficiency of the flow or the ability to make connections.

Makes me remember the game of Chinese Whispers – the entire group of people spread out in a linear chain with the leader whispering a phrase in the ear of the first person in the chain, exhorting him to repeat the same in the ear of the person next to him and so on. By the end of the chain, the message had distorted many times over!

As another example, navigating a Johari window in a group takes serious and sustained effort. It also requires subsuming many frictions and the capability of the group to be guided and facilitated.

Measuring the strength of ties is important but difficult in practice – e.g. how do you measure trust in a network, if trust fosters effective collaboration? Then again, how does one counter/accomodate human and technological sources of friction  among others while measuring strength of ties?

Networked Learning Environments

So are LMSs now part of a technology trend that is headed south? Will incorporation of Web 2.0 features make them more enticing? Will learning really become more effective if Web 2.0 happens to these LMSs? Will they start working on a networked learning SCORM advanced API soon, maybe by defining standard runtime Web 2.0 interactions with services such as Facebook and Twitter? Do we bid adieu to learning objects?

These are uncomfortable questions that must be asked. Scholar360 attempts to be one effort to move away from LMSs as we traditionally know them by keeping the social network at the core.

Let us try and visualize what would really happen if the network really was the core and learning, the process of making connections.

Firstly, the definition of what constitutes content would change. It would become highly personal. This is because it would be pieced together from every learner’s perspective from the content already available to her.

Secondly, content would generally come from connections, which is to say that each learner would share her raw or synthesised perspective with her network and those who have access to that network will learn through evaluating the content and perhaps engaging in discussion. Perhaps rather than a learning object with pre-filled content, it would become a network map of ideas and concepts peppered with individual insights. So a “course” written by an “expert” would become a “network of ideas” weaved together by a “weaver”.

Not only would it be personal, but it would also be dynamic with very little control by the “weaver” in determining the boundary or tone of the ideas, once it is “out there”.

So a new learner who “enrols in the course” (read, “decides to learn”) would, around the broad parameters of the learning experience, start building certain types of awareness.

The first awareness would be of the mass of ideas. The second would be of the people. The third would be of the technology that enables her to navigate between people and ideas. The fourth would be a growing awareness of the learning process itself.

This awareness would continue to grow through the “course”. The process of learning as mandated by the “weaver” would be a responsible contract between the learner and the ”weaver”, as would be unwritten rules of conduct in collaboration and communication in the network. Certain technological  peculiarities may also need to be learnt or adapted to.

Imagine walking down a road all times of a day and night over many different seasons. Imagine watching a kaliedoscope of people, houses, shops, all change over time. Imagine recognizing something new in the landscape that has changed since you were last there. That is how the network of ideas that the learner creates will change in response to the evolution of the learning experience that is being woven as the “course” progresses.

The weaver’s job will be to acclimatise the learner to the changing landscape, provide an understanding of the environment through initial idea networks and through an empowerment in terms of tools, technologies, processes and social conduct perhaps. It will be the learner’s job to practice and reflect.

The job of technology then transcends the social network provision or the provision of Web 2.0 tools such as blogs and wikis. Technology should now be harnessed “network” each dimension of the learning experience, to help the network really become the core.

For the weaver, technology should provide a way to negotiate the changing nature of interaction/collaboration, of the explosive network of ideas that she set the seed for, of the mechanisms for maximum impact of these ideas on learners. Not only that, it must allow for her the ability to derive a measure of her effort.

For her, the “weaver”, the experience will repeat multiple times. But each time, her network is enriched by the thought processes of her learners – past and present, so that it is never the same experience.

Technology’s greatest challenge will be this immersion into the network, both visually and conceptually. It will not be simple. Atleast not as simple as pushing Web 2.0 collaboration over a social network or inserting a social network (and tools) into a course.

NBT – Networked Based Training Solutions

NBTs, the natural evolution (in my opinion) from WBTs, are a solution worth evaluating. Let us look at NBTs from two aspects – one within a learning context and the other from outside that context.

Typical online training involves the use of self paced digital media or virtual classrooms. The major aspects are:

1. The very nature of self-paced training is that it is a solo effort at learning for the learner.
2. It is also confined, in terms of the experience it offers, to the expertise, imagination and skill of the subject matter expert, instructional designer and visual designer.
3. The course structure is fixed and typically the core learning tasks happen inside the framework itself.
4. Episodically, if designed so, there are assessment sections which then can send information to the LMS.
5. Course managers then print off reports on who did, when and how well.
6. This is sometimes backed by evaluations conducted with learners on course parameters and these are collated to report on overall effectiveness.
7. The course itself is episodic, a snapshot reflecting the state of knowledge at that time. New developments need periodic updates.

The basis of Connectivism is that learning is connection forming and knowledge really is the network. Simply put, it is the exact inverse of what is a WBT paradigm. Course becomes the ”un-Course”. And then it percolates right down to the reporting on effectiveness thus rendering the role of LMSes in the new paradigm, obsolete, especially as they relate to WBTs. So does, SCORM, more so in implementation than the actual concept.

