The Dream of Personalization – Far fetch but Possible

Our belief: At Vignettes Learning we use stories in eLearning; however, we make them interactive. The emphasis is getting learners involved in the story and not just telling the learners the story.
Synthesis. In concept, using the experiences of learners to personalize eLearning design is ideal. At Vignettes Learning, we believe that ‘stacking experiences’ is one of the best ways to impart knowledge. However, methods and technology still need innovation to make this approach better or feasible.

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I presented Learning Oscillation: How to Apply Advance Story-Based eLearning Design Techniques to Immerse Learners, a webinar on ‘stacking experiences’. The Oscillation method is presenting the emotional state of stories and allowing learners to bring in their experiences. Click to view the webinar handout.

The brain only processes 5% data and 95% remains unprocessed. The 5% are extraordinary and new events. The other 95% is just stored in the memory. Stories with emotional impacts are designed for the 5%. Experiences with embedded lessons are stacked in the brain especially those with the most significant emotional impact.

In our eLearning designs, we devise ways to create the same impact with emotion and personification. There is so much to be done in order to improve this process and even create new approaches to oscillate learning. 

Sharing experiences is one of the best and reliable ways to learn. However, there is very little progress or a lack of method in the learning industry that enables learners and workers to share experiences effectively. Much of the sharing happens in social networks and collaboration tools. The exchanges of learning are mostly socially-driven or task-driven such as project activities and the like. To some extent they encourage sharing of experiences. The challenge we face, however,is how to weed out the “noise” in social communication and encourage “genuine” experience-sharing that adds value.

Stacking Experiences

The chart above indicates that learners respond to content because they find them meaningful. The content strikes a chord. It has a personalized impact. The items in red circles are examples of topics with personalization while those in blue circles have less personalization. Experiences are usually those topics encircled in red, at least for this illustration.

Experience is more important than data
Why is experience so much more important than data per se? Experience not only comes with factual data but also context of the value of the data. In Stacking Experiences, a software platform we are now testing, what we want to pursue is the systematic method of collecting experiences from peers and construct reliable learning and work knowledge around them. So I am constantly challenged about how to approach this – making experience a pivot of learning and knowledge. 

Growth of data
The article of “The Data Made Me Do it” by Antonio Regalado convinced me that we have a long way to go in the commercial world in terms of personalizing data. According to writer Regalado, there is so much data on personal activities and behaviors, but the systems and platforms are not integrated. 

Expounding further, Regalado writes:

“The holdup, says Wolfram, is that some of the most useful data isn’t being captured, at least not in a way that’s easily accessible. Part of the problem is technical, a lack of integration. But much data is warehoused by private companies like Facebook, Apple, and Fitbit, maker of a popular pedometer. Now, as the value of personal data becomes more apparent, fights are brewing. California legislators this year introduced a “Right to Know” bill that would require companies to reveal to individuals the “personal information” they store—in other words, a digital copy of every location trace and sighting of their IP address. The bill is a part of a social movement that is demanding privacy and accountability, but also a different economic arrangement between the people who supply the data and those who apply it. “

Furthermore, these movements may just one day help us realize what Stephen Wolfram observes to be the thrust of data personalization. Regalado adds:

“Wolfram is interested in predictive apps, but also in the insights that large data sets can have on personal behavior, something he calls “personal analytics.” Wolfram’s idea is that just as his search engine tries to organize all facts about the world, “what you have to do in personal analytics is try to accumulate the knowledge of a person’s life.”

What fascinates me in this discussion is the observation that data, personal or business, will continue to grow, faster than we are prepared to process. The personalization of this data is what will make it truly useful to people.

Although, we in the elearning and training industry might be too far out from the advances of the commercial and consumer world in data personalization, it is good to ponder and make some attempts to study and understand how we can apply the process to learning content and experiences – to enable us to perform better and accomplish our personal goals. I must mention here that there is a growing interest in the industry about the solution proposed by ExperienceAPI.com.

For your consideration
1. Think of ways to encourage learners to share experiences that solve problems, explore opportunities and enable better performance;

2. Reflect on where we can provide opportunities for learners to personalize the learning content, for example, always allowing learners to add their context and meaning to data and experiences of others;

Personalization is a dream of every learning designer. Let’s keep pushing and pursuing that goal.

Related Blog
Learning Facts and Foundational Knowledge with Stories

Effective Rapid eLearning from Classroom Learning Content?

Reference
The Data Made Me Do it by Antonio Regalado

Instant Learning According to Hangover Joe

Our belief: At Vignettes Learning we use stories in eLearning; however, we make them interactive. The emphasis is getting learners involved in the story and not just telling the learners the story.
Synthesis. The human brain has a tremendous capacity to store data, information, and experiences. By tapping the regions of the brain where experiences are amassed, we can activate instant learning. At times, all we need to do is allow the learners to be by themselves and avoid interrupting their process of learning.
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In a workshop I was running, I asked participants to come up with the shortest and most instantaneous way to help learners recall memories of some work incidents and events. My idea is that experiences help us learn instant learning.

