eLearning Roadtrip

20 "eLearnings" From Two Months on the Road(trip)

Been a busy couple of months of elearning road-trips. From EDUCAUSE to Online EDUCA, from WCET to WICHE, from DevLearn to AECT (with a little bit of virtual Sloan-C tossed in for good measure). Literally thousands of plenaries, presentations, and poster sessions from which to choose, along with hundreds of vendor stands and trade show booths. Here are some of my big take-aways:

• Hooray and congratulations! This distance/online/elearning thing we do has tipped into mainstream consciousness. Let's give a cheer for the researchers, the teachers, the authors, the artists, the technologists, the producers, the analysts and the evaluators who have made this happen. We rock.
• We matter enough that governments want to regulate us. Congressmembers rail against us. No more flying under the radar.
• Analytics are hot, hot, hot. Learning analytics, content analytics, web analytics, engagement analytics, to name a few.
• Speaking of analytics...mathematically speaking, a learning outcome is pretty much the same as a point of sale. (Thank you, Phil Ice.)
• Second Life is dead, dead, dead. Sorry.
• Mobile is the future.  Smartphones and tablets and readers, oh, my.
• Game based learning has a long way to go before people take it seriously.
• High quality video conferencing is making a comeback.
• We may get inspired by big ideas, but we are moved to action by fear, uncertainty and dread.
• On the commercial front...Pearson intends to own our universe. Adobe has pretty much given up on us. Just about everybody wants to sell us an "analytics solution". Or a mobile app.
• People really need to quit thinking that "open" is the same as "free".
• It's a lot easier to pontificate about the importance of change than it is to do things differently.
• There is a lot of research out there. Some of it is useful. 
• Empirical evidence doesn't need to be quantitative...but it does need to be a little more robust than simply pointing to people who are doing the same things.
• Quality is rarely absolute. It's contextual and situational. It may make more sense to think about "effective practices" rather than "best practice".
• Practitioners who make big sweeping statements without doing any background work on what others may have already been doing, saying or thinking end up sounding just a little bit naive and foolish. C'mon, people...use The Google.
• On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog...but EVERYONE knows if you are not prepared.
• One can pack a lot of snark in 140 characters.
• Learning is as natural as breathing. Learning really isn't the problem. Enabling meaningful, intentional outcomes and creating experiences that engage and inspire without costing an arm and a leg and without killing our interest and enthusiam for learning is the problem. 
• Sometimes you just need to show up.

Why Electrowetting may be good for Flash

Electrowetting is a type of screen display technology. Engaget has called electrowetting the Holy Grail of display: flexible, foldable display surfaces offering full color, high refresh rates, visibility in all lighting conditions, and low power consumption. 

The reason I know this is because I just saw a press release announcing that Samsung bought Liquavista, a company that specializes in electrowetting technology.  Yes, that would be Samsung of the television display, computer display, mobile-telephone-with-display company.

It made me think about how cool it would be to be able to unfold a screen stashed in a purse and put it out on the table when you want to show your friends, say, a sports game in progress. NOT on an iPad. On a full-on, foldable screen.

Well here's how and where two unconnected puzzle pieces may connect. I often touch base with Diana Helander (@flashair) from Adobe's Flash Platform team to stay on top of all things Flash: Flash and iPhone and iPad,  Flash vs HTML5, Flash on mobile devices, AIR, standards such as H.264. Flash is very important in elearning. Diana shares my belief that developers need to know what's going on.

Diana recently reminded me that, as fellow members of the Open Screen Project, Adobe and Samsung and lots of others are looking at this notion of excellent screen experiences from an industry wide perspective. Flash continues to be an important part of that conversation. Not the only thing. But still very much a part of today's interactive Web.

The Liquivista acquisition underscore that Samsung is continuing to focus on display experiences. And  THAT world continues to accommodate the need for interoperating with Flash content. At least as we all figure out the migration path to HTML5.

I'm still not ready to give up my iPhone. But now I WILL actively consider Samsung tablet alternatives to iPads while anticipating big things in electrowetted screens.

Will be interesting to see how this all plays out.

A QR Code of Your Very Own

There must have been something in the water this weekend - seemed as if everywhere I turned I found myself talking about QR Codes.

QR codes are the machine readable badges - basically overlapping barcodes - that are starting to appear on ads, billboards, in print media. They capture information such as a name, a phone number, maybe a url.  QR readers are apps on mobiles phones that will scan and decode the QR code and act on preprogrammed instructions - such as, to call the scanned phone number, or to click on the scanned website url.

So I knew the universe was speaking to me earlier today when I read a tweet from @HansdeZwart about a post on QR codes he'd made in George Siemen's open access SCoPE course LAK 11 - Open Course on Learning and Knowledge Analytics. 