So in an NBT,

1. The very nature of network based training is that it is a collaborative effort for all learners.
2. There are no barriers (except those that may be imposed by corporations for protection of intellectual property and confidential information), in terms of the experience an NBT offers. Learners can also bring in diverse perspectives and updated information to the learning process for the benefit of all learners. The expertise, imagination and skill of the subject matter expert, instructional designer and visual designer can form a starting point and tools exist (or should be created) that can enable learners to contribute complex media.
3. The course agenda may be fixed, but the structure may be flexible enough to allow these interactions. The core learning tasks happen inside and outside the framework.
4. Assessments undergo a change themselves. More emphasis is placed on an individual’s contribution to the network, her “ranking” and techniques for group assessment such as peer review.
5. Course Managers – the role changes to a facilitator, someone in-charge of providing and ensuring network characteristics such as diversity and autonomy, as well as facilitating inclusion and access.
6. Overall effectiveness would need to get measured very differently as a consequence. For the first time, possibly, the course manager and SMEs would need to take on-going responsibility for supporting the course and making sure the network is strong, flexible and reliable.

The nature of this debate could extend to virtual classrooms as well. Although, for the duration of the class session, there is a collection of individuals. However, the remaining characeristics remain virtually the same.

Both the WBT and  the VC (virtual classroom) are teacher-led places or “sites of instruction”. That is, a WBT is launched from an LMS (or portal) and is a direct one-way instructional experience. The VC is situated in a virtual environment, but is still a place for teacher led instructional mechanisms. This is a direct result of porting other physical experiences (live classroom, text book) to new (and enhanced) delivery formats enabled by the digital revolutions.

They should really be “sites of collaborative learning” instead with a vastly different role for the teacher. An NBT could be a learning resource that becomes a part of a site of collaborative learning. And the site could itself be a framework that allows multiple NBTs and other learning resources to seamlessly inter-operate and share each other’s data.

So imagine a “place-site” of collaborative learning where content, context and networks blend. Some have called this, or aspects of this, a Personal Learning Environment.

So what happens to WBTs or VCs. Surely organizations have spent too much effort, time and money building these to just throw them away when a new way appears. NBTs can fit the gap with an intermediate solution if there is a way that it can pull and push/share data with network aware services. Just like SCORM was build to standardize the runtime interactions, maybe we can come up with a way to integrate the network (and thereby, collaborative learning) into an existing WBT or VC so that it genuinely provides a meaningful way forward. This is the within-the-learning context.

Of course, a full fledged “place-site” of collaborative learning, would need to include both these NBTs but also WBTs, VCs and social media as well. This would be a view from outside the learning context. This site would then need to integrated with many different systems and content types. It would also start innovation in terms of new collaboration techniques, new authoring tools, network analysis and management tools and so on.

Maybe we will have a Learning Network and Content Management System (LNCMS) at some point?

Nokia Life Tools

Nokia has recently launched this service in India. Nokia Life Tools are rich iconic applications that use SMS as the backend on inexpensive (sub $50) models such as the Nokia 2323 and 2320 classic.

As Mr. D Shivakumar, Managing Director, Nokia India says,

We believe this is the beginning of a historical journey that will take mobility to grassroots and make a positive difference to the lives of people in the areas that are crucial to them.

This is an interesting development. Nokia is a leader in the India market. It has got the support of  a state government and has companies like Pearson ready to share content apart from a host of other partners. It has also first established viability and utility through prior pilots and made the service relevant. It is also affordable in that income group (Rs. 30 per month or little over half a dollar a month).

I also read about SMS Gupshup from Webaroo (Gupshup means conversation/gossip in Hindi) making waves with its tie-up with Facebook India – the core idea being that SMS could replace/augment computer access to the website seamlessly. Similar companies include Google smschannels, Vakow and myToday.

So, in principle, the social network can now go to the grassroot level without Internet access. That’s how I see it anyways. This could be the greatest advantage in the educational space. So the best kind of Learning 2.0 applications would be those with small footprints (data size) and high on sharing and connecting, especially with established social networking sites like Orkut and Facebook.

At the higher end, this could be supplemented by PC-based or smartphone-based access to richer internet educational services such as collaboration tools, learning management systems etc. for those who do have the access, even in rural or semi-urban settings.

I agree with Pradeep at watblog who is worried that voice recognition/activation is not a core feature in Life Tools. This could be a key differentiator.

I am not seeing voice as a key element in online “2.0″ conversations using the mobile phone. I am surprised because it seems like such an obvious idea. Let us say you are having a discussion with friends. In the physical space, you would share points of view around a topic with one speaking after the other (like in a discussion forum online) or in response. In a discussion forum, you would scan through and write your interjection in response to someone else’s comment etc.

Why not on the phone? It is very natural. So you could get an SMS or call that someone replied to your comment on a  topic and you could call back with your reply. Someone accessing online could seamless see your response coming in and respond through a text message or a voice one. Anybody else could replay/watch your conversation in the form of a podcast and add her own notes.

Leverage connectivity. Leverage voice. Leverage small byte sized content for learning. Leverage tools and Web 2.0 technology. Leverage new instructional models. Rethink the paradigm and come up with new thoughts. The space is dynamic and challenging and there seems to be no dearth of companies or individuals taking the plunge to cover it!

The temporal internet – Zoetrope

The vision of the web as a site of history may not be old or far-fetched. Check out the Wayback machine at www.archive.org. They even have a K-12 Web Archiving Program!

We all know that content on the web changes constantly. How do we maintain a track of that content change? How do we play back history? Zoetrope points the way.

The Web is ephemeral. Pages change frequently, and it is nearly impossible to find data or follow a link after the underlying page evolves. We present Zoetrope, a system that enables interaction with the historical Web (pages, links, and embedded data) that would otherwise be lost to time.

Zoetrope uses technology to search and analyze data in an Internet archive. The search can be on a specific section of a web page (say, for example, a news headline section on a web page).