Due to past occurrences in our lives, we retain certain information and react spontaneously towards conditions or environments which are similar to the past set of experiences.

To highlight this point, watch this storyimpact below.

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Note: this is an HTML5 file. Preview it with IE10 or in your iPad and Android tablet.

I continued to challenge the thinking of the participants and asked them these questions:

• How do we develop instant learning?
• How do we help learners instantly a past experience to remind them of a lesson or policy?

This is the summary of responses from the participants:

1. Lapses of memory. Most participants who have learned about safety are aware of the policies and have been trained in safety procedures. Accidents do happen when there are moments of lapses where the worker is not paying attention. To provide instant learning - like Chainsaw Joe - they must be reminded of the safety policy they already know. It is not learning new ideas, but application and reinforcing the ideas that can be easily forgotten.

2. Learning by drawing from abundance of experience. Participants were almost unanimous in saying that abundance of experience is the source of instant learning. When a child accidentally touches a candle’s flame and gets his or her finger burned by it, that kid would grow up knowing that fire is hot and definitely dangerous. After that experience, the child learned instantly and carries that lesson throughout life.

I attended a TEDX session at Caltech last January 14, 2013. One presenter, Allan Jones shared a research that showed, that a micron of a brain section is lodged with terabytes of data. Scientists are awed by the extent of wiring in our brains due to the expanse of memory stored.


Click here to view larger image.

To draw learners’ attention instantly, it is logical that we appeal to the most abundant areas of our brains in terms of experience. Why? The wealth of experiences can quickly help learners connect the context of the idea like Chainsaw Joe to a past experience. Hence, when one views Chainsaw Joe, the person is instantaneously and unconsciously reminded of a past incident and the learning. I certainly believe that this is one way to help learners learn quickly and reinforce what they already know.

For consideration:

1. In designing quick and short learning nuggets, draw from the abundance of the learners’ experiences.

2. It is OK to be brief, snappy and concise, like Chainsaw Joe. Allow the brain to take over the learning.

3. The shorter, the better, since we allow learners to draw from experience faster. Avoid interrupting learners’ learnings. Click here.

For further information, preview the Webinar Recording on Instant Learning. Click here.

Related blog 
Instant Learning: How it works and how to make it happen?

References 
Map of the Brain by Allan Jones, TEDx, Caltech video

Assessing Authenticity Quotient in Story-based eLearning Design

Our belief: At Vignettes Learning we use stories in eLearning; however, we make them interactive. The emphasis is getting learners involved in the story and not just telling the learners the story.
Synthesis:  Authenticity is the heart of Story-based eLearning design.  eDevelopers do not use stories to create fiction out of human stories. On the other hand, it is their task to develop authentic human situations in their designs.  Stories are the scaffoldings  in eLearning.  It is the framework where we stand on while we build our lessons. If our story designs are not authentic, our lessons become superficial and we would not be able to achieve our lesson objective.

Image source: http://babieswallpaper44.blogspot.com/2012/03/smiling-baby-pictures.html

A few weeks ago, I introduced the basic principles of Story-based eLearning design to a batch of teacher-authors . After the given period of time to develop their story-based lesson, I asked each group to present their outputs to the class. Here are summary points of the presentation:

• A group composed of varied subject teachers created a story design to teach conjunctions. They drew a mother and a child separated by a huge chasm. The conflict of the story is the divide that separated the mother and child. They explained that the resolution of the story lies on how the learner could bridge the two separated individuals. So, they drew a small section from where the learners can select 1.) a rope 2.) a plank of wood and, 3.) a bridge. Each of these represents the correct conjunction that will correctly complete a sentence. When the correct answer is punched in, the gap is resolved and the mother and child reunite at the middle of the bridge.
• A group of science teachers opted to teach a lesson for heat transfer by showing a drawing of two broken eggs casually conversing on the sidewalk while being cooked sunny side style up by the heat of the pavement.
• A group of math teachers decided to teach budgeting by devising a story about a boy who received an allowance from his father. The boy goes around town to buy stuff but he has to make sure he does not go over the budget.

I was thrilled as I watched these teachers present their story-design lessons. They have humanized their stories and quite effectively entwined their lessons in them. I gave a couple of suggestions on how to further improve their concepts and the class offered their ideas as well. It was a lively session.

I have several blogs and even a webinar on the importance of authenticity in story-based design. Authenticity is the soul of story-based design. Stories by themselves can be fictional but they should represent authentic and believable human situations. Without authenticity, connection with the learners is quite impossible. 