Then I saw a recommendation from Allison Kipta to read David Hopkins' blogpost on QR Codes: The Nuts and Bolts, a very nice article that summarizes the basics of QR codes, how they work, and why you should care.

I was so inspired I made a QR code for eLearning Roadtrip. It looks like this:

If you have a QR Code reader on your phone you can scan this image and it will automatically take you to my blog site.

Kinda cool in a very geeky way.

I strongly encourage you to read David's post on the subject. It was quite good. Lots of ways in which this simple tool can be used to engage learners. If you can't wait, here is a link to a QR code site to get you started. Kaywa.com. But then go back and read the post. This is a cool way of sharing information that more elearning professionals need to know about.

You Say "eLearning", I say 'Online Learning". She says "Distance Learning". Does it Matter?

Practitioners, analysts, proponents and critics of this thing we do with learning and technology solutions will frequently use all of these terms interchangeably to describe the discipline of using technology for connecting learners with learners, teachers, content, experts and experience. There's nothing really wrong with that. These days everybody kinda gets that "anytime, anywhere learning" uses technology to extend the boundaries of classrooms in some novel and compelling ways, no matter what we call it.

While I agree that the boundaries of these constructs are fairly fluid, they do each possess characteristics that make each unique. eLearning tends to be used when referring to Flash-based content and web-delivered, self-paced, independently completed courses built on linked modules and assessments. Collaboration and web conferencing also fit here. Distance learning has tended to depend on telephony (e.g. audiographics, compressed video) cable and broadcasting systems, using a class-room model (e.g. cohorts, start and stop on fixed schedule) for delivering distributed courses.  Online learning refers to course delivered via the Internet; sometimes with a teacher, sometimes not. Sometimes with "live"/real-time web conferencing, sometimes not. Sometimes with course sylabi and digital content, sometimes not. Managed in an LMS. What is held in common is that it is an internet-dependent experience.

The reason I wanted to mention this today is that even as some of us in the education sector are getting all wound up to do battle over online learning eQuality (please refer to my past two blog posts) there are some sectors that have already moved on. They are already talking about mLearning as the new elearning. And game based learning and augmented reality as the next big thing that will replace online learning. And virtual learning getting ready to give game based learning a run for its money. (I would make a catty remark about Second Life, but I heard a rumor on the street that Microsoft may be interested in buying them so I expect it is smarter to keep quiet.) 3D learning. Rich Internet Applications for learning. And the hottest of all: Social media. Social media. Social media.

As Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Kerr once said..."plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose". We need to care about the technology, and we DO need to understand the subtleties between and among the variations of technology-based teaching we are likely to encounter. But we also need to understand the commonalities as much as the differences, and look for ways to learn from each set of evolving practices on the way. Because there will always be a next new thing. And we all have too much to do to keep starting over every time we get distracted by something new and different.

 

Just how open IS the Flash Platform??

Adobe Systems got some great news today when word hit the street that Apple had decided to modify its previously published App Store developer guidelines. According to an article published by the Silicon Valley Mercury News, Apple will now accept apps created with third-party software tools that are translated for the iPhone and iPad's iOS platform. The move reversed a stand Apple took in the spring that banned apps made with technology tools other than Apple's - a direct swipe at Adobe Flash. As noted in the Mercury New article, the earlier decision triggered anger among developers as well as reports that the Federal Trade Commission was considering an investigation into possible anti-competitive business practices. No point in making everyone cranky. Better to change the guidelines.

You may remember that when the Adobe-Apple debates were at their height of snarkiness that there were some who would have you believe that Flash is completely proprietary software. This evening, as I was reading reactions to the news that Flash would soon be making its way to iPads and iPhones, I was struck by a couple of tweets about how Adobe should now "do the right thing and use this as an opportunity to open up the Flash Platform". 

So I thought you might be interested in this particular diagram. (If you click on it you will make the diagram bigger, it will be easier to read.)  It is an illustration of the Flash Platform. You can clearly see the part of the platform that are open (noted in blue), You can also see the parts that are proprietary (noted in red), and (3) the parts that belong to 3rd parties (noted in maize), some of which are proprietary and some of which are open.

You will notice that there are far more parts of the Flash platform that are either blue or maize than there are parts that are red. Something to keep in mind the next time someone rails against proprietary software.

This diagram comes from the Flash platform team. I use it with their permission. Enjoy.

 

Thinking about mobile learning? Ask yourself these questions

I recently had the opportunity to write a short article for ELearning! Magazine on the topic "When Mobility Meets Learning". It gave me an opportunity to share a series of questions that I have been asking my clients over the years whenever they have started thinking about whether or not a technology learning project makes sense for their organization. 