A zoetrope is a device that produces an illusion of action from a rapid succession of static pictures. The term zoetrope is from the Greek words zoe, “life” and trope, “turn”. It may be taken to mean “wheel of life” or “living wheel.” (Wikipedia)

The search can be then correlated with other contemporary (to the original search) searches and a picture of the search domain at that point of time becomes available.

Of course, this picture is as fallible or accurate as the web content can be.

What does this kind of technology imply for education? There could be multiple applications. I could trace the way the world political map has evolved or how a city’s traffic system has evolved by simply playing back such images from the Zoetrope system. I could investigate multiple factors affecting a certain economic situation which occurred 20 years ago. The possibilities are enormous. The technology then becomes a guide through digital memory and the playback a conversation that the “guide” could have with a student.

Interestingly, this is the second time in a few weeks that the term “playback” has crossed boundaries for me. First it was Google Wave that played back email conversations temporally, now Zoetrope.

What would be lovely is to have digital visual immersion into the past as well (or sensory at some point!). The context for the learner would be considerably enhanced by virtualizing the past rather than reading it from a book/online or listening about it from a teacher. This in turn would create vastly more effective learning environments. (Add Project Natal and we could even “be” in that world!)

The power of this technology may also manifest itself in forecasting. When engines become powerful enough to traverse this huge database and generate many more relationships/variables hitherto unavailable in research, temporal data could be modelled to generate predictions of future behavior using time series or other advanced analyses.

Google Chrome OS

It’s nice to hear of a new operating system coming up. The central idea here is to use a lightweight Linux based kernel and the Google Chrome browser (that is built over the WebKit engine) to offer “speed, simplicity and security” to the end user.

The OS is targeted at initially at netbooks and eventually will power high end desktop systems. Of course, all applications on this OS will then be Web applications. Google Gears will be an important component for offline applications.

MS is incubating Gazelle, a possible next version of the browser. Gazelle uses Windows as the backend.

HTML 5 (“the second coming of the web”) is another standard on its way although it may take many more years from now to release. Boasting impressive capabilities and blurring the lines between online and desktop apps, some features of HTML 5 have already made its way into Firefox, Chrome and IE8. What is interesting to watch out for is that it brings 2D drawing and video capabilities to the browser, potentially threatening proprietary frameworks like Flash, Java FX and Silverlight! 

All in all, the thought that the browser be at the center of the new operating system is an interesting thought. As is the thought that browser capabilities may enhance to a point that traditional operating systems may become obsolete.

What does this augur for learning? For one, it lays the basis of a more connected world – the web at the center of the learning experience. Secondly, training developers will need to be aware of the power that these new technologies can bring on, reshaping how we create and deploy online learning today.  Thirdly, LMS/LCMS providers, if they live to see that day (sorry, could not resist taking that dig!), will need to adjust their systems to take advantage of these new standards and technologies.

If we thought Web X.0 was it, think again. These new standards and technologies have the power to reshape the Web and users’ experiences on it drastically.

On the other hand, I have written previously about the Sugar OS. This one is a different approach altogether, combining HCI with technology to achieve a new OS experience altogether. I would daresay that this is the more genuine claimant to a new operating system than Chrome OS would be.

By the way, the moniker for this blog – learnos – stands really for Learn OS – an operating system for the learner just as the standard OS today is today for the computer user. The thought is that we need something that reshapes, personalizes, connects and empowers us to learn and teach, but that something needs to be an environment by itself.

Seriously Unreal: Microsoft’s Project Natal

You have got to see this! MS is working on a new technology that promises to revolutionize the human computer interface. Project Natal is a hands-free motion sensitive controller integrated with the Xbox system. You definitely want to check out the videos – here and here.

The ability for a person to use physical movements and immersively interact with the digital medium brings a live experience to us like never before. It boggles the mind to think how much learning and training would get influenced by the availability of technology like this. Now the only thing that remains, I guess, is the fourth dimensional simulated experience (feel the cool breeze, the ground shaking under your feet, the smells of the desert)!

What is incredible is the amazingly enhanced potential for live collaboration that you should see in the videos. This simply beats everything I have seen so far in terms of the possibilities it opens up. Wow!

The Open Screen Project

I am a little ambivalent about this one – the Open Screen project. Adobe is leading this initiative along with other majors such as Nokia. Their dream is to unify and defragment our experiences with internet, devices and media by providing a “consistent runtime environment for open web browsing and standalone applications”.

The runtime enviroment is one thought-out combination of device (PC, mobile phone, kiosk etc.), operating system, browser and media (read Flash) capabilities that they hope will get users “richer, more interactive, and universal user experiences across devices”. Basically cross-platform both in terms of viewing experiences and interaction possibilities (interoperability) that the new Internet engenders.

Why am I ambivalent? A $10 mn fund for developers over 2 years should perhaps be reason enough to realize the commitment of these players to the strategy. Moreover, a brief look at the supporting partners must rank as the who is who of telecom, computing and software. Not only that I saw that Adobe has committed to making AIR and Flash player open.

The response on the Silverlight side is also very interesting. Perhaps that is the reason for the ambivalence I have. I am sure there is space enough for two (or more) technologies to operate in the same space. However, this debate and struggle may result in greater defragmentation and lesser interoperability than before.

More to come…

Google Wave

Check out Google Wave. The concept is striking and ambitious. Also very relevant to what we have been talking about in terms of PLEs.

At the core, there are a few important architectural dimensions.

Firstly, content structure. A few years back I had designed an architecture for a content management system that structured out content in a tree format. Essentially blocks of content could be hierarchically structured. For example, A pre-requisite would have two child-nodes – the statement and the explanation. Or, a topic could have a note and many individual pages. Google Wave does something similar with content. It allows you to take rich media content (images plus text plus…) and mark out / embed rich media content within that content.

