Matt Lisle | Enspire Learning

December 14, 2011

Second Screen Apps Aren’t Just for Television

After reading a recent Wired article about applications aimed at users’ secondary attention, I started thinking about new ways to use mobile devices for learning: second screen apps. Second screen apps are mobile apps that are typically used to complement television viewing. Why couldn’t they be used to complement learning events, too? Couldn’t a second screen be useful during instructor-led classes, live virtual classes, and asynchronous e-learning courses?

The use of a second screen during instructor-led training may be the easiest to imagine. A smartphone or tablet could be used to obtain complimentary content, connect to an instructor, or interact with other learners. A class at the University of Texas at Dallas uses Twitter to promote class discussion. Similarly, many conferences have adopted the use of back channels to enhance audience members’ experience. In 2008, I was in the room (and oblivious to the back channel) when the audience turned on Mark Zuckerberg’s interviewer using a Twitter back channel. A few things are gained from these experiences:

The voices of many audience members are heard, not just a handful of outspoken participants.
The instructor/speaker gets live feedback from the audience.
The content can be modified based on the live feedback.
An online archive of the discussion is available both for attendees and those who could not attend.

Continue reading →

November 21, 2011

Survive Thanksgiving Using the ADDIE Model

Thanksgiving Turkey Instructional designers should apply the ADDIE Model to every aspect of their lives. It is particularly important on Thanksgiving Day.

Analysis: Before approaching any food, determine what you’re craving. What have you enjoyed in the past? How hungry are you? How large is your hunger gap?

Design: First, take an inventory of the food selections. What combination might fill your hunger gap? Next, pick a plate that is appropriate for your dinner objectives. You don’t want to find yourself at the end of the buffet with no more room on your plate.

Development: As you begin loading your plate, don’t lose sight of the big picture. For example, should you go for turkey, ham, or both? If you have both, will there be room for dessert?

Implementation: Finally, it’s time to eat. Your most important decision here is where to sit. It’s important to pick a seat that is appropriate to your dinner objectives. Is your hunger gap large? Don’t sit next to your opinionated uncle. You’ll be arguing politics instead of eating. Are your dinner objectives more focused on the second portion of “eat, drink, and be merry?” Then, avoid your judgmental aunt.

Evaluation: First we’ll cover formative evaluation. Be sure to check in periodically on your date/spouse. Make sure he/she is relatively happy to be there. Failure to do so will lead to a night on the couch. Also, remember to assess food as you go. Don’t fill up on that strawberry salad that just tastes so-so. It will prevent you from eating a second serving of green bean casserole later on. Summative evaluation is also very important. Can you still buckle your belt after dinner? Are you too sleepy to help clean up? Can you drive home?

As you can see, a systems approach to Thanksgiving will ensure that you get the highest ROI possible on Thanksgiving Day. We wouldn’t advise experiencing the holiday any other way.

September 7, 2011

Mobile Learning and France

Enspire Learning will offer a webinar entitled “Mobile Learning: The Low Hanging Fruit” on October 5, 2011. Click here for more information.

Many of our clients ask what role mobile learning might play at their companies. To answer that question, I typically talk about France.

A couple of years ago, my wife and I visited Normandy and Paris as part of a marathon European vacation. Before departing, we pored over Parisian movies and books to prepare for our trip. While in France, we listened to audio walking tours and consulted our French pocket guide.

If my wife and I were a company (we call ourselves Team Lisle), we’d be a case study on mobile learning. Let’s compare Team Lisle to a technology company, Company X, who needs to train its sales force.

Team Lisle:

Before the trip: traditional learning with movies and books
During the trip: mobile, just-in-time learning with audio walking tours and pocket guides

Company X:

Before the sales trip: traditional learning with e-learning modules and in-person classes
During the sales trip: mobile, just-in-time learning with short product videos and reference tools

Let’s emphasize a few points:

Don’t convert an hour-long e-learning module into an hour-long course that is accessible on mobile devices. Instead, create supplements to your hour-long course in the form of small mobile tools that are handy on-the-job. That’s a long-winded way of saying that mobile learning should be short-winded.
Non-mobile learning isn’t going away. The retention of complex information requires concentration, which is often more achievable in a formal learning environment.
On-the-job knowledge can often be more effectively acquired and/or remembered with mobile learning, disrupting that nasty forgetting curve.

June 8, 2011

In Defense of Errors

You may make fewer mistakes by making more mistakes.

(Whoah… that was deep, man.)

A recent post by Dr. Heidi Halvorson on Psychology Today makes that argument. In summary, if you let yourself make mistakes, you learn from them and end up making fewer mistakes in the long run. The trick is to shift your focus from Be-Good goals, where you hope to prove how smart you are, to Get-Better goals, where you hope to learn and improve. Continue reading →

April 20, 2011

Mad Men Meets Enspire Learning

Enspire determines corporate clients’ business needs for training very early in the development process. Occasionally that business need sounds much like advertising. That is, the client asks us to create a course that promotes a product, program, or organization. However, Enspire is a learning company, not an advertising firm. We have a different focus than Sterling Cooper. The line between advertising and adult education can be blurry, however. Here is my attempt at defining both:

Advertising is the process of persuading others to take some action.
Educating is the process of teaching others new knowledge or skills.

I’m sure that many people may find issues with those definitions. If so, please correct me in the comments. But, for the sake of this post, let’s break those two definitions down.

Advertising = process + persuading + others
Education = process + teaching + others

As you can see, the main difference between the two is the verbs. Does that mean that our projects’ goals should be to teach, not to persuade? Continue reading →

February 11, 2011

Everything I Need to Know, I Learned from Madden NFL

An entire generation of young football fanatics have logged countless hours playing Madden NFL video games. Over the years, Madden enabled these players to learn the in’s and out’s of football in a safe virtual environment (i.e. they learned to play the quarterback position without the threat of concussions). This made complicated and high-paced offensive playbooks more common at the high school and college levels, which is now bubbling up to the NFL.

As a result, the Madden series has influenced how football is played in real life. Gone are the days of “three yards and a cloud of dust“.

A recent Wired article explores the topic:

These games nowadays are just so technically sound that they’re a learning tool,” says Tim Grunhard, an All-Pro center for the Kansas City Chiefs in the 1990s who now coaches high school football in the Kansas City area, where he encourages his players to use Madden to improve their knowledge of football strategy and tactics. “Back when I was playing football, we didn’t realize what a near or a far formation was, we didn’t really understand what trips meant, we didn’t understand what cover 2, cover 3, and cover zero meant,” Grunhard says, charging through jargon that’s comprehensible only to Madden players and football obsessives.