Coincidentally, I chanced upon the blog of Amy Jen Su and Muriel Maignan Wilkins entitled To Be Authentic, Look Beyond Yourself in the Harvard Business Review. The authors have very strong valid points about authenticity:

“Authenticity — what is it, who has it, and how do you get it? Most people associate authenticity with being true to oneself — or "walking the talk." But there's a problem with that association; it focuses on how you feel about yourself. Authenticity is actually a relational behavior, not a self-centered one. Meaning that to be truly authentic, you must not only be comfortable with yourself, but must also comfortably connect with others."

As story-based lesson designers, we should assess our outputs with two questions:

• Does our lesson evoke authentic human feelings and reactions from us?
• Can our lesson evoke authentic human feelings and reaction from our learners?

What is authentic for us may not be necessarily authentic for our learners. A story about “X+X giving birth to aY” may thrill a physicist but it may fail to garner interest from the learners. We must be able to water two sides of the field in story-based design: ours and our learner’s. 

Based on the blog of Su and Wilkins, I suggest that the authenticity quotient of story-based lesson design be assessed by these factors:

Point of View Factor. How are you expressing your point of view? Are you expressing it too forcefully that it can be mistaken for the truth or fact in your design? Is your design based also from the points and perspective of your elearners? Do you base your design from surveys and studies based on interaction with different people?

Positioning Factor. Do you stand at a neutral position whenever you design your story-based lesson or are you biased so that you can get the results you want?

Personal History Factor. Authenticity comes from real human experience. Be aware and conscious of your random spontaneous and authentic reactions and disposition whenever you are confronted with real-life conflict. Use this experience to make your story design authentic. 

Related Blog
How the ‘Anchoring Effect’ Affects eLearning Scenario Development
eLearning Lies or Truths? How do you find authentic stories?

Reference
To Be Authentic, Look Beyond Yourself by Amy Jen Su and Muriel Maignan Wilkins

The Art of Anticipation in Story-Based eLearning Design

Our belief: At Vignettes Learning we use stories in eLearning; however, we make them interactive. The emphasis is getting learners involved in the story and not just telling the learners the story.
Synthesis. Story-based eLearning design is effective because it creates an environment where learners are compelled to anticipate. The vagueness of “what’s next” keeps the mind engrossed until the story finds a resolution. Very few people can resist the power of a good story.

Image source: http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7079/6962223114_54d175e64f_o.jpg

Anticipation is a natural human tendency or practice. Ordinary everyday occurrences are filled with circumstances that compel us to anticipate. Whenever we drive, we anticipate the change of traffic light at the intersection. While watching a baseball or football game, we await the direction of the ball or the pass. We can almost predict what our boss might say if we are late for a meeting. We look forward to how our spouse would react over a new dress or suit. We eagerly anticipate the reaction of our kid over a surprise gift. Anticipation makes life dynamic. It keeps us moving. 

The Story-based eLearning design is a design that evokes the learner’s anticipation. It is a catch or secret door through which learners enter. People can barely resist a well-told story and their minds are enticed to follow the plot with embedded lessons.

Interestingly,Thomas Levenson wrote an article in the MIT Technology Review about Rebecca Saxe’s experiments on theory of the Mind (ToM). One of the objectives of the experiment was to find out how our brains learn to be social. To do this, Saxe devised a story-based experiment to assess via MRI how children anticipate scenarios and thoughts.

Rebecca Saxe’s describes how she came about the idea of making a story-based experiment process:

"I and my boyfriend sat at the kitchen table," she says, "and I wrote little bits of stories that had people’s thoughts in them." She devised a dozen narratives, adding drawings to accompany them. Subjects would be exposed to three segments per narrative for 20 seconds each: a description of a physical setting, with a hand-drawn picture to illustrate it; a description of human characters; and a "mental" segment that offered information about what was going on in their minds. To ensure that the results wouldn’t be influenced by a subject’s reaction to the order of the segments, each kid in the study would hear the same stories, but with the segments arranged in different orders. After listening to each story, the children would be asked a yes-or-no question that required them to infer what the leading character might do next. Then, following a brief pause, another story would begin, and so on, until the subject had gone through the full protocol of 12 separate narratives, in scanning sessions that lasted 40 minutes or so.

Even other fields of science have acknowledged the potential of the story-based design as a learning modality and a knowledge-gathering tool for neuro-research.

In my blog Vague Stories Help Learners to Discover, I quoted an excerpt from John Lehar’s In Praise of Vagueness:

“And yet, as William James pointed out, vagueness is not without virtues. Sometimes, precision is dangerous, a closed door keeping us from imagining new possibilities. Vagueness is that door flung wide open, a reminder that we don’t yet know the answer, that we might still get better, that we have yet to fail.”

As eDevelopers and story-based learning designers, we are reminded that the human brain is wired to anticipate. Every human being has the innate capacity to see storylines in everyday occurrences. Our job is to bring out these storylines in real life and put it in the context of elearning.

