If only engaging the adult learner was as easy as posting a Puppy Cam!

I just took a quick look at my most recent addiction: the Shiba Inu puppy cam. More than 15,000,000 hits! If only it was as easy to engage our learning audiences! That having been said, I think the most important thing that I’ve learned about learning technologies this semester is how to better approach and organize the design and development process for different learning technologies. While I have been designing and developing interactive education programs for years, I learned much by trial and error, by reading and by learning from others on the job. So it is nice to have a knowledge base that is supported by academic research and practice! The end result will be a more organized and structured process in my workplace, programs with engagement more strongly tied to learning outcomes, and I think most of all, much stronger assessment processes and tools that will be more meaningful for the user and more measurable for the client. While I felt I already had a pretty good grasp of the technologies themselves, I did not have the development frameworks, structures or processes for the learning technologies down at all. This class has certainly provided me with invaluable insights that I am already applying and will continue to apply for as long as I am involved in this field!

From Mass Mentality to Individuality

If you are reading this blog, then I passed the Blogger spam review. A few days after I posted my initial reflection, I was informed that my blog exhibited signs of a spam blog and would be locked if I didn’t submit to a review. Curious about what might signal that my blog could be spam, I linked to The Blogger’s definition page, which provided the following helpful information: “Blogs engaged in this behavior are called spam blogs, and can be recognized by their irrelevant, repetitive, or nonsensical text, along with a large number of links, usually all pointing to a single site.” Since my blog links to no other sites, I have to conclude that my previous reflection contained “irrelevant, repetitive or nonsensical text.” Ouch! Here’s hoping reflective posting #2 does not set off the spam alarms!

This incident reflects the very impersonal and mass mentality side of technology. My invention would highlight the exact opposite; it would focus on the ultimate personalization of the learning experience.

My invention would be the e-Learning Optimizer Brain Monitor: It would use feedback from the participant’s brain to customize the learning program in real time and make sure the learner is processing the information effectively. I think we all have taken one or more tests to determine our learning style, but that is based mostly on our own perceptions. In fact, I have found that my learning strengths and styles were different on every test I took, and results depended greatly on how questions were worded or how I was feeling. That is not to say that there is no validity to a test based on one’s own perceptions. And perhaps I was overthinking the questions. But you can’t fool your brain. This monitor would record brain activity and responses of the participant through a series of mini-activities to customize the training program to the learner; the monitor would adjust the program segment or style depending on how the learner’s brain was reacting in real time in order to maximize the learning experience. Of course, this would mean that program design would have to be up to the task as well; each segment of a program would have to have multiple options to address the different learners. However, results would obviously help instructional designers improve program design over time as well. This technology would also be able to determine when a learner was losing motivation or maxed out, and would stage an “intervention” to stimulate the learner through a “break activity” or other type of mental stimulus. If the program kept picking up brain signals that user’s ability to process information was impaired and limiting learning progress, the program would have the option to shut down and tell the learner to return later. I think both of these functions would help me in the learning process. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve fallen asleep on my computer trying to absorb information that’s going nowhere. And last time I looked, computer-to-brain osmosis wasn’t a feature on either a Mac or a PC. Wait a minute! Now there’s a learning technology someone should look into inventing.

If NASA can do it...

Yesterday, I attended WIRED NextFest: Experience the Future, in Chicago's Millennium Park. It is billed as the premiere showcase of global innovations transforming our world. What I found was a large tent full of fascinating technology: the hoverit chair -- a plexiglass chaise lounge that uses repelling magnetic forces to keep the seat floating above the base -- the same technology as maglev trains; the Brainball, where two people wearing brainwave headbands that monitor stress levels and report the data to a computer sit across a table from each other and try to move a ball toward the other by relaxing! The lower your stress level, the faster the ball moves away from you and toward the other person; NASA's Climate Time Machine, which provides a global visualization of climate and atmospheric changes over the last centuries and is used to predict future climate changes.

I found all of this innovation awe-inspiring. I thought of the creativity, persistence and vision it took to develop these myriad and disparate technologies. If someone could figure out how to create plastic from CO2, surely I could conquer technology in one of its simplest forms: a blog. And so here it is. With this one small step, I'm beginning to experience my own future with a different, but equally important type of technology -- human performance technology. So far I've learned how human performance technology differs from instructional technology, which is closer to what I do in my day to day world. I also have learned that I have a lot more to learn, and that the hardest part is taking that first, tentative step.