Imagine a conversation that happens over time. Somebody starts it. Other people respond to statements made by the initiator and the conversation starts. Wave makes it extremely easy to do that within a browser environment (reference website has been built using Google Web Toolkit, GWT). Wave also provides a mechanism to add additional attributes such as those for privacy, tags (metadata) and workflow making it extremely malleable as a data structure. Obviously, the data structure allows nesting of these complex conversations as well (wave within a wave). It also allows tempral or user based playback for a conversation for people to see how the conversation evolved if they come in late, which is extremely useful.

Secondly, collaboration is heavily focused upon. Google intends to make this open-source so that developers can build extensions to those hundreds of social collaboration tools that exist today (e.g. Orkut, Twitter and Facebook). They have showcased how a wave (a collaborative conversation) can be embedded in a blog site in an interoperable manner. Editing is a great strong feature with extremely fast instant messaging where other users can see your keystrokes as you write or as you embed content.

Thirdly, live collaboration is made possible, not only within a single wave deployment but across multiple Wave server deployments through an open protocol.

Fourthly,  live time collaboration and Wave extensions (through the Wave API) make it possible to design collaborative work or play. For example, playing chess together, editing a document collaboratively in real time (this was so cool!), running a poll with instantaneous results etc. This has real important connotations for virtual classroom environments (imagine an Adobe Connect Professional environment merged with Google Wave merged with a SABA Centra!).

For the personal learning environment (PLE), this offering from Google could eliminate countless hours of effort as well provide a rich mechanism for understanding context.

Kudos to the creators of Google Maps for whom Google Wave has been a two year effort! Here is to your enduring innovation and continued success!

UK diaries

In the UK for a few days. Cool and windy on the streets of London right about now and it can get more than a little cold at times!

eLearningAge features this early May story from Caspian Learning, Caspian Learning offers Thinking Worlds to business, that offers easy 3D based simulation authoring that blends into the LMS. Read more at the thinking worlds site.

Virtual Classroom augmentation

I have been thinking and researching about how to enhance traditional virtual classroom platforms. The obvious improvements over the years have been in standardized tools such as whiteboarding and application sharing, or in terms of modalities such as quizzes, surveys and breakout rooms, or in being able to accommodate audio, video and chat streams.

Not so obvious are the improvements in terms of providing tools to the instructor to teach a particular subject effectively. From what I have seen so far, at the content level instructors and/or students could benefit immensely from adding generic or subject specific online interaction – sort of bringing  multi-user games/simulations/interactions into the virtual classroom. Of course, traditional web/desktop applications on which teams could collaborate through application sharing and control, are still very useful in many situations.

However, what I am referring to is to bring structured and creative solutions into the virtual classroom platform itself.

An example of this could be in Sales. When it comes to selling a product, you would need to not only understand what the product is (etc) but you would also need to profile your customer needs in order to suggest the best product for her requirements. When we focus on developing this skill in a virtual classroom session using a simulation or game that multiple participants can use to profile the customer and implement sales techniques effectively, facilitated by an instructor/expert, virtual classrooms can come alive.

These augmentations could be built into the platform, but I would rather that the platform allows plug and play integration and service providers continuously build and innovate to come up with new ways of collaboration.

Obviously, this need not only be restricted to a simulation or game built using Flash or Silverlight, but could be one or more Web Services that could be integrated. These applications could leverage the virtual classroom context – users, presenters, groups, participation data etc. For example, imagine adding emoticons (I think elluminate has those) or blogs or tagging services to a virtual classroom session.

As a corollary, since many organizations like to record and store these sessions for future consumption by its learners, the same web services could be used by individual learners or formal/informal groups  to make the recording come alive, perhaps reliving the live session sans the instructor.

I believe that this kind of an augmentation is really important to consider as more and more organizations move towards the virtual delivery platforms. I would love to hear examples of other platforms that have adopted similar approaches and augmented their platforms. Please do let me know if you have come across any.

Our shame

Violence in the classroom. How many of us realize how unsafe our children are in their classrooms and schools? How many of us are still silent spectators to child sexual abuse, corporal punishment and all forms of safety violations for children going to our schools?

The recent horrifying stories of corporal punishment (15-year-old girl assaulted by teacher dies in coma, Delhi girl in coma after school punishment dies, Student abuse: School sacks teacher), sexual abuse (Teacher gets death for rape, murder of student, 10-year-old raped in MCD school) and the state of legislation/policy (Despite law, no sparing the rod, Finally, strict norms to curb child abuse, Teacher hitting child may become crime), leave me stunned.

In an environment where the child’s personal safety cannot be ensured, how can any learning happen?

Linked Data

Tim Berners-Lee’s passionate exposition on Ted Talks on linked data starts with his expression of frustration with silos of content and proprietary nature of formats 20 years back when he first started working on the idea of creating a virtual repository of documents accessible anywhere. He thinks that this time around linked data (see semantic web) is a solution around a similar frustration, this time with data. Will it be as revolutionary as the World Wide Web?

For teaching and learning, perhaps it may offer some completely new analytics. For example, who has the same or closest matching initial conditions for learning as I do when I am about to learn something new and which resources did he or she use to learn? Who teaches the way I do? Which teacher would best suit my learning preferences? If this kind of information – curricula, learner profiles, teaching methods – all could be made widely available as a linked data resource, imagine the newer applications that could be made available on the basis of these new analytics!

Blurring the lines: Innovations

You just have to watch this video of the innovation that MIT Media Lab’s Fluid Interfaces group created. Like all innovations that blur the lines between two or more ways of experiencing or doing things, this innovation is breathtaking.