Related Blogs
Vague Stories Help Learners to Discover
Lincoln, the Storyteller

References
The Story of a Study of the Mind by Thomas Levenson
A sample story from the children’s ToM experiment By Rebecca Saxe PhD

Dilemma of Author-educators Migrating to Story-based eLearning Design

Our belief: At Vignettes Learning we use stories in eLearning; however, we make them interactive. The emphasis is getting learners involved in the story and not just telling the learners the story.
Synthesis.Developing story-based elearning design requires a different or new set of skills and competencies. Possessing good writing, education and training backgrounds would certainly help anyone who aspires to become an elearning story-based curriculum developer. Understanding the perspective of authors and writers is equally important for trainers in the process of helping these academic Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) migrate from linear to modular learning.

Image source: www. edudemic.com

Recently, I had a wonderful and enriching encounter with teachers during a story-based design workshop sponsored by one of the largest academic publishing companies in the Philippines. We had dynamic sessions, spirited sharing and in-depth insights during the two-day workshop. My task was to prime the mindset of academic authors for story-based design for elearning.

Expectedly, I sensed some resistance at the start of the workshop. That was only natural. These brilliant educators and textbook authors were coming from a different field where their shade of green was quite different from the one in my field. Where does the resistance usually emanate?

Here are the main dilemmas that author-educators migrating to elearning development usually experience:

The linear versus the modular method. The Linear method teaches us that the best way to reach “10” is to count chronologically from “1 to 10”. This is absolutely rational. On the other hand, the Modular method asserts that the other way to reach ten is to start counting with “10” and use the other numbers to explain how you got to ten. Generally, elearning follows the modular method where the end result or conclusion is presented first. 

Control of the teacher versus the control of the learner. In classrooms, the teachers are generally in control of the learning environment. In elearning, the control of the lessons is with the learner. eLearning allows the learners access and use of varied methodologies which a classroom type of learning normally does not have. 

Macro versus micro lessons. Teachers and educators are trained to present the macro lessons, the grand scenario of the entire course. On the other hand, edevelopers focus on creating micro lessons. In my own design, I show only the ‘kernel’ and not the whole corn.

Conventional versus rapid learning. Rapid learning is attained by combining all the three elements above-mentioned – modular method, learner control and micro lessons. In the conventional learning scenario, macro lessons are learned by going through long phases in a linear method.

100% Content versus 10% key performance content. In my past blog, If your Content is 1,000 pages, how do you discover the 10% key performance content? I already pointed out the issue of how developers could identify which content are to include in the design. In classroom learning, textbooks are expected to be scoured page by page, from cover to cover. In elearning, only 10% of the total content is expected to be used in the design.

Allow me to use myself as reference to explain further the said ‘dilemma’. In my blog Are You Riding the Waves or the Ripples? Tracking Learning Trends, I wrote:

“In the 18th century, education, learning and training have focused on thought or knowledge retention. Thinkers of that era believed that when learners retain abundant knowledge, they perform on the job when needed: ‘Thought First - Action Later’ (Johnson, 2002). In decades past, however, evidence showed that ‘Thought First - Action Later’ was inadequate. The alternative approach: 'Thought and Action are One’ (learn and apply, learning by doing) gained popularity.

Yet, the momentum gained by the ‘Thought First-Action Later’ principles and practices in large institutions and infrastructures – schools, book publishers, teachers/educators, government, corporate training, business processes, others – still exists. The wave is powerful. It persists. The current is strong.

Understanding and deciphering the Thought/Action Wave is critical to decision making with regard to the focus of our energies and resources. Oftentimes, we find ourselves solving a problem with palliatives and failing at it rather than directly addressing the true issues.

As an example, designers and developers are frustrated that subject matter experts throw PowerPoint files and linear and page-turning lessons unto their laps (remnant of the ‘thought first – action later’ practice). Without presenting an alternative way of writing content, SMEs will cling to these traditional methods.

Instead of banging our heads on the wall (swimming through the ripples), we need to ask, ' What exactly is the problem (wave) and how do we find a solution (riding the wave)?‘“

At the end of the two-day workshop, I sensed that the author-teachers realized that elearning is not a "threat" to conventional classroom learning. These two modalities could actually complement each other. It would be great if more author-teachers migrate from writing textbooks to elearning design. Teachers and educators are highly-motivated, purpose-driven and very well-schooled in their vocation of teaching. 

Even us, seasoned elearning developers could learn many things from authors-educators who are evolving as story-based elearning designers. 

Related Blogs:
Does your e-Learning Program carry junk?
Are you guilty of interrupting the learners learning?

Reference:
Jimenez, Ray, Ph.D., Are You Riding the Waves or the Ripples? Tracking Learning Trends