Bottom-Line Performance

I want to learn to play video games, because I think it will boost my brain in ways that I am excited about – and I think it will make me a better learning designer.

Video games change your brain in ways not directly addressed in the game. One of my favorite presentations, by Dr. Ralph Chatham talked about ways games change the brain. For instance, studies have shown that gamers perform some psychomotor tasks 10 times faster than non-gamers. Gamers can also track more variables in their head. One study showed that just 10 hours of playing Medal of Honor gave non-gamers measurable increases in those skills. Another study tried a similar approach on older persons. With 24 hours of playing an immersive video game them several cognitive advantages including increases in working memory and reasoning ability.

Add all this to the idea that learning new things in general is good for the brain, and I made the decision that it is time for me to learn to play video games. It’s been an interesting experience for me. First of all, let me say, that I never played immersive games as a kid. So when I sit down now to try and play the Avatar: The Last Airbender game, I quickly found myself stuck. When I mentioned this to a gamer friend of mine, he offered to ask his nephew, who’s beaten the game, how to get out of the first room. He also helpfully informed me that his nephew is six.

It’s an interesting process, watching myself learn something new. I’m heartened by the numbers in the studies above – if I was going after mastery, which Malcom Gladwell’s has famously declared takes 10,000 hours, I think I’d give up entirely. It’s alternately frustrating (when I fail at tasks I know a 6-year-old has mastered) and thrilling (when I more than double my initial score at a game in less than an hour). The games I’m playing (ok, so far it’s been Labyrinth on my new iPod Touch and wii Play– not exactly immersive yet) do a good job of finding that magic balance where I’m challenged but not overwhelmed.

And that’s the key factor, I think. Being able to find that balance where learners will continue to be challenged without being overwhelmed. I don’t know if finding that balance will actually be easier as I learn to game – but if nothing else, the improvement in my cognitive skills won’t hurt.

First, this “Tweet” is way longer than 140 characters. If that sentence lost you…Tweets are posts via Twitter (social networking tool) that can be up to 140 characters long. Now you’re caught up.

So, last week I watched a rerun of the tv show Fringe. I only watch two tv shows…24 and Fringe, so I was a bit excited to see Fringe, as all 24 fans know they don’t rerun Jack Bauer. Anyway, Fringe did something a little unusual last week as they had a couple of the lead actors, and what I gathered were producers of the show, send tweets throughout the broadcast of the show. Evidently, the actors were on location (working) while the producers were back at their offices watching the rebroadcast on tv, and all were tweeting about the show with behind-the-scenes comments and conversation.

At first I was a bit annoyed because the tweets were blocking part of the screen, but what they were tweeting was pretty interesting; then again, I love the extras and special features on dvds…and, does anyone remember “Pop up Video” from VH-1 “back in the day”? They would show videos and have pop-up bubbles with behind-the-scenes information about the video while the video was playing. Anyway, back to Fringe…these tweets on Fringe were a lot like that…extra information about what was happening on the screen. They talked about what the writers were trying to convey in certain scenes, and even made comments about the meaning behind the graphics that were shown before commercial breaks. It was fascinating. I found myself wanting to pay more attention to the show! What other little nuggets of information were those sneaky writers of Fringe hiding from me? And then, I started thinking…

So, what if we had that extra “behind-the-scenes” information in our e-Learning courses? I’m not saying it’s something I’m promoting…but, what if? Wouldn’t it be interesting as a learner to know what the designer was thinking when they put “that” graphic there? Or, what that text was really supposed to mean? What was the writer’s intent of the e-Learning content? What was the SME’s background or experience?

Then, I asked myself…How would all this information affect learning? Would this be something a savvy learner would enjoy? Would learners pay more attention because of all of the “hidden” or “behind-the-scenes” information that was lurking in the shadows just waiting for them to discover?! Okay, maybe I’m getting a little too crazy there.

So, what if your e-Learning course came with a “behind-the-scenes” feature?  Would anyone want it?

Last night Bill O’Reilly visited The Letterman show and they had a heated discussion about whether Bill O’Reilly is a journalist or entertainer. Regardless of your political leanings, it was an entertaining interview. Check out a highlight below (especially around minute 7:00):

While I’m not going to enter the political fray on this blog, it did make me think of some recent experiences where I’ve discussed the level of reality to convey in a training course. We write content that discusses the challenging, difficult, or stressful aspects of a job. This sometimes makes the client uncomfortable – they don’t want to be that “real” in the course.

Which begs the question: Are we entertainers or journalists? Are we trying to entertain learners or given them an accurate picture of the job or task? Are the two ideas opposed? When we “soften” the course and remove any negative or challenging ideas from the course, we veer towards the world of entertainment rather than learning.