In this innovation, Pranav Mistry and his team blur the lines – the projection target is not your gaming console or computer/projection screen – it is any projectable surface. Extending the idea, the interaction is not through the keyboard or mouse or through a gaming console, but through simple hand movements that are captured through motion sensing.

Applying it to commercial uses, Pranav uses the technology to blur the lines between an internet database and common uses such as buying a product or finding if your flight is delayed, between a group of users and common uses such as collaboration to create a 3D model (look at inkuitive on the list of projects on Pranav’s home page).

If you look at TaPuMa (again on the list of projects on Pranav’s home page), you can see how the lines are blurred again – take a wristwatch, put it on a console or in front of a scanner, and it tells you which duty free shop in the airport terminal where you are standing, sells the watch. Interestingly put, Pranav states:

The broad concept behind the project TaPuMa is ‘Object Amelioration’, where the functions of everyday objects can be expanded by using their affordances or functionalities in a variety of different contexts.

Microsoft Tag (and other existing mechanisms like QR Codes) is blurring the lines by merging print with online experiences. VoiceThread blurred the lines by allowing a phone to web integration of user comments. Others are blurring the lines in many other ways and using many other devices (see iPhone apps, social media/network integration, Film 2.0).

The lines are really what we are used to doing. Blurring them causes us to react emotionally and with surprise at the possibility (with more than a little awe, too) which is in front of us but we had not thought of or thought possible. When the dust settles, we look for the utility of these innovative ideas, the cost, the production capabilities and the availability.

What is really interesting is that perhaps a simple analytical process of juxtaposing two or more different types of objects, experiences, media etc. can be the starting point and result in innovative ideas such as these. Many of them may not be implementable given the current state of technology, many implemented only through  sheer genius and lots of them may be already taken, but there is really a whole universe there waiting to be explored.

3D Data Visualization

Data visualization in 2D is what we have done most of our lives. Till recently, I viewed 3D as a medium for understanding and manipulating complex structures (say molecules, genes, architectural maps etc) both for academic and commercial use. With mashups, came the concept that you could intermix n-dimensional data (like OLAP) in a Web 2.0 environment. IBM’s ManyEyes uses this data to create 2D and 3D chart visualizations.

However, 3D visualization common use application still eludes me. I remember, as far as 10-12 years back, someone talked to me about “walking” into an Oracle database as an administrator and using hands to reorganize tablespaces, compress them and many other administrative actions. Years later, I watched Michael Douglas in Disclosure moving around a 3D file system and Tom Cruise and team waving life-videos and geo-spatial data on screens looking like a sheet of glass (I think it was in Minority Report).

Now Green Phosphor has come out with 3D technology based on the Content Injection and Control Protocol (CICP), sort of a “http for virtual worlds“, that merges excel data or database query outputs with 3D representations in a virtual world.

But I still struggle with possible applications. My friend Sid, at Indusgeeks, and his wonderful team, are looking at immersive and interactive 3D learning spaces for learning and collaboration.

What makes sense for me is not “representational” 3D (i.e. 3D visualization that depicts n-dimensional data visually), but “meaningful, context driven” 3D. For example, real time data about movement of whales in the oceans could be merged with a virtual ocean world where students could come and explore, replete with ocean and whale sounds, measurement techniques and tools etc. Or for that matter, a data center created on the fly for practice on measurements of power and cooling, from data that represents servers, power units, HVACs etc. These systems mirror real-life in ways that can go beyond the real life experience (e.g. walk inside a server or inside an artery). But they are also limited by the amount of kinesthetic immersion they can supply.

What is also interesting now is the availability of mobile phones with graphics accelerator cards built in. Imagine having a virtual world experience on your mobile phone. Look at Imageon. In fact, technologies are emerging today that allow you to use your mobile phone to click an image and have a backend system process indexed image (and possibly video) databases to return to you information related to that image. Imagine never having to be lost again or to click a product picture in a electronics store and get all the information and reviews related to that item.

In 3D terms, imagine being in a virtual world that reconstructs the actual background environment that each participant is coming from – one driving his car while in the conference, the other in her office, the third on the field at the scene of action, each being able to access and share information.

Slightly Morbid

I came across this article which I found morbidly fascinating and extremely relevant. Somewhat similar to spectral networks discussed by Lisa Lane in CCK08, the article deals with an online presence left orphaned when the real life “basis” ends. One obvious aspect, made more complex by social networking, is that your user names and passwords are now important assets, perhaps even as important in some cases as bank account or social security information (maybe we shall see these merge as time goes by). Perhaps at some time, there may be a trade built in, passing from generation to generation through inheritance or from company to company through direct sales. The other obvious aspect is the amount of information that will be left orphaned in the public domain, perhaps never to be archived or perhaps to simply be deleted past some period of inactivity.

Connectivist Metrics

I thought I would take a stab at defining what connectivist metrics could include. Having read in Stephen’s post, Connectivist Dynamics in Communities, that connectivist networks produce connective knowledge and that four elements  (autonomy, diversity, open-ness and interactivity & connectedness) distinguish a knowledge-generating network from a mere set of connected elements, I thought it would make sense to start here.

The metrics that are typically being suggested are metrics such as page views, new memberships,  number and type of new media contributions, number of discussion threads, ratings (satisfaction and post ratings), number of new topics, number of connections, social network tracking and number of posts/discussions etc.