With laptops, notebooks, netbooks,  tablets, feature phones, smart phones, iPods, iPhones and iPads at the ready, the question may not be if one is going to look for opportunities to try a mobile learning initiative, but when it is going to be time to “go mobile”. When thinking about adding mobile services to your enterprise’s learning technology portfolio, it is useful to give some serious thought to WHY a mobile learning initiative makes sense. Without establishing a baseline for assessing and evaluating costs relative to outcomes the likelihood of being able to demonstrate value and impact will be compromised.

With this in mind...

Why a mobile learning project? What is it that a mobile learning project will allow you to do that you could not do before?

What do you really want to do? Is the fascination with the attraction of offering learning stakeholders something new and different? Are there people in the field who won’t have the resources they need without a mobile learning solution? Are you simply curious, and just want to see what happens?

How you know when you have met your goal? How will you know if your mobile initiative made a difference?

What unique result do you want your mobile learning effort to achieve?

What technologies do you need to get started? What devices will you support? What network will you use? What carrier will you choose? Will you establish strict selection policies, or will you try to integrate everyone’s devices regardless of operating system?

For whom is your mobile initiative intended? Will it be for everyone, or will you focus more on the needs of traveling staff, or will it be aimed more at remote, distributed and field based personnel?

What will your stakeholders need to be successful? Will they know what is expected? Will they need training or orientation sessions to understand what they need to do?

How are you going to fund it? How are you going to sustain it, and for how long?

How will you evaluate your effectiveness? What will you tell your sponsoring executives when you go back for next year’s budget request and they ask you to justify your program?

Although mobile learning certainly brings its own unique challenges, the good news is that many of the antecedents of mobile learning have prepared learning technology stakeholders for the journey ahead.  In reflecting upon Christiansen’s notion of disruptive innovations, Penny Wilson has described mobile wireless devices—such as cell phones, handhelds, and notebook computers—as “tools of mass disruption” that are going to help spark a period of innovation for learning technology stakeholders of all kinds. While these devices may not yet be completely ubiquitous, reliable or rich, it is already clear that mobility is changing life as we know it. Our challenge as learning professionals is to make mobile learning so compelling that stakeholders continue to see possibilities, not problems.

 

Mobile Browser Stats

Here is an interesting factoid from Peter Pinch, Director of WGBH (Boston public television) regarding the breakdown of mobile traffic on their national interactive sites during the past month (which I presume is for the month of April 2010):

• mSafari 74%
• Android 16%
• Blackberry 6.5%
• WinMobile 1.5%
• Symbian 1%

Makes me wonder about the possibility of a direct positive correlation between public television fans and Apple customers.

Mobile Trends that Matter for 2010

CTIA is the international association for the wireless telecommunications industry, dedicated to expanding the wireless frontier. Its most recent annual conference was held in Las Vegas March 23-25. It is considered a leading industry trade show and premiere marketplace for all things wireless (e.g. what we need for our cell phones and personal digital devices like iTouches, iPhones and now iPads, at 2.5G, 3G, and 4G).

I enjoy tracking events like this since it is such a great place to find mobile industry statistics. I used to be totally fascinated by the possibilities for mobile learning until I came to understand that the swirling world of mobility was even more fascinating. I've been was especially interested in this year's CTIA conference, given the outrageous growth in interest in all things mobile this year.

During the recent event, the CTIA released the results of its Semi-Annual Wireless Industry Survey. Some interesting data tidbits: 257 million data-capable devices in consumers' hands. 50 million of these are smart-phones or wireless-enabled PDAs, and nearly 12 million are wireless-enabled laptops, notebooks or aircards. As of December 2009, there were over 285 million wireless connections in the United States.

The conference was also a great reason for press releases and summary reports. Here are some of the highlights of CTIA's 2010 in Review Top Trends in Mobile:

• 4G Networks - Imagine having the network speeds you have become accustomed to at home on your mobile device. Sprint is the first to market with WIMAX, in 27 cities and 15 more by the end of the year. When it is released this summer the HTC EVO 4G will be the first commercially available phone to use WIMAX. AT&T and Verizon are backing a network specification called LTE (Long Term Evolution) that won't be available for another year.
• Android - Android, the open-source system for mobile feature and smartphones, was the big platform winner at CTIA, with new handsets and tablets announced by a variety of manufacturers.
• Mobile Video - Cisco CTO Padmassree Warrior (I follow her on Twitter at @padmassree) asserted that by 2013, 91% of all Internet traffic will be video content. She also noted that video will constitute 66% of all mobile network traffic by 2013. Mind-blowing.
• Internet of Things - @padmassree also noted that by the end of 2010 we can expect to see 35 billion devices connected to the network, by 2013 that number is expected to climb to 1 trillion. These include RFID chips, Bluetooth, network-connected sensors and other devices beyond phone and laptops that will increasingly be talking to each other.