I think that as instructional designers, we have a responsibility to portray as much reality as possible in the courses we create. But how can we help our clients be comfortable with this approach? A few thoughts:

• Keep going back to “What would the learner want?” I don’t know about you, but I want to know if I’m going to be jumping off a cliff anytime soon. I listen more carefully to the instructions about how to pack a parachute if I know I’m going to be using it!
• Get other perspectives. Sometimes a subject-matter expert will say that it wasn’t stated strongly enough!
• Ask questions. If I only receive positive answers to my questions about the content, I begin to wonder if I’m getting the whole story.

What do you think? How do you work to accurately portray the job in training courses?

“Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated” – Mark Twain

People have been declaring e-learning dead for  a long time. This article by Rob Chapman in the UK even compares elearning to the Atkins diet – a discredited fad that is disappearing. (He apparently didn’t read the Oprah magazine article this month about a meta review of weight loss studies showing low carb diets most likely to be effective. But I digress…)

Chapman’s arguments fall into two categories. First, he says that e-learning isn’t as effective as face to face instruction, because of all the things you lose, like undivided attention, nonverbal cues. Second, he says that e-learning is more expensive than it’s often credited to be. Interestingly, his argument here completely ignores the cost of developing e-learning, and instead focuses on the cost of employees not having the information they would learn in the training because people are more likely to put off an e-learning class than an in-person class.

It’s the second point that particularly intrigues me. He’s saying that training is so important that it will costs companies more to have people with out-of-date skills than it costs to get them to in person training. Now, I should mention a couple of things here. Chapman’s company trains IT people on things like how to protect company data from the always-changing world of viruses, hackers and other threats. And he does so using in-person classes, so there may be some bias in perception there.

Still, he is not the only one making these sorts of arguments. In  CLO magazine this month, Jay Cross even argues that training as a business function is dead. In its place, he suggests those who used to be called training immediately shift their focus to performance support, building the business through facilitating learning. He just doesn’t think the old ways of facilitating learning are fast enough. He argues for informal, peer-to-peer types of interventions instead of large-group learning interventions.

The funny thing about these arguments is that they both acknowledge that learning is a key competitive advantage for business. Chapman argues that new skill building is too important to share attention with lunch and e-mailing. Cross argues that business results are the key to surviving the economic shift that is on everyone’s mind. So perhaps the problem is not that training is or should be dead, perhaps it is a perception that training and learning and increased productivity aren’t closely associated in the minds of business leaders.

This isn’t particularly news in our industry. Leaders like Ruth Clark and Will Thalheimer have been arguing for quite a while that we need to professionalize the learning field with research on what works most effectively. The arguments of those who are predicting the death of the field altogether seem to agree. Some folks are even getting pretty cranky about the myths that pass for data in our field. Given the threats we face as a profession in this scary and shifting economy, I can’t say that I blame them.

One of the key a-ha ideas for me from DevLearn a couple of weeks back was the distinction between training and learning Learning 2.0 is the new cool thing, and lots of the presenters talked about it as though it was going to completely replace training. That seems unlikely to me, because training, or learning 1.0, is still useful for many things. The key is to recognize what it’s best at. Here are my thoughts:

What do you think? What did I miss?

The most effective organizations have a blend of both types, with 2.0 supplementing and supporting 1.0. Arguing about which one is better is like arguing whether a screwdriver is better a hammer – irrelevant. What matters is finding the right situations and opportunities to use each tool for the things it does most efficiently.

In 2000 I had the opportunity to tour the Navy Simulation Training Center in Orlando, FL. The technology I was introduced to was far more incredible than anything I had ever seen in my life. Since at the time I was living in Orlando, I can honestly say that the area theme parks could not rival an afternoon at the military training center. There were just incredible simulations, replicas of helicopters employing gaming technology on 180 degree screens bigger than any movie theater I had been to. They also had online classrooms, students sat at monitors instead of a desk and they trained with soldiers from all over the country. This tour was my first fascinating glimpse at the future of training and that was nearly a decade ago.

For years the military has successfully used online learning, simulations and gaming technology to educate soldiers. As we toured the facility the military personnel emphasized that their classroom teaches rapidly and effectively. It is critical that troops are trained and deployed quickly. The military is also able to mimic emotions, and replicate virtually some of the dire decisions a person may need to make in the battlefield.

Just recently, at the CIASTD conference during the panel discussion on The Future of Training there was a debate amongst the panel as to whether or not virtual learning could effectively teach soft skills. Sharon Boller, the President of Bottom-Line Performance,  pointed out how the military has effectively used virtual simulations in their training to mimic the emotions and stress felt by soldiers. The military has demonstrated effective replication of emotionally charged situations.

This isn’t the first time in history that the military has pioneered the effectiveness of new technology for future civilian application. While the implications of military training are different from the private sector, it has demonstrated that skills can be learned effectively and quickly using technology and virtual simulations.

Naturally, knowing what is possible doesn’t always easily translate to immediate action. The development costs of virtual simulations and gaming technology are high. Is your organization currently using gaming or other simulations? If not are their plans to implement these tools in the near future?