I would venture some possible metrics for the four categories that Stephen outlined. Disclaimer: These are random speculations for now.

autonomy

• Number of individuals who joined the network through invitation vs. requested membership/enrolled by their own agency?
• Number of members who understand how to use tools that are engaged by the network to perform basic functions necessary to participate in the network?
• Number of members who initiated a conversation that involved other people?
• Number of people who participated in a learning activity initiated by others?

diversity

• Number of times a member agreed or disagreed with an opinion expressed in the community?
• Number of members belonging to distinct backgrounds (coud be multiple views here)
• Unique resources bookmarked by the member?
• Unique connections vs shared connections
• How many unique conversations exist at any point in time?
• Number of homogeneous or differentiated conversations, by context and by participation?

open-ness

• What is the net flow of connections to and from the network? Positive/negative vs high/medium/low
• Number of accepted/rejected requests to join the network

interactivity & connectedness

• How many members are engaged in each conversation on average?
• Per member, per background, per conversation statistics of participation
• Trend analyses offered by SNA

Further, the RoI from the network would perhaps emerge if these metrics can answer the following questions:

• Did the network generate new knowledge?
• Did members who needed to learn in order to perform actually learn?
• Were any members disadvantaged in any way and could not benefit from the interactions?
• Did any innovative ideas arise out of the interactions?
• Did nodes in the network become more connected?
• Did members show an increased ability to manage new information and adapt?

More thoughts to follow.

On communities, processes and technology

A recent set of conversations with customers and colleagues around communities of practice, networked learning, tools and platforms has provoked a lot of thought.

One perspective, that was heavily process oriented & steeped in real life experiences, argued that unless processes and workflows (and related metrics) were established, implementing these tools in the enterprise would be exhausting and with little return for the amount of effort it would take to manage and the money it would cost.

Then I came across (thanks Swati and Shikha!) this Defence Acquisition University (DAU)  Community of Practice Implementation Guide, which provides a 14-step, 3 phaseprocess for setting up practices that could contain CoPs, Shared Interest Areas (SIA) and collaborative workspaces. This document is very elaborate and covers processes, roles, permissions, workflow, engagement rules and metrics for setting up CoPs and community knowledge bases.

With true process orientation, this document provides a fairly detailed best practice for the DAU in its community development initiatives. What struck me, at second glance, was the fact that it leverages the same principles that we would use to create and manage an enterprise unit. 

The second set of comments was around how useful or participated in really are blogs and wikis. Talk CoPs or networked learning, and all that people think of is Web 2.0 technology and tools, the hype not really difficult to understand, given that major technology vendors are pushing for implementation of these tools in their recent launches.

The perception that the process and/or the technology are responsible for making networked learning happen is problematic. This is especially true given the power laws we have experienced in terms of community participation and effectiveness or the constant refrain that elearning is not, perhaps, living upto its potential.

Stephen explains in his post, Connectivist Dynamics in Communities, that connectivist networks produce connective knowledge. Four elements  distinguish a knowledge-generating network from a mere set of connected elements. These are autonomy, diversity, open-ness and interactivity & connectedness. There are compelling arguments that Stephen makes, as in the past, that we need to respect these elements if we want to increase the probability of generating new knowledge (and make sense of the current base of knowledge). These elements can also be the basis of metrics and tracking.

George laments the inadequacy of tools for sense-making. He also declares “…But any view of society that does not start with the individual is disconcerting.“

All these views, taken together, suggest that there is something more to networked learning than just processes and technology. It is a connectivist approach, a model that focuses on how we learn, that provides us a different lens through which to regard fundamental questions such as how do we learn to perform in a fast changing environment or how do we get incited to participate in a network to create new knowledge.

More concerted thoughts to follow in good time…

The Slumdog Post

This post just had to be written. After hearing about Slumdog Millionaire and (both sides) of the debate surrounding this film, I finally decided to watch it hours before the Oscars ceremony. It is a gut wrenching, sad yet triumphant story for a young boy whose only source of learning was informal, connective, but which enabled him (with luck and intuition) to win the jackpot on a reality game show.

He (the protagonist) learnt in ways that I wish were not such excruciating experiences, but the movie brings home (among other critical political and social dimensions), at least for me, the fact that it is far too critical for us to ignore the power of connective learning. Rather, opportunities exist at each moment, in every space, to capture and embrace this kind of learning – opportunities that we must recognize and encourage.

Kudos, team SM! And may you win the Oscars!

The digital life

I came across two ideas today that are part of a stream of developments that continue to amaze and intrigue me immensely. Mostly because of their impact on how we will be, perhaps, 10 years or so from now.

The first was when my colleagues at work showed me www.visualcomplexity.com and the second, a few minutes later in my mail, was George’s geo-broadcasting post. I now see many examples of how to THINK NETWORK (as opposed to thinking business or learning or society). As George says:

Why shouldn’t my history of search be combined with my interactions on facebook and used as a basis to provide me with important information…

We are now envisioning a digitally enhanced life where technology augments all our senses in multiple ways (Kurzweil?). Will it still make sense to think in terms of stereotypes such as web based training and instructor led training any more? Or is it the begining of , like Fabrizio Cardinali from Giunti Labs puts it, e-Learning 3.0 – Personal Ambient Learning - which he defines as:

…wireless, broadband and mobile networks transparently delivering ubiquitous and nomadic rich media content and learning services enabling media and skills based personalization to support users’ personal knowledge development plans.