(Kinda nice to see that the Roadtrip has been been following the right trends. There have been several posts on Internet of Things, mobility and Internet video.) Looks like it is going to be a great year for the "unplugged" crowd.

By the way, do you have your iPad yet?

Putting the Internet of Things to Work

I've been interested in mobile learning solutions since 2004, when our VP of Macromedia Solutions Marketing wanted to see if there was market for mobile Flash in education. The short answer to that question was a big N-O. Lots of interest - but the ecosystem wasn't ready. Very different from today, when everywhere you look there is a new development or announcement or app that makes physical location irrelevant. (Sidenote: some of the work we did at the time got boiled down into articles published in 2005 - one in  Educause Review, and another one in ASTD T&D. Still relevant).

That market research experience changed my world view about mobile learning solutions from worrying about the tools and tech to being more focused on considering enterprise requirements of mobility. A little more than a year ago I shared some thoughts in a blogpost entitled Mobile Learning and the Internet of Things, about developments in the networked objects arena that seemed to have some fascinating implications for vendors interested in working with the mobile learning community.

Cut to 2010 - I literally just finished reading a GREAT McKinsey Quarterly newsletter article written by Michael Chui, Markus Löffler, and Roger Roberts entitled Internet of Things.  If you care about mobile support and services including elearning and performance support you should take a look. There's no point in my summarizing too deeply when you can click on this link. But I do want to provide enough to tease you into wanting to click. So here are a few high points:

"Predictable pathways of information are changing. The physical world itself is becoming a type of information system. In what’s called the Internet of Things, sensors and actuators embedded in physical objects—from roadways to pacemakers—are linked through wired and wireless networks, often using the same Internet Protocol (IP) that connects the Internet. These networks churn out huge volumes of data that flow to computers for analysis. When objects can both sense the environment and communicate, they become tools for understanding complexity and responding to it swiftly. What’s revolutionary in all this is that these physical information systems are now beginning to be deployed, and some of them even work largely without human intervention."

Got you hooked yet? Here's a bit more: The six areas where the Internet of Things is already being put to work:Information and Analysis

• Tracking Behavior

•  Enhanced Situational Awareness

•  Sensor-driven Decision Making

Automation and Control

•  Process optimization

•  Resource consumption optimization

•  Complex autonomous system

Take a look - it's a fascinating read. Just seems that with some much converging interest in the mobile web in general and mobile learning in particular, that there are quite a few learning solutions ideas lurking in here just waiting to hatched.

Mobile Services Taxonomy

Here are several of the featured slides that were included in the deck uploaded in last night's blog post. These all have to do with making a case that (1) mobility is a way of life (2) the mobile internet is changing the way that we do just about everything and (3) it might be helpful to have a taxonomy for determining where in the mobile services value chain one might be at any given time. It's hard to get people interested in systemic mobile learning adoption if we can't connect learning to other mobile drivers at the enteprise level. 

First thing is to consider the current state of  network/equipment adoption. There are 6.7 billion people living on the planet. There are 1.6 billion people connected to the internet (Parenthetically - we conduct more than 635 million Google searches every day. More than 115 billion emails every day. The fact that 70% of the world's emails are spam is one of the true marvels of the world.

One of the other interesting statistics noted below is that more than 1.8 million cellular telephones were sold today. More than all the new book titles for all of last year. I know, that's like comparing apples to zebras. But it's still fascinating to think about that many phones.

 

The fact that there are currently more than 4 BILLION mobile phone subscriptions speaks to the growing  ubiquity of mobile telephony. As mobile phone services attach themselves to the Internet, they are becoming today's Internet. The Mobile Web is becoming obvious and self evident.

 

The more I have reflected on the growing demand for mobile services, I keep thinking about how we have not yet really seen a dedicated rush to the market for  mobile learning (at least not in any systematized way, efforts of #HHL and #mlearn notwithstanding) I was reminded of a diagram I had sketched out to describe a mobile services taxonomy so we new-to-the-mobile-market types could get a better understand what the movitators for adopting mobile anything might be at the institutional level.

We know that people will respond to an emergency. The infrastructure required for providing emergency notifications uses the same basic foundation  as do other kinds of mobile services - weather and safety alerts to notifications, reminders learning services and social network services used by engaged communities of interest and practice.

Every time I hear innovators talk about the obvious self evident value of mobile learning I am reminded that it may take a few more steps in-between where most universities start with their institutional mobile services investments.