Fabrizio talks about Personal Ambient Knowledge, location based and context aware (mobile learning, wearable learning, virtual worlds, location based games, on-field performance support). And Personal Ambient Knowledge as the killer technology for the knowledge society just as electricity was for the industrial society. He re-inforces Stephen’s assertion of learning:

Rather, the idea is that learning is like a utility – like water or electricity – that flows in a network or a grip, that we tap into when we want

I think it is out there and evolving in leaps and bounds every moment, and exciting to watch and contribute to in ways we only can. We are quickly moving to another inflection point that reflects a new understanding of technology that can enhance our digital lives, that can serve us from the shadows.

2009 Predictions

It’s the new year and time to review some of the predictions I had made for 2008.

• PLEs will be shareable – tools shall arrive on the web that shall allow entire learning experiences to be sliced and shared between users. This shall be followed by ratings on which PLE slices are great. Any learner wanting to learn about a topic will take a PLE slice of a person who the community says has mastered it and follow the learning path.

Not much success here! Some notable attempts such as Twine helped in some way, as did others, but the concept of shared learning experiences seemed to be too futuristic or useless for 2008. Better luck in 2009 perhaps.

• Hybrid VLE + PLE systems – LMS/VLE enterprise systems shall incorporate many social constructivism inspired features and organizations will pick up this trend.

Some luck here as major LMS vendors started putting in 2.0 features into their toolkit. But no real effort except perhaps for Mzinga which focused on Communities of Practice. This will pick up in 2009.

• The first classification systems to manage and search the huge amount of tagging will start to surface. Folksonomies will start getting structured in some way.

The semantic web beckoned, and IMINDI was a start. I don’t reckon that this will catch up steam in the near future either, but it is a start.

• The shift to rich Internet applications in e-learning using Flex and Silverlight among other tools, shall become a reality thus providing a boost to gaming and simulations for learning.

Ah! This was perhaps more successful as a prediction. We can see some real movement this year with Silverlight courses being developed and Flex extending in RIAs.

• Learning process outsourcing will get established as a business model for small and medium companies.

Doesn’t seem to be well entrenched, but companies such as Expertus and Intrepid seem to have taken larger strides in the enterprise market.

That sure is a mixed bag. I hope I do better with my 2009 predictions. Here they are:

1. Silverlight (more so) and Flex for learning development and tools will see a significant rise
2. LMS mindshare shall start being significantly impacted by Learning 2.0 solutions such as Mzinga and ELGG. As the adoption starts, enterprise measures/metrics will also start falling into place. Adoption of Learning 2.0 approaches will start in earnest in the second half of the year
3. LPO or Learning Process Outsourcing will gain momentum in 2009
4. The use of the mobile as a learning platform shall see renewed interest – the start of ubiquitous learning being made possible by technological developments in the handset, services and network space
5. The use of virtual worlds for learning will acquire more importance – if things are right, it should mark the beginning of the end for traditional virtual classrooms.
6. Games and simulations will see an increased adoption

The trends in the industry that shall back these predictions seem to be cutbacks on travel spend, need to bring in cost effective approaches to learning, higher engagement provided by games, simulations and virtual worlds and opportunities for enterprises to strategically pause and reflect on systemic changes in the light of the recessionary trends.

That’s my take on the new year. Hope they are borne out by the events to follow!

Kinesthetics in Virtual Worlds

In a discussion yesterday, we explored the limitations of current technology in terms of kinesthetic immersion in virtual worlds. While Virtual Reality has a few answers in terms of mirroring and rendering visualization of 3D human motion, these systems are hard to implement in practice.

For example, a user exploring a virtual world may need to pick up an object and perform certain actions on it. While this is intuitive in physical settings, the virtual world immersion, using SecondLife like platforms, needs to substitute point and click or keyboard measures to actualize the visualization. For example, using the keyboard to move hands in a particular direction.

While this may be interesting to program in a virtual world, the very process of translating human actions such as turning a screw may be extremely arduous and counter-intuitive to do through a sequence of keyboard actions.

Rather the approach could be to choose from a set of predefined actions in an intelligent manner. For this the objects and the ecology containing these objects would need to be intelligent enough to suggest the possible “ideal action paths” – e.g. can’t use a hammer to unscrew an assembly – while allowing learners to make mistakes in a safe manner.

Virtual worlds such as SecondLife or those created using a host of other platforms may evolve to more kinesthetic immersion with pervasive developments in motion sensing input devices. I heard that Nintendo Wii provided such an experience (boxing game) and am hoping to try it out soon. Also that Logitech is coming out with a device that can capture motion information.

With ubiquity becoming a key focus in learning, devices will need to evolve to provide kinesthetic immersion. This will virtually revolutionize the learning experiences that depend on kinesthetics to provide much of the learning impact.

Media Mashups

Over the past year, we have seen a variety of very innovative approaches in terms of mashing up different forms of media. That I think would be one of the major evolutions in 2008. By media mash-ups, I mean the combination of one form of media with another e.g. picture with voice. In media, I also include complex content types such as maybe a presentation or a video clip or even an MCQ (multiple choice question).

There is tremendous value and innovation in these mash-ups. VoiceThread for example started a conversation around pictures and documents with voice and text mashing up with those types of documents. And that is where the value is – conversations.

In a learning environment, dialogue is extremely important as it serves to engage both teacher and learner in the learning process and creates avenues for continuous improvements. The conversation, if informed by diverse sources, serves to engage further, as it starts including many other opinions than were previously allowed for in the design.

One of the notable mash-ups I have seen recently is Grockit. Grockit takes a learning content object (they have a multiple choice question “game” right now, but of course the concept is extensible to many other forms) and allows learners to answer it or discuss it using a collaborative forum. This is especially useful because it allows a certain gaming element – for example, all participants go back and forth over which option is the right one in an MCQ, and then when they decide to submit their individual answers, the system tells them who was right and why.

Grockit is an example of great innovative thinking. Why? Because they took a content type that most of us encounter every day and made it come alive using application of 2.0 web technologies, social learning networks and learning designs.

So what could be other examples of such innovation? How about adding conversation  to learning objectives to enable learner participation and articulation of their learning path? How about looking at taking the next video you embed in an induction program and starting a conversation in there? The possibilities are enormous!

Do write in if you have an idea

Network based Training (NBTs)

I have written earlier about what I am proposing as the evolution from the CBT and WBT – the NBT or Network based training, for some time now. NBTs provide a framework for organizations who want to adopt Web 2.0 and networked learning (the connectivism way) in their systems. The main components of the NBT would be both learning process and tool based.

The NBT consists of the following components:

• a learning process that emphasizes learner participation prior to the course in setting up goals and sequences
• definition of agreed upon sequence of focus areas and learning events based on a temporal sequence
• agreed upon rules/structures of participation with weakly or strongly defined compliance
• defined initial roles for participant and educator (and others) that is consonant with a networked learning strategy
• initially defined ecology of 2.0 tools (blog, wiki, discussion forum, live conference events, other collaboration techniques etc) to be enmeshed in the course
• choosing appropriate collaboration techniques e.g. Delphi, shared maps,
• if required, avenues for structured peer review (could have multiple levels) and group work; if so required an expert review
• resource repository that captures suggested content for review and discussion; could include documents or web collaboration resources
• collaboration using techniques specifically suited for the context of the course; e.g. grouped concept maps if a goal is to create a resource base
• policy for sharing; e.g. if sharing with a wider audience is agreed upon, some way of sharing blog posts, discussions with personal blogs or social network could be explored
• statistics for the facilitator role to judge quantitatively and tools for analysis based on qualitative criteria
• setting up of a default network for the participants of the course (as more people join, a historian role is defined that brings them up to speed using a special mechanism for navigating the content, maybe through learner contributed summaries or commentaries)
• post assessment of learning experiences to evolve the learning ecology
• some way of integrating and reporting on the experience in both directions – organizational and personal learning environments
• norming of the participants on how to use; overcoming barriers to use

These would define an ecology within which much learning could happen. One possible view is that each NBT could become a “slice” of learning that could be linked to the PLE. Several such slices could be linked and could potentially inter-mesh to allow cross-disciplinary or cross-network linkages to promote diversity.

Obviously, from a technology point of view, one could go in two directions. One, allow loosely coupled 2.0 service integration. Two, create generic tools to store localized data and build bridges so that this information can be ported to available 2.0 services. The first allows for easy extensibility when a new 2.0 service or app comes along. The second encourages careful selection of appropriate learning tools (not just mash up anything with anything irrespective of the impact on learning – if something is indeed effective, one would rather build it in to the system in a generic fashion, giving far more control).

From a learning process orientation, specifically a connectivist orientation, it will be necessary to position the NBT somewhere along the range between individuals and groups, connectives and collectives, in an attempt to engender the greatest possibilities for leveraging the power of networked learning, collaboration and innovation. The prime challenges and constraints will lie in shaping policy, between open-ness and protection of IP for instance.

Connectivism and social action

In the wake of the Mumbai terror attacks, I have witnessed in graphic detail the many aspects of socio-political crisis. On one hand, there is the actual terror and consequent military action. On the other is the political shakeout because of mass opinion that reflected in the local elections and change of power positions in the state.

There is also the role of the media as an agent provocateur, irresponsible in its behaviour and indicative of the explicit power mass media has in shaping opinions. In fact the media took upon itself (through its famous media icons), to show their bias and partisan nature, a shocking revelation of the lack of maturity. For example, when the Muslim groups in India expressed their shock and anger at the terror attacks, one media channel anchor said it was a “welcome change”, not understanding that the channel was not a medium to voice her personal bias.

What did the people do? A famous ex-actress, and there were more of these who were interviewed rather than thought and opinion leaders (of those leaders that were interviewed, it wasn’t a dialogue but more a diatribe anyways), stated that taxpayers in Mumbai should not pay taxes next year in protest! That probably is liable to be branded a seditionary comment. Ironically, these people rail against such comments made by people who are really seditionary and communal in nature!

What this all really exposes for me, is the lack of reflection, the lack of serious thinking on serious issues have large geo-political, social, economic and other impacts. Even more the lack of practice, of social action that an individual can contribute to.

For me this reinforces what I am only being able to appreciate in-context now – that our education system needs ecologies where diverse influences are made available – not awareness courses, but strategies for engendering critical thought and refection and avenues for actuating practice through social action.

Terror in Mumbai

It is a heartbreaking moment for all of us. Terrorists, coming by the sea route, have wrought havoc on the city of Mumbai, our financial capital. They have killed scores of people and injured many more. Many still remain hostage to them across different locations in the city. An angered community has lashed out at what it calls inept political management while at the same time lauding the many brave soldiers and policemen who lost their lives and those that are continuing to stage an offensive even as I write this post.

In such a time of distress, as has happened in India, as has happened across the world, a plethora of emotions are being voiced – anger, frustration, grief and helplessness. It is a time when one hopes that everything will be alright, that public memory will be a tad longer this time, that governments in the South Asian region will accelerate the pace of the attack on terrorism, that politicians will not be able to inflame tensions or garner political mileage and that somewhere, somehow educators will start playing their part in encouraging an environment where our society and others start reflecting and acting on the core issues – demystifying and encouraging collaboration throughout the communities they work with every day.